Why Can We Sit for Three Hours at a Football Game, But Only for Forty Minutes at Church?

The question was asked in the adult class the other night by a 30-ish woman:

Why can we sit for three hours at a football game, but only for forty minutes at church?

I didn't speak up then, for fear my answer might be offensive to those in the class, but here's my answer.

Football Game	Church
You're focused mostly on visuals.	You're focused almost exclusively on audio.
You're talking to those around you.	You don't interact with others.
You can move around, stand, jump, nap.	You're expected to sit quietly, but without napping.
You wear what you're wearing, comfortable clothes.	You're expected to be in your "Sunday clothes”.
You can eat, drink, talk/play on your phone.	You're not allowed to snack or play during church.
You don't know what the next play will be, or what will be the outcome of the game.	You've heard the same message all your life; you know it so well you could preach it.
Although there's lots of down-time, it's punctuated with exciting action.	The presentation is generally monotonous.

In short, a football game encourages involvement, whereas a church assembly encourages passivity.

Of course, a church assembly is not a football game, so we shouldn't expect the two venues to have the same "flavor". But much of what makes three hours at a football game pass quickly could be implemented in our assemblies, without harming the purpose of those assemblies.

But it takes a lot of work to add visual aids to a lecture, or better, to convert that lecture into a more interactive learning experience.

It takes wisdom to know what can be discarded as mere tradition and replaced with a more attractive method.

And some saints will be unable to imagine any possible distinction between our traditions and God's ordinances. For such people, any sort of change (good or bad), must be bad, and must be resisted; expect to hear the term "change agent" as a condemnatory charge. These saints are immature, not realizing that we are called to be transformed ("changed") by the renewing of our minds, to discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God (Rom 12:2), and to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet 3:18). We are not to hold tightly to man-made traditions, but to test ourselves, to examine ourselves, to see if we are in the faith (2 Cor 13:5), and if we are not, then change is required. We are to accommodate people where they're at, becoming all things to all people, so that we may by every possible means save some (1 Cor 9:19-22).

If we don't learn to make our assemblies more attractive, what will be the result?

Look at our assemblies; they are dying. This is not because people don't love the Lord, but because they don't love the boredom of our assemblies, because our assemblies are not attractive.

The people of Jesus' day weren't really any different to the people of today; they didn't follow Jesus because he was boring; they followed him because he was exciting. He was teaching new things; he was doing amazing works; he was challenging the authorities; he was moving as he taught, eating as he taught, touching as he taught.

And even the people of sixty, eighty, 200 years ago, who had little escape from the daily trudge and little interaction with others or with fresh ideas, likely thought so highly of church-attendance because it was entertaining to them.

Today we have lots of distractions that are much more fun than sitting passively in a lecture hall, especially if we have to take the time and trouble to change our clothes first, and possibly ruining our only morning to sleep in. We can't do away with those distractions. But we can make our assemblies more attractive by relying less on lectures and passiveness, and more on involvement and interaction and visuals and movement.

Make the assembly more attractive, and our assemblies will grow, and we may find that time at church passes just as quickly as time at a football game.

Encounter God Retreat

I was recently privileged to attend an Encounter God Retreat (EGR) conducted by the Fountain Gate Fellowship (FGF) in Abilene, TX.

I didn't really know what to expect when I signed up for it. I was encouraged to go by someone who had gone last year, and who was participating this year as a "coach" at the event. I knew I had seen some significant life-changes in this person as a result of her attendance last year.

Going into it, I expected to gain some new perspectives, that something good would come out of it, but I did not expect any great life-changing value for myself. And even after the three-day event (Fri evening, 7am-5pm Saturday &; Sunday), I felt the same way, that I had experienced some things that were good for me to experience, that might color me in some ways in the future, but nothing that could be considered "life changing" in the way I had heard it described from several attendees/testifiers at the event.

But looking back now, a few weeks later, I'm really rather surprised at what was accomplished. In my "normal" church life, there has been little excitement, little motivation to move beyond the ritualistic same ol', same ol', punch-your-'I've been to church this week'-ticket mentality.

Friday night and Saturday were mostly focused on getting free from the shackles of sin, guilt, shame, fears, anything that's weighing us down and keeping us from experiencing God more fully. Sunday was more focused on re-filling after the emptying, but this time with the Spirit-things of God rather than the spirit-things of this world.

Judging by what I've witnessed in several people, including a friend I took, who was at least as skeptical of EGR's value as myself, if not more so, and definitely more weighed down by life-scars, Friday and Saturday were successful. In myself, I was surprised to find that I wasn't weighed down by most of the shackles which the event focused on: I'm not feeling particularly guilty about things I've done, I don't have any major addictions (laziness, junk food, overeating, and soft drinks are my biggies, all of which are unhealthy but not debilitating), I'm not involved in most of the "big" sins, I don't have crippling fears, etc. (This is not to say I'm perfect; I do have a couple of issues which needed to be addressed, toward which EGR provided a step that I wasn't otherwise taking, but it is to say that I perceived myself as more of an observer of EGR than a beneficiary at this time.) But my friend found some significant healing in these days, which has been needed her entire life, and which she had never gotten anywhere else, regardless of the amount of professional counseling (she's had much) and other church influences she's had.

On that aspect alone, remembering the words of Jesus that we will know them by their fruits, EGR is a very valuable offering to the community. I've seen the fruits of EGR, in the person who recommended the experience to me, in the person whom I encouraged to go, and in many attendees and speakers thereat. And judging by that fruit, EGR is a very good thing.

The filling-up with God's Spirit on Sunday was less fruitful for me and my friend, but like I say, we're both intuitively resistant to such "holy-roller"-ness, and I'm reminded that Jesus did not do many miracles in one place because of the unbelief there. I recognize that my resistance to "being led by the Spirit" could be a blockage caused by me, that my failure to be "moved" could be on me as much as anything, if not more.

But now, weeks later, I look back, and I realize I did get filled up with God's Spirit. It just wasn't a "gee-whiz bang!" filling like what seemed to be the norm among the "more emotional" attendees. I intentionally tried to be open to whatever God wanted to do with me, but I refused to allow myself to be emotionally manipulated into "being struck by the Spirit", or whatever the terminology is.

How did I get filled?

I think it was accomplished because FGF/EGR designed their assembly to feed the entire person, and not just the intellect. My home church is very staid, very focused on the mind. We study our Bibles; we discuss what the text means; we find book/chapter/verse; we present three-point lectures as sermons, and make sure our prayers are "Biblical".

EGR was a very multi-media event. Loud music, soft music, dancing, standing, sitting, quiet times, group prayers, one-to-one prayers, praying for each other, hands-on praying for each other, Bible reading, video lessons, testimonies, projector presentations, skits, singing, confessing, intimate opening-up to one another, hands-on worksheets, eating together, lights, sounds, movement, humor, sombering stories - the works. The entire person was encouraged, swept along, to be involved.

And even for someone as logical, unemotional, resistant as myself, the effect was a seeping into my deepest parts a light from God, a filling, a craving for the deepness of God calling out from the deepness of my soul, a connection, an Encounter with God.

During the weekend, a song that was played a couple of times by the band (yes, I know many people, particularly from my normal fellowship, have a HUGE problem with this, but again, look at the fruit (and at my arguments elsewhere on this blog about our approach to music)) struck me at first as non-sensical, and although fun to listen/dance/sing to, had no real value, as it wasn't valuable to my intellect, which is pretty much how I determine the value of anything at a foundational level. Parts of the song go:

We're stirring up deep, deep wells/water
We're going to dance/jump in the river
We're falling/walking into deeper waters
Deep cries out to, Deep cries out to
We cry out to, We cry out to, you Jesus

Those words didn't mean much to my intellect; they didn't make sense.

But the song has been reverberating in my head ever since that weekend, to the point where I had to look it up on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8fCTlER3sE). I've since listened to it 7 or 10 times.

One of the images lingering in my brain from the weekend was a good-looking 20-ish young man at the front of the "sanctuary" (I'm told they don't call it an "auditorium", because they are not spectators in worship to God, but participants), along with a crowd of 50 others or so, "line-dancing" (sort of) first to the left then to the right, to the part of the song that says "If he goes to the left then we'll go to the left; if he goes to the right, then we'll go to the right". I'm also reminded of the "Pastor" urging the participants to come down and join in this crowd at the "altar" area, which he likened to a "river", and that imagery clicked somewhat with me: this crowd at the front formed a flowing river, involved in the flowing of God's spirit amongst his people, and in this part of the song, the river flowed left, then right, as Jesus led them.

And as I listened to this song via YouTube in the weeks since, it's begun to make sense to me. As you may have noticed in what I wrote above, there's a craving deep within me that cries to/for the deepness that is God. This song sings about that. The lyrics start to make sense to my intellect, but long before they made sense to my intellect, they were speaking to my spirit, and in language my intellect could not comprehend. As Paul writes in 1 Cor 14:15, "I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with my understanding." There's a way to worship God which is done without understanding. A verse earlier Paul wrote, "For if I pray in another language, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful." This is a God-inspired approach to worship, brain not required.

And then amazingly, one of the YouTube videos opened with this quotation from Psalm 42:7:

Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls;all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.

Wow. now the song makes even more sense! It's Biblical!

This EGR did change my life. Granted, it's not a huge visible change. But to realize that the brain is not required when worshiping God is pretty big for me. Paul goes on to say that using your brain is better in a corporate environment, so that the others around you benefit (vv 4-5, 17-19, 26) but when it's just you and God, go for it (vv 2, 4, 17). This freedom has been in front of me my entire life, but it took EGR for me to see it.

And additionally, I realize that not everyone has the same gift of "intellection" which I have; some people are touchy-feely; some are artsy; some are musical. My friend loves songs, and communicates through music. She gets frustrated with me for not "getting" what she's trying to say when she shares a song with me; I don't speak that language, which is native to her. She doesn't speak the language of intellectual Bible study, which comes naturally to me and which is almost exclusively the language used at the church of which we're members. That church which we attend does not speak to her; the FGF music normally wouldn't speak to me.

But this one song, after a couple of weeks, spoke to me. She's thrilled that I "get" it. And it's clear to me that a one-size-fits-all approach at church simply doesn't fit all. EGR showed me that there's another way than the way we do things at my home church.

It wasn't a huge life change, but the speakers/attendees were right: EGR changed my life.

Huh. Go figure. (And praise God while figuring.)

Originally posted at: http://kentwest.blogspot.com/2013/04/encounter-god-retreat.html

Unity in Diversity

It seems to me that the Holy Spirit was pleased in Acts 15 with the dividing up of the church into two groups with two different doctrines/practices, not because it carved up the body of Christ, but because it provided a way for the two groups, Jew and Gentile, to maintain an overall unity while respecting their differences.

I don't believe anyone who speaks of "unity in diversity" is arguing for carving up the body. Not at all. But the old 1950's Church of Christ doctrine that we must all think and believe and look exactly alike before we accept each other is simply not Biblical.

^{HCSB 1 Cor 12:13} For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. ¹⁴ So the body is not one part but many.

There is only one body. But in Acts 15, the Torah-keeping Jews and the non-Torah-keeping Gentiles, who made up that one body, were different, to such a degree that if we were to see these two groups today in buildings across the street from each other, we would refer to at least one of them as a "denomination" and condemn them as sectarians, whereas the Scriptures record the Holy Spirit as seeing such an arrangement as "good" (Acts 15:28).

Should we call evil that which the Holy Spirit calls good?

I believe we do this because we still think we're supposed to look exactly alike, and believe exactly alike, and sport the exact same name. But the Scriptures show that's not the case. The body is not one part but many (1 Cor 12:14). This is true on an individual level (1 Cor 12:27), on a race level (v. 13), on a social-status level (v. 13), on an ability/giftedness level (Rom 12:3ff), on learning-styles level (1 Pet 3:1 word vs demo; Acts 21:10-11 skit vs words only), and on a different doctrines/practices level (Acts 15 & Rom 14).

The goal is not division, or branding; the goal is unity, despite division and/or branding. We don't want to carve up the body into different brands. But in order to follow the Biblical example, in converting or interacting with members of another group, we must be willing to allow that group to retain its pre-existing distinctiveness, allowing them to differ from us, significantly.

We've typically interpreted this "many parts" passage as having very limited range: you can be an elder, while I'm a deacon, while sister Sheri is the Joy Bus driver, but we still must believe the same thing about Pre-destination and the nature of Hell/Hades/Paradise/Heaven and when the Lord's Supper is to be observed and by whom. But the Scriptures say this range is broader than that: you can meticulously observe the Torah of Moses (Acts 15, esp v. 5), observing holy days and dietary restrictions such as avoiding ocean scavengers as food, while I could care less about some day of the week being more special than another and consider everything as clean, including shrimp and wine (Rom 14).

Just look at those particular differences: what if you belonged to a group that insisted on meeting every Sunday morning, and total avoidance of alcohol, and total avoidance of pork products, and your group met in the old Safeway store on 3rd street, and you had a sign out front that said "church of Christ", whereas I belonged to a group that met every Saturday night after sundown (believing the Jewish time-keeping system is more Biblical), and we had a meal together that was often composed of BLT sandwiches, and that after midnight (as per Paul's example in Acts 20, which, btw, puts his Lord's Supper observance on Monday for you Gentile time-keepers), we had some unleavened bread and alcoholic wine in remembrance of the Lord's death, and we met in the old Baptist assembly building on 4th street, having painted over the word "baptist" and left the sign just saying "4th Street ...... church"? To many in the brotherhood, one of our groups (probably mine) would be a "denomination". But as long as your group and mine got along as part of a united one-body, it seems that the Holy Spirit would be pleased that you don't force your scruples on me and I don't force mine on you and that despite our differences, we are brethren.

What matters is not whether we have the same function (1 Cor 12:27ff), or have the same doctrines on unclear issues (Rom 14), or look/dress the same (James 2:1ff), or even agree on what we're going to call ourselves when we gather together ("the Way", "the church of Christ", the "church of God", the "Circumcision", etc); what matters is "that the members would have the same concern for each other" (1 Cor 12:25), so that "there would be no division in the body" (v. 25).

In other words, Unity is not based on having the same "brand", or even the same practices/thinking, but on getting along as a unified group; this is the greatest, "better way" -- Love (1 Cor 12:31--> chapter 13), regardless of our differences.

2 Corinthians as a Fund-Raising Letter

At the beginning of the second letter to the Corinthians we have a hint that it's a fund-raising letter: "help us by your prayers" - 1:11, and "help us to go on to Macedonia; give us a start" - v. 15.

He then spends the next few chapters focusing on spiritual matters, pointing out that we do not focus on the seen but on the unseen (4:18), that we walk by faith and not by sight (5:7).

He then more fully leads into the fund-raising in chapter 8, saying that they need to finish the task of donations to the ministry which they had started a year earlier (8:10-11; cf 1 Cor 16:1-2), and that the Have's should give to the Have-Not's (8:13-15), assuring them that the donated money will be safe-guarded to its intended destination (8:19-21).

Chapter 9 is, as a whole, a fund-raising appeal, starting from the first line ("Now concerning the ministry to the saints"), going through the middle ("The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly"), all the way to the end ("They (the needy saints) will glorify God ... for your generosity in sharing with them.").

Chapter 10 is a defense of the methodology of Paul and his companions ("Just as [you] belong to Christ, so do we." - v 7 ; "We don't dare classify or compare ourselves with [others]." - v 12 ; "we" - v 13 ; "we" - v 14 ; "we", "we", "our", "we" - vv 15, 16). Paul essentially says, "Don't accuse us of being unspiritual; for indeed, our warfare is not fought with force, but with persuasion. Nevertheless, we live in the body, which has unspiritual needs".

Chapter 11 continues the defense, as well as the fund-raising effort. "I am in no way inferior to the 'super-apostles'" - v 5. "I preached to you free of charge." - v. 7. "Other churches were 'robbed' to provide that service to you." - v 8. "I've sacrificed a lot - I'm not seeking a material reward; I'm not unspiritual like many." - v 22-33.

He continues that line of thought in Chapter 12 - "I've had visions; Christ speaks to me personally; I've shown you the signs of an apostle."  He then adds in verse 14, "Now I'm ready to come to you a third time; in the meanwhile I urged Titus to come, and the brother with him", which we see in 8:16-24 was for the purpose of collecting their donations.

Yes, there's an emphasis on being spiritual in this letter, on not being focused on the material. Paul warns that when he comes, he's afraid they won't be what he wants, that they'll be caught up in material, fleshly issues like quarreling and promiscuity (12:20ff). But what he wants is for them to be focused on spiritual matters, which includes letting go of their money for the sake of others and for the sake of funding Paul's ministerial travels. This does not make Paul unspiritual; indeed, his focus is on fighting spiritual battles with spiritual weapons. But that statement has nothing to do with fighting physical battles as we go about living in our bodies, needs which can not be ignored, else the Corinthians would be justified in ignoring his plea for donations to take care of such needs. Paul makes it clear that although our battle is not worldly, we live in the world, and need to take care of worldly issues. Even in Romans 15:26-27, Paul makes it clear that the Corinthian donation is for wordly needs ("For if the [Corinthians] have been made partakers of [the Jews'] spiritual things, their duty is also to [pay them back] in carnal things").

We tend to think of Paul's writings as being focused on spiritual things, but it seems to me that the core purpose of 2 Corinthians is to be a fund-raising letter.

Interesting.

He Was Counted Among the Outlaws

From Luke 22 (HCSB):

36 Then He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money-bag should take it, and also a traveling bag. And whoever doesn’t have a sword should sell his robe and buy one. 37 For I tell you, what is written must be fulfilled in Me: And He was counted among the outlaws. Yes, what is written about Me is coming to its fulfillment.”

Jesus did not tell his disciples to carry swords to cause him to be numbered with the transgressors. It's the other way around. He told them to carry swords (and other provisions) because he would be numbered with the transgressors.

Else, carrying those other provisions (money-bags and suitcases) is also part of what makes Jesus a rebel.

Jesus was contrasting the two sendings: the first time, he told them not to take provisions. This time, he tells them to take provisions, because he will be counted among the outlaws.

There's an ancient Hebraic practice of interpreting scripture called remez. This method uses an allusion to a deeper meaning than what is plainly said, found in the context of what's being quoted. For example, when Jesus has a meal with sinners, and the Pharisees challenge him on that, he says, "Go and find out what this means - 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'" (Matt 9:9ff). In doing this, he's using the technique of remez to allude to the entire context around that quotation from Hosea 6:6. He expects the Pharisees to know the text well enough to know that he's telling the Pharisees that they are the ones Hosea is talking about, they they are the sinners, and that the people with whom Jesus is eating are the ones being healed. His message is not in his own words, but in the words surrounding the quote which he is citing. This is remez.

I believe that's what he's doing in Luke 22:37; he's using remez to allude to something deeper from the prophecy he cites about being counted among the outlaws. To see what that is, we need to look at the prophetic text. It's from Isa 53:12.

This is the chapter in which the Messiah is despised, rejected, carries our sicknesses and pains, is struck down by God, pierced for our transgressions, heals us by his wounds, is oppressed and afflicted, led like a silent lamb to slaughter, cut off from the land of the living, crushed for YHWH's pleasure, to make a restitution offering, submits to death, counted among the rebels, yet intercedes for the rebels.

The passage is NOT saying that Jesus will be considered a rebel because he's hanging around people who are considered rebels because they're carrying swords. It's saying that Jesus will be treated as just another rebel, suitable for execution. Jesus is not telling the disciples to get a sword so that he can be considered a rebel because of his association with them while they're armed. He's telling them that as the disciples of "a rebel", they will themselves be considered rebels against the government, and thus will now be on the fringes of society, no longer able to expect the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome, to apply to them. They will henceforth be on their own, no longer protected by a government with whom they will be at odds, no longer able to run to the police for protection (Acts 18:17 testifies to this, where Sosthenes is beaten without trial in full view of the legal system).

The context of Luke 22:35-37 is that previously Jesus sent the disciples out on a mission trip without provisions, and they lacked nothing, but now he's telling them to take provisions, because they, like their leader, will be considered rebels. Those provisions include money-bags, suitcases, and self-defense weapons. They need these provisions because they will have to go "underground", no longer relying on the protections afforded by the legal societal system.

Someone might object that Jesus couldn't possibly be telling his disciples to prep themselves for violent self-defense, because just a few hours later he tells Peter to put away his sword, and that they who live by the sword will die by the sword.

But notice that Jesus told Peter to put his sword back in its place (on the sword-bearer's person), not surrender it to the authorities (Matt 26:52) -- he told Peter to keep his sword.

The reason he gives for not using the sword in this case is two-fold:

1) a readiness to live by the sword is deadly (Matt 26:52)

and

2) arrest & execution must occur, according to the prophecies, so stop resisting it (Matt 26:53-54). John (18:11 HCSB) makes this point even more clear:

At that, Jesus said to Peter, “Sheathe your sword! Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given Me?”

He then tells when swords and clubs are to be used --> against criminals (Matt 26:55).

Shortly thereafter Jesus says that if his issues were of this world, he would approve of his followers fighting; it's just that his concerns are not of this world. (John 18:35-38). In other words, he's saying that physical fighting has its place, just not in this situation.

Simply put, Jesus told his disciples to arm themselves, to carry a weapon, but to use it with discretion, and not to thwart his intention to get arrested. He's not telling his disciples to carry swords to force the fulfillment of prophecy that he would be considered an outlaw. He's saying that he (and his followers, by association) will be considered outlaws, as prophecy foretells, so they need to prepare to take care of themselves, and that having a self-defense weapon takes priority over even having a jacket to keep them warm on cool nights.

The Weapons of Our Warfare are not Wordly

It's been argued that Christians are not to serve as military soldiers, policemen, etc, based on 2 Corinthians 10:4, which reads (in the KJV):

(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

But I'd like to look at this verse in its broader context (from the HCSB).

1 Now I, Paul, make a personal appeal to you by the gentleness and graciousness of Christ—I who am humble among you in person but bold toward you when absent. 2 I beg you that when I am present I will not need to be bold with the confidence by which I plan to challenge certain people who think we are behaving in an unspiritual way. 3 For though we live in the body, we do not wage war in an unspiritual way, 4 since the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments 5 and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to obey Christ. 6 And we are ready to punish any disobedience, once your obedience has been confirmed. 

7 Look at what is obvious. If anyone is confident that he belongs to Christ, he should remind himself of this: Just as he belongs to Christ, so do we. 8 For if I boast some more about our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for tearing you down, I am not ashamed. 9 I don’t want to seem as though I am trying to terrify you with my letters. 10 For it is said, “His letters are weighty and powerful, but his physical presence is weak, and his public speaking is despicable.” 11 Such a person should consider this: What we are in the words of our letters when absent, we will be in actions when present.

The preceding chapter/context, which Paul thought might cause some to "think we are behaving in an unspiritual way", was focused on the material ("non-spiritual") aspects of fund-raising for poverty-stricken saints in another part of the world.

In other words, Paul was conducting a fund-raiser, and after making his presentation, said, "I beg that I won't need to scold those who think we're being unspiritual. For even though we're living in material bodies, with material needs, our focus is not on waging war in material ways - the weapons of our warfare are not worldly. Rather, we use our words to convince people to obey Christ. But once you belong to "us" (vs 6), to "Christ (v. 7), we're ready to use our authority as needed (v 6, 8ff)."

To press Paul's statements in this context to mean that we are never to take up arms for worldly warfare is to move Paul's statements into a context which is foreign to the context at-hand. It would be like pressing Jesus' statement, "Judge not, lest ye be judged" (Matt 7:1), to mean that we should never make judgment calls, even though within the same paragraph Jesus is telling us to not cast our pearls before swine, which requires just that, a judgment call.

Context matters.

Paul is speaking of the church's "Mission Statement"; he's not making a prohibition. The mission of the church is to persuade people, not to convert them at the point of a sword. The business of the church is to change minds, not to subjugate them by force.

That's what the context of this passage says. The context does not address being a soldier, or policeman, etc.

However, the context of other passages does address the issue.

Acts 10 strongly indicates that being a soldier is consistent with being a Christian, as the Roman Centurion Cornelius converts to Christianity.

Also, when the soldiers came to John the Immerser and asked what they must do, John did not tell them to quit the army; he told them to not use force for selfish purposes (Luke 3:14).

If being in the army was unacceptable as a follower of Christ, it seems to me that the one paving the way for that Christ would have at least hinted that such a change was coming, and it seems to me that Luke would have made it clear that Cornelius had to quit his commission to become a Christian.
So how do I understand 2 Cor 10:4? I understand it to be a mission statement for how the church is to grow: via persuasion, not by force. But that does not address the mission statement for how human government is to punish evildoers, which, by God's decree (Gen 9:5-6; Rom 13:4), uses force. These are two different contexts, and this passage only addresses one of them.

Paul the Artist?

The following info is from a single person on a random forum, so I would not put a lot of stock into it, but it raises an interesting concept.

According to Yancy Smith (and yes, it seems like it might be that Yancy Smith, the scholar):

1) "Further, Paul’s day job is like connected to graphic arts. See the BDAG article on tent-maker and you will find that the word is never used of tentmaking in Hellenistic Greek, only for scene or wall painting. There is ample evidence of Jews working in theater arts in the first century."

2) "In 1st century domestic spaces of nearly every socio-economic level, living areas were decorated with wall paintings. One can confirm this abundantly by looking at the wall art in Pompley, Herculaneaum, and the terrace houses in Ephesus. Floors were also decorated in mosaics and Christian worship spaces continued the use of converted pagan artistic themes in the early worship spaces that survive from Dura Europos and the many mosaics of Christian spaces in Jordan." ... "If you look at BDAG carefully you will [sic] that Paul’s use of this verb is closely associated with the artistic connection of this word. The theme of suffering was ubiquitous on the wall art and, indeed the theme of vicarious suffering was quite common. Such portraiture as Iphigenia (of Euripides fame) would have provided ample points of contact with the gospel story of Jesus who redeemed believers at the cost of his own blood."

3) "The verb γράφειν is quite often used to mean 'paint' (Lucian, Essays in Portraiture, 4, 8, 17, 18, 19, 23; Essays in Portraiture Defended 23 etc, etc)."

A relative of the word γράφειν (in #3 above) is what's found in Gal 3:1. Now notice how the HCSB renders this word in that verse (see underlined):

You foolish Galatians! Who has hypnotized you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was vividly portrayed as crucified?

(Originally posted at: http://kentwest.blogspot.com/2013/04/paul-artist.html)

Hey! Yeah, You, You One-Percenters!

1 Tim 6:17-19

1) Instructions specifically for those who have money. Don't trust money, but God:

Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God....

2) Surprise! God wants us to enjoy life:

[Focus on] God, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy.

3) Sharing your wealth is the way to an even richer, better life to come; make it part of your retirement plan:

Instruct them to do what is good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good reserve; for the age to come, so that they may take hold of life that is real.

Ooh, ooh, Look at me!

The 140Bible Project (https://twitter.com/140bible & http://facebook.com/140bible) has as its goal to tweet a chapter of the Bible per day for 1189 days. It's tough to squeeze the essence of a Bible chapter down into 140 characters, but I think we've done amazingly well over the past 2 and a half years.

Most recently we've gotten into 1 Corinthians, and I'm stunned by what I see in chapter four after tweeting the first three chapters. Here it is, for your examination:

1Co1-Paul, Sosthenes, to Corinth christians. Don't split; be one. Follow Jesus, not men. God chooses foolish, weak, to shame wise, strong.

1Co2-Paul's words weren't persuasive, but God confirmed them. Now God's Spirit reveals a Wisdom to the mature, who have the mind of Christ.

1Co3-Self-ID'ing w/ church leaders (mere servants, each doing their job, 1 in purpose, not function) rather than Christ is immature/worldly.

1Co4-Think of us leaders as just servants of Christ. So don't favor any human leaders. Except me; I have power they don't.

I've tweaked chapter four's tweet a bit to make it more palatable to the masses, to say:

1Co4-Think of us leaders as just servants of Christ. So don't favor any human leaders. Still, imitate me, not them; I have power they don't.

I don't really think that's what Paul intended to say, but it seems to be what he's saying.

What about you? If you were condensing these four chapters down into 140 characters (including the chapter reference), how would you phrase it?

[Originally posted at:  http://kentwest.blogspot.com/2013/03/ooh-ooh-look-at-me.html]

Requirements for Church Assemblies?

It is often taught that we have certain requirements to perform in our Christian assemblies. I recently responded to someone who suggested that among these requirements are these:

* Lord's Supper
* Pray
* Sing
* Study Bible
* Preaching
* Giving

He went on to say that "While an assembly might be for one purpose only we have certain responsibilities to perform at the 'first day of the week' assembly."

But I'm having trouble even finding a command to assemble on the first day of the week. I find the early disciples doing so in Acts 20 (but is it our Saturday night, the Jewish first day, or our Sunday, the Gentile first day?) I find a number of the core group of disciples doing so on Resurrection Sunday, and on the next Sunday, but it seems to be less a God-commanded assembly than a spontaneous assembly of commiserating losers the first time, and a convenient follow-up assembly the second. I see a reference in Revelation to "the Lord's Day". But I also see the early disciples meeting daily to break bread, not just on the first day (Acts 2:46).

Is the phrase "to break bread" in Acts 20 a reference to the Lord's Supper? To a going-away party for Paul (since "he was about to depart the next day")? To the second Passover, for those who missed the first (the timing is pretty close)? A normal regular meal assembly that perhaps they did every day, but with this day's break-bread-assembly deserving special mention because of the events surrounding it? Should we intend our break-bread-assembly to be on Saturday night, as seems apparent from the text if they were following Jewish time-keeping, or should we intend our break-bread-assembly to be on Sunday if they were following Gentile time-keeping, in which case we should not actually eat until after the second day of the week starts, after midnight, following Paul's example?

There are too many questions that are unanswered to dogmatically claim that this is a command/example for us to observe the Lord's Supper every first day of the week.

We find a weekly Sunday observance to be the habit in at least one early assembly when we look to the most ancient materials outside of the Bible (and more broadly the later in time we go), but since when do we take extra-Biblical sources as our guide in religious matters? If we do that, we're also going to have to honor the instructions in the Didache, which most likely dates from the end of the first century or early second, which means prescribed prayers for the Lord's Supper (among other issues, such as first confessing your transgressions prior to observing the Lord's Supper); are we really going to go that route?

Now don't get me wrong; I think that very early on, the disciples dropped their daily assemblies in favor of weekly first-day assemblies, in which the Lord's Supper was observed. I think we see hints of that in the New Testament. But I don't see a command from God to do this. Nor do I see an example that is indisputably binding.

I'm reminded of Jesus scolding the Pharisees (Matt 15:1ff) because they had used examples and human logic to find "binding" commands. He said that in so doing, they were "teaching as doctrines the commands of men" (v. 9). Jesus had no qualms with their traditions (Matt 23:2-3) (as long as they weren't used to set aside actual commands from God - 15:3); he had severe qualms with binding those traditions as commands, and teaching them as doctrines.

In following this example of Jesus, I'm on-guard against binding examples as commands, and then teaching them as doctrine. In light of this, let me say with emphasis: There is no command from God to observe the Lord's Supper every first day of the week. Hints? Clues? Possible, and even probable, examples? Yes, absolutely. But no command. Therefore I'm not going to make it a doctrine that it is a command, because then I would be teaching as doctrine a commandment of men.

The truth is that what is often put forward as "requirements" in our "required" assemblies, simply aren't. They are commands derived by human logic, applied to good, Biblical examples and inferences, backed up by extra-Biblical material. But such human-derived commands, taught as doctrine, are vain worship (Matt 15:9).

Originally posted at:

http://kentwest.blogspot.com/2013/02/requirements-for-church-assemblies.html

The Law of Sin and Death - Not a Moral Issue?

Many of us have been taught to think that Paul's phrase, "the law of sin and death", refers to spiritual separation from God as a result of an action or inaction on our part, in other words, that it's a moral issue.

(Right-click on this sentence to open the relevant passage in another tab/window so you can read the text for yourself.)

I would encourage you to rethink that. As I understand it, the term "law of sin and death" is not a "moral" law at all, but a physical law, like the law of gravity or the law of conservation of momentum. I base this on the context of the phrase as found in Romans 8:2.

In chapter seven of Romans, starting about verse 14,  Paul is speaking of his struggle to do right; although his desire is to do right, there's something in his physical body which overrides his desire, and causes him to do wrong (v. 15-19). He even goes so far as to say that it's not him that's doing the wrong, but the sin that dwells within him that causes him to do wrong (v. 20), and that he himself is powerless to do right (v. 18).

He discusses the "law of God" in his inner being (v. 22), in which he delights with the "law of his mind" (vv 22-23), and contrasts that with the "law of sin" which dwells in his members (v. 23). He says he's wretched because he's trapped in this "body of death" (v. 24), but he rejoices that God, through Jesus, allows him to serve God with the mind, even while his body obeys the "law of sin" (v 25).

Immediately after that usage of the phrase "law of sin" while referring to that something in his physical body which causes him to do what his moral mind chooses against, he uses the phrase "law of sin and death", saying that in Jesus Christ we are now free from that law (8:2).

A couple of chapters earlier, Paul distinguished between the guilt of sin, and the inheritance of sin.

Many of us have been well-trained to dispute the notion of inherited sin, but I believe that's a result of a misunderstanding of what sin is. We think that sin is only the transgression of law, and quote 1 John 3:4 as proof. Whereas that is true, that's not the only way the Bible refers to sin. As indicated above, sin is also something that physically dwells in our flesh.

Sin is both a moral action (as we've understood it), and a physical condition (which is inherent in our fallen bodies). As a moral action, sin is not inherited. As a physical condition, it is.

In Romans 5, Paul talks about how sin came into the world via Adam (v. 12). Adam's trespass was a choice to perform an action. He morally sinned. However, his action introduced into the world a physical curse. This curse included changes to the soil leading to much harder work for feeding one's self, the evolution of thorns & thistles, the devolution of the serpent, increased pain in childbirth, the loss of equality between the sexes, and eventual physical death. This curse spread to all humans (v. 12), because all sinned (v. 12).

Well, it's obvious that babies don't perform sinful actions, and yet they sometimes die. Why do they die? It's because they inherit the curse of death, which according to Paul spreads to all because all sin. Even if the person doesn't sin in the same manner as Adam (v. 14), if they don't choose to perform a sinful action like did Adam, although the guilt of sin is not imputed to them because no law has been broken (v. 13), nevertheless, they still die, because this curse reigns in our broken world, even before the arrival of Moses' law (v. 14).

So we have two definitions of sin here: 1) the condition of sin, which occurs regardless of law-breaking, and which results in death, and 2) the action of sin, which results in guilt.

The first type of sin is inherited; the second type of sin is not inherited. The first type of sin is what I believe Paul refers to when he uses the term "law of sin and death".

It is this first type of sin which Paul says is in his members, which causes him to perform the second type of sin, and which leads to death. He praises God through Jesus because he knows he will one day be set free from this law of sin and death, and not just us, in our physical bodies (8:23), but indeed, the entire cosmos (8:18-25). The cosmos was cursed when Adam sinned, but the second Adam has re-purchased the cosmos so that it may be set free from its bondage to corruption (8:21), and now we're just waiting on the delivery of the renewed creation. (Note, the creation was once "very good"; then it became cursed with death and disease and thorns and hard work and inequality; and some day it will again be restored to its original condition; this is a far cry from the evolutionary story that is often force-fitted into the Bible to accommodate modern "science".)

We're all under the "law of sin and death", not just those who are separated from God by sin. "Sin and death" is not a moral issue, but a physical issue. The "law of sin and death" does not refer to the principle that says, "If you sin, you die"; it refers to the principle of having a tangible condition within the corpuscles of our bodies which causes us to die.

At least, that's how I understand these relevant portions of Romans.

Originally posted at:
http://kentwest.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-law-of-sin-and-death-not-moral-issue.html

Divertismal

It was in the closing comments of the Aflred Hitchcock episode, "Vicious Circle" (Season 2, Episode 29 - you can watch it on Netflix, maybe YouTube). I believe the word he used was "divertismal". I can't find the word online, except on one site that uses it in a similar fashion. I take it to be roughly synonymous with "diversion".

Anyone can help me find the word?

Thanks!

Thoughts on The Parable of the Prodigal Son

• First, why do we call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son? The word "prodigal" is not found in the text itself (at least, not in the KJV, which is the version that would have set the usage in our culture). No one nowadays even knows what the word means ("wastefully extravagant"). If the average Joe knew what the word means, okay. But no one does. Maybe we should call it the Parable of the Wastefully Extravagant Son, or the Parable of the Squanderer.
• The church song, "God is Calling the Prodigal", implies that the word "prodigal" means something other than "wastefully extravagant"; it implies a meaning closer to "lost hungry runaway". In doing so, the song contributes to misunderstanding.
• Not only did the son waste the father's assets; he wasted the assets on prostitutes (Luke 15:30). I think this is indicative of both the disdain oriented toward prostitutes and their customers, and the acceptance of men visiting prostitutes if they have the money for it. I'm reminded of Judah in Genesis 38, who had no great problem with visiting a prostitute, although he wanted to keep it quiet, and then his judgmentalism (at first, until his own hypocrisy was pointed out to him) toward his daughter-in-law when he found out she had prostituted herself. I'm not entirely sure what my point is here, but I think it has something to do with humans being ... human.
• The party included music and dancing. I was raised in a church culture that said "dancing is sin". I'm pretty sure that attitude had its origins in protecting young hormone-adled teens from too much body-to-body stimulation, which is good, but it turned into a "No, you can't participate in the square-dance exercise in your elementary school music class" ruling. I think Jesus, in relating this part of the story with apparent approval, indicates that there's a middle ground on the issue of "dancing". I think he presents that view a lot in his teaching, counteracting our tendency to make hard-and-fast, black-and-white rules which often go to one extreme or the other.
• I've never quite understood the father's response to the older son. The younger son had indeed squandered the father's wealth, and yet, the father throws a party for him upon his return, and acts like he doesn't think a party needs to be thrown for the older son who has faithfully been a good son. But this time as I read it, something clicked a little for me. Pop is not saying that the younger son gets a start-over with a redistribution again of the wealth still left over; he's just saying, we're celebrating the younger son's renewal to life; the older son still has all the assets ("everything I have is yours"). The older son hasn't lost anything; he's not going to have to give up another half to the the younger son who has squandered all his wealth; it's just a celebration that the younger son is longer estranged from the family. In that light, the father's response makes more sense to me. The younger son still has to pay the price of losing his wealth, but he does now have a comfortable home, and is on good terms again with his dad (not because of what the younger son did - indeed, despite that - but because of the love the dad has for him).
• The faithful child is jealous that the unfaithful child got to do what he wanted and is yet still accepted. I can't help but think of Paul's discussion in Romans 10:19 and c. Romans 11:11, wherein he talks about Israel, the "son who stayed home", being made jealous that the non-Israelites get to be saved too.
• The younger son, after squandering his money, had to associate with pigs. For a Jew, that was a big no-no. This son was in the bottom rung of society at this point.
• This story reminds me of the Benny Hester song,When God Ran.

Will Jesus Ever Set Foot on this Earth Again?

Will Jesus Ever Set Foot on this Earth Again?

As near as I can tell from the Scriptures, we're not told that he won't, and we're not told that he will.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 gives us some hints:

16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will always be with the Lord.

We know from this that he comes into the atmospheric region of the Earth, but we're not told that he will actually step on the surface again. We know we'll join with him in the air, and so be with him forever, but does that mean we'll be with him forever in the earth's atmosphere (unlikely, since the atmosphere is destined for fire), or does it simply mean we'll be with him forever, wherever he goes?

I have no problem saying we have no solid evidence that he will step onto the earth's surface again; I do have a problem saying that we know he won't.

As I understand it, the cosmos, along with Adam and Eve, were designed to be eternal. God walked on the Earth at that time (Gen 3:8). Then Adam sinned, and both he and the creation itself were subjected to corruption. Now, the creation itself is eagerly waiting to be set free from that corruption, just as we await the same redemption of our physical bodies. Here's the relevant text for this, from Romans 8:

19 For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it—in the hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. 23 And not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Adam had an eternal physical body, but it was not subject to corruption.

Jesus' physical body was raised, and is now not subject to corruption (Acts 13:34), and he took it into heaven (Acts 1:9). He will return to Earth in a similar manner to that in which he left (Acts 1:11).

Our physical bodies, like the first-fruits body of Jesus, will be raised, and changed to be incorruptible (not replaced - changed). We will be like him.

Somehow or 'nuther in that, the current heavens and earth will be melted with fire (2 Peter 3:5-7, 10 12), in a similar manner to the destruction of the earth in the Flood (a destruction, but not an annihilation). Does this burning describe a consumption to nothing, or does it describe a metamorphosis, like a caterpillar melting into a jelly on its way to a butterfly?

As I understand it, the pre-Fall world, and the post-Return world, were, and will be, a "physi-spiritual" world, more physical than we tend to imagine, but without the corruption-capability we associate with the word "physical". It will be like the body of Jesus; his body was composed of flesh and bones (Luke 24:39), was able to eat (Luke 24:43), to be hugged (John 20:17; Matt 28:9), to walk (Luke 24:15), to cook (John 21:9), to holler (John 21:5, 8), to bear scars (John 20:24-27), but it was also able to pass through solid walls/doors (20:19, 26), change appearance (Mark 16:12; Luke 24:13ff) , teleport from one place to another (Luke 24:31), and float into the sky and into heaven with neither wings nor spacesuit (Acts 1:.9-10).

Will Jesus stand on a this earth again, after it's burned up and renewed, like he once walked in the garden? I don't know; the text only gives hints, without clarity. But I'm hesitant to claim I have the answer one way or the other.

Hypocritic

I think I just penned a word: hypocritic

It describes those controlling people who are never happy with what you do, like the people in Luke 7 who criticize if you do or if you don't, if you dance or if you don't dance, if you eat or if you don't eat, because you're not meeting their own personal expectations.

^{HCSB Luke 7:31} “To what then should I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? ³² They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to each other:

We played the flute for you,
but you didn’t dance;
we sang a lament,
but you didn’t weep!

³³ For John the Baptist did not come eating bread or drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon!’ ³⁴ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ ³⁵ Yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”

Biblical Contradictions

I've talked about Biblical contradictions before, in writing about how context matters.

You're probably familiar with the story of the blind men and the elephant. Each blind man touches an elephant on a different part of its body (one touching a leg, another a tusk, another an ear, etc), and then describe what they felt, only to discover they were in complete disagreement about an elephant's description.

It's not the elephant that is at fault, but rather the reports given about the elephant.

I believe this applies to the Bible. The Bible often "contradicts" itself, but the fault is not in the book itself, but rather in our limited ability to perceive it.

For example, the Bible clearly states that a person will pay for his own sins, not that of his parents (Ezek 18:20), and yet, it also says that we bear the burden of our parents' sins (Jer 32:18; Lam 5:7).

It also implies that children are innocent of sin (Matt 18:3; 19:4), and yet also implies that we are born with sin (Gen 6:5; Ps 53:2-3; Rom 5:12ff).

It indicates that sin is something we do (1 John 3:4), and yet it indicates that sin is something that we have (Rom 7:17).

We humans don't like our holy books to have contradictions, so we expend lots of effort to explain away the contradictions. We usually do so by attacking the viewpoints opposing our own, finding an alternative explanation for that viewpoint.

There's nothing wrong with that; a certain amount of it is healthy, because Truth is worth searching for.

The problem is when we conclude that we have the Truth, and our opponents do not, because they don't have the same love for the truth that we ourselves have. What's worse, is when that attitude causes us to twist the scriptures to support our viewpoint. Worse even still, is when, after we've twisted the scriptures ourselves, we then accuse our opponents of twisting the scripture.

It might just be that our view of the elephant is limited by our blindness.

So what's my point?

My point is that maybe we don't have such a perfect understanding as we think we have. If the text has been argued about for centuries, by minds greater than our own, maybe we should be a little more humble in declaring we have the answer and they don't.

We often insist on unity in "the essentials". Maybe we should instead insist on unity in things that are clear. (And even then, is it really clear?) And on other things, don't judge, but let each servant stand before God on his own, for the Lord will make him stand (Rom 14:1-4).

Refusing the Obvious

My friend, Robert Blasingame, posts at his blog an interesting observation:

The chief priests, etc, who had Jesus arrested, tried, and executed, knew he had claimed that he would rise again, so much so that they posted guards at his tomb to prevent anyone from stealing the body so that they could claim he had arisen.

But then, when it actually happened, they had a first-hand account from those guards that angels, not humans, had opened the tomb, leading to the disappearance of Jesus' body. And still, despite the impeccable testimony, the chief priests refused to accept the obvious.

Talk about willful blindness.

Meeting Cassie

In the beginning we were just friends.

The main door to the hospital is a large revolving door. She was already inside the door, and the entrance gap was just about to close as I approached. I increased my pace to barely slip through the closing gap, and the door's sensor must've thought I was going to be hit, and the door suddenly stopped. The girl didn't, and she ran into the door on the opposite side which otherwise would have been out of her way by then. I apologized to her, and that was our first contact. I thought about her the rest of the evening, and until the morning. That was day one.

Back at the hospital, I saw her fighting with the vending machine. I asked her how her nose was, and made other small talk. I eventually wound up buying her a Sprite from the other, non-money-stealing vending machine. That led to an exchange of names; her name is Cassie. I definitely thought of her the rest of the evening, well into the morning. That was day two.

She gave me no indication of being interested in me, so I tried to curb my own interest in her. But when I saw her sitting in a Family Room, my heart expanded out to her. I wondered why she was in a Family Room instead of her mom's hospital room. Had something gone bad? I went in and sat with her. Turns out she was just using the room as a waiting room while her mom had relatively minor surgery. I sat with her for hours. We played Nickel Train with the room's domino set. I enjoyed her company, and I think she enjoyed mine. We played late, past evening, into the morning. That was day three.

Now, my question for you, Dear Reader: Do you get the sense, at all, that the days above are anything but 24-hour days?

No?

Then why do you try to force the days of Genesis 1, structured very similarly to the days in my fictional story above, into being something other than 24-hour days? I think it's because you're trying to force the text to fit your notions of what it should be, rather than letting it be what it is.

Languages of Love

According to Chapman and Campbell, there are five basic "languages" of love: physical touch, quality time, gifts, acts of service, and words of affirmation.

Different people "speak" different languages, and different people "hear" different languages.

One person may natively speak acts of service, and hear physical touch, while another speaks and hears quality time.

If you don't speak the language of love which is heard by the one you love, it is your responsibility to learn how to speak that language. It is a cop-out to say, "Well I'm just not good at touching people, but I really do love you. Can't you see that by the gifts I bring you?"

Amos 4 in 35 Seconds

YHWH speaks to Israel: "You cows of Bashan! You women who oppress the poor and crush the needy, who nag your husbands, 'Bring me a drink!'

"Disaster is coming."

Verse 6 - "I sent famine. And you got hungry. But you didn't get hungry for me. You ignored me."

Verse 7 - "I sent drought. And you got thirsty. But you didn't get thirsty for me. You ignored me."

Next few verses - "I ruined your crops. I sent you plagues. I brought war to your doorstep. I overthrew some of your towns. And you ignored, ignored, ignored, ignored me."

Verse 12 - "So, prepare to meet your God!"

Feeding the Puppies

Sad, that we get the wrong concept so often from badly translated passages in our mainstream Bible versions. For example, here's Mark 7:27 from a few different mainstream versions:

KJV - But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.

HCSV - He said to her, “Allow the children to be satisfied first, because it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

NIV (1984) - “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

ESV - And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”

and so on....

Of these versions, the NIV comes closest to the meaning. But these next three do the best job:

YLT - And Jesus said to her, `Suffer first the children to be filled, for it is not good to take the children's bread, and to cast [it] to the little dogs.'

Amp - And He said to her, First let the children be fed, for it is not becoming or proper or right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the [little house] dogs.

ISV - But he kept telling her, "First let the children be filled. It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the puppies."

When we read the first versions, we get in our mind an insult, that Jesus is referring to this woman's ethnic group as dogs. The mental image that arises is Jesus turning his back on her in a huff, throwing his nose up into the air, and saying, "Begone, Dog!"

But that's not what's going on. He's drawing a picture of a harried mom trying to get things done while the kids are at the breakfast table and she's focused on the wrong thing by feeding the household puppy dogs instead of feeding the kids.

And the woman to whom Jesus speaks replies, "Yes, but even when a good mom pays attention to her kids, where it's supposed to be, instead of to the puppies, the puppies still benefit from the spilled crumbs -- they don't go hungry. The mom does not actively prevent the pups from benefiting from what the kids drop."

That word "little" (such as seen in Young's Literal Translation) makes a substantial difference in how our brains draw up the picture, doesn't it?

For those who are curious, the Greek word is word #2951 in Strong's Concordance (http://concordances.org/greek/2952.htm):

kunarion: a little dog

Original Word: κυνάριον, ου, τό
Part of Speech: Noun, Neuter
Transliteration: kunarion
Phonetic Spelling: (koo-nar'-ee-on)
Short Definition: a little dog
Definition: a little dog, a house dog.

Cognate: 2952 kynárion – properly, puppy, a diminutive of 2965 /kýōn ("dog").

We would do well to be teaching Biblical Greek and Hebrew in our Sunday school classes, to our little ones who have the absorption capabilities to learn new languages. Within a generation, we'd have a church membership which is much more Biblically literate than our current crop of Christians.

Unalienable Rights

According to the Founders of our great and united States of America, our rights come from our Creator, not from Government, and they are unalienable ("not to be separated, given away, or taken away"). Further, our unalienable rights are not limited to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, but rather these are just three examples amongst them.

When I was a kid, one of us might ask if we could do such-and-so, and another would answer, "It's a free country; do what you want." Nowadays, the answer is more likely to be, "You'll have to ask permission at the permit office. And pay a fee."

I don't own my land; if I did, I wouldn't have to ask the government permission to cut down a tree or put up a fence or build a house or risk losing the land if I don't pay the "protection money", er, I mean,  property tax.

I'm not arguing against all restrictions; some are necessary to avoid tromping on the rights of my neighbors; I'm just pointing out the change in mentality that has occurred in the past half-century which has ceded our freedoms to the "authorities" who are now responsible, no longer for guaranteeing those freedoms, but for dispensing them.

Many of our leaders (as well as many of the American sheeple) seem to be of the mentality that our certain unalienable rights are endowed to us by government. That conflicts with the Founders' viewpoint. It's an unAmerican position.

If you've never read the Declaration of Independence, give it a read, or at a bare minimum, the first two paragraphs; it's a short document:

    http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

Elders, Pastors, Bishops, Shepherds, Part 2

In my previous post, I answered two questions asked on an email list (Church_of_Christ on Yahoo!Groups) from the questioner abotsipatrick. In this post, another email list member responds to the same questions.

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"abotsipatrick" asks:

"Do the terms pastor, elder, bishop and overseer refer to the same office or different offices?"

Bishop and overseer both translate the exact same word from the Greek NT--"episkopos."  You'll find "bishop" used by English translations from more of the "high church" tradition in Php. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:1-2; Ti. 1:7 (cf. KJV, ASV, RSV, NKJV, NRSV).  In those very same passages, other English versions (particularly those prepared by a predominantly Evangelical committee), you'll find the term "overseer" in place of bishop (cf. ESV, NASB, NCV, NIV, NET).

Do we find in the NT the three terms ["pastor/shepherd" from poimaino, "elder/older" from presbuteros, "overseer" from episkopos] being used interchangeably for the same role in the NT church or for three separate roles?  Acts 20:17-28 has Paul sending for the "elders" of the church in Ephesus and telling those elders that the Holy Spirit has made them "overseers" in order to "pastor" (shepherd, care for) the church of God.  In 1 Pet. 5:1-2, Peter exhorts his fellow "elders" to "pastor" the flock of God, exercising "oversight" (verb form of episkopos).  Titus 1 uses overseer and elder for the same role Paul is describing, a role he uses overseer for in 1 Tim. 3.

An "elder" is who this person is--an older as opposed to younger individual, someone who has gained some practical wisdom through life experience over time.

"Overseer" is what this person is, what it is they do--care for the church, providing guidance, direction, protection.

"Shepherd" is how the this older person is to exercise oversight--like a shepherd with his sheep (see Ezek. 34 and Ps. 23).  They are to nurture, nourish, and protect the members of God's flock.

Side bar:  notice I have refrained from using the term "office," which is foreign to the text.  If we're going to import terminology into the text, I think "function" is superior to "office".  Elder/overseer/shepherd is not a string of titles but descriptions for a function within Christ's body the Church.  If one is not functioning as an overseer/shepherd, providing that nurturing, nourishment, and protection, then they aren't shepherds.  One can have a title and hold an office yet have no function.  Not so with elder/overseer/shepherd.

Abotsipatrick asks a second question:

"Does Eph. 4:11...teach that being a pastor is a gift from God that does not require the appointment or ordination of humans?"

No.  Yes, it teaches that the roles or functions of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher are gifts from God, just like service, generosity, exhortation, leadership, being merciful are gifts from God (Rom. 12:6-8).  It does not necessarily follow, however, that stepping in to the role of an apostle or evangelist or pastor does not require some form or recognition and affirmation of that gift by the Body of Christ through some appointment or ordination by humans.

Did not Paul and Barnabas (two humans) go through the congregations they had planted and appoint elders in each congregation (Ac. 14:23)?  Did not Paul, a human, leave Titus, another human, on the isle of Crete to appoint elders in every town as Paul directed him to do (Ti. 1:5)?  How was it Timothy became an evangelist?  Was it not through Paul's deliberate selection based in part upon the recommendation of the believers from Timothy's home congregation (Ac. 16:1-4), and did it not include the laying on of hands of an eldership (1 Tim. 4:14).  Was not Timothy himself, in being given instructions about what to look for in a prospective overseer or deacon (1 Tim. 3) cautioned not to "lay hands" (i.e. commission or ordain) on anyone too hastily (1 Tim. 5:22)?  Was not there direct human involvement in the selection of Judas' replacement to the role of apostle?  For it began with Peter addressing the need and setting out the parameters for the kind of person they were looking for.  The congregation narrowed the field down to two individuals.  After that, they asked God to make his choice of the two known through prayer and casting lots (Ac. 1:15-26)?  Human involvement working with Divine guidance.

The Lord save the church from self-appointed apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.

Final observation:  Somehow, somewhere, we've picked up the notion that having a gift means permission to use that gift in any manner the gifted one seems fit.  But a gift is not a license to do as one pleases.  Bezalel and Oholiab were divinely gifted by God and filled with God's Spirit "with ability, intelligence, knowledge and craftmanship to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, bronze," etc. in order to construct the tabernacle (Ex. 31; 35:30-36:5).  Yet those gifts were only to be used within the boundaries established by God.  When God said to use almond blossoms for the menorah, for example, they did not have the artistic license to add or substitute cherry blossoms in the design.  Gifted artisans though they were, they were not at liberty to use those God-given gifts to construct an idol, or pornographic sculptures, etc.

Reception of a gift is not permission to then use it in any manner or fashion we please.  We must exercise our gifts within the parameters God has established.

Respectfully,
Stephen Lord

Elders, Pastors, Bishops, Shepherds

On an email list of which I'm a member, abotsipatrick asked the following:

Do the terms pastor, elder, bishop and overseer refer to the same office or different offices?

and

Secondly, does Ephesians 4:11 ("and some pastors and teachers") teach that being a pastor is a gift from God that does not require the appointment or ordination of humans?

In this post, I give my response. In my next post, I will give the response of another list member.

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Let me encourage you to think in terms of "roles", or "services", first, and then apply that to the concept of "office".

pastor - I encourage you to mentally translate this word as "shepherd". The role of a shepherd is to care for a flock of dumb sheep, making sure they get fed, watered, and are safe, occasionally helping in the process of birthing or other medical service, etc. The shepherd is not a rule-maker, or a tyrant, or a business person, except only insofar as taking care of the business of flock-care requires.

elder - I encourage you to mentally translate this word as "older person". The older people in a group tend to be those who have been wizened by life-experience, and who thus have influence on the direction the group goes. They would tend to make or at least influence the making of whatever rules are needed for the flock's personal safety.

bishop, overseer - these two words are from same word, but represent different eras of the English language. I encourage you to mentally translate this word as "overseer", or "supervisor". This is a person who directs, takes charge, assigns tasks, makes sure things work according to the mission statement. They would tend to make whatever rules are needed for the flock's communal safety.

An ideal, mature leader will have all of these characteristics, such that the roles overlap in one individual. I believe that in the New Testament, the ideal was that the local church leader[s] would fill all of these roles. However, when a leader recognizes that he's not suited to a particular task, he might delegate that task to another, such as how the leaders in the early church (Acts 6) delegated the shepherding role of physically feeding the community to specially-designated servants, while they focused on the shepherding role of spiritually feeding the community.

Likewise, a local community of believers might have a leadership body containing one person who is very good at the business aspects of running the group - this person would most likely fill the role of bishop/overseer. Another person in the leadership might excel at dispensing wisdom, and might serve as the counselor who is sought out for his answers to life. A third person in the leadership might be an awesome teacher, filling the minds and spirits of the membership with God's food. Or perhaps each of the leaders excels in all three areas, or a mixture.

So to answer your question, yes, the terms all do refer to the same "office" - that of leadership, but they do not necessarily all refer to the same officeholder, the same leader. As Romans 12:4 says:

^KJV For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:

let us focus on using whatever gift God has given each of us, and let those with the gifts of shepherding and of wisdom-dispensing and of supervisory capabilities use their gifts to care for, lead, and take care of the community. And let us recognize that it will be rare to find one person with all these characteristics, which is part of the reason a leadership body might be better composed of multiple leaders with differing strengths rather than trying to force-fit a single leader into filling all the roles.


abotsipatrick's second question:

Secondly, does Ephesians 4:11 ("and some pastors and teachers") teach that being a pastor is a gift from God that does not require the appointment or ordination of humans?

Paul writes in Galatians 1:1 that he is "an apostle—not from men or by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father". The full text of the verse you reference is:

^{HCSB Eph 4:11} And He personally gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,

Yes, being a pastor is a gift from God that does not require the appointment or ordination of humans. Compare Romans 12:

⁶ According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy,
use it according to the standard of one’s faith;
⁷ if service, in service;
if teaching, in teaching;
⁸ if exhorting, in exhortation;
giving, with generosity;
leading, with diligence;
showing mercy, with cheerfulness.

and 1 Corinthians 12:

⁴ Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. ⁵ There are different ministries, but the same Lord. ⁶ And there are different activities, but the same God activates each gift in each person. ⁷ A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial:

⁸ to one is given a message of wisdom
through the Spirit,
to another, a message of knowledge
by the same Spirit,
⁹ to another, faith by the same Spirit,
to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
¹⁰ to another, the performing of miracles,
to another, prophecy,
to another, distinguishing between spirits,
to another, different kinds of languages,
to another, interpretation of languages.

¹¹ But one and the same Spirit is active in all these, distributing to each person as He wills.

and

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it. ²⁸ And God has placed these in the church:

first apostles, second prophets,
third teachers, next miracles,
then gifts of healing, helping,
managing, various kinds of languages.
²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets?
Are all teachers? Do all do miracles?
³⁰ Do all have gifts of healing?
Do all speak in other languages?
Do all interpret?

³¹ But desire the greater gifts.

God gives each of us one or more gifts, to be used in building up the body. Some of them are miraculous; some are not. Some are given according to what God deems best; some are given according to what we desire (v 31 above) and pursue (1 Cor 14:1) and ask for (1 Cor 14:13).

However, just because a person has a gift, that does not necessarily mean he will be appointed within a particular community to exercise that gift. Paul instructed Titus to appoint people to serve as elders in each town; but he restricted those appointments to people who were suitable for the task. God gives the gift and the overall appointment; Man gives the local appointment.