A Quick Question

If a group of men at church ask a woman to lead a prayer publicly, is she "usurping authority" if she does or if she doesn't?

(This is just a thought exercise, folks; I'm not trying to be a "change-agent".)

Monkeys in a Cage

The following comes from an unknown source, but seems applicable to how we sometimes do things in the church.

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Start with a cage containing five monkeys.

Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.

After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done round here.

And that, my friends, is how company policies are made.

Meeting in the Synagogue

Most Christians know that the early Christians met in the Temple complex and in their own homes (house churches), and by river sides, and later in catacombs, etc. I suspect most even think (without having given it any thought) that the early Christians actually built their own little brick assembly buildings with a sign out front announcing that "the Church of Christ meets here, Sunday AM 9:00, Sun PM 6:00, Wed PM 7:00".

But few, I think realize that they also met in synagogues. For the first fourteen years of the church, the church was exclusively Jewish. And these Jews had been meeting in the synagogue all their lives. Once converted, they did not cease this habit; in fact, Yahshua expected them to continue that habit, Saul expected that's where he'd find these "heretics", and James refers to their synagogue meeting.

^{HCSB John 16:2} They will ban you from the synagogues. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God.

^{HCSB Acts 9:1} Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest ² and requested letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, either men or women, he might bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

^{HCSB Acts 26:11} In all the synagogues I often tried to make them blaspheme by punishing them. Being greatly enraged at them, I even pursued them to foreign cities.

^{YLT James 2:1}My brethren, hold not, in respect of persons, the faith of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, ²for if there may come into your synagogue a man with gold ring, in gay raiment, and there may come in also a poor man in vile raiment,³and ye may look upon him bearing the gay raiment, and may say to him, `Thou -- sit thou here well,' and to the poor man may say, `Thou -- stand thou there, or, Sit thou here under my footstool,' -- ⁴ye did not judge fully in yourselves, and did become ill-reasoning judges

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S'mikeh Authority

^{HCSB Matt 18:20} For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them.

I would like to caution against taking passages out of context. All my life I've heard this Matthew 18:20 reference cited to prove that "church" could be any grouping of Christians, down to the smallest number which might constitute a group.

But that's not what the passage is about; the passage is about the church's authority to make/apply rules in individual situations. In the Jewish Rabbinic culture in which Yahshua and his disciples were raised, the various religious authorities (this rabbi vs that rabbi; this school of thought vs that school of thought) would "bind" or "loose" various aspects of the Law of Moses depending on the situation.

For example, one rabbi would teach that if a donkey needed help on the Sabbath (doctoring, pulling out of a pit, etc) the needs of the donkey took precedence over the rules regarding doing no work on the Sabbath, whereas a different rabbi would insist that the donkey's needs must wait until the Sabbath had passed. Yahshua used this very issue to show that human needs take precedence over legal strictures, when he healed the man with the crippled hand on the Sabbath, which put him on the Pharisees' hit-list (Mark 3:1-6).

These various doctrinal "packages" from the various schools of thought / rabbis were called "yokes". Yahshua said his yoke was easy.

Most rabbis were average, run-of-the-mill rabbis, who could teach what had been determined by rabbis having authority, but they could not glean/apply "new" meaning from the text and teach it. They were limited to teaching what the community considered to be orthodox.

But a rare few rabbis were "s'mikeh rabbis", rabbis who had authority. (s'mikeh is pronounced something like "smee-hah!".) Within the previous generation, both Hillel and Gamaliel had been s'mikeh rabbis. When Yahshua came teaching as one having authority rather than like the scribes (Mark 1:22), it astonished his listeners. The officials then challenged him, asking how he had become a s'mikeh rabbi, and he answered them in typical Jewish fashion with his own question, asking them whether John the Immerser had s'mikeh. His implication was that he had gotten his authoritative position at least partially from John. (A s'mikeh rabbi had to be so endowed by two authorities: John was one; God (in the form of a dove descending on him post-immersion) was the other.) The officials refused to answer Yahshua's question, so he refused to answer theirs, again, in typical Jewish fashion.

In the context of Matthew 18:20, Yahshua is teaching his disciples that he is giving them s'mikeh, the authority to bind and loose. If two of these new s'mikeh rabbis agreed on anything, then that would be the "law" in the church. We later see an example of this in Acts 15, when the church elders and apostles gather together to decide the issue of what would be required of the new Gentile converts: do they have to convert to Judaism and be good Jews in order to be Christians, or not? (The decision was no, the Gentiles did not have to convert to Judaism in order to be Christians.)

For convenience, here's the context of the passage:

^{HCSB Matt 18:15} "If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. ¹⁶ But if he won't listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. ¹⁷ If he pays no attention to them, tell the church. But if he doesn't pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you. ¹⁸ I assure you: Whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven. ¹⁹ Again, I assure you: If two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them.

Go Ye Therefore Into all the World...

You grew up hearing Matthew 28:19 rendered thusly:

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: ....
(KJV)

Problem is, as I understand it, that's not what the Greek says. Instead, it says:

So wherever you go, make disciples of all nations: Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
(GOD'S WORD Translation)

or

Therefore, as you go, disciple people in all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit....
(International Standard Version)

And as long as I'm beating up on the King James Version, Acts 2:47 does not say:

Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.
(KJV)

Instead, the word translated "church" is the Greek "auto", meaning "self" or "same". Thus the verse should be rendered something more like:

Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the same people daily such as should be saved. (my rendering)

or

praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved. (ERV)

Three Gospels?

I've recently been exposed to a teaching that there are three gospels mentioned in the Bible (http://yesforfamilies.com/covenant/book/ - I've not yet finished reading this, so there may be more comment/retraction to come):

1) the gospel preached to Abraham

2) the gospel of the kingdom of God

3) the gospel of Jesus Christ

The idea is that there have been different gospels at different times and with different peoples.

At first that piqued my interest, but as I consider it further, I see that all three of these gospels are really one and the same.

The good news ("gospel") preached to Abraham (Gal 3:8-9) is that God would justify all nations, including non-Jews, by faith.

⁸ Now the Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and foretold the good news to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed in you. ⁹ So those who have faith are blessed with Abraham, who had faith.

The good news ("gospel") as summarized by Paul elsewhere (1 Cor 15:1-8) is that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and appeared to several hundred people, including the apostles.

¹ Now brothers, I want to clarify for you the gospel I proclaimed to you; you received it and have taken your stand on it. ² You are also saved by it, if you hold to the message I proclaimed to you—unless you believed to no purpose. ³ For I passed on to you as most important what I also received:

that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

⁴ that He was buried,

that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

⁵ and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.

⁶ Then He appeared to over 500 brothers at one time,

most of whom remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.

⁷ Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

⁸ Last of all, as to one abnormally born, He also appeared to me.

The "first" gospel is not a different gospel than the "second": it's merely emphasizing the what instead of the how. All nations are justified by faith in and because of the death, burial, resurrection, and appearance of Jesus.

This one gospel is contrasted with the false gospel of Galatians 1 and 2: The true good news is that all nations will be justified by faith (Gal 3:8-9) via the death, burial, resurrection, and appearance of Jesus (1 Cor 15:1-8); the false good news of Gal 1:6-9 was that we are justified by works of the law (Gal 2:15).

The good news ("gospel") which Jesus preached during his three years of ministry was that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near (Mark 1:14-15).

¹⁴ After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, preaching the good news of God: ¹⁵ "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.

Again, this is not a different, third gospel; it's the same, simply worded differently: Justification is in the kingdom of God, established at the cross.

The good news is that the kingship of Jesus has come, established by his death, burial, resurrection, and appearance, and that this process enables God to justify all nations by faith. To separate this one package of good news into three separate packages is to miss that they are all essentially the same thing, just worded differently.

So:

True Good News - the kingdom of God has arrived, established by the death, burial, resurrection, and appearance of Jesus, which provides justification to all nations by faith.

False Good News - we are justified by works of the law

(All references from the Holman Christian Standard Bible)

A Reason for Suffering

From Deuteronomy 8 (The Message, modified):

Remember every road that YHWH led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don't live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from YHWH's mouth. Your clothes didn't wear out and your feet didn't blister those forty years. You learned deep in your heart that YHWH disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.

So it's paramount that you keep the commandments of YHWH, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. YHWH is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It's a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It's land where you'll never go hungry—always food on the table and a roof over your head. It's a land where you'll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.

After a meal, satisfied, bless YHWH, your God, for the good land he has given you.

Make sure you don't forget YHWH, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don't become so full of yourself and your things that you forget YHWH, your God,

the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;
the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;
the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;
the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.

If you start thinking to yourselves, "I did all this. And all by myself. I'm rich. It's all mine!"—well, think again. Remember that YHWH, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth ....

I'm Righteous! I'm Righteous! Therefore I'm Saved!

A bit earlier today I was reading in the book of Job. As you know, Job was blessed in many ways by God, then Satan challenged God that Job was only a righteous man because God blessed him, and that he would turn from God if God took away his blessings, and God allowed Satan to take away God's blessings from Job as a test of Job.

During the resulting suffering that Job underwent, four friends came along, and three of them tried to convince Job that he had done something wrong. Job kept claiming that he hadn't done anything wrong, but that God was doing wrong by him.

Eventually the fourth friend, Elihu, spoke up, and said that the first three, although older and presumably wiser, were not wise, and he spoke his peace.

Finally, God Himself spoke, and castigated Job for thinking he was oh-so-righteous and knew better than God did, but that Job was right, he hadn't done anything wrong to deserve the suffering. God also forced the first three friends to apologize (via sacrifice), saying He was angry with the three friends. But He spoke nothing of the fourth friend who spoke last, which is interesting, because of what was said about the fourth friend just before he began his speech:

^{HCSB Job 32:2} Then Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite from the family of Ram became angry. He was angry at Job because he had justified himself rather than God.

Job did everything right, but what got him into trouble with God (or at least Elihu) is that Job justified himself by his right-doing, rather than giving the credit to God.

Genesis 6:22 says that "Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him", but that's not what saved him and his family. Instead, "By his faith Noah ... received the righteousness that comes by faith" (Heb 11:7 NLT).

Don't trust in your own right-ness. Instead, have faith that the right-ness of Yahshua is given to you by God's grace, and then do the right thing.

A Dream with a Message

I had a dream the other night. Although it was more detailed, this is the basic jist.

I was going on a job interview unexpectedly and wasn't attired appropriately. I was on a road trip (maybe as a 20-something, with "the guys"?), and was dressed accordingly: ratty jeans, stained t-shirt, river-wading sneakers, hadn't bathed in two days, scraggly beard, etc.

The woman with whom I would be interviewing was known to be demanding, and it was clear that she would not approve of my appearance, and I had nearly zero chance of getting a job.

Yet I knew something that astounded me, and it is this message that I believe God sent via my dream. I knew that when she challenged me on my unkempt appearance at a job interview, I was going to answer with the following, which I believed entirely:

It's not your choice whether or not I get a job. That's God's choice. You just think it's your choice.

When I woke up, I realized that is true. We think we have control over this or that, because we have the position/power/ability/whatever. But like Pharoah who thought he was making decisions about the Israelites, it's all God.

Where God wants us, is where we'll be. It's in our best mental health interest to accept/acknowledge His control over our lives, and quit thinking we're in control.

At least, that's the message that so strongly rang out to me in my dream.

The Third Heaven

The apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:2ff, writes:

² I know a man in Christ who was caught up into the third heaven 14 years ago. Whether he was in the body or out of the body, I don't know; God knows. ³ I know that this man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— ⁴ was caught up into paradise. He heard inexpressible words, which a man is not allowed to speak....

Much mental effort has been expended trying to figure out how many levels of heaven there are, and what those levels are.

But the more I think about it, the more I suspect that we make a mistake to approach this issue from a Western mindset. I don't believe Paul is telling us that he's been to Level 3 of 7 levels, or 3 of 28, or whatever.

If you search Biblegateway for the term "heaven", and try to figure out what the terms mean as you look at each reference found, you'll find there's a lot of crossover between usages. Sometimes the heavens are eternal; sometimes they're temporary. Sometimes God dwells in the highest heaven; sometimes He dwells above the highest heaven. Sometimes the stars are in heaven, sometimes rain comes from heaven. In other words, there's no Western-thought-type consistency in what/where heaven is, and we damage the text to try and force-fit an Eastern text into a Western mindset.

Instead, ask yourself what the number three meant to an Eastern mind of the time.

The number 1 usually referred to God ("God is One"), and the number 2 usually referred to humanity (Adam and Eve), so the number 3 referred to the union of God and Humanity (1 + 2 = 3).

From another angle, animals had a body of flesh (1 - Gen 6:17), and the breath of life (2 - Gen 6:17), just as humans did. But humans also had the image of God (3 - Gen 1:26), so again, 3 refers to the union of the worldly image with God's image.

When Paul writes of the third heaven, it seems to me that he's saying he went to a place beyond the two heavens where the birds fly and the stars dwell; he went to the place where God receives human visitors. He went to God's guest parlor, so to speak.

I'm no expert in Eastern thinking, by any stretch. But I seriously doubt that Paul's reference is correctly approached from a Western way of thinking.

I may be wrong.

The Format of Church

Many of us have grown up with the idea that church consists of most of the members sitting quietly in the pews, only opening their mouths for singing or an occasional "Amen", while the leaders, particularly the preacher, speak from a raised platform, lecturing the quiet members.

But I contend this is more a format we've retained from 2000 years of tradition rather than gleaning from New Testament principles.

Even in the very first Gospel sermon, in Acts 2, there was give-and-take dialog rather than a strict lecture format.

The apostles spoke as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:4). The people around asked what was happening, and some accused the apostles of being drunk (2:5-12). Peter addressed the crowd with his answer (14-36). The people again began to chatter and discuss (2:37). Peter again responded with his answer (2:38ff).

Then for the next few chapters there's a lot of brief history that doesn't really focus on church assemblies as such, but in chapter 20 we do find a church assembly, and in this assembly, Paul "dialogs" and "discourses" with the church. Note that he does not lecture, but that he "discusses", "reasons", "converses", "communes", "talks with" them (see Strong's Greek Dictionary, #1256 dialegomai, and #3656, homileo).

In the previous chapter, "^{Acts 19:8} [Paul] entered the synagogue and spoke boldly over a period of three months, engaging in discussion and trying to persuade them about the things related to the kingdom of God." Again, it's not a lecture; it's a discussion.

Looking closely at other hints in the New Testament, it appears that most of the assembling was about dialoging with each other rather than passively sitting and listening to a lecturer. 1 Tim 1:5 refers to those whose discussions have become unfruitful.

Turning to the church in Corinth, Paul does not instruct the members to sit quietly and listen to a lecture; instead, he says:

^{The Message 1 Cor 14:26-33}So here's what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: Sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight. If prayers are offered in tongues, two or three's the limit, and then only if someone is present who can interpret what you're saying. Otherwise, keep it between God and yourself. And no more than two or three speakers at a meeting, with the rest of you listening and taking it to heart. Take your turn, no one person taking over. Then each speaker gets a chance to say something special from God, and you all learn from each other. If you choose to speak, you're also responsible for how and when you speak. When we worship the right way, God doesn't stir us up into confusion; he brings us into harmony. This goes for all the churches—no exceptions.

Notice, it's not chaos, but neither is it everyone sitting being passive. He wants the members to be involved in some way to build up the others, with the speaking roles not taking over.

We also tend to think that church and eating are two different things. But to the same church in Corinth, Paul writes just three chapters earlier that when they come together to eat their meal combined with their observance of the Lord's Supper, they need to not be selfish about eating, but to rather wait on one another and eat as a family (1 Cor 11:17ff).

And we see the same church assembly/eating activity in Acts 20:7ff.

And we have the example which Jesus set for us in the very beginning, where the first Lord's Supper was incorporated into a meal (Mk 14:12ff).

Please do not get me wrong: I am not saying that the format to which we're accustomed is wrong. I am not saying that we should not have sermons/lectures.

I am saying two things:

1)
Our traditional way of doing things has turned the bulk of the church body into do-nothing, passive listeners, and that we need to rethink how we do things. Should we have pews, or chairs/couches facing each other? Should we remove the podium altogether, or move it to the center of the group, or lower it, or replace the lectern with a chair? (Jesus sat when he taught; Matt 5:1-2; Luke 4:20-21). Should we encourage discussion, or continue with the lecture format?

and

2)
Our traditional way of doing things may be marginalizing those people who don't fit into our traditional way of doing things. I'm thinking of those people who need a little chaos in order to learn. As a teen, I needed music blaring in my ear in order to study my school stuff. But that would not be allowed in our traditional way of doing things. Someone else may need to busy one part of their brain with a game on their cell phone in order to pay attention with another part of their brain to the sermon. Someone else may need lots of colors and artwork and sculptures in the building to feel comfortable enough to learn, and can't learn in our traditional blah color-scheme decorated by ... nothing.

I'm just asking you to rethink whether the format you know as "Church" is really Biblical, or just traditional. If it is just traditional, is there a format that is more Biblical, or that might would appeal to different learning styles?

Or is that what different congregations are for? The Northside Congregation is designed for fuddy-duddies; the Southside Congregation is designed for artsy-touchy-feely types? I think that might be a workable solution, provided that the Northside church does not condemn the Southside for their "unBiblical" format, and vice-versa.

God made us all different. Let's not condemn each other because they don't fit in with the way we learn. That person may need to play with his cellphone while sitting passively during a sermon; but he may need to move to the back to not distract those around him. Or he may need to stand and sway back and forth rather than sit for 20 minutes at a time. Move him to a place where he does not distract you; don't condemn him for not being you.

Let all things be done for edification (1 Cor 14:26); don't mistake your style of learning as being the Biblical style, and don't make the mistake of thinking that your style of learning works for everyone.

Dying, You Shall Die

Notice the structure of this verse:

^{HCSB 1 Kings 2:37} On the day you do leave and cross the Kidron Valley, know for sure that you will certainly die.

It's the same structure we find in Genesis, when God warns Adam and Eve against eating the forbidden fruit:

^{HCSB Gen2:17} ...on the day you eat from [the tree of the knowledge of good and evil], you will certainly die."

On the day you do something, you will certainly die, or know you'll certainly die.

In the Hebrew, this "certainly die" is muwth-muwth - or "die-die". The meaning behind this repetition is that "dying, you will die".

So, in Genesis, on the day that Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, he was as good as dead, and on the day that Shimei violated his house-arrest by crossing the Kidron Valley on the way out of town, he should realize that he was as good as dead.

In both cases, the death is not immediate, but it is sealed. In Adam's case, it was immediately apparent because of physical changes that started taking place, including his realization that he was naked and needed covering. In Shimei's case, he probably thought no one would notice.

The Night Grannie Died

As I remember the story (and I'm sure I'm misremembering how it was told to me), one late night out in the country in the first half of the 1900's my family was gathered at the old home-place, where Great-Grannie was in bed, sick. After dark, the folks noticed a ball of fire fly by overhead, and the men-folk gave chase to investigate. The ball of fire ran along the ground ahead of them, and disappeared under the house in which Great-Grannie was lying, and was seen no more.

That night, Great-Grannie died.

As a young man hearing this story, I was fascinated by this tale of what I later came to believe was just a coincidence involving the rare phenomenon of ball-lightning. Too bad I don't have any of the really old-timers around anymore to ask how close my story is to their recollections of it.

Jesus = Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

I had never noticed this before.

^{HCSB Matt 28:19} Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit....

It says "name", not "title". The terms "Father", "Son", and "Holy Spirit" are all titles, not names.

It also says "name" (singular), not "names" (plural).

Many of us have been "baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit", as Matthew indicates we should be, but it's interesting to note that in the book of Acts, at least some of the conversions are done in an actual name, and not in three titles:

^{HCSB Acts 2:38} "Repent," Peter said to them, "and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

and

^{HCSB Acts:8:16} For He had not yet come down on any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

and

^{HCSB Acts 10:48} And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

and

^{HCSB Acts:195} On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

So it becomes pretty clear that the one name of "Jesus" is equivalent to the three titles of "Father", "Son", and "Holy Ghost", and to be immersed in the name of Jesus is to be immersed in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I Come to Give Praise ....

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen the movie, "The Sixth Sense", and don't want to ruin the plot, do not read the next paragraph.

You recall in the movie how the Bruce Willis character had all sorts of evidences presented to him that he was dead, but he never saw them until a final piece triggered the flashbacks of all the evidences. This happened to me yesterday.

I was raised on "Star Trek"'s Mister Spock: cold, logical, emotionless. And whereas I'm not emotionless (even less so as I get older), I do tend to drop into a Mr. Spock mode, especially in a debate situation. I approach the debate as logically as I can, leaving the emotion at home.

The problem is that this worldview, so to speak, has caused me to miss the evidences before my eyes that I can be hypercritical; I see something wrong, I point it out. It's nothing personal. It's just logical that if it's wrong, it should be made right.

Yesterday, a friend called me on this, and I realized that I often criticize him without giving him praise. I think highly of him, but he doesn't hear that; all he ever hears is the criticism. And when that clicked in my brain, I had a bunch of flashbacks about the same treatment I give to other people, especially those I love.

So to you who get my criticisms, I'm sorry. I can't promise I'll remember tomorrow, or next week, that I've decided to offer more praise than criticism, but as of right now, this moment, that's my decision.

You have my permission to help hold me to it.

And you especially have my request to help me learn to do it, to make it a habit.

Being of One Mind

I recently heard a whispered comment in relation to some of the New Testament passages to "be of the same mind". The comment was:

Being of the same mind, we have to think the same things.

That's the way I was raised, and what I believed most of my life. But here I'd like to see if I can present a different perspective.

Philippians 2
--------------------

One of the passages for supporting this position is Philippians 2:2,5:

^{NKJV Philippians 2:2} fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. ... ⁵ Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus....

This quote sounds like we are to "think the same things". But I believe that is going beyond what the passage actually says.

Looking at the broader context, particularly verses 6 and following, Paul is talking about an attitude, not a doctrinal stance. He's saying, "Humble yourselves; be a servant, like Christ was". He's saying, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit" (v3), but to have an humble attitude that accepts the other guy.

He is not saying, in either verse, to "think the same things"; he's saying, in context, "get along with each other".

This follows the example which Jesus himself set in picking his apostles. He picked common laborer fishermen, and he picked an "I'm holier than thou" Pharisee, and he picked a couple of guerrilla-fighter zealots, and he picked a despised, hated, not-to-be-associated-with-at-any-cost-don't-even-touch-him "filthy scum" tax collector. As this disparate group spent time with and learned from Jesus, their ways of thinking began to get similar, but thinking the same thing was not the mark of discipleship; instead, the mark of discipleship was love for each other. He did not say, "You can't be my disciples until you all think alike." He told them:

^{NKJV John 13:35} By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

We also see this from the first few decades of church history. In the beginning, only Law-keeping Jews were Christians. When non-Law-keeping Gentiles were invited into the church by God, the Jews who kept the Mosaic Law at first thought the Gentiles had to become converted Jews in the process of becoming Christians. Although several passages in Acts indicate this, it's plainly spelled out in chapter 15:

^{NKJV Acts 15:1} And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

For several decades there were essentially two groups of believers within the church: the "Jews who have believed" which stressed the keeping of the law (Acts 21:21), and the "Gentiles who believe" (Acts 21:25), who did not need to keep the law, except for four specifics (Acts 21:25), to keep peace between the two groups.

These two groups were "like-minded" in that they got along with each other, but they were not "like-minded" in that they did not "think the same things".

We, in the 21st century, forget that God approved of two very different ways of thinking, divided into two very different groups, in His first-century church. By forgetting that scriptural lesson, we make the mistake of thinking that modern-day Christians can not have vastly different ways of thinking and doing things but must instead "think the same things". I daresay that if we had a Jewish church of Christ across the street from the church of Christ I attend, which stressed the keeping of the Mosaic Law (not for justification purposes but for cultural purposes), most of us at my congregation would dismiss them as non-Christians, and would have nothing to do with them except perhaps to try and "convert" them. God did not dismiss them; who are we to cause a division where God has not? Instead, we should be marked for being divisive in such a case (Rom 16:17).

I believe it's true that if we use the Bible as our standard, our thinking will more and more focus into thinking the same things, but I don't believe the Philippians 2 passage as quoted above can be used (in context) as a proof-text for that concept.

Romans 15
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Neither can Romans 15:5-6 be used, in context, to support the idea that Christians must "think the same things". The passage says:

^{NKJV Rom 15:5} Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, ⁶ that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Putting the passage back into its context, we find the next verse says that we are to "receive one another", not that we are to think like one another. The previous chapter makes this even more clear, in which we are taught that some Christians have no problem eating meat, whereas some do; some Christians observe special days as holy; some do not. But it's no matter that they don't "think the same things"; what matters is that each person has his own beliefs which are between himself and God (Rom 14:4,9,12), and that we are not to dispute over questionable matters (14:1 (even if one party feels the matter is not questionable)), and that we are to receive each other (14:1), pursue peace with one another (14:19), and to keep your own beliefs to yourself before God (14:22) rather than forcing them on the weaker brother.

(Some brothers might claim that people who celebrate Christmas as a "holy day", as Jesus' birthday, or Easter as a holy day, or, horrors! Passover, are not really Christians. But Paul makes it clear that observing holy days is not an issue (even if Christmas did start out as a pagan holiday, is not Biblical, and has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus); therefore we should not make it an issue.)

The point is that Rom 15:5 does not teach us to "think the same thoughts"; it teaches us to get along with and accept each other, even when we don't think the same thoughts on various issues.

Please do not get me wrong; I am not saying that anything goes; I am saying that these particular passages do not teach us to "think the same thoughts", and they should not be used as proof-texts for teaching that. To do so is to make them say what God has not said. I am also saying that God approved of much greater group differences in the first century church than many of us today will allow, and that the concept that we must "think the same things" is a man-made doctrine, not a Biblical one.

How To Be Saved

How to be saved?

Well, there's the 5-step plan of salvation.

Or maybe praying "the Sinner's Prayer".

Or maybe selling all your possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor.

Or this or that or another method/system.

All good things.

But ultimately,

^{HCSB 1 Peter 1:13} ...set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Don't set your hope on what you do or don't do; set it on the grace coming to you.

Why You Should Read from More than One Version

Many of us grew up reading a certain version of the Bible; for those of us older, it was probably the King James Version (KJV). For the current crop of college kids, it was likely the New International Version (NIV).

But I want to encourage you to alternate reading between several different versions.

Why?

Because otherwise you are trained according to the translators' biases, not according to what God actually said.

Here's an example from 1 Corinthians 7:1, wherein Paul is addressing a question concerning marriage/sex asked by the Corinthians.

In the KJV, it says:

¹Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.

And in the NIV:

¹Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.

But the Holman Christian Standard Bible renders it thus:

¹ About the things you wrote: "It is good for a man not to have relations with a woman."

Whoa! Those quotation marks change the meaning of the passage entirely.

The English Standard Version also adds the quotation marks.

And here it is in The Message:

¹ Now, getting down to the questions you asked in your letter to me. First, Is it a good thing to have sexual relations?

If you had read only the KJV all your life, you'd have thought that God said it was good for a man to not have sex. You'd likely think the same thing if you had read the NIV if you don't pay attention to footnotes.

But by reading several versions, you'll see some of these differences between versions and realize that what you thought the scriptures taught may not be what the scriptures taught.

So finish reading your Bible in your current version, then start over with a different version. It'll do ya good.

Three Days and Three Nights

Someone questioned:

In Matt 12:40 Jesus said, he will be dead for 3 days and 3 nights, like Jonah was in the whale's belly. So if he resurrected on Sat(Sabbath) night, then he would have died on Wednesday evening.

But in John 19:30-42 it is stating as, he died on a Friday, being the day of preparation before the Sabbath. Luke 23:54, Mark 15:42 and Matt 27:62 stating the same.

That doesn't come to 3 days and 3 nights.. Please enlighten.

I believe the best explanation is to realize that the Passover begins and ends with a Sabbath, even if that starting and ending date do not fall on the seventh day of the week.

The week of the crucifixion, the Sabbath referred to, following the day of preparation, was a "high Sabbath" (John 19:31). I like the way the Holman Christian Standard Bible renders this verse:

Since it was the preparation day, the Jews did not want the bodies to remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a special day)....

In other words, this was not an ordinary seventh-day-of-the-week Sabbath, but it was the Sabbath that began Passover. That week had two Sabbaths, one beginning Wednesday night at sundown, and a regular Sabbath beginning on Friday evening at sundown.

Dying on Wednesday at 3pm (when the shofar was blown and the daily sacrifice was offered in the Temple, by the way), Jesus was in the heart of the earth by dark that night. He was in the ground Wednesday night, Thursday night, and Friday night (three nights) and Thursday day, Friday day, and Saturday day (three days), raising after the Sabbaths ended, on the first day of the week, after dark on Saturday. Within hours, while it was still dark, the Mary's came and found the tomb empty.

Milburn Cockrell does a good job explaining it at http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/was-jesus-in-the-grave-for-three-days-and-nights.html

Fix the World

In Luke 3, three groups (the general crowd, tax collectors, military) come to John and ask him, "What should we do?". In each case, John's answer was based on economics, not "morality". The beginning of the Gospel began as a social, fix-this-world, "focus on one one-another" institution, not as a "suck it up until we get into the next world" club.