Temple Police

Barbara Brown Taylor writes an interesting article in which she points out:

One of the many things [the Good Friday crucifixion of Jesus] story tells us is that Jesus was not brought down by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix. Beware of those who claim to know the mind of God and who are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware of those who cannot tell God’s will from their own. Temple police are always a bad sign.

Then, after pointing out that Judas had been Jesus' friend, she tells this story:

I remember being at a retreat once where the leader asked us to think of someone who represented Christ in our lives. When it came time to share our answers, one woman stood up and said, "I had to think hard about that one. I kept thinking, ‘Who is it who told me the truth about myself so clearly that I wanted to kill him for it?"’

I find these two thoughts worth pondering.

Who Are You Tuning Out?

In the Biblical book of Exodus we read the story of how the young Israelite nation has been enslaved by the Egyptian Pharaoh, in whose land they were temporarily living. YHWH God raises up a man, Moses, whose job it is to lead them out of Egyptian slavery back into their promised homeland. Because Moses had a speech problem, YHWH appointed his older brother, Aaron, as his mouthpiece.

YHWH tells Moses:

^{HCSB Exodus 7:1} See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet. ² You must say whatever I command you; then Aaron your brother must declare it to Pharaoh so that he will let the Israelites go from his land. ³ But ... Pharaoh will not listen to you....

This parallel strikes me:

God --> prophet --> hearers
Moses --> prophet --> hearers

What struck me about this is God's use of a human to communicate; God did not speak directly to Pharaoh; nor did He use his prophet to speak to Pharaoh; rather, He used his prophet's prophet to speak to Pharaoh.

As far as Pharaoh was concerned, he was hearing a human's mind, and Pharaoh's response was to reject what he heard.

This raises a question in my mind: When I reject another human's words to me, am I rejecting a message God intended for me?

I'm not saying that God is going around telling Bob to tell Mary X & Y. I'm just asking if perhaps Mary is tuning out God's message when she tunes out Bob.

Who are you tuning out? Or perhaps the only question I can really ask is, Who am I tuning out?

What The Gospel Is

In my last post, I discussed what the Gospel is not, specifically, that it is not equivalent to the New Testament. Here I want to explore what the Gospel is.

There are at least two definitions of "the Gospel" in the New Testament. The first is given in 1 Corinthians 15:

^{HCSB 1 Cor 15:1} 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.

So, according to this first definition, the Gospel is the death, burial, resurrection, and appearance of Christ.

However, according to at least three other sources, the Gospel is that all nations will be blessed.

Highlights of Romans 10:14 - 12:1
Not all have obeyed the gospel; didn't they hear? Yes. Didn't Israel understand when Moses announced that they would be made jealous by the salvation of non-Jews, and when Isaiah said that God would be found by those not looking for Him, while the Jews, to whom God was spreading out His hands, remained disobedient and defiant? Yet God's mercy extends to both Jew and Gentile, to the Gentile who has been grafted into God's olive tree by faith, and to the Jew who can be re-grafted back into the tree if he'll stop abiding in unbelief. Regarding the gospel, the falling away of the Jews results in the salvation of Gentiles. Both groups have disobeyed, and God has imprisoned all in disobedience, so that He may have mercy on all. Therefore, worship God by presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice.

So we see in this summary that the gospel is that not just the Jews, who were chosen, but also the Gentiles, will be blessed with God's mercy.

Highlights of Galatians 2:11-16
Paul had to correct Peter publicly, because he was deviating from the truth of the gospel. Peter should have remembered that just as the Jews had been justified by faith, so too the Gentiles, so he should quit acting like the Gentiles were not part of the family.

So we see in this summary that deviating from the gospel is to forget that not just the Jews, who were chosen, but also the Gentiles, were blessed with God's mercy.

Highlights of Galatians 3:8
The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and foretold this gospel to Abraham, saying, "All the nations will be blessed in you."

So we see in this summary that the gospel is that not just the Jews, who were chosen, but also the Gentiles, will be blessed.

So, in summation, there are at least two Biblical definitions in the New Testament for the term "Gospel" (or "Good News"):

1) the death, burial, resurrection, and appearance of Christ

and

2) that not only the chosen Jews, but also the Gentiles, would be blessed with salvation by faith in Christ.

What the Gospel Is Not

Norman R. writes the following:

What is the gospel?

2 Thess 1:7-9 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power.

What I taught and what is still taught by many congregations is that the word gospel in this verse includes everything in the NT.

All the Christians on the day of Pentecost obeyed the gospel before any of the New Testament was written and all the Christians who died at the orders of Saul died before any of the New Testament was written.

In about 58 a.d. Paul wrote Galatians, the second book of the New Testament to be written. All the Galatians had obeyed the gospel and some wanted to leave it, before they read Galatians, and probably before they read any book of the New Testament. Galatians may be part of the gospel to some Christians, but it certainly was not part of the gospel to the Galatians.

The NT Christians did not need Galatians, Romans, Acts, Matthew or other letters to be in fellowship with God. Faith in the death, burial, resurrection, ascension and the promises through that sacrifice placed them in fellowship with God.

Why were the epistles of Paul, Galatians, Romans, Corinthians, etc. written? It appears that some of the churches wrote to Paul with questions. They wanted answers to some of the things they didn't understand. Paul heard that some churches were having problems and Paul wrote these churches to correct some problems. Have you ever noticed that we would have a very small New Testament if the church had been perfect? Most of the New Testament was written to correct some problem in the church. Some do apply to us and some don't apply, but we have a multitude of principles that we can use.

In other words, "the Gospel" does not equate to "the New Testament".

Some might respond that the early Christians had all the information provided by the New Testament via supernatural revelation, even if it had not yet been written down. But in at least the question of whether Gentile Christians had to submit to the Jewish Law (Acts 15), there were Gentile Christians who had obeyed "the Gospel" prior to this matter being settled. Thus, in this issue at least, the New Testament contains information which those Gentile (or Jewish) Christians could not have known even though they had obeyed "the Gospel".

Simply put, once again, "the Gospel" is not the same as "the New Testament".

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.

====

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

.

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

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.