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
----------------

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.

Spoiler Alert

I saw the movie "Book of Eli" this past weekend. If you haven't seen this film, and don't want to read a spoiler, then don't read any farther.

The whole point of the film was to preserve the Bible, which had been virtually eradicated after a global apocalyptic war. At the end of the film, the preserved Bible in written, bound form, was placed on a shelf. On that shelf, just left of the Bible, was a copy of the Torah, and just left of that, was a copy of the Tanakh.

As most of the readers of this blog will know, the Torah is the first five books of the Bible, and the Tanakh is the entire "Old Testament" of the Bible. I found it interesting that the movie makers had sense enough to put these two books on the same shelf as the Bible, but didn't expect movie-goers to catch the plot-hole. I wonder if it was an inside joke, or an oversight.

On a related note, I also watched again the movie "Bruce Almighty". At one point when Bruce was checking the prayers offered to God, he was doing so via a divine electronic email system, and it was not Yahoo!Mail, but rather Yahweh!Mail. How interesting.

Letting the Bible Define Its Own Terms

In a recent discussion about the meaning of a certain word in the Bible, my opponent kept appealing to the standard Greek dictionaries. I told her that this was a legitimate means of helping to determine the meaning of a term in the Bible, but that ultimately, you have to decide whether you want to accept this human source of definition, or if you're going to let the Bible define its own terms.

In the culture of the Restoration Movement in which I was raised, it was a staple of doctrine to call Bible things by Bible names and to let the Bible define its own terms and to accept the Bible as the only authority in religious matters, and 2 Timothy 3:16-17 was often cited as the proof-text for this way of doing things.

^{2 Tim 3:16} All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Note that the man of God may be complete (or "perfect" in other versions) without any material other than the God-inspired Scripture.

She could not seem to understand that one could determine the meaning of a Biblical word without appealing to her e-Sword Greek dictionary or some other extra-Biblical Greek dictionary.

So I presented her with the following scenario in hopes of helping her to understand.

Suppose there were NO Greek (or Hebrew, or "Bible") dictionaries anywhere in the world, and no one knew what the word "psalm" means. You pick up a Bible, and read it in its entirety. You get to 2 Samuel 23 and come across the first occurrence of the word (NKJV):

Now these are the last words of David.
Thus says David the son of Jesse;
Thus says the man raised up on high,
The anointed of the God of Jacob,
And the sweet psalmist of Israel:

You go, "Huh? What's a "sweet psalmist"?" Of course you have no dictionary that can help you, because none exist. So you just shrug your shoulders and keep reading. Then you come to 1 Chronicles 16:7-8:

⁷ On that day David first delivered this psalm into the hand of Asaph and his brethren, to thank the LORD:

⁸ Oh, give thanks to the LORD!
Call upon His name;
Make known His deeds among the peoples!

And then you go, "Oh-h-h! So a 'psalmist' is someone who writes some sort of poetry or thank-you greeting-card phrase or something!"

And then you get to the very next verse:

⁹ Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him;
Talk of all His wondrous works!

And you think, "Ah, a 'psalm' seems to be a song of praise to God."

And then you get to Nehemiah 12:8:

⁸ Moreover the Levites were Jeshua, Binnui, Kadmiel, Sherebiah, Judah, and Mattaniah who led the thanksgiving psalms, ....

And you realize that some psalms are for praise, and some are for thanksgiving.

And then you get to the book of Psalms, and a light clicks on in your brain: "Ah, got it now. A 'psalm' is a song of praise or thanksgiving or lament or encouragement, etc, centered on God and His works, sometimes involving instruments, sometimes dance, sometimes tears, sometimes laughter, sometimes clapping, sometimes even silence."

You've just now defined "psalm" without recourse to knowing Greek (or Hebrew), and without recourse to any dictionary anywhere, and without recourse to a native speaker of the languages involved, and without recourse to an expert in the culture; you've let the Bible define its own term. If the word had been "flinkermingle", the Bible would still have defined the term without recourse to a "flinkermingle"-defining dictionary.

Now, when you get to Ephesians 5:19 and read that we are to sing psalms to one another, what is your definition of "psalm"? Do you turn to an outside source, such as e-Sword's definition, or do you turn to the Bible to define your term?

Please do not mistake me; I'm not saying that outside sources have no value (I'm a great believer in them); nor am I saying that languages don't change over time, and words don't change their meaning, and that dictionaries do not highlight some of these changes. What I AM saying is that you can't claim to use ONLY the Bible as your source of authority and then turn to outside sources to prove your pet theory.

Let me be explicit: IF you use a Greek dictionary at this point to define the term "psalm", you are NOT using the Bible as your authority. If you're okay with that, so be it. Just be aware of what you're doing, and don't condemn others who stick with the Bible.

The "Old Testament" is Not All Old

Overheard:

The book of Psalms, David, Law of Moses, the Prophets, are all in reference to the OT which we are not under.

This writer seriously errs here, but it's very understandable: pretty much all of Christendom has taught for centuries this same message, and every Bible you can buy on the shelf at Mardel's or Hastings or the local Bible Book Store emphasizes this incorrect message by their man-made, two-fold division labeled "New Testament" and "Old Testament". But this idea is completely wrong.

The writer above mentioned three portions of the so-called "Old Testament" - "the book of Psalms, David, Law of Moses, the Prophets" (I'm combining "the book of Psalms, David" into simply "the Psalms"). This three-fold division is Biblical; it's how Yahshua divided the Scriptures known in his day:

^{Luke 24:44} ...everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

(These three divisions, in the Hebrew language, are called Torah, Nevi'im, and Kethuvim, and taking the first letters of these three words we get TNK, which is how we get the term "Tanakh" to refer to the Hebrew Bible.)

So, we have from the very mouth of God (Yahshua) that what we incorrectly call the "Old Testament" is really divided into three sections. Now look at the prophecy of a new covenant, as foretold by Jeremiah:

^{Jeremiah 31:31} "Look, the days are coming"—[this is] YHWHs declaration—"when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. ³² [This one will] not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt....

What covenant does YHWH say will be replaced?

Does he say the Prophets will be replaced? No!

Does he say the Psalms will be replaced? No!

Does he say the Torah will be replace? Yes! It's the covenant made at Mt. Sinai, when the house of Israel was taken out of Egypt, which will be replaced. Not the covenant He made with Adam. Not the covenant He made with Noah. Not the covenant He made with Abraham. Only the covenant He made with Moses.

The scriptures concerning Adam are still in effect: Yahshua based his teachings on divorce on these scriptures. Yahshua did not give us a NEW law concerning marriage. He reached all the way back to Genesis 2 as the basis for his teachings on marriage/divorce. If we are no longer under Genesis 2, then we no are longer bound by Yahshua's teaching on marriage/divorce, because that's "old testament".

The scriptures concerning Noah are still in effect: we are still under the covenant God made with Noah. If not, then the rainbow means nothing; we can expect a globe-destroying flood any day now, because that's "old testament". If not, then we have no authority to eat meat, because that's "old testament". If not, then we have no responsibility to execute murderers, because that's "old testament".

The scriptures concerning Abraham are still in effect: we are adopted into the covenant God made with Abraham. Paul makes this absolutely clear in Galatians 3:

^{Gal 3:17}the law [Torah - Kent], which came 430 years later, does not revoke a covenant that was previously ratified by God, so as to cancel the promise.

He even goes on to agree with Jeremiah, that it is "the law" (Torah) which was temporary:

¹⁹ Why the law then? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise was made would come.

So Jeremiah and Paul agree; it was the law of Moses that was temporary, and which would be replaced with a new covenant. It was the law, given on Mt. Sinai, that was the old covenant.

The Psalms and the Prophets are not part of the old covenant; only the Torah is the old covenant.

We in our modern culture have lumped two of the divisions defined by Yahshua in with the third, and have mistakenly claimed all three to be "old". No, that is wrong. Two of those three are not "old".

A New (Old?) Way to "Do Church"?

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.

-- 1 Cor 14:26-33 The Message version of the Bible

We don't do this. Why not? Oh, that's right; The Message isn't a "real" version.

One Cuppers?

On a discussion list of which I'm a member the question of one cup or multiple cups in the Lord's Supper was raised. Here's what I wrote about it:

As I understand it, the Passover meal (at least in modern times, and probably in Yahshua's time as well), incorporated within it "4 cups" which were specially set aside for certain times of the meal. This phrase does not mean a literal number of cups, but rather a literal number of special significances to the drinking of each person's own individual cup. We'd say in modern parlance, "four toasts".

If memory serves, there were two cups before the main meal and two afterwards, with the fourth and last one serving to close the meal, much like a closing prayer closes most church assemblies in our Western Church of Christ culture. The four cups, or toasts, each have special meaning: "I will bring out," "I will deliver," "I will redeem," and "I will take".

Luke, in chapter 22, refers to two of these four cups, one before the main meal, probably the first one as that serves more as an introduction to the meal, which is implied with Yahshua's comments about being happy to eat the meal with them, and since it's a cup of blessing, and one after the meal, probably the third cup, that of "redemption" -- "I will redeem" -- a cup of blood for a new covenant.

Paul also refers to the "cup after supper", in 1 Cor 11:25.

So Yahshua was not saying, "Take this physical cup and share it amongst yourselves"; he was saying, "Take this cup and participate in it amongst yourselves; I'm not participating in it until the kingdom of God comes".

Each person had his own cup, just as each person had his own plate. But at four times within the meal, everyone drank at the same time in a symbolic "toast" to the meaning of that drink.

There's a LOT of fascinating material in the Passover meal that we non-Jews have missed. For example, three pieces of Matzah bread (crackers) are placed in a three-pocketed cloth, one piece per pocket (think Father, Son, Holy Spirit), and at a certain point in the meal, the middle piece is taken out, broken in half, half is wrapped in a linen cloth and hidden while the other half is put back in the pocket, and after a while, the kids are sent to find the hidden piece. The kid finding it brings it back to Papa for a small redemption (a dollar, or a piece of candy, etc), and then that piece is distributed out to everyone to eat a grape-sized piece.

Tell me you don't see Yahshua's body broken, wrapped in linen, hidden in a tomb for a while, redeemed, and shared by his disciples in the Passover.

It's also interesting to note that Matzah is pierced, and those piercings are in stripes ("he was pierced for our transgressions"; "with his stripes we are healed" - Isa 53:5, NIV, KJV).

Near as I can tell, Yahshua intended for his followers to continue celebrating the yearly Passover, but now, instead of it celebrating the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery, it would celebrate the death of Yahshua and the delivery of his New Israel from slavery to sin and death. But in our withdrawal from Law-keeping and Judaizing, we rode the pendulum too far and have divorced ourselves from a lot of culture that would be enlightening to us and which I believe Yahshua intended us to use for our educational and spiritual growth.

Dividing by claiming to be "of Christ"

H. Clay M writes concerning 1 Cor 1:10-17:

Here's the text:

10I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul," or "I follow Apollos," or "I follow Cephas," or "I follow Christ." 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16(I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. 17For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Verse 12 What I mean is that each one of you says,

"I follow Paul," or

"I follow Apollos," or

"I follow Cephas," or

"I follow Christ."

13 Is Christ divided? <>End Text

Look at the last group "I follow Christ" Now that sounds good and
that is exactly what the CoC/SOF* was doing . . EXACTLY!

Well in context Paul corrects them, those that say "I follow Christ"
just as much as he condemns the others.

It is WRONG to be divisive. (.) period PERIOD!

It is wrong for "US" in the CoC/SOF to say we are Christ's church therefore we are the only saved.

That is un scriptual and it is arrogant and it is divisive!

Paul wrote the church at Galatia and plainly said who among would NOT enter the Kingdom of God!

Now one would think Hey this is an important text! Let's test ourselves.

Here it is: Galatians 5

18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Why it list those that cause DIVISION!

Even if they claim they follow Christ?

I Corinthians 1 certainly makes that abundantly clear to me!

* CoC/SOF = Church of Christ / Sign Out Front (those congregations that have a sign out front proclaiming "Church of Christ".

Speaking Where The Bible Speaks ...

Over on the Church_of_Christ@yahoogroups.com Yahoo!Group, Norman wrote:

I believe we will all agree that the *motto*; speak where the Bible speaks and silent where is silent is a good pattern to follow regardless of where it started. That is teaching of the churches of Christ today.

But Wendy wrote a response which I find to be full of wisdom, and I'd like to share it here. She wrote:

The simple matter is that the Bible does not speak. We interpret. And we bring our cultural, educational and experiential backgrounds into the interpreting process.

So what the Bible "says" to a Chinese convert may be very different from what it "said" to a Syrian Christian of the 2nd century, and from what it "says" to an American Christian of the 21st century brought up in a Restoration faith tradition or an Australian recent convert who was raised in a nominally Christian highchurch Anglican South African home (me).

So the ideal of speaking where the Bible speaks and being silent where it is silent sounds good on paper; it's a noble ideal. But in practice, it too fails to provide a definitive method for determining "gospel truth". It seems to me that until Christians realize that fallible human logic and interpretation color greatly our understandings of the Bible, we're going to continue believing that "we have the answers and everyone else is wrong", thus dividing the body of Christ, against his very wishes, on various and sundry issues that God never made clear(!) are issues.

Determining Church Doctrine

I've grown up in (and am still part of) a culture that insists church doctrine should be derived from the Bible; but not all the Bible, but from the New Testament; but not all the New Testament, but from those parts that "apply to us today".

A core part of the methodology for determining what applies and what doesn't is the use of CENI - Commands, Examples, and Necessary Inference.

However, in recent months I've had cause to revisit these basic principles, and I'm not sure they hold up as a reliable means of determining church doctrine.

Commands
The first part of CENI, "Commands", should be the easiest to apply; if God commands it, do it. Yet here are some commands from God that I daresay are not considered binding on Christians today in my church culture.

1 Tim 5:23 - Don't continue drinking only water, but use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.

This command is "tweaked" by explaining that "wine" means "grape juice", and by explaining that the command was specifically for Timothy and not for all Christians. Fair enough, but it's a command in the New Testament that is not considered binding.

1 Tim 2:8 - Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands ....

Of course, if I try lifting my hands in prayer this coming Sunday morning, I would soon find myself in a discussion with the church leaders about my "inappropriate" behavior. So here we have another command which is not considered binding. Interestingly, this is a command that is not only denied as binding, but is actively opposed by many Christians in the name of "expedience". I can't help but recall Jesus' words: "Disregarding the command of God, you keep the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8).

Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Thess 5:26; 1 Peter 5:14 - Greet one another with a holy kiss (and similar phrases).

Here we have a command that is not given once, but at least five times. And yet, do we bind it? No, we explain it away.

Mark 10:21 - Go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.

This one is explained away as applying only to a specific man in the scriptures, and not to all followers of Jesus. Again, fair enough.

1 Thess 4: 2,11 - [Y]ou know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ... to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, so that you may walk properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.

And yet we seldom hear these commands espoused from the pulpit as binding on Christians. In fact, we tend to encourage one another to "make a splash", if not in our personal/business lives, at least in our evangelistic lives. We seldom hear that it's a requirement that Christians work so that we're not dependent on anyone.

1 Cor 14:1,39 - [D]esire spiritual gifts, and above all that you may prophesy. ... [B]e eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in [other] languages.

This is explained away as applying only to the Christians still living in the "age of miracles", and therefore doesn't apply to us today.

1 Cor 14: 26,29 - Whenever you come together ... [t]wo or three prophets should speak, and the others should evaluate.

In context, this command is also dismissed as belonging to the "age of miracles", and thus we dismiss the principle entirely of having two or three speakers, publicly evaluated by all, replacing it with one paid pulpit preacher, whose word is traditionally not publicly evaluated by all.

The point is not that these are commands we are failing to observe; the point is that the idea that the "Commands" part of CENI is a potentially unreliable methodology for determining what Christians should and should not do, allowing lots of room for humans to "pick and choose" the commands we want to keep and explaining away the others. A "principle" that turns out to be so variable is not really a principle, is it?

Examples
The second part of CENI, "Examples", is also problematic. The idea is that if we see the New Testament Christians doing something, we should be doing it also. Here are some examples however that we do not consider binding.

Acts 2:44,45; 4:32,34; 2 Cor 8:11-14 - Now all the believers were together and had everything in common. So they sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had a need. ... [N]o one said that any of his possessions was his own, but instead they held everything in common. ... [T]here was not a needy person among them, because all those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet. This was then distributed to each person as anyone had a need. ... But now finish the task [of sharing] .... It is not that there may be relief for others and hardship for you, but it is a question of equality — at the present time your surplus is [available] for their need, so that their abundance may also become [available] for your need, that there may be equality.

How many of us in the church practice voluntary communism? Hmm-mm??

Acts 21:5 - [A]ll of them, with their wives and children, escorted us out of the city. After kneeling down on the beach to pray....

How many churches kneel as a group to pray?

Luke 22:41 - [Jesus] knelt down, and began to pray....

How many individual Christians kneel to pray?

Mark 6:41 - [L]ooking up to heaven, [Jesus] blessed and broke the loaves.

I suspect that if I looked up to heaven during my prayer the next time I led a prayer in the Lord's Supper, I'd again find myself in a discussion shortly thereafter with the church leaders.

Luke 18:13 - [T]he tax collector, [praying], would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest....

Ah, finally, an example we follow. Sort of - we bow our heads and close our eyes, but we don't strike our chest.

So again, we find that just because we find an example of a practice in the New Testament, that doesn't mean we apply it to ourselves as binding. So the "Examples" part of CENI also fails us when determining what we should or should not do as Christians.


Necessary Inference
The last part of CENI, "Necessary Inference", might be okay, except that we often bind the "inference" part on Christians while neglecting the "necessary" part.

For example, it's an inference that each church had a multiplicity of elders in the first century. We see passages like Acts 20:17 -- "[Paul] sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church" -- and conclude that a church had multiple elders.

It's a valid inference. But it's not a necessary inference. What I mean is that it's not the only inference possible. For example, what if "the church" in Ephesus was not a single congregation, but a half-dozen or so house-churches, each with their own pastor/shepherd/elder? Could the passage in Acts 20 still make sense? Yes, it could. In fact, we see a similar situation in the book of Colossians, wherein Paul writes to the saints there, and mentions the church meeting in Nympha's house.

There's an inference that churches had a multiplicity of elders. But there's also an inference that there may have been multiple churches, each with its own elder. Neither inference is necessary.

So What Then?
So if CENI doesn't work reliably, what then? It seems to me that perhaps Romans 14 addresses this issue:

[D]on't argue about doubtful issues. One person believes [this; another believes that]. ... Therefore, let us no longer criticize one another.... I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. Still, to someone who considers a thing to be unclean, to that one it is unclean. ... Do you have faith? Keep it to yourself before God. Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves.

2 Timothy 2 also addresses the issue:

[Do not] fight about words. ... Be diligent to present yourself approved to God. ... [R]eject foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they breed quarrels.

The question is, "Which arguments are foolish and ignorant, and which are not?"

Whatever the answer to that question is, it's clear that we "must not quarrel" (2 Tim 2:24), and that we should "[a]ccept anyone who is weak in faith" (Rom 14:1), "bear the weaknesses of those without strength" (Rom 15:1), and "be fully convinced in his own mind" (Rom 15:5) about what he believes.

In other words, my church culture has defended a culture for all my life, a way of doing things, a set of doctrines. But it seems more and more to me that we have created laws where God has not, based on our own logic systems, logic systems that are demonstrably fallible. The basics, according to God-As-Man himself is thus:

"This is the most important," Jesus answered:

Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, The Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

"The second is: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these."

Then the scribe said to Him, "You are right, Teacher! You have correctly said that He is One, and there is no one else except Him. And to love Him with all your heart, with all your understanding, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, is far more [important] than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices."

When Jesus saw that he answered intelligently, He said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

So, the legalities of burnt offerings and sacrifices and when the Lord's Supper is taken and how many elders a church has and whether women are silent when they sing in the assembly or not or having a kitchen in the building are far less important than loving God with all your being, and treating your neighbor as yourself.

I'm not saying CENI is useless, or bad; I actually think it's a good general principle for determining what Christians should and should not do. But it's not infallible. So don't treat the results you get from this method as infallible.

Creative Tooth Repair

In the evolutionary mindset, tooth decay due to bacterial action is a normal part of the "survival of the fittest" mentality.

In the creationist mindset however, it is recognized that in the beginning, there was no tooth decay nor plaque nor gum-rot, and the question is raised, "Why not? What prevented these things? Can we restore that state?"

I suspect that in the beginning, bacteria in human mouths functioned as a cleaner of teeth and restorer of tooth enamel. When the Fall occurred, that bacteria "devolved" to become a producer of plaque and tooth-rot.

If we were to put resources into researching how to turn bacteria back to their original purpose, we might just put Crest and dentists out of business. Just think, no more fighting with your kids to get them to brush their teeth; no more need to floss.

I suspect it's possible. But as long as the research dollars are being poured into the labs of scientists who don't believe bacteria ever had such a role and never will, then this suspicion will not likely ever be confirmed.

Philosophical foundations matter when doing science. I believe the wrong philosophical foundation has had a stranglehold on research for the past 50 years, and as a result, I'm still having to floss.

And wear glasses.

Pfft.

Culture or Scripture?

I was walking across campus today when a thought caused me to question a doctrine I've held for a long time. I got to wondering if I had learned this doctrine from "church", or from the Scriptures.

And I realized that we often hold to doctrines because we've sung these doctrines in our church songs since we were two years old, not because the doctrines are actually taught in the Bible.

Just another good reason to question everything, even dearly-held doctrines.

Arg!

Being curious how visible my blog is to Google, I searched for "westing peacefully". About four or five hits down, I saw a link that looked odd, so I clicked on it.

Arg.

Apparently someone has set up a screen-scraper bot that just goes and collects random text from random sites and pastes them together on a page that at first glance looks like a real web page.

I was bothered that searching for my blog resulted in a first paragraph that was quite pornographic textually.

What's wrong with people?!

Oh yeah, I forgot; we people are corrupt from conception. (Note, conservative church of Christ preachers: I didn't say we're guilty from conception; I said we're corrupt; there's a difference. See here and here for more.)

As long as we people remain in our corruption, we will do things like create/run this screen-scraper bot (and much worse things as well), which serves no purpose I ken except to tarnish other people's work.

May the Ruach Kadesh* move in the hearts of all persons everywhere, particularly right now the creator of this bot, to draw them unto God. May there be peace on Earth, and good will to all persons.

*Englicized Hebrew for "The Holy Spirit", variously rendered as Ruach Ha'kodesh, Kadesh Ruach, Ruach Ha Kodesh, etc, depending on the writer.

Rethinking the Way We "Do" Church

Recently I've been challenged to rethink the way we "do" church.

Because this rethink challenges the way I've always done things, it was easy at first to just ignore it, but it's starting to wear down my passive defense. Since I'm supposedly committed to doing things in a Biblical manner rather than in the comfortable traditional manner, I have to consider that perhaps we do need to rethink our practice.

The practice to which I refer is basically the lecture-sermon format, in which one man spends half an hour lecturing to an audience of passive (and often sleeping/bored) listeners. We have thought this to be a Biblical model, because after all, Paul and Peter and Timothy "preached".

But here's another look at this format, from basically two sides of the same coin:

Side 1:

- much of the early preaching was not "lecturing", but rather "dialoging".

For example, when Paul went to Corinth, he did not preach in the synagogue, but rather "reasoned" (Acts 18:4 NKJV).

And when he went on to Ephesus, "he himself entered entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews" rather than "preached" to them (Acts 18:19 NKJV).

"reasoned" - Acts 17:2

"sat and spoke" - Acts 16:13

This does not mean there was not lecturing, but it does mean that perhaps the "lecture format" with which we're familiar is unBiblically skewed in favor of passive listening on the part of the assemblers.

Side 2:

- the assemblers' participation was not just "listening", but also "sharing".

When Yahshua visited the synagogue in his home town, he stood up, apparently signifying his desire to speak/read, and he was allowed to do so (Luke 4:16).

We see this same pattern later in the synagogue when the leaders ask the visitors if they have any words of encouragement for the people (Acts 13:15).

Even in the first gospel sermon (Acts 2), there was give-and-take between the speaker and the listeners (see esp. v 37).

Paul, when writing to the Corinthians (14:26), seems to point out a pattern with which we're unfamiliar: "Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, [another] language, or an interpretation. All things must be done for edification." And he goes on to fill this chapter with specific instructions to keep this organized chaos "decent and in order" (v. 40).

Putting this all together, I'm starting to get the distinct impression that the early church meetings were often more of a "sit down and everyone contribute" type of meeting than rather than the lecture format of our modern-day Sunday meetings.

Accordingly, I'd like to suggest the following idea:

Rather than have one man stand up and give a 5-7 minute "sermonette", or a 25 minute "sermon", how about instead having 5 men come to the mic and give a[n] (absolute maximum no exceptions allowed ever!) 2-minute "here's what I learned this week via God's grace that I'd like to share with you" message. (If it can't be said in two minutes, it needs to wait for a different occasion, and if the speaker can't limit himself to two minutes, the speaker needs to not speak at all.)

For example, the other night I learned that "matzoth" is the Hebrew word behind "unleavened bread" (such as in Exodus 12:15). Gives me a better handle on seeing the word "Matzah" on the box of crackers on the store shelf.

See, that example took maybe 30 seconds, and edifies people like me who feed on tidbits of information like this. It won't edify people who need emotional-laden messages, or people who need deeply meaningful messages, but those types of people will be edified perhaps by one of the other four speakers who have a different style of message.

Another example might be someone saying that Proverbs 10a ("A righteous man cares about his animal's health") helped him decide to take his sick cat to the vet, an application of scripture to everyday life via God's Spirit.

A third example might be my previous blog entry about the Sabbath; takes 2 minutes to explain, but can challenge our thinking about our attitude toward "Sabbath-keeping".

There might even be time between each speaker for questions/dialogue.

This format would help to train the men to speak boldly in front of people, without putting pressure on them to work up a whole sermon (or even sermonette). It relieves the regular preacher of always having to come up with a sermon. It presents different information/styles to the people which one man can't provide. It involves people more.

It seems to me to be an idea worth considering.

The Sabbath

From the very beginning, God made the Sabbath "special" ("hallowed", "sanctified"); note that it's not "special" because of the Ten Commandments/Law of Moses, but because God made it so from the very beginning.

Yahshua, on the different issue of marriage (Mark 10:6), refers to the way things were established by God at the beginning. His example leads me to conclude that the same principle applies to the issue of the Sabbath. Therefore, I must conclude that the Sabbath (seventh day, not first) is still "special", not because it was part of the Mosaic Law, but because God made it so from the beginning.

I'm not real sure what to do with this information, but there it is: the Sabbath is still special.

We ARE the Government

Someone wrote:

I am 50 and I can remember in my child hood my parents talking about the government and saying they all were not trust worthy even back then. So it has been that way many years.

And thus it should be.

You, and me, and the guy across the street, and the girl at the check-out counter at Wal-Mart, are the ones who are supposed to be in control. It's called "Freedom". This idea that "the government" is in control is a dangerous and false idea, and it's this idea that has caused us to lose our freedoms over your lifetime.

When I was a kid, and someone asked, "Hey, can I do such-and-such" , the stock answer was, "It's a free country".

Nowadays, the stock answer is, "Do you have a government-issued permit to do that?"

Want to put a storage building on your property? Get a permit. Want to cut down a tree? Get a permit. Want to put in a pool? Get a permit. Want to carry a pistol for self-protection? Get a permit. Want to drive to the store? Get a permit. Want to sell your excess garden vegetables? Get a permit.

Pfft.

Granted, there needs to be some level of governmental cooperation between citizens (I want to know that someone is responsible for assuring that the meal I buy in the restaurant is safe), but the pendulum has swung too far.

One of the best things you can do to help spread freedom in this country is to learn about jury nullification, get on a few juries, and do the right thing. As a juror, you have more power (in an individual case) than all the members of the U.S. Supreme Court and both houses of Congress and the President combined; if a guy ran a red light, but did so safely and for a good reason (to get his son with a half-cut-off foot to the hospital, etc), no matter what the law says, you as a jurist can declare the guy not guilty, and nullify that law in this instance. Laws are for the good of humans, not for the sake of keeping the rules. If a guy is arrested for carrying a Bible into a school, or a pistol into a sporting event (with no malice/harm intended or executed), you as a jurist can declare the guy not guilty if you so believe he should not go to jail for what you believe should be a basic human right - to carry inanimate objects on your person.

But we've gotten lax, and have let "the government" tell us what we can do, when we can do it, where we can do it. Folks, you ARE the government! Quit trusting those "in power", and start exercising the power.

The rule for good living in a world with such a "weak government" as this idea suggests is this: Love your neighbor as yourself; pray for your enemies; turn the other cheek; love the unlovable; treat others as you want to be treated.

With this basic "law" in the hearts of people, there is very little need for official government. This is the ideal government as I understand the Jewish Bible. Judges 17:6 says, "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." And later, when the Israelites clamored for a king, this is what YHWH (God) told them (1 Samuel 8:11ff):

These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but YHWH will not answer you in that day.

In other words, there are two possibilities presented here: 1) We can enforce right-and-wrong from our own hearts, by knowing in our own hearts what is the right thing (the Golden Rule way) and doing it, and not be oppressed by a tax-and-spend-and-make-war-and-confiscate-property government, or 2) we can let "the government" enforce right-and-wrong, and gradually lose our freedoms.

Our government, which has a nature of wanting to grow stronger and stronger at the expense of the governed, has duped us into choosing the latter, and now no one is even allowed to teach the former; "that's mixing church and state".

Pfft.

I love my country; I don't trust my government. I suggest you don't either.

Rethinking Binding and Loosing as it Pertains to the Synagogue

In an earlier post, I mentioned the first-century Jewish synagogue as a man-made institution of worship, developed without scriptural authority during the Babylonian Captivity, when the Jews no longer had access to their Temple. Since then, a reader has opened my eyes to what should have been obvious: the synagogue was not a place of worship, as was the Temple, but was rather more akin to a school than a church.

As such, it's not quite as "unscriptural" as I first deemed it.

Deuteronomy 6 makes it clear that parents are to teach their children in the ways of God. Whereas the primary responsibility for teaching the children was given to the parents, the synagogue developed as a more community-oriented method of teaching the children. So a case could be made that the scriptures say "teach your children" and not "build schools to teach your children", but Yahshua himself appears to have been comfortable with the notion of a community synagogue, taking advantage often of teaching in them everywhere he went.

So, to reiterate: my former understanding that the synagogue was a "replacement" for Temple worship was an incorrect understanding; rather, the synagogue was primarily a place of religious learning, not of worship. Accordingly, this does not really serve as an example of an unscriptural, man-made worship format which was later accepted by God, as I had earlier deemed it.

The synagogue appears to have become more of a place of worship after the destruction of Jerusalem (and the second Temple) in A.D. 70, but during Yahshua's ministry, it was a school of religion, not a church. This can be seen by a simple perusal of the hits returned by a search for the word "synagogue" at Biblegateway.com, using the Holman Christian Standard Bible version. Below are some examples from that search; note that it's primarily a place of teaching, discussion, disputing, and reasoning (although prayer, healing, and perhaps worship also take place in it):

1. Matthew 4:23
   [ Teaching, Preaching, and Healing ] Jesus was going all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
   Matthew 4:22-24 (in Context) Matthew 4 (Whole Chapter)
2. Matthew 13:54
   [ Rejection at Nazareth ] He went to His hometown and began to teach them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, "How did this wisdom and these miracles come to Him?
   Matthew 13:53-55 (in Context) Matthew 13 (Whole Chapter)
3. Mark 1:21
   [ Driving Out an Unclean Spirit ] Then they went into Capernaum, and right away He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and began to teach.
   Mark 1:20-22 (in Context) Mark 1 (Whole Chapter)
4. Mark 6:2
   When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were astonished. "Where did this man get these things?" they said. "What is this wisdom given to Him, and how are these miracles performed by His hands?
   Mark 6:1-3 (in Context) Mark 6 (Whole Chapter)
5. Luke 4:15
   He was teaching in their synagogues, being acclaimed by everyone.
   Luke 4:14-16 (in Context) Luke 4 (Whole Chapter)
6. Luke 4:16
   [ Rejection at Nazareth ] He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. As usual, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read.
   Luke 4:15-17 (in Context) Luke 4 (Whole Chapter)
7. Luke 6:6
   [ The Man with the Paralyzed Hand ] On another Sabbath He entered the synagogue and was teaching. A man was there whose right hand was paralyzed.
   Luke 6:5-7 (in Context) Luke 6 (Whole Chapter)
8. Luke 13:10
   [ Healing a Daughter of Abraham ] As He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath,
   Luke 13:9-11 (in Context) Luke 13 (Whole Chapter)
9. John 6:59
   He said these things while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
   John 6:58-60 (in Context) John 6 (Whole Chapter)
10. John 18:20
    "I have spoken openly to the world," Jesus answered him. "I have always taught in the synagogue and in the temple complex, where all the Jews congregate, and I haven't spoken anything in secret.
    John 18:19-21 (in Context) John 18 (Whole Chapter)
11. Acts 13:5
    Arriving in Salamis, they proclaimed God's message in the Jewish synagogues. They also had John as their assistant.
    Acts 13:4-6 (in Context) Acts 13 (Whole Chapter)
12. Acts 13:15
    After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent [word] to them, saying, "Brothers, if you have any message of encouragement for the people, you can speak."
    Acts 13:14-16 (in Context) Acts 13 (Whole Chapter)
13. Acts 17:17
    So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.
    Acts 17:16-18 (in Context) Acts 17 (Whole Chapter)
14. Acts 18:4
    He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade both Jews and Greeks.
    Acts 18:3-5 (in Context) Acts 18 (Whole Chapter)
15. Acts 18:19
    When they reached Ephesus he left them there, but he himself entered the synagogue and engaged in discussion with the Jews.
    Acts 18:18-20 (in Context) Acts 18 (Whole Chapter)
16. Acts 18:26
    He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. After Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him home and explained the way of God to him more accurately.
    Acts 18:25-27 (in Context) Acts 18 (Whole Chapter)
17. Acts 19:8
    [ In the Lecture Hall of Tyrannus ] Then he 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.
    Acts 19:7-9 (in Context) Acts 19 (Whole Chapter)
18. Acts 24:12
    And they didn't find me disputing with anyone or causing a disturbance among the crowd, either in the temple complex or in the synagogues, or anywhere in the city.
    Acts 24:11-13 (in Context) Acts 24 (Whole Chapter)

Why Use "Yahshua"?

Manly Luscombe wrote:

Kent West,
I read your recent post and was just curious why you refer to Jesus as Yashua. (I assume that Jesus is who you refer to when you say Yahshua.) I am not a scholar in Hebrew but I believe that Yahshua is Hebrew. Why do you refer to a NT person by their Hebrew name?
If you believe we should use the Hebrew names for Jews - Why not do the same with Peter, Matthew, Luke, and others you mention in your email?
Just curious - not fussing - just wondering the reason for this usage.
Thanks, Manly

1) I'm not consistent about it.

2) I don't believe it makes any great difference.

3) But, to answer your question:

Primarily for six reasons:

A) To spur people to think. You never think about what the room looks like from a different angle until you stand on your desk and take a look-see. Therefore, you never see the nuances that have been right there before your eyes the whole time.

B) To remind myself and others that this Gentile, anti-Jew mentality most of us in the United States church have grown up with is a wrong mindset to have. ("The Jews were God's people, but not any more." "The Jews killed Jesus." "God doesn't care about Jerusalem or the Jewish race any more." etc.) The fact is, we, the Gentiles, have not replaced the Jewish nation, but have been grafted into it, into the covenant of Abraham, which has not been replaced by the New Covenant, but still stands as the foundation of the New Covenant (Gal 3, esp v. 29).

C) Jesus was not a New Testament person for about 99% of his earthly life. He was born a Hebrew, under the Old Testament, in a very Jewish town, in a very Jewish culture, and lived a very Jewish life. But we've subconsciously whitewashed that out of his life, and have made him, in our own minds, to be a good-looking middle-American white guy wearing a robe and sandals, forgetting that he wore tassels on his garment (Mark 6:56), the way good Jews did, and probably recited the Shema every morning (Mark 12:29-30), the way good Jews did, and cited the Ten Commandments as being the way to inherit eternal life (Mark 10:17ff), which good Jews knew.

D) That was his name. It was the name his mama used to call him to supper. If you moved to a country that mis-learned your name as "Mertinly", you'd eventually shrug your shoulders and quit trying to correct everyone who mispronounced your name, and learn to live with it. But you'd likely feel better when someone actually got it right and called you "Manly". I figure Jesus/Yahshua can handle our mangling of his name, but still, it's a small bit of at least lip-service I can offer. I'm quite inconsistent with this when it comes to other New Testament names, as you've pointed out - Peter, Luke, etc - mostly that's due to lack of consistency on my part, but it also has to do with the fact that many of them lived in either the Greek world, or in a mixed Hebrew-Grecian world. Take Peter for example; at his Jewish home, he was known as Cephas; but in the Greek world in which he spent much time, he was known as Peter (or more accurately, Petros). I would probably be more amenable to calling Yahshua "Yaesu" (or "Yaesus", depending on grammatical considerations), because that's at least Biblical (New Testament), but "Jesus" is that extra consonantal sound-step farther yet.

E) Because we don't know the Hebrew names, we don't see the nuances. Yahshua is Joshua is Hosea (more or less). The first Yahshua (Joshua) was reported in Jewish lore (not Biblical record) to have married Rahab the Harlot; the second Yahshua (Hosea) also married a harlot; the third Yahshua (Jesus), also is marrying a harlot, but one who has been washed clean due to his efforts, not our own. There's a lot of symbolism, etc, that we simply miss, by not knowing the words behind the text.

F) It means something (as most Biblical names do). As you're probably aware, Bible translators have, for centuries, corrupted God's written word intentionally, changing the God-inspired name of YHWH (Yod - Hey - Wah - Hey; the "Tetragrammaton"; the "Four Letters"), which God said would be the name by which he would be remembered throughout the generations (Exodus 3:15) into the man-made alteration of "the LORD" (turn to almost any page in the Old Testament in a main-line version and you'll see this phrase). The name was likely pronounced "Yahweh". The short form of "Yah" is familiar to us in the phrase "Hallelujah", which means "Praise Yah". (The "j" for the "y" sound is a relic of Elizabethan English, and has since morphed into the "j" sound in most modern words.) The name "Jehovah" is a man-made mixing of the vowels from the Hebrew word for "Lord" and these four consonants (in Elizabethan English where "j" = "y" and "v" = "w") - JeHoVaH. Because we don't know this, we don't realize that "Yahshua" means "Yah saves", just as the angel predicted his name to mean (Matt 1:21). Because we don't know this, we don't realize why the Jewish political machinery was so upset about the sign which Pilate hung over Yahshua's head as he hung on the cross. Written in three languages, the sign included the Hebrew form of "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews", written as "Yahshua Hanatzoi, Wehemelech Hayuhadim". There it was in plain sight to those who noticed the first letters of the description, announced by the governing authority - YHWH. Pilate had just declared Jesus to be YHWH God, King of the Jews (John 19:19ff). I can just imagine Pilate smirking as he answered the trouble-makers' request for a different sign with, "What I have written, I have written". Because we don't know his name, we miss the pun he uses when he announces that Salvation ('Shua) has come to the house of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:9). (Zacchaeus' Hebrew name, Zakkai, also has meaning, which also colors the story, if you understand some of the background.)

Don't take any of this to mean that I hold the usage of "Yahshua" to be superior to the usage of "Jesus"; what's superior is to know the Man-God behind the name, and there are many who have a better relationship to him than do I, who have never even heard this Hebrew form of the name. But I offer these as my reasons for often using this form.

Binding and Loosing

Scott Wiley wrote:

was this during a temple worship? An equivalent of the synogogue?

This question asked by Scott draws my attention. If you think about it, you'll find there is no scriptural authority for the Synagogue (having developed probably during the Babylonian Captivity when observant Jews had no access to the Temple), but by the time the New Testament opens, the Son of God seems to accept it as a God-inspired worship format, even though he was unable to produce a Book/Chapter/Verse for its existence.

This ties in with the terms "binding" and "loosing", which we, not being part of the Rabbinical culture in which Yahshua lived and taught, don't quite "get".

In Yahshua's day, there were two main schools of Rabbinical thought, as founded by two great rabbis, Shammai and Hillel, who had been born just a generation or two before Yahshua. Much of the testing of Yahshua made by the religious authorities was not so much a challenge against Jesus as a simple inquiry into which school of thought his teachings fell (for example, see this entry on divorce, where we find that Jesus sides with Shammai rather than with Hillel).

Not just any Rabbi could "make the rules" as Shammai, and Hillel, and Yahshua himself, did. Only those who had "authority" could do so. So when Yahshua comes along and "teaches as one having authority" (Luke 4:32), he's challenged by the religious leaders who ask him where he got this authority. They understood that not just anyone could claim to be a Rabbi with authority, but that he must be given that authority by two other such authority-bearing Rabbis. Yahshua essentially said, "I got mine from John the Immerser, and God Himself when I was immersed. Do you accept their authority?" (although he does it in a Rabbinical questioning method which most of us Westerners don't quite comprehend - Luke 20:1-8))

Normal Rabbis could teach from the Torah and the Prophets and the Writings, but only those things which had been handed down from more authoritative Rabbis through the years. But authority-bearing Rabbis could interpret the scriptures afresh: we see Yahshua doing this in the Sermon on the Mount - "You have heard it said ..., but I say ...".

When a Rabbi enforces a particular teaching on a student, he is essentially binding that teaching, and when a Rabbis releases a student from a teaching, he is essentially loosing that teaching. The collection of bindings and loosings that a Rabbi teaches is called his "yoke". After fussing about the harsh religiosity of his culture, Yahshua said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matt 11:28-30).

Yahshua gave to the church this authority to bind and loose, the first time apparently to Peter:

And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the forces of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven. (Matt 16:18-19)

... but the second time more generally to his followers:

If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. ... I assure you: Whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven. 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. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them. (Matt. 18:15a; 18-20).

We see this authority being exercised in the church about 14 years after its inauguration, when the previously Jew-only church starts being opened to non-Jews. Many staunch Pharisees and other "conservative" Jewish believers insisted that these new Gentile converts be converted to Judaism in order to participate fully in the Jewish church. But a council was called at Jerusalem, and it was decided, via the Holy Spirit, that they would heed Peter's voice, which stated:

Why, then, are you now testing God by putting on the disciples' necks a yoke that neither our forefathers nor we have been able to bear? (Acts 15:10)

And from that time on, a new term arose, "Christian", which seemed to better fit this new school of thought that followed Rabbi Yahshua but which included decidedly unJewish Gentiles as full disciples.

Now, having laid all that background, I'm drawn back to Scott's question, or more accurately, to the underlying issue of authority for what we do as the church. Can we "invent" a synagogue if we can't make it to Temple? Can we bind a law on the believers that "Christians don't drink"? Can we loose a law on women that says they can't speak in 21st century Western mixed assemblies? Do we have that authority to "tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people's shoulders", and to "lift a finger to move them"?

I honestly don't know. I've believed all my life that church doctrine was established in the first century, and anyone who teaches a different doctrine is accursed (as per Gal. 1:6-9). But looking at all this background, I'm left wondering if the church does have the right to modify the specifics of how that doctrine is implemented.

I think it would be a stretch to say the church can loose something that is fundamental to first century doctrine (such as the physical, bodily resurrection of Yahshua); but perhaps it can ease up on other issues, such as women remaining silent in a mixed assembly.

I really hate to even bring this up, because of its incredible potential for abuse, and because it's so far outside the boundaries of orthodoxy for most of us, but it's a question that nags at me.

Did Yahshua give us, the church, the authority to mold our own form/practices, or are we limited to restoring the first century church in all its particulars (except for those we deem not applicable - *cough*) as those of us raised in the Restoration Movement have been trained to believe?

I don't know, but I find it an interesting and uncomfortable question.

The Earliest (Jewish) Church

I've written elsewhere about the first century church really being two churches: in the early years, the church was exclusively Jewish, strictly observing the Law of Moses, and only later accepting Gentiles, who did not observe the Law of Moses, as Christian brothers. For a few decades, it appears that these two groups existed side-by-side, having a very different look-and-feel, such that were we to find these two groups on opposite street corners today on Main Street, USA, we'd refer to at least one of them as a "denomination".

I was just made aware of another piece of evidence that demonstrates that the earliest church was Jewish to the core.

We generally consider the apostle Paul to be the author of 1 Corinthians, and whereas that is partly true, we tend to forget that this book was co-authored by another Christian brother, Sosthenes.

Paul, called as an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will, and our brother Sosthenes: To God's church at Corinth.... (1 Cor 1:1-2a)

What makes this significant to the discussion is that Sosthenes was not only a Christian, he was the ruler of a synagogue, beaten by the anti-Christian mob at Corinth:

Then they all seized Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the judge's bench. (Acts 18:17)

It's also interesting to note that the apparently previous ruler of the Corinthian synagogue, Crispus, also became a Christian:

Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed the Lord, along with his whole household; and many of the Corinthians, when they heard, believed and were baptized. (Acts 18:8)

Our modern day Gentile-ized church often condemns any hint of Jewish worship as being anti-Christian; this view is unBiblical. Being a leader of an exclusively Jewish synagogue, participating in exclusively Jewish worship, was not at all incompatible with being a Christian. It was just such a leader of Jewish worship who gave us part of our New Testament under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Anointing With Oil

James 5:14ff

Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray over him after anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

It seems to me that our cultural baggage has caused us to see something in this text that is not in it, and to miss something that is.

We tend to see the anointing with oil as integral to the healing. I don't believe that is in the text.

What we miss is that the anointing with oil is a consecrating of the individual to God.

The first time the Bible mentions an anointing with oil is when Jacob sleeps and dreams at Beth-El ("House of God"), and anoints the rock with oil, consecrating the place as God's House. Note that the rock was not sick, and the anointing with oil did not make the rock well. The place was God's.

Later, the utensils in the Temple are anointed with oil. Note that the utensils were not sick and made well by this anointing, but that they were consecrated as being special, chosen, belonging to God. They were God's utensils.

Still later, young shepherd David was anointed with oil by Samuel. David was not sick, and this anointing did not make him well. What it did was consecrate David as being chosen, special, belonging to God. David was God's friend.

The terms "messiah" and "christ" mean "anointed one". Jesus the Messiah was not made well by his anointing; he was made the chosen one by his anointing. His anointing made him consecrated to God. The Messiah was God's presence on Earth.

When someone in the church is sick, he should call for the elders, who will consecrate him to God by the anointing with oil, and who will pray for him, that he might get well. The sick person belongs to God.

Anointing with oil has nothing to do with miraculous gifts, and everything to do with consecrating the anointed one for God's possession.

Accordingly, it might still serve a purpose in the post-miraculous age of Christianity.