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A Comparison of Karma and Judgment

There are several views of the world which populate the human landscape.  Each of these views wrestle with the various questions we face in our existence. One of the most perplexing issues is that of our own mortality. In fact, death has been said to be the great equalizer, the fate of the rich and powerful and the poor and destitute alike. One of the great mysteries is what happens when we die. Various beliefs have been held throughout time regarding life after death, but none greater than the big two. The eastern philosophy of karma/reincarnation and the widely believed philosophy of divine judgment. People in our culture today are fixated with the idea of Karma. You see it in the obsession of a regular guy named Earl on television, in the writings of Oprah Winfrey show superstar Gary Zukov, and it even appears in a line of Ben and Jerry’s low carb ice-cream.1 In our culture Karma has become kool and divine judgment is well, too judgmental for many. In this little essay, I want to compare the two and actually show that judgment is much more humane and coherent, though the consequences perhaps more serious.

Karma 101

Karma is one of the main tenants interwoven in the diversity of philosophical views from the east. Eastern philosophy is a literal smorgasbord of ideas, practices, and religious concepts, but there are a few ideas which are universal in the various systems. The Law of Karma, the endless cycle of reincarnation, and the oneness of all things are common threads throughout the various genres of eastern thought. The law of Karma will sound familiar in part to people in the west. At its most basic level it is a teaching that says that all our actions, whether good or bad, have consequences. These consequences form a chain creating your reality into the future. What you do, the choices you make literally “create” your future. The idea of Karma goes beyond a mere understanding that “whatever a man sows, he also reaps” for Karma extends between subsequent lives and existences. Each person builds up positive or negative Karma over the course of this life which then determines their subsequent lives after being reincarnated. A person moves “up” through a succession of being in the lives they live with the hope of escaping the endless cycle of birth and rebirth, which is known by the term samsara. If you have bad Karma you may come back as a dung beetle, good karma may have you return as an upper class Brahman. So judgment is seen in the movement “upward” and “downward” in this chain of existence. Many western people fail to see that reincarnation is not a good thing to the eastern mind, but a cycle from which the soul desires to escape, to be absolved into the oneness of the universe finally eliminating the illusion of individual existence. I find the karmic view offers true insights on several fronts. First, it acknowledges that we do indeed reap what we sow and our actions do have consequences. Second, it realizes that our actions and choices are moral in nature. Though the eastern view sees good and evil as two sides of the same coin, part of one reality, it is in the view of Karma that eastern philosophy is a bit more honest. Good is good and bad is bad and you better work towards the good or your Karma gauges will be spinning in the wrong direction. Though many put forth the view of Karma as a pathway towards moral living without any view of judgment, Karma has some serious bad Karma of its own.

Problems with Karma

There are several major philosophical and theological problems with Karma but I will only elaborate here on a very short list. First, Karma is a sort of score card for your life, where your good and bad tally up against each other. The problem I see in this is that there is literally “no one” there to keep score. Who is watching your life? Usually the answer is that the universe has a built in law that regulates these things, but there is no discussion on how this could be the case. If your good and bad “add up” it seems that somewhere this reality must be “known” by someone. This makes sense in a world in which God himself is taking our lives into account. Second, the law of Karma knows absolutely no grace. It is an unforgiving brutal taskmaster by which your life is determined by your previous lives. If you have a bad run now, it could be the result of previous incarnations where you were a real jerk. The problem is you know nothing of your former lives and are sort of screwed by them. There is no grace extended to sinners by Karma, sin becomes a millstone around your neck forever and ever through perhaps infinite reincarnations. Finally, there is an unexpected, but inevitable unjust result of Karmic thinking. You would think that this view only holds one responsible for our actions, but in fact it has unbelievably unjust societal consequences. Think about it. Who are the good guys in this life? The ones who had good Karma in previous lives. Who are these people? The upper classes, the “successful” people, the wealthy and the rulers are in their stations in life because they were good in past lives. So it is no coincidence that the system of caste, where the poor and low caste “deserve” their station in life and should not aspire better, arose from a Karmic philosophical tradition. They are working out bad Karma; these are the views that made the high caste Brahman in India, oppose the work of Mother Teresa with Indian low caste untouchables. She was interfering with them paying for their karma by serving them and helping them. The god of Karma, is the god of caste, which is a system of long term systemic oppression of those who were bad in “previous lives” nobody knows anything about.

On Divine Judgment

Temporal and Eternal Justice

Before moving to a biblical understanding of divine judgment I want to make a few things clear.  When we speak of the judgment of God we are talking about a judgment that has finality to it.  We realize that during our time on earth it can temporally seem as if injustice triumphs and the wicked prosper. In fact, the biblical authors wrestle with this reality (Jeremiah 12:1-4, Habakkuk 1:1-4, Psalm 73:1-3, Psalm 94:1-5).  Even though this age is mingled with justice and evil we trust and know that when all is said and done, the creator will judge the world with equity.  This judgment will be altogether righteous and all the failures of justice in the courts of men will be set right for eternity. The following description is a succinct summary of the biblical teaching on final judgment.

The biblical concept is that at the end of history Jesus Christ will return in glory to earth, the dead will be raised, and they, together with all the living, will be finally judged by Christ and assigned their eternal destiny in heaven or hell. This great eschatological event will be a visible, public, and universal judgment; Christ’s glory and His victory over sin, death, and Satan will be fully manifest; righteousness will be exalted; the perplexing discrepancies of history will be removed, and the mediatorial reign of Christ will reach its ultimate triumph as believers inherit the kingdom prepared for them.2

With this in view let’s compare the view of divine judgment with that of Karma/Reincarnation.

Divine Judgment 101

The biblical view of life after death is a very different than the view of Karma. Like the view of Karma, our actions, both good and evil have consequences, but in our view God is the observer and judge of our lives. He treats us as responsible moral agents in relationship to Him, creation, and other people. We are responsible to God and others for our actions and their consequences. All persons, rich or poor, “successful” or not, powerful or not, are all completely equal and responsible for their lives. We live this life before God and when we die our lives will be judged by God and his appointed one, his own Son Jesus Christ (Acts 17:30-31). God does not show favoritism in that he will take our sins into account and does not turn a blind eye towards the sin done on the earth.

Wonderfully, the God who is our judge chose to take our place and receive the judgment we deserve for our sins.  It is in the gospel that God extends to us the hand of mercy and grace.  The very one who will judge our wrongful deeds, against whom we have committed sin, is the one who pays our debt and freely forgives. This is the view of the Bible. God treats us as responsible human beings but willingly provides payment for our sins, atonement is the biblical word, so that we can be reconciled with God and be judged as righteous because of the work of Christ.

The book of Hebrews teaches us that it is appointed for us to live and die once and then be judged with impartiality (Hebrews 9:27). We either face God in our sin or with an advocate and substitute for our sin. Jesus is the one who delivers us from just wrath and judgment of God and all glory and honor goes to him.

The path of Karma makes you the one who receives glory for your good and blames everything bad that happens to you directly on you. In the gospel we see that God works by the law of the Spirit of life to set us free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. You might even say he sets us free from the tyranny of the taskmaster of Karma. 3

Notes

1. See Karb Karma at http://www.benjerry.com/our_company/press_center/press/bfyfactsheet.html

2. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988; 2002), 2:1162.

3. For more on Eastern philosophy you can read the sections by LT Jeyachandran in Norman Geisler and Ravi Zacharias, Who Made God? And Answers to Over 100 Tough Questions on Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003). Additionally, though I heartily disagree with his views of election and predestination, Paul Copan’s Chapter Why Not Believe in Reincarnation from That’s Just Your Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001) is an excellent treatment of some problems in Eastern philosophy.

Mr. Un-Clean and the Gospel

Coming to certain portions of the Scriptures can be an adventure when it is your first time reading them.  For instance, the first time I read through the book of Leviticus I found a bizarre world of food regulations and lots of talk about who was clean or unclean.  As an American, I was familiar with the proverbial phrase Cleanliness is next to godliness¹ and I knew about Mr. Clean from an unforgettable bald guy advertising campaign. However, I knew very little about the aspect of being “clean” or “unclean” that is all over the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament. I thought it would be an interesting discussion for us to undertake in light of our study of lepers in Luke 17.11-19.

In our study of the 10 lepers we see the afflicted crowd is standing at a distance from the other people.  Many times lepers, those affected with various forms of skin diseases  or infections would be quarantined from the rest of the community.  The reasons are obvious in that the disease (s) would be kept from spreading through the rest of the population.  There is something about this separation that is a parable or type of our spiritual condition before God. 

In this essay I want us to learn a few things.  First, we will look at the symbolism God teaches us by separating his people from the other nations in the Old Testament by dietary laws and cleanliness codes. Second, we will look at the way in which God told the Israelites to live and worship after their exodus from Egyptian slavery. The role of the tabernacle (tent of meeting) and the structure of the Israelites camp will be discussed here as well.  Finally, we will look at the issue of our spiritual condition before God and how it is illustrated by the brokenness and fragmentation of our physical bodies—even with various nasty skin infections.  With that said, lets jump in and get our hands dirty…or, uh, unclean.

The Purpose of the Levitical Codes

The book of Leviticus is not as well known today and it is at times a chore for modern readers to grasp its meaning without a broad knowledge of the larger biblical narrative.  Yet, did you know that America’s Liberty Bell takes its name from Leviticus 25:10? In fact, inscribed on the bell itself are the words “Proclaim Liberty Lev 25:10.”²  Seriously, read the verse, it is pretty sweet. The second greatest commandment (Matthew 22:39), quite the favorite of Jesus himself, is found in the pages of Leviticus. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is from in Leviticus 19:18. Yet also in the book we read stuff like this in Leviticus 13.

¹The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ²“When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling or an eruption or a spot, and it turns into a case of leprous disease on the skin of his body, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests, ³and the priest shall examine the diseased area on the skin of his body. And if the hair in the diseased area has turned white and the disease appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a case of leprous disease. When the priest has examined him, he shall pronounce him unclean.

There are also verses about sexual immorality as well as very specific dietary regulations.  The book also has detailed descriptions of various sorts of sacrifices God’s people were to offer with a mind towards atonement³ for sins. We do need to ask the question, what is up with all the clean and unclean talk?  Scholar and Pastor Mark Dever gives a very succinct summary of the book of Leviticus and in it we find a bit of a clue for what is up with all the quirky, strangeness in this inspired book from God:

First, we see that God’s people are distinct; so they should live holy lives.  Second, we see that God’s people are sinful; so they should offer sacrifices. 

For our study, we have the first purpose of the book in view.  God gave his people certain cleanliness codes to display to the people his holiness and how they are to be a people set apart (made holy) for him. 

The cleanliness codes of the Old Testament have obvious and helpful public health purposes.  They are for the common good of the community to limit the spread of disease and infection through unwise behavior.  Yet to stop the discussion there would entirely miss the point God is making in this book and in the instruction of the ancient community.  Leviticus 10:10 gives clarity to this issue: You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean. 

Some of you might remember the movie, Meet the Parents, where the lowly male nurse Gay Focker was meeting the somewhat psycho Dad of his fiancé.  In the movie the father tells Gay about his “circle of trust” that he would either be in that circle or outside of it.  Mark Dever uses a similar analogy of circles to describe the notion of clean or unclean things.  In this case, a large circle would represent all that is clean and the normal state of things.  Outside of this circle God placed certain foods, certain behaviors and certain temporary states like curable diseases.  Outside the circle would be all that is “unclean.”Furthermore, unclean things were not always and necessarily the result of sinful activities but activities that made one ceremonially and temporarily unclean for worship. Dever calls all things clean and unclean things that are “common” to being human. One more category is brought to bear on life in Leviticus.  There were things that could be set apart (or sanctified) as holy. To take a holy thing and connect it to anything unclean was forbidden and the gravest of offenses.⁴   The diagram below illustrates these ideas.

In giving these categories to Israel God is teaching them that all of life matters to God and that he is not to be worshipped by perverse sexual practices, religious prostitution, sacrificing children or the abuse of human beings. It is interesting that Leviticus speaks about how all these make one unclean for worshipping God.  They are not to worship as the idolatrous nations which surround them.⁵  In summary, God is teaching his people in Leviticus that he is holy so he is setting them apart as holy.  The law shows them that they are to worship the one true God differently that the way others will pursue idolatrous spiritualities.  God has declared things clean and unclean, holy and profane.  His people should see all of life this way and seek to live and worship in the way that he shows us. 

One more aside is necessary before moving on.  Do all these laws apply to us now? The simple answer is no.  Many of the Old Testament teachings had a purpose to point forward to the coming Messiah and are literally fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  Jesus himself now “sets apart, sanctifies, and makes holy God’s people” (See 1 Corinthians 6:11; Hebrews 10; Hebrews 13:12). Another example relates to the Old Testament sacrifices. Jesus is the very lamb of God; he was God’s own sacrifice for sin so animal sacrifice is no longer necessary. The Old Covenant sacrifice was a shadow that pointed to the reality of the coming one who would give his life for the sins of the world (See Isaiah 53, Hebrews 8-10). It is not that these laws were bad in their time, their purpose in pointing us towards Jesus has been fulfilled. Further, we are free to eat all foods with thanksgiving as we come to God in Jesus (Mark 7:14-23).  Jesus made it clear that the point of the Levitical law was to show us that clean/unclean are actually pointing to issues of the heart; in fact, this was the point of Leviticus all along.

The Camp and the Unclean

After God delivered his people from slavery in the Exodus (see Story in the biblical book of the same name) he led them in the dessert to teach them how to worship and about his character and nature.  Part of this education was in the very way they lived, traveled and set up for worship.  God gave very clear instructions of how to design a tabernacle/tent for worship.  This tent was a series of courts/chambers that were progressively more set apart from the people.  The further you went in, the holier the place was in which the person traveled.  The outer courts contained the holy place, then further inside was the most holy place where the very presence of God was said to dwell.  Outside of this tabernacle was the camp, the place where the people lived in smaller tent dwellings.  The whole structure looked as follows, of course much less SIM⁶ like.

The Israelite would be very aware of proximity to God as being holy.  To be outside of the camp would be a separation from the community of God and far away from the presence and worship of God.  To be outside the camp was to be an “outcast” - a place where the unworthy and the unclean would be found. 

Now, lets go back to the story of the 10 lepers.  In the Old Testament and the New the leper, whatever form of skin disease one had, would be separated from the people and thereby be seen as stricken by God.  Let me be clear.  The Scriptures do not teach that the leper was afflicted and cursed by God but it was a common idea in the mind of the Jew and the non Jew.  In light of the social and religious stigma, in light of having to dwell outside of the camp until deemed “clean” again by the priests, ten lepers cried out to Jesus in Luke 17. 

Jesus, Going Outside of the Camp

What does Jesus do when he hears the cry for mercy coming from outside the camp?  The incarnate son of God, who has left the holy of holies at the right hand of the Father goes outside of the camp to show mercy to the outcast.  He tells them to go show themselves to the priest, the very action they would do if they were already healed.  He calls them to trust him and act by faith on his words.  As they were going, Luke’s gospel tells us, they were healed of their affliction.  At this point the most scandalous thing occurs in our story.  Almost all of the lepers who were healed did not come back to thank the one who had healed them. Only one of nine returns in order to express praise and gratitude. He is the outcast of outcasts for he was not simply a leper, he was a Samaritan. He was doubly “unclean.” 

Spiritual Lepers—He Suffers and Calls us Outside of the Camp

The tabernacle was not a bad set up, but it was a teaching aid for God for all time.  It was to show us the amazing grace and radical nature of the love of God in the gospel.  God is holy, he is separated from us and we dare not enter the holy place in our sins and spiritual leprosy.  Yet what does God do for humanity?  First, he goes outside of the camp and dies as a cursed man (Deuteronomy 21:22,23) for the sake of those under the curse of sin and death.  Galatians 3:10-14 says it clearly:

¹⁰For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” ¹¹Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” ¹²But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” ¹³Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— ¹⁴so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Furthermore, Jesus went outside of the camp to show mercy on the leper, the one separated from God due to sin and rebellion.  He shows mercy upon human beings who trust him by faith and as he told the Samaritan leper, he saves them. Hebrews 13 wraps all of these ideas together for us in a sweeping panorama of the grace of God shown to unclean sinners in Jesus Christ. 

⁷Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. ⁸Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. ⁹Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. ¹⁰We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. ¹¹For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. ¹²So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. ¹³Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. ¹⁴For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. ¹⁵Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. ¹⁶Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Hebrews 13:7-16 (ESV)

In this passage we see cleanliness by eating foods superseded.  We see that a final sacrifice has superseded the sacrifice of animals to cover and cleanse sins.  We see that Jesus sets us apart and then calls us outside of the camp to live on his mission to save sinful people through the gospel.  All of this is in light of the eternal camp, the eternal coming city of God in the Kingdom known to many simply as “heaven.”  In this age now we have been forgiven of sin through Jesus and now offer this same grace to others in the proclaiming of good news to those who need the love and mercy of God.   Finally, we see the purpose of our lives in Jesus.  We are to offer up a sacrifice of praise to God through our lips, through our service to others, through joyful generosity.  Why? For such sacrifices are pleasing to God who through Jesus was pleased to seat us with him in the most holy place.  None of this is of our doing, it is all the manifest, glorious, revealed plan of God in Jesus.  As such we must echo with the apostle Paul, that early leader of the church: For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. 

Worship God you lepers! And say thanks, you have been healed and saved to the uttermost.

Notes

1. The phrase, much like God helps those who help themselves, is found nowhere in the Bible. It is not even in the book of 2^nd Opinions.  Apparently it dates back to 17th century England and the words of Francis Bacon.  We do know that the exact wording appeared in one of John Wesley’s sermons in 1791. See William and Mary Morris, Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (HarperCollins, NY, 1977, 1988).

2. Mark Dever, The Message of the Old Testament (Wheaton, Crossway Books, 2006) 110.

3. The word atonement means to satisfy or repair an injury to a relationship or an offense given. It means the reconciliation of two estranged parties through sacrifice.

4. See the excellent discussion in Dever, 115-116.

5. Ibid 116.

6. SIM refers to a whole genre of computer simulation games made popular in the last few decades, particularly the series of games by designer Will Wright.

Rich and Poor in the Kingdom of God

Our world measures importance,  success and social status by various measures.  Abundance of wealth or lack thereof being a prominent one indicator of who is doing well in the world and who is not.  Jesus did not see it this way and we see this through his interactions with two very wealthy men. The gospel according to Luke touches on wealth and poverty quite a bit.  In fact, Luke’s gospel has a strong focus on Jesus’ identification with and love for the poor  Furthermore,  it has much to say to those who are wealthy and how we might worship God not coin.

Luke records several interactions of Jesus during what is called his “travel narrative.” So yes, if you were wondering, Jesus did indeed have skills with teaching on the road trip and Luke’s gospel has quite the travelogue.   Jesus’ journey was heading to a different sort of destination.  He was traveling towards a cross awaiting him in Jerusalem and in the accounts of his journey towards that destination he interacts with two rich men.  One simply known as the rich young ruler and another a little guy named Zacchaeus.

Luke 18:18-27—The Rich Young Ruler

In Luke 18 we see a young ruler¹ approaching Jesus with some flattering words asking what he must do to receive eternal life.  Jesus simply tells him to follow the commandments of God and the man replies that he is on point with all of that.  Jesus then tells him…”oh yeah, one more thing—give away all your money to the poor to have treasure in heaven and come follow me.”  Now it is clear that Jesus is not telling all of his followers to never have any possessions.  There are too many counter examples in the Bible for this to be the case.  What he is doing though is asking the rich man to stop worshiping his money, value the Kingdom of heaven above the systems of the earth and be a true follower and worshipper of God.  Well, the guy was not so happy after that. In fact, Scripture teaches us that he went away περίλυπος, a word that means “extremely sorrowful.”  Luke casually reveals to us the source of his sadness; the man was extremely rich.  Jesus had gone after his god and the man chose to worship and love even over his devotion to God. Jesus then tells us that it is very hard for a wealthy person to enter the Kingdom.  In fact, his followers seem to think that nobody is going to be able to change in such ways to follow Jesus.  The response of the master was simply this “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”  Then just a few passages later he shows us just how true it is that God can save even the most money grubbin and corrupt rich dudes.

Luke 19:1-10—The Rich Tax Man

When one arrives to Zacchaeus in Luke’s narrative, the rich young ruler immediately comes to mind when you read Luke 19, verse 2. And there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. Ok, another rich guy, we know how this will go. Or do we? For some reason this tax collector wants to see Jesus, he is curious and goes out to see what the buzz was about concerning this man. What happens next was probably a bit unexpected.  The late London preacher Charles Spurgeon said it this way:

Zaccheus’ motive was purely one of curiosity—he wished to see Jesus, who he was. He was curious to know what kind of a man was this who had set all Judea on a stir? Who was this that made [KING] Herod tremble, was reputed to have raised the dead, and was known to have healed all manner of diseases? Zaccheus, the rich publican, is a lover of sights, and he must see Jesus. But there is the difficulty—he is too short; he cannot look over the heads of the crowd. Yonder is a sycamore tree, and he will for once imitate the boys and climb. Mark how carefully he conceals himself among the thick branches, for he would not have his rich neighbours discover him in such a position. But Christ’s eye detected the little man, and standing beneath that tree, unasked, unsought, unexpected, Jesus said, “Zaccheus, make haste and come down, for to-day I must abide in thy house²

So whereas the rich young ruler “went away” in deep sorrow, Zacchaeus has Jesus come over to hang with him at his house.  The results are staggeringly different. The ruler remained bound to his money and his little god; Zacchaeus was set free to bless others with his wealth and be changed by the living God.

These two stories tell us much about how we should view wealth in light of the teaching of Jesus and Scripture.  We’ll use the second half of this essay to explore this in a very simple fashion.

The Inversion of the Kingdom

One thing we see all over the Bible is that the values and distinctions that we make in the world are radically inverted, turned upside down, by the rule and reign of God.  Jesus teaches us that in the Kingdom, the last will be first and the first will be last (Matthew 20:16). He teaches us that those who are meek and humble will inherit the earth (Matthew 5-7).  The poor who know God are in no way “worse off” than the one who loves sin, self and riches yet remains under the condemnation of a holy and just God. In Jesus’ Kingdom being a servant is actually a “higher” position than that of an oppressive King (Matthew 23:11,12).  In fact, our God quite literally came to earth as our servant King.  Being a Christian means to see the world as he does and realize that it is we who are upside down.

A Biblical View of Money

The view of Scripture clearly states that God is owner of all things (Psalm 24:1; Psalm 50:10,11) and we are stewards and co-rulers with him (Genesis 1-2). He grants to us what we have and we are to use our resources—be it time, talent or treasure for his Kingdom and purposes. It is also true that in this world some have little, some have much. In fact the one of Jesus’ stories teaches us that this will be the case (see parable of the talents in Matthew 25). However, we cannot make judgments upon people purely on the size of one’s bank account or the roll in his pocket.  Jesus taught us that our treasure is a heart matter; a matter of worship.  Where you place your treasure and where you find value indicates our heart’s disposition towards God. Frightening if you think about this for a moment.

Let me also be clear. Poverty and not having one’s basic needs met is not presented as a blessing in and of itself in Scripture. Yet someone who is poor can be deeply blessed and dependent upon God despite circumstances. The poor, the meek and the oppressed who trust in Jesus will receive a great reward in the Kingdom (Luke 6:2—23) but starving is not a good thing. Second, material prosperity is not always a bad thing either, yet if riches become our God it is the worst of traps that lead us in all manner of sin. 1 Timothy 6 teaches us this clearly:

⁹ But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

Rich and Poor — Withhold simplistic Judgments

Most of us are taught to see the world in terms of haves and have nots.  We are taught to see rich and poor as on two competing teams that must be at enmity with one another.  If you swing from the left the poor are the good guys and the rich sit next to the devil along with people who run corporations. If you swing from the right the rich can be seen as the only people of merit, hard working and responsible. The poor—well, not so much. Scripture does not pit these teams against one another and God will not be the pawn of either left or right wing political spin. You see, Jesus cares much more about the heart of the matter than simply the amount of gold, or lack thereof, stuffed under your mattress.

Rather than a simple class war of the worlds, the Scripture teaches us that there are ways that both poor and rich can honor or dishonor God.  Furthermore, there are rich and poor that can both be blessed of God (See Matthew 6, Luke 6, Proverbs 11, 1 Timothy 6). The following represent four different realities. 

1. You can be poor in wealth and rich in the Kingdom—honest, working, doing things right but just not pulling in much money.
2. You can be poor in wealth and poor in the Kingdom—lazy, dishonest, scheming and broke on top of it.
3. You can be rich in wealth and poor in the Kingdom—wealthy, hoarding, not generous, oppressive, dishonest and ripping people off.
4. You can be rich in wealth and rich in the Kingdom—wealthy and extremely generous.

How we see money is of utmost importance. Some will see their money as theirs and will help others only if and when they feel like.  Others will realize that God owns everything and seek to use their money for Kingdom purposes and to help others. Jesus taught us to seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness and he will take care of our needs (See Matthew 6).  This should free us to live in generosity.

Joy and Generosity in Mission

One of our core identities at Jacob’s Well is finding joy in generosity and mission.  We want to be a people that lives life with open hands giving our time, talents and treasure to the mission of God with people. In fact, the solution to the worship of money in Scripture is what Paul, an early Christian leader, called the grace of giving (2 Corinthians 8:1-7). In being generous we declare that money is not our God, life is more than the abundance of our possessions (Luke 12:15) and we are free to give. Jesus was very clear with us—it is better to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). Most of the time we simply don’t believe him as Christians today give away very little of their incomes to their local churches and charitable causes.³

Christians are certainly called to provide for the needs of their families (1 Timothy 6: and 1 Timothy 5:8) but we are not called to simply hoard up stuff for ourselves. In fact, Scripture clearly exhorts those who are wealthy “to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” (1 Timothy 6:18, 19)

There is no “rule” I can give you about your lifestyle and your generosity, but we must not miss the joy of responding to God in worship with generosity.  He has lavishly given life and grace to us and our gratitude is expressed as we give back to his work. You must decide how you will steward what God has placed into your hands whether it is a lot or a little. You must decide what sort of material provision is appropriate for you and your family. Yet the stories of the rich ruler and Zacchaeus should be fully in view as you decide how to live and invest God’s resources. 

Will we be ones who make little or no sacrifice for others and continue to worship things and treasures on earth? Or will we worship our God together in generosity?

Notes

1. We cannot be sure of what this man was ruler of. Matthew’s description of him as being “young” seems to rule out his rule in the Jewish synagogue. See Henry Morris, Luke—Tyndale New Testament Commentary, 283-284.
2. C. H. Spurgeon, The Sword and Trowel: 1872 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), 24. Note, Spurgeon uses British spellings for several words.  He has that right I suppose, he was an Englishman
3. For instance, 20 percent of US Christians give ZERO money to anything, the mean average Christian gives 2.9 percent of their incomes. When the median giver is considered it iis a paltry 0.62 percent. See Smith, Emerson and Snell Passing the Plate—Why American Christians Don’t’ Give Away More Money (Oxford,2008) 29-56.

Let Jesus Speak - Vignettes in the Gospel

The following is an essay written for the people of Jacob’s Well associated with our fall launch into the series Let Jesus Speak…

Introduction

Many today love to talk smack about Jesus, speak for Jesus or comment about Jesus without stopping to listen to what he actually said to real people, in real time, in the the real world.  Jesus said many things to many people in all walks of life.  He spoke with hookers, conmen, religious people, busy people, adulterers, murderers, the powerful, his friends and people who were outcasts. His message is radical and will challenge our paradigms today.  

This fall we are going to take a look together at how this enigmatic figure of history interacted with real human beings.  There are many things which can be observed when looking at the life of Jesus of Nazareth.  One could focus purely on his identity, who was this man who broke history wide open long ago in the ancient Middle East?  One could focus on his works, what kind of things did he do and what are their significance? The person and works of Jesus are actually the central focus of our faith as Christians and could never be minimized. Yet I want us to peer into something quite interesting in the life of Jesus as we travel together this fall as Jacob’s Well. I want us to look at how Jesus treated people, interacted with people and instructed people who were from various stations and walks of life.

However, it must be made clear that what a person does is indeed an outflow of who that person is.  With that in mind, I want us to do a few things in this essay.  First, I do want to touch on the question of Jesus’ identity so we can see just exactly who it was that was interacting with a varied cast of characters in history. Second, I want to make a case that the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the place we should be looking to observe Jesus.  This is not taken for granted in our day of Da Vinci Codes and wild speculation about Jesus. Furthermore we must ascertain which historical sources should be approached to find the ipsissima vox, the very voice of Jesus Christ. As a brief aside, we’ll discuss why we are using the gospel according to Luke as our primary text for the series. In looking at the gospels I hope we will see that Jesus is more radical than many assume. In fact, Scripture teaches that to look upon Jesus is to see the very being of God. Finally, I want to close with the focus of our series, namely that it is in the words and actions of Jesus that we see how God himself treats human beings. With that said, let’s look at perhaps one of the most important questions of history.  Just who was Jesus of Nazareth?

Who is Jesus?

Jesus is such a simple name but one that stirs the soul of humanity in a profound way.  He is venerated as God by adherents to one of the world’s largest faiths and is unavoidable when you draw up a short list of names of people who have quite literally changed history. Many people have an opinion about the identity of Jesus. Robert Bowman and J. Ed Kmoszewski begin their book, Putting Jesus in His Place with a profound observation:

Interpretations of Jesus are fraught with bias. He’s a powerful figure whom people want on their sides—and they’re willing to re-create him in their image to enlist his support. Animal-rights activists imagine a vegetarian Jesus. New Agers make him an example of finding the god within. And radical feminists strip him of divinity so that Christianity doesn’t appear sexist. “Frankly, it’s hard to escape the feeling that our culture has taken Jesus’ question ‘Who do you say that I am?’ and changed it to ‘Who do you want me to be?’”[1]

Various groups of people endeavor to assign an identity to Jesus, any identity, other than the one most uncomfortable and yet most glorious: God.  Let us look briefly at what various religions and philosophies have to say about this man.

The Humanist Jesus – Just Human

Those who believe phrases like “The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was or ever will be”[2] will only be able to see Jesus as a “a man, only a man and will always just be a man.” Many who have an anti-supernatural bias simply try to understand Jesus as a mere human.  Even if the evidence should point that he might be more, those with a commitment to philosophical naturalism will not consider anything more.  To some he may be seen as a wise and moral teacher, others may dismiss him as a religious nut, but the Jesus of the humanist is a dead man and they are tightly closed minded to any other options.

To the Islamist – He is ‘Isa, but Shirk not

To the follower of Islam, Jesus or Isa[3] is highly respected and honored. Jesus is a prophet second only to Muhammad in terms of prominence.  The Qur’an, written close to 700 years after Jesus, is the source Muslims use to arrive at their opinion of Jesus. The Islamic view of Jesus is quite exalted with Jesus being born of a virgin, said to be the Messiah, a performer of miracles.  Jesus was a Muslim who actually foretold the coming of the final prophet Muhammad.[4]  However, the idea that Jesus was God become a human is a severe blasphemy in the view of Islam. In fact, according to Islam, anyone who worships Jesus is guilty of shirk.  This sin is the worshipping of someone alongside the Muslim God Allah.[5] Furthermore, despite historical sources verifying the event, Muslims deny the very fact that Jesus was crucified and died on Roman cross.[6]  Jesus in Islam is a prophet, who did not die and who should never be worshipped as the Son of God. 

The Eastern Jesus – A Master, Yogi, Guru

At the core of many eastern philosophies such as Buddhism and Hinduism is the teaching that all reality is of one essence and individual entities are illusory. The technical term for this idea is monism.  Some flavors of Buddhism do not believe in any divine reality to this oneness of being but other forms certainly do.[7]  Furthermore, various Hindu philosophies see all of life as one and all as part of a divine reality.  The technical term for the all is one and all is god view is pantheism.  This divine reality is revealed to us by many enlightened masters or yogis throughout history. Jesus is one of many revelations of the divine in the eastern mind but he is not the one transcendent creator God. Interestingly enough, many in contemporary Western culture, are merging ideas from the east and at times using the terminology of Christianity to do so.  The results usually end up on the Oprah Winfrey show.

New Age Jesus – A Spark of Christ Consciousness

A strange amalgam of ideas is being mixed together in a day where we no longer seek truth but float through a myriad of ideas and experiences.  There are some today who are into creating spiritualities from various concepts and our bookstores are full of such volumes. Centered on merging self help, eastern spirituality and an obsessive inward focus, America is concocting new religious ideas every day. In its pure forms, the eastern mind was about self-denial and becoming one with reality through meditation.  Today those in the west have taken eastern ideas and married them with self-actualization. If you can learn certain laws of self-actualization, you can acquire the secret of unleashing the god within you. Books about this sort of thing sell well in America.[8] When you throw this thinking together with Christian language and ideas of evolutionary theory something interesting emerges. You arrive to the idea that we are cosmically evolving towards a higher state of “Christ consciousness” by spiritually moving to higher planes of reality. In this view, Jesus is more of an idea of becoming one with the universe and revealing your inner god rather than a unique person and savior through whom we reconnect in relationship with God.  Jesus Christ is reduced to a divine “you” that is deep down inside which just needs to be actualized and set free.[9]  It is very American when you think about it, but this tells us nothing about Jesus.[10]

The Skeptic – What Jesus?

A healthy skepticism about truth claims is a good thing when evaluating ideas that others tell us are “true” about the world. However, there is a flavor of skepticism that refuses to accept or believe anything.  For instance, there are skeptics who try to say that the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth never even existed. This sort of historical doubt is in no way helpful to anyone, but there are those who make sport out of denying even the most readily available historical realities. Beware of those who revel in being “deniers” of clear historical facts. Just saying.

The Gnostic and Da Vinci Code Jesus

Over the last several decades there has been an increasing interest in other writings from the first few hundred years of Christianity.  Sensational stories about the recovering of “lost gospels” have made their way from the scholar’s tomes into the mainstream press.[11]  These “lost gospels” are said to represent a different story from the one we find in the New Testament of the Bible.  We’ll comment on why these records are not reliable guides to the person of Jesus in a section below, but people like to take ideas from these books and make cool, fantastic stories from them.  Seriously, Dan Brown has sold lots of books and movie tickets with the Da Vinci Code Jesus. This Jesus is a weird mixture of Gnostic ideas, conspiracy theories and a creative imagination. The only problem is this Jesus has little bearing on reality.  Even one of the most skeptical, non Christian New Testament scholars has shown Dan’s Brown fiction to be a terrible twisting of history.[12]

Scientology Jesus

Just kidding.  Though they do have a view of Jesus it is just too weird and involves galactic war lord aliens and psychological implants. Anyone else bummed out that Tom Cruise’s movie career has been struggling ever science he went scientology weird on TV a few times? Let’s move on friends, nothing to see here.

Jesus, According to Jesus?

Perhaps the best source to learn about Jesus would be from the man himself, yet here we find a problem.  Jesus himself never wrote a book and he did not leave a YouTube video for the world. We must ask an important question: Just what did Jesus leave us from his time on the earth?  The answer is both simple and astounding. Jesus left behind disciples; women and men who followed him, who proclaimed and wrote down his teachings.  His followers walked away from his empty tomb and began to take his message, quite literally, to the whole world.  Christ is raised from death and is the savior of all people. Turn from sin, receive forgiveness, trust in him and follow him as God and king. Their testimony about Jesus is uniquely found in the words of his apostles (messengers), in the writings of the New Testament.

In these texts, we find a Jesus that is much less a creation in our own image.  It is not a humanistic, Islamic, Eastern, new age or Gnostic Jesus.  In the gospels of the New Testament we find the glorious creator God being born in a rustic animal stall.  We find the one who spoke galaxies into existence, the one who designed the intricacies of physics and biology, became a human being and walked among us.  Jesus in his own words is much less tame than we at times make him to be. The late Scottish preacher and theologian James Stewart wrote powerfully to describe this untamable figure.

He was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men, yet he spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the glory of God. He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at his coming yet He was so genial and winsome and approachable that the children loved to play with Him and the little ones nestled in His arms. No one was half so kind or compassionate to sinners yet no one ever spoke such red-hot scorching words about sin… His whole life was love. Yet on one occasion he demanded of the Pharisees how they ever expected to escape the damnation of hell…He saved others but at the last, Himself He did not save. There is nothing in history like the union of contrasts which confront us in the Gospels. The mystery of Jesus is the mystery of divine personality.[13]

Why We Look to the Gospels?

Finding the Voice of Jesus in the Canonical Gospels

The New Testament contains the earliest and most reliable witness to the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. What one believes about the existence of God and the supernatural may affect how one reads or believes these texts, but they are the primary place where all go to learn about Jesus. Period. At Jacob’s Well we trust the gospels, as both a theologically and historically accurate accounting of the life of Jesus, but I wanted to take some time to unpack why we place our trust in them. To do so we will do two things.  First, we’ll look at the recent buzz about “lost gospels” and “gospels” outside of the Bible. In doing so, we will see that these documents are archaeologically and historically interesting, but they are in no way reliable guides to the life and words of Jesus.  Second, we’ll unpack the reasons why we do look with trust and anticipation to the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  

What about other Gospels?

There have been some amazing archaeological finds in the last six decades dealing with the early centuries of the Christian movement. Many may be familiar with the Dead Sea Scrolls[14] found at Qumran which contain the scrolls of an apocalyptic sect of Judaism known as the Essenes. This find in 1947 was of particular interest to Old Testament Scholars. What the scrolls provided was a look at copies of many books of the Old Testament which date back to the time just before Christ. Due to the fact that the earliest existing Hebrew manuscripts dated only to the 10th century AD, the scrolls of Qumran gave us an opportunity to examine the transmission of the books over a gap of some 1000 years. What we found is that the text had been copied quite faithfully even over this long period of time. The Old Testament has been handed down with astounding accuracy.

Perhaps a less known discovery took place in 1945 in the Egyptian dessert at Nag Hammadi. It had been known for millennia that in the 2nd-4th centuries the Christian church countered a false teaching known as Gnosticism. Local farmers pulled an earthen jar from the ground at Nag Hammadi which contained some fifty Gnostic gospels and writings. Gnostic held a radical dualism between matter and spirit with spirit being good and matter evil. Through secret gnosis (Greek for knowledge) people could escape the bondage of the physical world and achieve salvation. The Christian version of Gnosticism held that Jesus was not really a human being, but merely appeared as such. As the human Jesus suffered and died, the divine Christ hovered above laughing at the confusion of people taken in by the appearance. This hyper-divine Christ would reveal secret knowledge to his elect via religious experience rather than conveyed truth in the apostolic writings.[15] Early church leaders such as Iraneus wrote against certain 2nd century teachings.  Iraneus actually speaks of these Gnostic writings by name. For example, you can read his reference to the content of the gospel of Judas in this segment of his work Against Heresies.[16] Additionally, the early church historian Eusebius also named many of these writings. The point to be made is that these writings: Gnostic gospels, epistles and apocalypses were well known to the church and rejected by the Christians as false teachings. The great interest of the archaeological find at Nag Hammadi is that some codices (early books) of these mentioned works were actually dug up. Believe it or not the discovery was made by a guy named Mohammed Ali (no, not the one who floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee).  This of course shed light on the early debates within Christianity and the sources of the doctrines which the church rejected.  It was a great archaeological find of actual copies of documents that we already knew existed.

Why then all the buzz about the “Lost Gospels” of Thomas, Judas, Mary etc.?[17] First, many people including most Christians, are uninformed of church history and have no idea about the world in which the church was birthed, grew and confronted these false teachings. Second, there is a new school of scholars and practitioners who paint the early Christian world as a battle between equally valid, possible expressions of Christian faith.[18] Therefore the poor Gnostics, losing the popularity contest years ago, need a new hearing today. Third, the media sensationalizes these things with misleading titles like “Lost books of the Bible” being recovered, etc.  These books were never in the Bible and they were never lost, but titles like this apparently sell magazines.

What we need to know is this. The first several centuries of the church were filled with theological spaghetti and a myriad of writings. This in fact led the church to recognize and canonize the apostolic witness found in the 1st century gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. That which was false, which did not match the tradition handed down from the apostles, was rejected and not included in what eventually became the collection of the 27 books of the New Testament. The gospel of Thomas, The Apocalypse of Peter, and the gospel of Judas were never part of the Christian Bible, nor will they be. They were lost to history, but not lost from the Word of God. They were lost to us in manuscript form, many of which we have now recovered. This is a great thing for our understanding of the Gnostics, who they were and what they taught. But it is not ground shaking in that it gives us a “new Christianity.” It simply gives us an up close look at beliefs that were deemed not Christianity at all. And that was decided a long time ago; by the Christians. 

Now don’t get me wrong, people are welcome to believe the Gnostic teachings if they so choose (they are pretty wacky and convoluted); but let us not come up with some nonsense that the Gnostic way is just another way of being a Christian. This is simply not the case. Therefore, if we will not find Jesus and his words in the Gnostic gospels, what reasons do we have to place confidence in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?  To this issue we now turn our attention.

Why Look to the Canonical Gospels?[19]

Skeptics throughout the ages have asked whether the gospels are to be trusted because they were written by supposedly biased people, the followers of Jesus himself.  They surely must have had a skewed point of view as to who this Jesus is.  After all, you cannot trust someone’s biggest fans to give an objective account of someone’s life…Can you?  This skepticism has been found unwarranted for a couple reasons.  First, we know that eyewitness accounts are always the most reliable when looking at events that we ourselves did not observe.  If the gospels demonstrate themselves to be the testimony of eyewitnesses they are then the most trustworthy views of Jesus we possess.  Second, the claim that someone is unable to correctly convey a story because they are “biased” is highly unwarranted.  We will look at each of these issues.

Eyewitness Testimony in the New Testament

When asking the question “What happened with this Jesus guy?” the first persons we should ask are those who walked with him, talked with him and lived their lives with him.  Or as 2 Peter 1:16 rightly records, those who were eyewitnesses of his majesty.  This requires us to look at the claims of the gospels to be just that – a written record of eyewitness testimony.  This was a view taken for granted for years until the advent of critical scholarship in the 19th century where the origin and source of all the gospel writings was brought into question.  Revisionist historians and liberal New Testament scholars began to claim the gospels were 3rd or 4th century compilations of Christian communities which did not reflect anything close to eyewitness testimony. 

However, there has been much movement in New Testament studies over the last several decades which has ruled out the revisionist ideas of liberal theology.  The late 3rd and 4th century dates have been utterly repudiated and we have been able to date all the gospels conclusively to the first century.  This has been due to amazing archaeological discoveries such as a fragment of John’s gospel dating to around 125 AD.  Additionally, recent scholarship has shown that there are very good reasons to understand the gospels as testimony.  In 2006 Scottish New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham published Jesus and the Eyewitnesses – the Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony which makes a strong case for our understanding the gospels as containing the testimony of those who knew the life and teaching of Jesus directly.  More and more scholars are coming to the position which the church has always held.  The gospels are the most reliable portrait of the life and teaching of Jesus because they contain the accounts of the people who were there.[20]  But were these people just Jesus fan boys, too biased to be trusted?  Good question.

Bias is not Always Bad

The question of bias is important, after all, the gospel writers did not leave us with a simple narrative that records nothing more than rote historical facts.  No, they were convinced of the truth of Jesus’ teaching and their account of history contains the teaching of theology about Jesus as well as historical data.  Yes, there are towns, rulers, times and places mentioned, but also teaching as to the identity of Jesus and his mission from God.  But does this one sided account, that of Jesus’ followers, disqualify their testimony as being valid?  In fact I will argue that if you want to know anything about something or someone, you are better off asking people who are passionately committed to the story he shares.  A few examples can help us see that Bias is not always bad.

One example comes from the world of technology and through a simple question.   If you desire to know about the ins and outs of Macintosh computers, would you ask someone has never touched a Mac to be your teacher?  Of course not…who would you ask?  You probably would ask one of those MacIdolaters who are loyal subjects of the cult of Steve Jobs.  You know that crazy Apple guy who has to put down Windows every time the subject arises.  You know the guy who is flossing[21] his iPhone for all to see.  You may be that guy.  My point is this.  The people from whom you will get the best information about Macs are probably the ones who are the most biased; the ones who are passionate about their elite computers.  In like manner, NASCAR fans should be consulted on the intricacies of Stock car racing, indie rockers should be the ones you talk to about what is happening in that music scene and his original followers are the ones we should consult about Jesus Christ. 

One final example of a more serious kind should be mentioned.  To exclude a person who was involved with an event, who passionately cares that the story be told, as being a reliable witness would be quite odd indeed.  This sort of reasoning would rule out the accounts of Jewish historians of the Holocaust.  They are most interested as they were the ones most closely involved with this horrific course of events.  We would not think of discounting someone’s testimony because they are “biased” against the Nazi’s because their family went through the Holocaust.  No, rather we trust them as they were the closest people to the events and care most passionately about conveying and passing on this history.[22] 

Until someone is shown to be an unreliable witness we ought to take their word for something until they are shown to be not trustworthy.  The philosopher Immanuel Kant rightly showed some time ago that an assumption that all people are lying all the time is self-refuting.  We should assume truth telling unless we have good reason to think that someone is not telling the truth.[23]  If we find that someone is in their right mind and capable to tell the truth, is willing to do so, his words are recorded and preserved with integrity and his testimony is validated by other witnesses, we should trust the words of that person.[24]  It seems that this is precisely the sort of reality that we find in the writers of the gospels.

It was their intention to tell the truth

Most of them were religious Jews who thought that intentional falsification (lying) was a direct violation of one of the Ten Commandments.  Lying was not a virtue in their community.  This does not mean there were not religious Jews who were liars at the time, but it was not a virtue extolled in the community.

The New Testament writers were concerned with “delivering” the teaching of Jesus and the gospel to the next generation in their writing.  The Apostle Paul specifically says that he delivered or passed on to the Corinthian church the gospel.  This gospel was considered by the early Christians as a matter “of first importance.” See 1 Corinthians 15:1-3.  There is good evidence that they believed they were passing on what they saw as a holy tradition through their writings.[25]

They were able to tell the truth

They were a culture steeped in a tradition of oral teaching and memorization.  In fact, scholars have shown that ancient peoples could memorize massive amounts of information, with an important focus on maintaining the very words of their teachers.[26]

If they experienced any external pressure it was against the preaching of their message. They gained nothing in the way of position, power and possessions for faithfully telling the Jesus story.  To the contrary most of them were killed for it. 

Their Words Preserved Accurately

It is beyond the scope of this paper but there is good textual evidence that we have the New Testament documents today in a form that is extremely close to the original manuscripts.  This is non controversial.  Most scholars agree that the current Greek texts of the New Testament are very accurate.  To put it simply, we have pretty much what was written. 

Additionally, there was very little time between the actual events of Jesus and the writing of the New Testament.  The less time that passes the less likely legendary development occurs.  The gospels were all finished by around 90AD with Mark and Matthew likely within just a few decades of the resurrection of Jesus.  In the period in which the gospels were written down many eyewitnesses of the events would have still been alive.  As Richard Bauckham states, “The Gospels were written within living memory of the events they recount.  Mark’s gospel was written well within the lifetime of many of the eyewitnesses, while the other three canonical Gospels were written in the period when living eyewitnesses were becoming scarce, exactly at the point in time when their testimony would perish with them were it not put in writing”[27]

They are Corroborated/Validated by Others

If an author shows that he tells the truth on matters that are verifiable externally, he is thought to be a reliable witness.  The New Testament writers note at least thirty historically confirmed people in their works. The gospels in general and the passion narrative in particular find corroboration in several ancient sources outside of the New Testament.[28]  In addition, we find quotations at length from the gospels in the sermons and writings of the early church fathers.

When the gospels are examined, they show a strong historicity which is only doubted when a bias against the supernatural is brought to bear.  Many skeptics have written off the testimony of the gospels because they were written down by men who believed in God, who record the occurrence of the miraculous and the resurrection of an incarnate Savior God.  Yet such bias against the supernatural is just the work of a closed mind.  Someone who says – I cannot believe the words of the New Testament because I don’t believe in God or miracles – is already closed off to any amount of evidence.  They are saying “I don’t believe because I don’t believe.”  Such views are intellectually stifling and hardened to what God might say if they simply read the gospels with an open heart and mind to see the unparalleled life of Jesus on display.

In closing, the gospel literature is unique indeed.  It is part biography, part history, part theology yet passionately what Bauckham simply calls testimony.

Understanding the Gospels as testimony, we can recognize this theological meaning of the history not as an arbitrary imposition on the objective facts, but as the way the witnesses perceived the history, in an inextricable coinherence of observable event and perceptible meaning.  Testimony is the category that enables us to read the Gospels in a properly historical way and a properly theological way.  It is where history and theology meet.[29]

In this series we will be looking at testimony which records the interactions of Jesus with people from various stations and walks of life.  Our primary source for these narratives will be the gospel according to Luke.  We will observe a few stories from Matthew and John as well but primarily we will walk with Luke to hear the voice of Jesus.  With that said, we’ll take a little time together to learn a bit about the gospel written by the one who historically became known as the beloved physician.[30] 

The Gospel of Luke

As with any work of literature there are some pertinent questions we ask when approaching a text and there are additional questions when coming to a work of Scripture. Some questions we want to discuss briefly about the gospel of Luke.

• Who wrote it?

• When was it written?

• What is the subject and theological focus?

As we approach Luke several of these questions will be directly related to the book of Acts as we have very good reasons to see Luke/Acts as a large work by one author in two parts.  Luke and Acts, have similar prologues that connect them overtly and they also share a similarity in style and language. In the discussion below we may refer to this as “Luke/Acts.”  

Authorship

The oldest traditions and writings we have all ascribe authorship of this gospel to a gentile follower of Jesus and companion of the apostle Paul.  He was an educated person who was referred to in Scripture as being a physician.  We have no good reason to doubt this as the internal evidence (what is said in the New Testament) and external evidence (what is said about this book by others) all point to Luke being the one who compiled the story of Jesus from eyewitness accounts from those in the early church. In fact, Luke’s gospel is introduced in the following manner.

1Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.[31]

The reasons for holding to Luke’s authorship are as follows. First, the earliest existing manuscript of Luke ascribes authorship to Luke and there is no other author in the early tradition mentioned but Luke.[32] With Luke being directly addressed to someone, in this case someone referred to as Theophilus, M. Dilebus makes the point that it is highly unlikely that the book was ever anonymous.[33]  It is clear that Luke’s name has been connected to this work from very early in tradition. The external evidence is equally convincing as Lukan authorship for this gospel is found in the Muratorian Canon, the anti-Marcionite Prologue to Luke, Ireneus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Eusebius, and Jerome.[34]  All of these early literary works speak of Luke as the author for the gospel bearing his name. Finally, the book of Acts provides some interesting internal evidence to corroborate Luke as the author of this two-volume work.  There are four passages in Acts (16:10-17, 20:5-16, 21:1-18, 27:1-28:16) that record “we” did this or that suggesting the author’s own presence in these situations.[35]  The final passage in Acts has the author with Paul in Rome so he must be one of people mentioned as to being with Paul in Rome. This leaves Demas, Crescans, Jesus called Justus, Luke, Epaphras, and Epaphroditus. There has never been any reason given to assume authorship to any of these, so Luke’s authorship is again reinforced.[36] One final note, many have discussed the nature of the medical language used in this gospel as evidence that “the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14 ESV) was indeed the author.  New Testament Scholars DA Carson, Goug Moo, and Leon Morris agree that this argument from medical language has suffered recently in some circles, but the linguistic nature of the book does show that the author was an educated person.  Luke, the doctor, would certainly fit this description.[37]  Both internal and external evidence shows that the traditional attestation of authorship to Luke is accurate and trustworthy.

Dating the Gospel of Luke

There are certain events in New Testament chronology that are largely uncontested by historians and NT Scholars (whether skeptical or confessionally oriented).  The following list gives the events and approximate dates:

Table1: Basic First Century Chronology

Event                              Date (AD)

End of the Frist Century          100

Fall of Jerusalem                     70

Martydom of Peter and Paul    64-68

Epistles of Paul                      45-68

Some Oral Tradition                 32-70

Crucifixion of Jesus                  32

It is these dates that serve as external references or historical markers for our discussion of the four canonical gospels.   These are major events in church history and some, like the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, are so well documented as to be without dissent.  These dates are important as we investigate the relationship to early church history recorded in Acts and these well established first century dates.   Acts is important in dating the gospels due to the fact that it is the second volume of the two-part Luke/Acts work.  If one can zero in on a good date for Acts, then the composition of Luke must be at least written at a similar time if not earlier. 

Though some make an argument for placing Luke in the AD 80-90 range the most central argument for this is that Luke’s gospel (Luke 19:41-44; 21:20-24) seems to predict future events surrounding the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 there are good reasons to prefer an earlier date in the 60s.[38] The book of Acts concludes with Paul under house arrest in Rome a situation which lasts two years according to Acts 28:30-31.  This two year time period comes after the rise of Festus to power in Judea recorded in Acts 24:27 in AD 59. This places the time of Paul’s imprisonment at precisely 60-62, which implies Acts was completed in the early 60s around this same time period.  If so, then we must place Luke no later than that, with the Luke/Acts work completed before A.D. 62.  It may also be noted that there is no mention of the widespread persecution in the mid sixties at the hands of the Roman emperor Nero, as well as no mention of Paul’s death by martyrdom of which Luke certainly would have mentioned had it already taken place.[39] Furthermore, there is no direct mention of the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 in the book of Acts which features a Jerusalem setting on two occasions (Acts 6-7 and 21-23).[40] Thus, a date in the early 60s explains this absence of these events in Acts; they simply had not taken place at the time of its writing.

Subject and Theological Focus

Along with Matthew and Mark, Luke’s work is one of the canonical gospels known collectively as the synoptics.  The word synoptic is derived from two Greek terms that when combined mean to see together.  When examined together, these gospels present a multifaceted view of the life and teaching of Jesus.  So put simply, Luke’s subject in writing is Jesus, his life, his works, his death and resurrection.  Though we do not have time to investigate all the themes explored in Luke’s gospel here, a few are worth mentioning.  First, the gospel has a strong focus on good works and justice for the poor.  This is typified by Luke’s accounting of Jesus beginning his ministry with the reading from Isaiah in Luke chapter 4:

18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[41]

Jesus is seen often in Luke as a compassionate servant who cares about broken people and people in need.  Women, children, the poor and the socially outcast were groups of people in the first century who would have been seen as marginal.  Jesus is seen associating and serving all of them in Luke’s gospel.[42] Second, there is a focus in Luke on the prayer life of Jesus and his dependence upon the Father as well as the importance of prayer in our lives. Finally, Luke has been called the gospel of the Holy Spirit due to his focus on the work of the third person of the Trinity.  The Spirit led Jesus in his ministry on earth and the Spirit now leads us in continuing the work of Jesus in our time. 

Shall we Let Jesus Speak?

In closing I do pray that when we look to Jesus we see him as he actually is.  He is much more than man, guru or prophet.  He is much more than the divine you that has yet to be discovered.  He is the incarnate God, the living and breathing Savior who walked the earth, died a sacrificial death for sin, rose from death and today is leading his people. As we know who he is we can encounter him through the gospels.  As we see him interact with various people in our series together we truly see the great answer to one of the great questions facing human beings.  How does God treat people? How will God treat me?

As we walk forward together I pray that in a world where voices about Jesus are in abundance we would stop and hear his voice to us today.  It is my hope that the risen Christ will shape us, move us forward in mission and connect us deeply to God through the gospel.  God put his feet on planet earth in a small, obscure area of the Middle East some two thousand years ago.  He left behind an empty tomb, a living people and good news for the world.  God is a forgiving God, a just and holy God and a God who conquers sin, death and suffering through his own sacrificial love for us.  He is there and he is not silent – he is bursting through barriers and speaking to hearts and lives today. As we look to the stories of people’s encounters with Jesus this is our passion. We want to clear out all the noise and our own preconceived notions of him and simply Let Jesus Speak.

To that end let us listen well,

Reid S. Monaghan

Lead Pastor, Jacob’s Well

NOTES

[1] Robert M. Bowman and J. Ed Komoszewski, Putting Jesus in His Place : The Case for the Deity of Christ (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 2007), 17.

[2] This, of course, is the famous dictum of the late humanist astronomer Carl Sagan who popularized this line on his public television show Cosmos. The book with the same name begins with these same words. See Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1st ed. (New York: Random House, 1980), 1.

[3] Muslims refer to Jesus as Isa (from the Arabic for Jesus).

[4] See Mark Durie, “‘Isa, the Muslim Jesus.” http://www.answering-islam.org/Intro/islamic_jesus.html [accessed September, 18 2009].

[5] Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam : The Crescent in Light of the Cross, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002), 20.

[6] See Tacitus, Annals 15.44

[7] Theravada Buddhism holds not concept of the divine while Mahayana does. For a comparison of the two see the  chart in Huston Smith, The World’s Religions : Our Great Wisdom Traditions ([San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 126.

[8]One thinks of the bestselling book The Secret where the idea that if you learn a secret spiritual law of the universe you can have “the ability to transform any weakness or suffering into strength, power, perfect peace, health, and abundance.”  Rhonda Byrne, The Secret, 1st Atria Books/Beyond Words hardcover ed. (New York, Hillsboro, Or.: Atria Books; Beyond Words Pub., 2006).

[9] See Douglas R. Groothuis, Unmasking the New Age (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 27-29; 144-146.

[10] For a very thorough treatment of the relationship of the biblical worldview to the myriad of new age ideas see John P. Newport, The New Age Movement and the Biblical Worldview : Conflict and Dialogue (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998).

[11] See for example Maggie Sieger DAVID VAN BIEMA, Chris Taylor, “The Lost Gospels,” Time Magazine  (2003). http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1006499,00.html.

[12] See Bart D. Ehrman, Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code : A Historian Reveals What We Really Know About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). Ehrman is a skeptic about biblical Christianity but does a good job showing the sensationalism in Dan Brown’s work.  For a critique from Christian historians see Darrell L. Bock, Breaking the Da Vinci Code : Answers to the Questions Everyone’s Asking (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2004); Ben Witherington, The Gospel Code : Novel Claims About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Da Vinci (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004).

[13]James Stewart, The Strong Name.

[14] See Paul D. Wegner, The Journey from Texts to Translations : The Origin and Development of the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1999), 186-188.  For basic information even the wiki can get you up to speed here - “The Dead Sea Scrolls,” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls.

[15] See Darrell L. Bock, The Missing Gospels : Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2006). Bock lays out the underlying texts and ideas surrounding these early Gnostic documents.

[16] Philip Schaff, “The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus,”  (Public Domain, Electronic Version Logos Research Systems, Inc.). http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.ii.xxxii.html.

[17] Greg Koukl has a brief and helpful commentary on how there can simply be “no lost books of the Bible” Greg Koukl, “No Lost Books of the Bible,”  (1994). http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5473 [accessed Septermber 25, 2009].

[18] Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities : The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (New York ; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

[19] The following is a discussion adapted from my previous work Reid S. Monaghan, An Introduction to the New Testament, 2007.  Available online at www.JacobsWellNJ.org/resources/theology-booklets.

[20] A really good recent book on the trustworthy nature of the canonical Gospels is Mark D. Roberts, Can We Trust the Gospels? : Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2007), 39-51.

[21] See the Urban Dictionary for a definition of the word floss - Schaff.

[22] For a more sophisticated look at the uniqueness of Holocaust testimonies see the treatment in Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses : The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2006), 493-502.

[23] James Porter Moreland, Scaling the Secular City : A Defense of Christianity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1987), 137-138.

[24] Ibid., 138.

[25] Ibid., 144.

[26] See particularly chapters 10 and 11 of Bauckham, 240-263.

[27] Ibid., 7.

[28] See the chapter “The Corroborating Evidence” interviewing history professor Edwin Yamauchi in Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ : A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 73.

[29] Bauckham, 5,6.

[30] Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas. Colossians 4:41. The Holy Bible : English Standard Version : Containing the Old and New Testaments,  (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Bibles, 2001).

[31] Ibid. Luke 1:1-4 (ESV)

[32] Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris D.A. Carson, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), 113.

[33] Ibid., 115.

[34] Leon Morris, Luke : An Introduction and Commentary, Rev. ed. (Leicester, England Grand Rapids, Mich.: Inter-Varsity Press ; Eerdmans ;, 1988), 19-20.

[35]Craig Blomberg and William Lane Craig, “The Historicity of the New Testament,” in Reasonable Faith - Christan Truth and Apologetics (Wheaton: IL: Crossway Books, 1994), 205.

[36] D.A. Carson, 114.See the following of Paul’s epistles for references to these individuals Philemon 23,24; 2 Tim 4:10,11; Col 4:11-14; and Philippians 4:18.

[37] Ibid., 114

[38] Darrell L. Bock, Luke, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1994), Volume 1 - 17, 18.

[39] Morris, 29.

[40] Bock, Luke, 18.

[41] The Holy Bible : English Standard Version : Containing the Old and New Testaments, Luke 4:18,19.

[42] Morris, 50-51.

Bibliography

Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses : The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2006.

Bock, Darrell L. Luke. 2 vols. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1994.

________. Breaking the Da Vinci Code : Answers to the Questions Everyone’s Asking. Nashville: Nelson Books, 2004.

________. The Missing Gospels : Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities. Nashville: Nelson Books, 2006.

Bowman, Robert M., and J. Ed Komoszewski. Putting Jesus in His Place : The Case for the Deity of Christ. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, 2007.

Byrne, Rhonda. The Secret. 1st Atria Books/Beyond Words hardcover ed. New York, Hillsboro, Or.: Atria Books; Beyond Words Pub., 2006.

Craig, Craig Blomberg and William Lane. “The Historicity of the New Testament.” In Reasonable Faith - Christan Truth and Apologetics. Wheaton: IL: Crossway Books, 1994.

D.A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris. An Introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids: MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992.

DAVID VAN BIEMA, Maggie Sieger, Chris Taylor. “The Lost Gospels.” Time Magazine  (2003). http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1006499,00.html.

“The Dead Sea Scrolls.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls.

Durie, Mark. “‘Isa, the Muslim Jesus.” http://www.answering-islam.org/Intro/islamic_jesus.html [accessed September, 18 2009].

Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Christianities : The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. New York ; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

________. Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code : A Historian Reveals What We Really Know About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Groothuis, Douglas R. Unmasking the New Age. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986.

The Holy Bible : English Standard Version : Containing the Old and New Testaments. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Bibles, 2001.

Koukl, Greg. “No Lost Books of the Bible.”  (1994). http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5473 [accessed Septermber 25, 2009].

Moreland, James Porter. Scaling the Secular City : A Defense of Christianity. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1987.

Morris, Leon. Luke : An Introduction and Commentary. Rev. ed. Leicester, England Grand Rapids, Mich.: Inter-Varsity Press ; Eerdmans ;, 1988.

Newport, John P. The New Age Movement and the Biblical Worldview : Conflict and Dialogue. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1998.

Roberts, Mark D. Can We Trust the Gospels? : Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2007.

Sagan, Carl. Cosmos. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 1980.

Saleeb, Norman L. Geisler and Abdul. Answering Islam : The Crescent in Light of the Cross. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002.

Schaff, Philip. The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus: Public Domain, Electronic Version Logos Research Systems, Inc. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.ii.xxxii.html.

Smith, Huston. The World’s Religions : Our Great Wisdom Traditions. [San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991.

Stewart, James. The Strong Name.

Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ : A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998.

Wegner, Paul D. The Journey from Texts to Translations : The Origin and Development of the Bible. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1999.

Witherington, Ben. The Gospel Code : Novel Claims About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Da Vinci. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Ambition - Acts 29 Boot Camp in Louisville, KY

Sojourn Community Church is hosting the final Acts 29 bootcamp of 2009 November 10-11.  If you are interested in church planting this would something you would want to check out.

Here is a little 411 from the boot camp web site. You can register online if interested.

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“It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ is not known.” Romans 15:20 NIV

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AMBITION. Simply knowing how to plant and lead a church is not enough.  Knowledge must come hand-in-hand with God-given ambition.  The Apostle Paul responded to God’s call to make the gospel known among the Gentiles with zealous determination.  Paul, empowered by the Holy Spirit, made it his ambition to take the gospel to those who did not have it even if it cost him everything.  He proclaimed the gospel, gathered believers into churches, established elders, and discipled believers; and he did all this with zeal and passion.  In the hope of this type of ambition overflowing in the Church, we would like to invite you to the Acts 29 Network Ambition Boot Camp, November 10-11, 2009, which will focus on planting and leading churches with God-given ambition.

Seeing the Mystery of the Gospel...A Look Back Through Ephesians

Today’s Junk drawer is mainly scripture and summary.  It is a walk together back through some of the high peaks that we viewed during “Life on Doctrine.” I pray it may be of help to you this week in slowing down, meditating on truth and living your life “on it.”  Grace to you all.

Ephesians 1

That all of life is relational, we are not the result of blind matter + time + chance,  NOR are we all God and just have not realized it yet (pretty big thing to forget, no?).  The universe, animals, humans and all that exists are related to God who is renewing and redeeming all the time.  He is bringing people into his family from every corner of the earth, every tribe, tongue and people.

Ephesians 1:3-10 – 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Ephesians 2

God’s purpose includes rescuing rebellious punks, human beings that are running from him and under his just wrath and condemnation for sin. God forgives us, places us into a new family called the church, bringing together a new people out of the many peoples of the world.  The church is therefore a family, sent on mission, living to reflect the goodness, kindness and mercy of God in Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:1-10 (ESV) 1And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:13-22 (ESV) 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 3

God is sending his people into this world to reflect his wisdom in the world…doing through them wonderful works. We as his people pray for one another that we might first and foremost love God and then allow him to change us and use our lives for his purposes in our times.

Ephesians 3:7-20 (ESV)  - 7Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, 10so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. 14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

Ephesians 4

As a family living in unity of truth and mission we want to walk in a manner worthy of our calling.  We desire to be equipped to serve, not to be people coming to a religious WALMART we call a church in order to consume.  We desire to live in a new way together in — not in malice, drinking haterade, back biting and punking each other all the time.

Ephesians 4:1-6 (ESV) 1I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:9-12 (ESV) 9(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

Ephesians 4:17-24 (ESV) 17Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 5

We are a community which follows God together seeking wisdom about how we live. We seek his paths in the way we approach sex, our speech and money, in the way we live out marriage and the household and radically equality before God together as a Spirit-filled community.

Ephesians 5:1-10 (ESV) 1Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 3But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 4Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. 5For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7Therefore do not become partners with them; 8for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9(for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

Ephesians 5:15-21 (ESV) 15Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Ephesians 6

We realize that we are in this together as his people and that not everyone is cheering for us. Our lives are lived in the shadow of a spiritual war that Jesus has won completely. He now leads us in the final phases of God’s full triumph over the forces of darkness and evil.

Ephesians 6:10-18 (ESV) 10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints…

It is our hope and prayer together that we would seek to live our lives on doctrine and to find joy in repentance when we fall short of walking in a manner worthy of our calling.  No perfect people, just people on the way with Jesus.  Hoping that we might find life, satisfaction and transformation in Him.

Walking  Together…

Incredible, Amazing, Easy and Awesome...

Now I know why people love Mapple products so much…they are incredible, amazing, easy and awesome.  Where have I been?

The Glory is often in the Details...

I was watching this video on an artists work on one of the new Transformers and thought of how much time and attention to detail this guy put in.  Anyway, I think our lives are somewhat similar.  They are the work of a confluence of artists…the hand of God, the care of friends, the love of a family and our own choices are shading in our character, forming us into one image or another.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Sometimes we are impatient and want our lives to be like a speed action painting when in reality our growth is gradual, many times slower than we like, day by day as God gives grace.  Yet if we could watch our life go by at 400X we would see just how profound the work of God upon us really is.  We too shall be changed; detail by detail, a little lighting here and a little shading there.  By the grace of God we are what we are…and this grace is not without effect.

Thanking God for transformers…the fun guys in cartoons and movies as well as my friends and fam who are being transformed each day. Oh yeah, my son loves Bumblebee, I like Optimus Prime…here is that one as well.

Apple...saving cool people of the world...one "i" at a time

This, my friends is a graphic that went up today on Gizmodo. Just one more reason why I abstain from the Apple religion.  Do you and your friends all have the same exact laptop and same exact phone. If you do, it is strange…and people should not make images of Steve Jobs that look like this.

It is indicative of the modern condition that the only savior we might muster is a man in black turtlenecks, holding a gadget. I’ll say it again, little children, keep yourselves from iDolatry.

[Disclosure: For those of you who take things too seriously - this post is categorized under “just for fun” - I am joking…it is satire. We like the Mac/PC religious discussion here at the POCBlog, so don’t take this too seriously…somebody already did, so hence this disclosure. By the way, this was sent to me by a Mac friend with a note that read “as if you needed any more ammunition…this was just too good not to send…blessings…” You have to admit though…this picture…Ok, I’ll stop]

Proof - All in the Genes...

This should settle forever that we know nothing…or everything about nothing or nothing about everything. You decide.

I guess the UFC guys have lots of punch in the head genes and “The Scientists” need to be punched in the head. Along with fundamentalists, liberals and coconut ice cream

(HT - Ben Vastine)

"You’re Gonna Have to Serve Somebody” Greco-Roman Slavery and the Early Church - Guest Article by Benjamin Hicks...

When studying the relationship of Christian slaves and their Christian masters in a first century Greco-Roman context I turned to my friend Ben Hicks to give us some background on the subject. Ben was a PhD candidate in classics at Rutgers University at the time.

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“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ”

A standard trope of the New Testament epistles is for the author to open a letter by calling himself “a servant of Jesus Christ.” But here our English translations often deceive us, or at least soften the language with the euphemistic “servant.” The word used in the Greek, doulos, is the common word for any sort of slave or bondservant, whether for temporary debt servitude or those born or taken into the condition of slavery.²

We see the language of servitude throughout the Gospels, as well. Christ (Mt. 6:24; Lk. 16:13) speaks of how we can only serve one master, and at Philippians 2:5-9, the Savior’s coming is likened to Him taking the form of a slave. To our modern sensibilities, the emphatic use of the language of slavery to speak of our relationship to Christ might seem odd, but its meaning would have been clear to Paul’s readers in Christian communities throughout the cities of the Roman Empire in the mid-first century AD. Slavery was very much a fact of day-to-day life, and so it was inevitable that within a church congregation that slave and master might both find themselves new Christians.

Slavery in the Ancient World

As early as the Odyssey, the Homeric epic detailing the hero Odysseus’ return from the Trojan War (composed c. 725 BC), we find the assertion that “far-sounding Zeus takes away half a man’s virtue when the day of slavery comes upon him” (17.322f). Slavery was regarded as an intrinsic outcome to human conflict but also an ill to be avoided if at all possible. Greek city-states generally had populations of both privately held slaves and also public (demosioi) slaves. One of the best-known groups of slaves in antiquity, the Spartan helots, were an entire people (the Messenians) who had been subjected to slavery.

If I had to discuss the many variations of each Greek state on this topic, we would have a never-ending Junk Drawer for this week since each Greek community had its own laws. Paul, however, was writing to a community under the Roman legal regime for slaves, and this simplifies things immensely. Slavery also existed at Rome from the beginning of its recorded history. Indeed, the Romans of the late republic and early empire witnessed several slave revolts on the latifundia, large plantations worked primarily by slave labor. Slaves were also common in urban areas, acting as domestics, conducting business for their masters, or even serving as tutors if they were literate. To give some numbers, from 200 BC to AD 200, by one estimate slaves comprised around 5-10% of the population.³

Legal Status of Roman Slavery

Roman law regarding slaves was without doubt harsh. A master held his slaves as possessions and was therefore entitled to the fruits of all their labor and increase, including children from female slaves. He could also buy or sell slaves as possessions. Slaves were also generally regarded as being at the service of their master sexually, whether male or female. The Roman charge of sexual misconduct (stuprum) only attached if someone took liberties with another man’s slave, in effect causing harm to someone else’s property. The Latin term familia, which encompassed all members of a household under the legal authority (potestas) of the father, included the household slaves and in practical usage referred primarily to the slaves almost exclusively. Further, in legal proceedings, slaves were subject to torture to extract information.

The question of slave status, however, never turned on issues of race as it did in English and American law. Slavery was an imposed status, whether through capture by ransom, birth to a mother who was a slave, or subjection through debt bondage (in which case the slave was regarded as a pignus, or pledge of security) and the rare cases when one voluntarily entered slavery in hopes of future citizenship or securing basic provisions for life. Masters also possessed a right to free their slaves, either by bringing them before a competent magistrate or through a will, though legislation under the empire placed restrictions on both of these methods.⁴ Freedmen and women (liberti/ae) could eventually obtain citizenship after reforms under the emperor Augustus, and they often had a surprising amount of financial and civil success, though they could not be elected to high offices.⁵ The priesthoods of the imperial cults (i.e. the priesthoods dedicated to emperors who had been “deified” upon their deaths) were open to them and the freedmen of the familia Caesaris (the emperor’s household), exercised a great deal of influence in the administration of the state. In at least one instance the emperor Nero, while attending games in Greece during the year AD 67, left the city of Rome under the charge of his freedman Helios.⁶

This made the wealthiest and most successful freedmen as objects of envy and lampoon by the upper classes. The largest surviving chunk of the literary work of Petronius, a prominent member of Nero’s court, is a fictional account of a garish, tasteless dinner given by the freedman Trimalchio. In spite of this prejudice, freedmen and women recorded their achievements and familial successes through epitaphs and other inscriptions with nearly ubiquitous frequency. Their children were considered freeborn and had the full legal privileges obtaining to whatever citizenship rights their parents had possessed, though the social stigma of servile birth might persist for a few generations.

Under the Roman Empire, the law did eventually provide some legal protections to slaves. The lex Petronia forbade a master from putting his slave up to fight with wild beasts without first consulting a magistrate, and a constitution (that is, a legal formulation) of the emperor Antoninus (ruled AD 138 – 161) subjected a master to legal penalties if he put one of his slaves to death without proper cause. Also by the early second century AD, in cases of disputed manumission or servile birth, the general legal principal known as the favor libertatis (the “preference for freedom”) dictated that the presiding magistrate favor the interpretation of evidence most favorable to the claim for freedom.

Slavery and the Early Church⁷

The Christian church, with its emphasis on the equality of all believers before God, was popular among the slaves throughout the Greco-Roman world. Aside from evidence in the epistles (such as Eph. 6:5-9) and Paul’s letter to Philemon on behalf of the slave Onesimus, we have the case of two “deaconesses” (ministrae, the Latin equivalent of the Greek word from which deacon derives) whom Pliny the Younger tortured during his governorship of Bithynia (AD 111-113, part of modern-day Turkey). In his letter to the emperor Trajan asking for guidance on how to handle the problem of Christians in his province, Pliny also calls the deaconesses slaves. Thus we can see not only the presence of slaves in the early church, but their equal participation in worship. The passage in Ephesians which we are looking at today was written to address the relationship between slave and master within the context of Christian behavior. It maintains the earthly status of masters and slaves by enjoining the latter to obey their masters “with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ” (Eph. 6:5). However, it also enjoins masters to treat their slaves equally well, and instructs them to “stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him” (6:9). Paul, in his epistle to Philemon argues similarly, if not more forcefully. In it, he encourages Philemon to accept Onesimus (a runaway slave of Philemon’s who had been of service to Paul) not as a slave but “as a beloved brother” (1:16) and includes a not-too-veiled threat that he will be checking up on the matter personally (1:21-22).

This tension between the earthly existence of slavery and the ideal of equality before Christ as the ultimate sovereign (kurios) of all mankind posed a difficult problem for the early Church. The problem of appropriate conduct for a slave in service to a pagan master, who might ask his servant to carry out sacrifices or other practices a Christian would find objectionable, was also nettlesome. As a general rule, the church did not engage in actions that would have compromised a master’s legal rights to the slave’s service, but slaves who entered the church with their master’s consent could and did rise to positions of authority. A bishop of Rome in the early third century, Callistus, was himself an ex-slave.

Perhaps the most important “take-away” for believers in our own time and place, rather than the imperfect attempts to mold ancient practice into accord with Paul’s concern for the treatment of slaves, is the uniquely Christian notion of slavery, both earthly and spiritual, being the consequence of sin (among the church fathers, see Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians-40.6; Gregory of Nyssa, In Ecclesiasten 4; Augustine, City of God 19.15). The radical notion in the hymn at Philippians 2:5-9 that Christ “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” shocked Roman sensibilities as blasphemous, inspired early believers who were themselves bound by earthly servitude, and challenges believers today to strive—like Paul—to find freedom by being servants to Christ Jesus.

Notes

1. With profuse apologies to Bob Dylan (“Gotta Serve Somebody,” http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/gotta-serve-somebody).

2. The opening of an epistle as a “slave of Christ/God” occurs in Romans, Titus, Philippians, 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation. Doulos most properly means someone born into slavery rather than taken, but by the time of Paul’s writing, it had simply become a generic term encompassing a wide variety of servitude.

3. Niall McKeown, The Invention of Ancient Slavery? (London: Duckworth, 2007).

4. Another method existed whereby the master could have a slave enroll during a census of the population, provided the slave either gained or was supplied sufficient property in order to do so.

5. Augustus extended a more limited set of rights to freedmen, but they could under some circumstances gain citizenship after being manumitted. Citizenship as a result of manumission became the norm as citizenship rights became more universal in the later Roman Empire.

6. We get this from the Roman biographer Suetonius’ life of Nero (23.1).

7. For a more thorough discussion that was very helpful to me in preparing this section, see I.A.H. Combes, The Metaphor of Slavery in the Writing of the Early Church (Sheffield: 1998).

8. All translations are from the ESV.

TNIV...No more

It seems that Zondervan will be pulling the TNIV (Today’s New International Version) and going back to translation work with Biblica to put out a different updated NIV (New International Version) in 2011. I have been a long standing critic of the TNIV but I am guessing that the translation was too divisive and ended up with too little sales.  I don’t want to be cynical but if this translation had been a runaway best seller I am guessing things would have been different.

Who knows what they will put together for 2011 - as for me and my house we are quite happy with the English Standard Version. If you are looking for a good study Bible I cannot recommend the ESV Study Bible highly enough. The online version is excellent as well.

Some people on the interwebs are lamenting that people took “sides” in the debate surrounding the TNIV. I do not lament this. It is a translation I recommended to nobody…in fact, my counsel was and still is “TNIV - Just say No”

LEAD09

My friend Owen Strachan sent me some info on a conference going down in October up in Maine. Here are the details from Owen’s blog (which is quite good - check it here)

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I wanted to give you more info on the LEAD09 conference I mentioned yesterday in my links.  Here’s a little more from the conference website. 

Here’s what conference organizer Ramsey Tripp says about it:

“Lead09 is designed to promote the gospel, community and mission of the Church—to answer the questions many of us have been asking about what the Church is, how we fit into the Church and the mission of the Church. The best way this is done is through attending in a group.  We are excited for your Church to attend and want to extend a group discount to make is easier on your pocket.

For all groups of 5 or more your registration will only be $60 a person. If you have a group please email our group registration services at info[AT]atmospherechurch.com.  We look forward to seeing you this October.”

More info:

October 9th & 10th 2009
Auburn Maine

560 Park Ave. Auburn Maine 04210

Cost: by September 18th -$75ea | after September 18th $100

And here’s some stuff on the material and speakers:

Windham Baptist Church is partnering with Atmosphere Church (of EABC) to host a conference October 9-10 that we hope God will use to bring about gospel renewal throughout Maine, New England and beyond. It’s called Lead ‘09 and the theme is Gospel, Community and Mission.  This two-day conference is a call to each of us and our churches to take Jesus seriously–to radically reshape our lives around the gospel word so that we can truly be his gospel community on God’s mission.

Our two speakers are both God-centered, Christ-exalting, Spirit-dependent leaders who teach the Word of God  faithfully with passion, humility and urgency.  Tim Chester is a writer, Bible teacher and church planter in Sheffield, UK. An author of many books, Tim is also the co-author of Total Church, a biblically-rich book on what it means to BE the church. Jonathan Dodson is the lead pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, TX. His articles have often blessed our church family, especially “Fight Club” and “Anger: the image of Satan.” On a personal note, Jonathan is a treasured friend. Having served with him in both the local church and in global missions, I can tell you without hesitation that you will be blessed by his teaching.

 

Mawidge...mawidge is what bwings us togewer today...

Most people who have seen the movie The Princess Bride simply cannot forget the scene where the impressive clergyman begins the rushed wedding between Buttercup and Prince Humperdink. If you have never experienced such delights you can grab the scene here. Marriage itself however, is not just a goofy matter in life. It is perhaps the source of humanities deepest delights and most profound relational struggles. It truly is a realm of both joy and pain, sunshine and rain.¹

In this essay we will have some overly ambitious goals. First, we will endeavor to define marriage biblically. Second, we will look at the teaching about the roles and responses of men and women in marriage as seen in Ephesians 5. Finally, we discuss our struggle as men and women to follow God in his designs for marriage before making a hopeful conclusion. We have but a small space here for our discourse, so we must get right to work.

What is Marriage?

Marriage finds its beginnings with the first man and woman in the book of beginnings in the sacred Scriptures. After the creation of the human beings, male and female in his image and likeness, God gives a second detailed accounting of how he joins the first two people together. God brings the animals to Adam (which is simply Hebrew for “man”) and he is giving them all names. As much as dogs are a man’s best friend there was not a helper suitable for him. The man realized that none of these creatures were like him and certainly did not complete him. The Scriptures then teach that out of the man God fashions or forms a woman as a helper suitable to him. This creature is presented to Adam naked and he did not ask her to put on flannel pajamas. The man and woman were indeed made for one another in every way so at this point in the story we read the following description of marriage:

 ²⁴Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:24 (ESV)

Marriage is described as a man leaving, then cleaving to his wife and then weaving their bodies together in intimacy. The symbolism is clear. A man must grow up and step away from Mommy and Daddy. He forms a new family with his wife and the union is consummated by the self-giving of one another’s bodies in the act of marriage. The formation of a new family through the union man and woman is also foundational in the bringing of new human beings in the world. It is also the best context to teach and raise them.

Interestingly Genesis 2:24 is repeated by Jesus in the gospels and stresses the permanence of this relationship on the earth (Matthew 19:4-6). Finally, it is cited once again by Paul the apostle in Ephesians 5:31.

Marriage is a Covenant

In our world there are many opinions about what marriage is and how it should function in society. The most prominent views in western culture is that marriage is either about a couple’s romance, their social contract for societies good or an institution that is all together outdated. Scripture however presents marriage as a covenant, something much deeper than mere love or social utility. Let’s look quickly at these differing views.

Marriage as Coupling

Many today have a fun, warm fuzzy view of marriage. It is about amore, true love taking place on a balcony covered with roses. Anyone who has been married more than a few months knows something else must enter the equation for marriage to have more meaning and staying power than mere “love.” What happens many times to couples marrying for emotions or youthful lust is that divorce quickly follows when we “fall out of love.” There are even new inventive marriage vows that reflect this sort of thing where couples promise on their wedding day to be married “as long as love lasts” or “as long as our marriage serves the greater good” Let’s just say that romantic love is a gift from God; it is a good thing. Yet it is not the only thing and it certainly is not the tie that binds us together. It is a wonderful product of a good relationship but not the sum total of marriage.

Marriage as Contract

Another view today is that marriage is simply a legal agreement between two people that affords certain mutual benefits upon couples. Health care rights, rights of survivor-ship, financial dealings, the ownership of goods and the custody and raising of children are defined by this thing called marriage. These things have been associated with marriage but they are certainly not what marriage is. Couples who have long lost that loving feeling may remain arranged in marriage for contractual reasons. It is better for the kids or it is better for the bottom line.

In a culture which tends to disparage marriage, people can look at this social arrangement as nothing more than a piece of paper. Movies such as “He’s Just Not That Into You” proclaim this view boldly. The romantic coupler says “our love is more than a piece of paper” and the “contractual negotiator” seeks to have sharing agreements without going through with marriage. Selfish men particularly like these sorts of arrangements because they get all they want from women without having any sort of real commitment. Women for some reason, maybe because they like men more than cats, play along with this “we have more than a piece of paper” shtick.

Marriage as Covenant

Though marriage certainly involves love, even romantic love, it is more than this. Though marriage certainly involves certain social and legal arrangements, it is more than this. Marriage at its essence is a covenant, a promise of two people to one another before God. New Testament scholar Andreas Köstenberger defines the covenantal view of marriage as follows:

Marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman instituted by and publically entered into before God (whether or not this is acknowledge by the married couple), normally consummated by sexual intercourse. ²

Scripture presents a challenging yet beautiful view of marriage. Men and women are each equal in value and standing before God. No one sex is superior or inferior but equally made in the image of God. Further, men and women are not the same in how God made us. We are designed as compliments to one another, have different roles in marriage designed with potential harmony in mind and not a battle of the sexes. Marriage also is designed to shape and mold our lives, bring us to confess and repent of sin and become more like Jesus together.

Furthermore, marriage is actually more about God and his purposes than it is about us. God in his kindness has chosen to bless human beings with marriage for their good and as a reflection of his faithful covenant love for his people. This is seen most clearly in the New Testament letter to the Ephesians. In this teaching we find both a blueprint for living our marriage covenants and God’s ultimate mysterious purpose for creating human beings to bond in this way.

Ephesians 5:22-33

Instruction for Wives

Paul’s instruction to wives is that they submit to and order their lives under the leadership of their husbands. The verb submit in Ephesians five is actually in the middle voice, indicating the wife’s voluntary choice to be on her husband’s team. She is called to this by God, not commanded to do so by her husband. Submission should never be the demand of a man but rather a response of a wife to the design and plan of God for marriage. Furthermore, Scripture does not teach that all women submit to men. This is only for her husbands so let me encourage the young women like I am already teaching my own daughters. If a man is not the type of person you want to follow, don’t marry the fool. What sort of man then should the Christian woman seek—one that is committed to Jesus and walking in his way. Which leads to the exhortation for husbands.

Instruction for Husbands

Husbands are called to love their wives. Yet not just any sort of definition of “love.” Rather, husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loves the church. This means that a husband should lead his wife not as a lord of the manor but as a sacrificial servant. Leadership in marriage should be in the way of Jesus not in the way of the world. Jesus described this sort of leadership to his followers in this way:

²⁵But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. ²⁶It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,²⁷and whoever would be first among you must be your slave,²⁸even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Matthew 20:25-28 (ESV)

His own example was to put a towel around his waist and wash the feet of his disciples (see John 13). Husbands should follow his lead with their wives. Just for the guys, I wrote a little bit on how I seek to love my own wife here on the blog. Take it for what it is worth.

Our Struggles

The teaching of Scripture is clear but this does not mean that our hearts willfully submit to God and his designs for our marriages. In fact, our sinful nature struggles deeply to follow this teaching. Men and women both wrestle with submission and service. Both our struggles flow from our desire to be self-focused, self-guided, individuals rather than one flesh in covenant with God. The following charts illustrate for both wives and husbands the uniqueness of being a husband or a wife and the struggles with sin we face as we seek to be faithful to God’s designs and purposes for our marriages.

Wives
Calling by God	Out of reverence for Christ follow him by respecting your husbands (Ephesians 5:21, 33)
Role we live	Helper (Genesis 2:18)
Response to our Spouse	Submission (Ephesians 5:22-24)
Temptation and Sin	Belittling your husband, disrespecting him, nagging, being overly critical and beating him down Being passive and not being helpful by using your gifts, passions and leadership in the family

Husbands
Calling by God	Out of reverence for Christ follow him by loving your wives (Ephesians 5:21, 25-30)
Role we live	Servant Leader (Ephesians 5:23, 25)
Response to our Spouse	Praise (Proverbs 31, particularly verse 28)
Temptation and Sin	Being a tyrant with your wife. Being heavy handed and an authoritarian who abuses his leadership role Being passive and absent from your leadership role. Abdicating your responsibility. Frustrating your wife with your lack of action, planning, prayer and leadership

God’s vision for marriage is designed to deeply bless us. If we trust him with our lives and follow his Word, marriage can be a resounding joy to our lives. Living life apart from his Word can make marriage a massive mess. Furthermore, God is mysteriously displaying his gracious love as is shown in Ephesians 5:31-33.

31Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.32This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

As we live in marriage, we may experience the love of a husband or the respect of a wife and by doing so LIFE will illustrate DOCTRINE. Faithful covenant love is seen in and through a relationship on the earth. It is a great and gracious vision for our lives.

Notes

1. Cheesy use of the lyrics of Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, “Joy and Pain”, It Takes Two, Profile Records, 1988.
2. Andreas J. Köstenberger and David W. Jones, God, Marriage and Family—Rebuilding the Biblical Foundations (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2004) 85.   

Bell Canada - For the win...

Americans have a hard time admitting that Canada has something up on our country other than geographical location on the earth.  But it seems clear to me that Bell Canada has a bit more saavy when it comes to adveristing a PHONE. In the US, the Palm Pre has been pitched with this crazy looking girl saying all sorts of strange things looking like she needs to go ahead and walk into the light. Bell Canada had a crazy idea - go show off the PHONE to real people. Hmm…maybe people intersted in getting a new phone would benefit from knowing just what it does. Nice facebook usage as well…

If you didn’t believe me about the Palm Pre US commercials…check this one out. Wow, I’m just not so inspired…

By the way, the reason nobody has any memory of their last life is that they didn’t have one. Simple…and it has nothing to do with a Palm Pre. Which is quite a nice phone by the way.

Wise guys...

Wisdom, as related to human beings, may simply be defined as the life quality that enables one to make good choices in the complicated circumstances of life in order to walk a good path. For the follower of Jesus, wisdom is the art of godly living.

Every culture knows that there is a way to live that is rightly called foolishness. There really is a way to waste your life and fizzle your days away filled with folly. We are always seeking wisdom from others yet many times we go all over the place looking to figure out how life works.

Bookstores are jammed full with self-help books offering wisdom to the seeker. Movies and literature are filled with wise characters (Yoda and Gandalf the gray being some of my favorites). There is never a shortage of gurus being paraded out on the Oprah Winfrey show. Usually they are western dudes dabbling in eastern philosophy who write books and get paid.

Ironically, we are people who are surrounded by impressive knowledge but seem to be profoundly lacking in wisdom. Our culture seems to have a deficit of wisdom as we tend to float like empty ballasts upon a sea of nothingness. I offer Reality TV as proof. Seriously, how many times can a chic fall in love in the course of weeks with multiple dudes and make out with all of them in a hot tub?

We may know how to split the atom, make machines talks, decode the genome and scan the electrical activities of our brains but we remain unsure about how to make life work. In our search for meaning and happiness wisdom is offered to us yet not all wisdom is not created equal you know.

All Wisdoms Not Created Equal

Scripture speaks of several ways of being wise that will not offer us much help in life. Appearing at first to be good ways to live but in the end they are bankrupt in offering us the guidance we need. We’ll look here at two.

Wise in our own Eyes

The book of Proverbs, a great biblical book that contains true wisdom, teaches us that there is a way to be wise in our own eyes. The person wise in their own eyes is called a fool in Scripture because he measures the rightness of every path by his own opinion alone. Our own opinions must be weighed and at times followed, but if the source of our own wisdom is not given a broader point of view we can be self-deceived. The third Hebrew proverb offers us great instruction here:

1My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, 2for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. 3Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. 4So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. 5Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. 7Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. 8It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Proverbs 3:1-8 (ESV)

Here we see wisdom coming from the teaching of a Father reflecting the wisdom of following God’s paths for life. I’m not wanting to meddle with the idea that we Americans hold dear—that we should trust our own heart above all things. I hope to completely blow it up. We are not isolated individuals, we need wisdom from God and other wise people rather than a crowd of fools encouraging us to just listen to whatever your heart tells you.

So wisdom cannot emerge from ourselves alone; the Bible warns of this extreme. Yet it is not always found among the horde and the throng and we are warned also of the wisdom of crowds.

Wisdom of the World

The book of James contains some of the most compelling discussion of wisdom in the New Testament. James 1 teaches us that when we lack wisdom we should ask God to give us some (more on this in a bit). James 3 gives us an interesting contrast between wisdom that is from above and the ways and wisdom of the world.

13Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3:13-18 (ESV)

Old pastor James is so blunt is he not? He teaches us that there is a wisdom from God that leads to a certain kind of life together which reflects peace, gentleness, reasonableness, mercy, fruitful and sincere lives together. When we get to being jealous of one another, our more focused on ourselves and our Kingdom rather than the Kingdom of Jesus we are walking in different kind of wisdom. This James calls earthly, unspiritual and demonic.

Though America has been shaped by a rugged individualism it has also contained a collectivist view as well. In recent times this has been heightened and now we think there is wisdom in any crowd. We have written business books about crowd sourcing1, the internet lets us vote on everything and our politicians are always talking about this vague and amorphous thing called “the will of the American people.” Whereas being wise in our own eyes is one dangerous extreme, just following the worldly wisemen of our crowds is certainly another.

18Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 1 Corinthians 3:18-20 (ESV)

The letter of 1 Corinthians makes it clear that the wisdom of the world is folly with God as it seeks to guide human life and affairs apart from him. As God is the author and creator of life, God is also the one who knows how he made humanity to function. To claim wisdom while living apart from Him is the Scriptures definition of folly and futility (Proverbs 1:7, Proverbs 9:10)

Wisdom from God

God is said in Scripture to be all wise. JI Packer describes this as meaning he chooses the best and noblest end at which to aim, along with the most appropriate and effective means to it.2 If we desire true wisdom it must be from above, grounded upon and dependent up the wisdom of God. Let’s take a little detour for a moment to illustrate this by talking about worldview.

Wisdom is indeed relative among human beings. Whether something is ultimately wise or foolish depends upon your point of view. One mans foolishness might be another’s deep wisdom. Yet there is a worldview that is quite different than a limited, temporal, finite view that we each have.

A worldview, or Weltanschauung, is a complete way of seeing life. Each of us has a set of beliefs regarding the origin, meaning, value and purpose of our lives. Wisdom would have her way with us when we live in a way consistently with such purposes. If the purpose of life is to stay drunk and naked, then one is wise to do so. If it is not the purpose for human life, then one is a fool to spend his days in like fashion.

I hope you see the reason we need wisdom that is from above. We need God to reveal to us the way in life that is truly good, right and true not simply what we want that to be. There is a reason why Jesus is called the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Colossians 2:1-10). Jesus is the path of wisdom for us revealed. His way of life, his teaching, his work and the good news of his death, burial and resurrection for us is the grid by which wisdom is known.

In light of this, followers of Jesus can avoid being wise in their own eyes by looking to Jesus for wisdom. In the same way, we can avoid being captivated by the crowd by standing firm in his truth as mockers call us fools. Wisdom is acting and following in concert with the truth that is in Jesus and his Word. If we are wise it is in him, if we are fools in this life for choosing him over all else, we revel in that privilege.

On Becoming Wise

Let me close by saying wisdom is something that grows in us progressively as we walk with God in his world. It is no coincidence that the ancients saw the elderly as a source of wisdom; they have lived more life with God and have learned from him through teaching and experience. Proverbs 20:29 teaches us that the glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair. It is not always the case that old age = wisdom3 but there is a general principle here that we can learn and deepen in wisdom over time. The tragic story of King Rehoboam ignoring the wisdom of the elderly for the counsel of some punk young men is a classic example of this principle. You can read this in 1 Kings 12 in the Old Testament. In closing here are some simple ways we grow in wisdom if we are faithful to sit at her feet over time.

Study and listening to God’s Word

God has revealed himself through his Word that we can study, read, listen, meditate upon and obey. Over time we gain the ability to discern good from evil (Hebrews 5:11-14) by the constant practice of the teaching of God. Learning and following over time results in becoming wise.

Heeding the words of the Wise

Proverbs 11:14 reads, Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety. Further Proverbs 24:6 teaches us that in an abundance of counselors there victory. Of course, the counselors must actually be wise, but the point is that we can learn from others if we listen. In fact the book of Proverbs begins by with these words:Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. Our parents, our pastors and our community of faith has wise counsel for us…but we don’t always listen.

Learning the Hard Way

The final way we learn is the hard way. This is where we do foolish stuff and we reap the reality. We all have been here have we not? God is kind and will discipline us to help us walk in wisdom. Yet as I tell my kids, you can learn just by listening to me—but like Bill Cosby once said, some children simply cannot get by without a good beating.4

I do not claim to be a wise guy, but I have been around the block a few times. My counsel is that we listen and follow Jesus together—our only wise God and Savior…

Notes

1. James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds (New York: Random House, 2004)
2. J. I. Packer, Concise Theology : A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1995, c1993).
3. A notable passage is Job 32:9—of course old people can be foolish too, the point is wisdom does come with experience.
4. See Bill Cosby, “The Same Thing Happens Every Night” Available online at http://www.last.fm/music/Bill+Cosby/_/Same+Thing+Happens+Every+Night—worth a few minutes to laugh.

An Exercise in Refuting Ridiculousness

Yesterday a buddy sent me a note regarding a video YouTube that his friend said was a good argument against Christianity. Always interested in the arguments used against the faith I checked it out without much delay.  What I found was simply an exercise in ridiculousness. At first I was going to offer a point by point refutation of this but what disturbed me most was not his rhetoric (I can’t even call it an argument).  What disturbed me most is that any Christian would not have the basic understanding of the New Testament to just laugh when hearing this guy. Unfortunately too many American churches just may have been busy doing laser light shows on Sundays and teaching repeated series on sex, money, marriage and how to be a winner.

So, what I want to do instead of refuting this is to interact with you guys and let you refute it.  Let’s call it a joint POCBlog “learn in.”  So here is the plan.  Watch the video below.  Then in the comments (if you are reading this on Facebook, go to the blog here to post your comments) list what you hear that is wrong with his argument and offer some thoughts. I’ll weigh in along the way as well and we’ll learn together how to refute this sort of rhetoric not uncommon from Muslim apologists in the West.

Are you game? Drop the knowledge below…I’ll provide a bibliography of sources at some point for reading on the history of the New Testament, but for now lets just do some work together.

Here is the first part of the assignment:

Making the most of the time...

I am teaching a passage on wisdom, time and a Spirit filled life in the gospel on Sunday. I came across this interesting study at the NYTimes on how Americans use their time - very nice use of interactive technology. You need to check this out and see how the average American uses their time. You can look at stuff by age, education level etc.

My question is this - Are you average? How do we want to spend our free time? It has been my opinion for years that way in which we spend our “free” time dictates what sort of life we have and impact we make with others. This is our moment in history - how will we spend our days?

Check it out here

15Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Ephesians 5:15-17 (ESV)

To Change or Not to Change...Your Name

Ladies, USA Today is reporting on a recent study that says 70% of all brides think changing to your husbands last name upon mariage is the way to go.  Here is a paragraph from the essay which I think makes the issue very clear:

Respondents who said that women should change their names tended to view it as important for establishing a marital and family identity, she says, while those who thought women should keep their own names focused on the importance of a woman establishing a professional or individual identity.

Ladies, all the ladies, louder now, help me out.  What do you think? To change or not to change the name - that is my question? Hit the comments below…