Disobedient Christians.

1 John 2.1-6.

I’ve known various Christians who get really outraged by the phrase “cheap grace.” Grace, they insist, isn’t cheap!

Well of course it isn’t. But “cheap grace” doesn’t mean we think grace is cheap; it means others treat it as cheap. They take God’s forgiveness for granted. They figure Jesus took out a trillion sins by his death… so what’s one more?

Heck, what’s a thousand more? God’s given us a blank check of forgiveness! We can sin ourselves raw, and he forgives all! So why go to all the bother of cleaning ourselves up and sinning no more? Self-discipline is so hard. Easier to just do as comes naturally—and remain the same bitter, selfish wankers we’ve always been. But we’re forgiven just the same! And still go to heaven!

Hence the popular bumper sticker:

Also found on window stickers, buttons, hats, or T-shirts, at many a Christian website or bookstore.

Now yes, this message can be used to describe just how expansive and generous God’s grace actually is. You don’t have to be perfect to come to Jesus. He came to treat the sick, not the healthy; Mk 2.17 he saves sinners, not paragons. Taken that way, it’s not a bad message.

But that’s definitely not the way Christians mean it. What we typically mean is, “Yes I’m a raging a--hole, but it’s okay if I’m an a--hole, because Christians don’t have to be perfect. It’s not a requirement!”

Wrong. It is a requirement. Goodness is a fruit of the Spirit. Goodness is expected to be noticeably evident in God’s children. If you’re sinning, we can’t tell you belong to your Father, and it’s entirely reasonable to assume you don’t. So stop, for the love of God!

True, we don’t enter God’s kingdom by first becoming sinless and perfect. We get in through God’s grace. But the kingdom isn’t for sinners! It’s for people whom God makes sinless and perfect. He’s trying to transform us. And either we’re on board with his program… or we have no business calling ourselves Christian, because we’re actually not.

Obviously I’m basing this rant on 1 John, so here’s the relevant bible quote:

1 John 2.1-6 KWL

1My children, I write these things to you²

so you² don’t sin!

And when anyone sins,

we have an aide with the Father, Christ Jesus.

He does right by us too.

2Jesus is the solution for our sins.

And not only for our sins,

but also for the whole world.

3We know that we know Jesus this way:

We keep his commands.

4Saying we know Jesus

and not keeping his commands:

It’s a lie,

and there’s no truth found this way.

5God’s love is truly completed

by whoever might keep Jesus’s word.

We know we’re in God this way.

6 One who says they¹ abide in Jesus

is obligated to do this:

Just as Jesus walked,

they¹ themselves¹ are to walk like this.

If a person’s not even trying to keep Jesus’s commands, they’re not Christian. They’re not “in God,” not in the light, have no relationship with him. Might think they have a relationship with him, ’cause they go to church and quote bible and said the sinner’s prayer once. But when they treat God’s safety net of forgiveness like a bounce house, they clearly don’t give a wet fart about Jesus. They’re not following him, trappings aside. Not Christian.

So if you’re not keeping Jesus’s commands, repent and start keeping ’em.

The National Day of Prayer.

In the United States, it’s the National Day of Prayer, held the first Thursday of May.

Various articles are gonna say the National Day of Prayer began in 1952. It didn’t really. Congress and various presidents have called for national days of prayer, starting with the first Continental Congress in 1775. They just haven’t been consistent. Ten presidents never bothered to call for any such days.

What did happen in 1952, was Billy Graham held a rally on the steps of the Capitol, which spurred Congress to unanimously pass Public Law 82-324, signed into law by Harry Truman. It says,

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President shall set aside and proclaim a suitable day each year, other than a Sunday, as a National Day of Prayer, on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.

Truman scheduled the first National Day of Prayer for 4 July 1952, and next year Dwight Eisenhower scheduled it for the same day, 4 July 1953. Then it started moving round the calendar. Mostly it happened Wednesdays in late October. In 1972 there were two.

PRESIDENT	DATES
Harry Truman	4 July 1952
Dwight Eisenhower	4 July 1953 26 October 1955 2 October 1957 7 October 1959	22 September 1954 12 September 1956 2 October 1958 5 October 1960
John Kennedy	4 October 1961 16 October 1963	17 October 1962
Lyndon Johnson	21 October 1964 19 October 1966 16 October 1968	20 October 1965 18 October 1967
Richard Nixon	22 October 1969 20 October 1971 18 October 1972	21 October 1970 16 February 1972 17 October 1973
Gerald Ford	18 December 1974 14 May 1976	24 July 1975
Jimmy Carter	15 December 1977 3 October 1979	7 October 1978 6 October 1980
Ronald Reagan	19 March 1981 5 May 1983 2 May 1985 7 May 1987	6 May 1982 3 May 1984 1 May 1986 5 May 1988

In 1988, Public Law 100-307 fixed it to the first Thursday in May, and that’s what it’s been ever since. (In fact, as I was looking up the dates for the previous National Days of Prayer, my search engine kept insisting it took place the first Thursday of May of that year. Nope. Bad search engine.)

Largely the National Days of Prayer were left up to the presidents until the 1980s. In 1974 the International Congress on World Evangelization was held in Lausanne, Switzerland, and on their return to the States, the American delegation decided to create Mission America to enact some of the plans they’d made in Lausanne. Part of Mission America was the National Prayer Committee, founded in 1979 and headed by Vonette Bright, one of the founders of Campus Crusade for Christ International (now Cru). They met in Washington D.C., started coordinating with the White House about National Day of Prayer events, and held their first joint event in 1983 in Constitution Hall.

What does the event look like? Well, y’know: Speeches from politicians and clergy. Prayers. Sometimes presidents let the National Day of Prayer Task Force take the lead; sometimes not. Sometimes they’re good reminders about the importance of talking with God; sometimes they’re a bunch of platitudes which say little. Some politicians have no prayer life at all, and it shows when they talk about it. (Disturbingly, some clergy members are the very same way.)

But what does this National Day of Prayer thing do? Well, it’s a reminder to pray for our homeland, which is something we oughta be doing regularly. A reminder to pray for our leaders; something we oughta also be doing.

And for Christian nationalists, it’s a not-subtle-at-all way to remind people of the political strength of Christian voters. We are legion, and we vote, so get in line. But I’m not gonna discuss the nationalists today; their godless motives aren’t about prayer anyway.

What does God want from us? [Mc 6.8]

Micah 6.8 KJV

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

One of the bigger gags from Douglas Adam’s comedic sci-fi radio show, then book series, then TV series, then movie The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (H2G2 for short), was the meaning of life. Or as H2G2 put it, “the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Some aliens built the best computer ever, solely to figure this out. After 7.5 million years of calculations, it turned out to be “42.” Bit of a letdown, but the computer pointed out it made perfect sense once you knew what the Ultimate Question was. But deducing that would take an even better computer—plus another 10 million years. Problem is, the whole H2G2 story begins with that computer getting blown up.

Adams was atheist, so he wouldn’t have taken his Ultimate Question from the prophets. I’m not, so I will.

See, when you believe in God, he’s part of the question. He created us, and since we recognize him as infinitely intelligent, he created us for some reason. There’s some purpose to our existence. Sp… what’s our purpose? What does God expect of us? That’s the question.

And Christians deduced our purpose is a relationship with God. He created humans specifically so he can interact with us, and because God is love, it’s to love us; and he hopes we’ll love him back. As the Westminster Catechism puts it, the main purpose of humanity (or, in 17th-century English, “the chief end of man”) is yea: “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him for ever.”

So how do we respond to God’s love? Well, humans tend to think in terms of karma, and figure we owe God big-time for everything he’s given us, for everything he promises us; we have to deserve it somehow. We really don’t, and can’t; it’s all grace on God’s end. But ungracious people struggle to wrap their minds around that idea, and still wanna know what they can do to merit a relationship with the Almighty, and salvation. “Just trust Jesus” doesn’t feel like enough for them.

Well… you can follow Jesus. He taught us a bunch of stuff about his kingdom, and how we oughta live our lives as inheritors of that kingdom. We can do that. And some of those Christians who want God’s kingdom on merit try to legalistically do that, and find it a titanic struggle, or make things miserable for their fellow Christians around them, ’cause God’s kingdom runs on grace. We aren’t following Jesus because that’s how we merit the kingdom; we’re following him out of gratitude!

But if you want a short description of God’s expectation for us, that’s where the verse from Micah comes in. And unlike God’s commands—unlike the greatest commandment or the 10 commandments or the entire Law of Moses—it expresses the attitudes God wants his worshipers to have. Be fair. Be merciful. Be humble. Because Jesus is likewise all these things.

Jesus’s mission to the world.

John 17.6-8.

In Jesus’s John 17 prayer, after he asks his Father to glorify him, he tells his Father he’s been doing the job the Father sent him to do: He’s been collecting followers.

As I said in my previous article on this chapter, this isn’t a prayer we pray along with Jesus, like the Lord’s Prayer. This is a prayer Jesus uniquely prayed to his Father. We’re just agreeing with him as best we can; we’re asking that Jesus’s will be done, same as he wanted his Father’s will to be done.

John 17.6-8 KWL

6“I make your¹ name known to the world’s people,

whom you give me.

They’re yours¹ and mine; you¹ give them.

They kept your word.

7They now recognize everything you¹ gave me

is from you,¹

8for the words which you¹ give me,

I give them.

They accept the words

and truly know I come from you.¹

They believe you¹ send me.”

’Cause we do believe the Father sent Jesus, and how all Jesus’s teachings originate with the Father. Right?

So that, in turn, is what we oughta likewise pray. We belong to Jesus—and our Father. Our Father gave us to Jesus; he’s our Lord now. We accept him.

I should point out in verse 8, when Jesus says his followers ἔλαβον/élavon, “take, receive, choose, accept,” is properly interpreted “They accept the words,” like I have it, or “They accepted them,” like the NIV and most other bible translations have it. Problem is, every so often some preacher with a shaky handle on Greek will notice there’s no actual pronoun there after élavon. Context makes it obvious Jesus is talking about his teachings, but some of these guys will insist Jesus is really talking about himself—“They accept me.” If you ever catch someone preaching that, feel free to ignore them, and go with the way most bible translators have put it.

The Twelve Hours Story.

John 11.9-10.

All my life, whenever I’ve heard people teach about Jesus’s parables, they tend to note, “But there are no parables in John.” Which is rubbish; Jesus uses a number of parables in John. In fact I would argue it’s because of this false belief in John’s lack of parables, the parables which are totally in that gospel get skimmed over—“Well that’s not a parable; that’s just something Jesus said by way of teaching.” No dum-dum, it’s an analogy describing God’s kingdom which you’re meant to figure out, so it’s clearly a parable. And you’re acting like one of those people with plugged ears and closed minds.

Take fr’instance Jesus’s Twelve Hour Story. It’s rare you’ll find a biblical commentary which treats it like the parable it is, and instead treats it as some strange, hard-to-understand thing Jesus says in the middle of the Raising Lazarus Story. It’s only hard to understand if you’re not even trying to understand it. Here’s the thing he said:

John 11.9-10 KWL

9Jesus answers, “Aren’t there 12 hours in the day?

When someone walks in the day, they¹ don’t stumble.

For this person sees the world’s light.

10When someone walks in the night, they¹ stumble.

For the light isn’t in them.¹”

By now Christians oughta know who the world’s light is: Jesus. Do you remember what was happening when Jesus said “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world”? Jn 9.5 It was right before he cured a man born blind. It wasn’t just a metaphor to remind his students he can cure those whose only experience is living in the dark. The king of God’s kingdom personally exemplifies what we’re meant to do to bring hope, healing, and truth into a world which’d much rather stay in the dark because their deeds are evil. Jn 3.19-21

All Jesus’s parables describe God’s kingdom, and this saying obviously describes it too: When we walk in the day, we walk in the light; we don’t stumble. When we walk in the night, we’re not in the light, so of course we stumble. Stay in the light!

We sin. So we need Jesus’s help.

1 John 1.8 – 2.2.

Immoral folks like to figure if God has a dark side, it justifies them having a dark side. I wrote on this previously: Gnostics and determinists regularly claim God co-opts evil as part of his cosmic plan—and if he’s somehow not tainted by such behavior (and exactly how wouldn’t he be?) there’s no reason they can’t commit the occasional sin, if it’s ultimately turns out for the best.

No surprise: Such people often find themselves committing such “occasional” sins. Turns out there are an awful lot of these occasions!

The very idea is rotten to its core. If God has an evil plan, it makes him an evil God. Period. And as John had to point out, God has no dark side. God is light. Not just in the light, like we can be when we follow God: Is light. In John’s other writing, Revelation, he even describes New Jerusalem as lit by the Lamb himself instead of the sun. Rv 21.23 Since Revelation is all apocalypses, I don’t think it wise to interpret that literally. But certainly we’re meant to get the idea we’re going to live there in God’s presence and goodness, in which there’s no room for evil. It can’t exist there.

1 John is written as a corrective to people who develop such messed-up ideas. And, as appropriate for Christians, it’s a gracious corrective. If you’ve fallen for this twisted idea and gone wrong, chill out: Repent, be forgiven, accept God’s grace, and move forward!

Maybe I should just quote John.

1 John 1.8 - 2.2 KWL

8When we say we have no sin,

we mislead ourselves, and truth isn’t in us.

9When we acknowledge our sins,

God is faithful and fair,

so he can forgive these sins for us,

and can cleanse us of everything unfair.

10When we say we’ve not sinned,

we make God out to be a liar,

and his word isn’t in us.

2.1My children, I write these things to you²

so you² don’t sin!

And when anyone sins,

we have a fair aide with the Father, Christ Jesus.

2Jesus is the solution for our sins.

And not only for our sins, but also for all the world.

God has no dark side, but humanity surely does. I sure do. So do you; so does everyone. And the only solution to our problem isn’t self-deprivation, isn’t noble truths and an eightfold path, isn’t gnostic revelations of how the universe really works, isn’t to find a devil to blame for everything, isn’t any of the usual solutions humans invent. It’s an active relationship with Christ Jesus.

The LORD creates Eve.

Genesis 2.18-25.

Continuing the second creation story. In the first story, God created the birds on day five and the land animals on day six, and humans right after the animals. In the second, God creates the male human, “Adam,” first. Then makes him a garden to tend, puts him in it, and tells him all the trees are his to eat from—except the one, which’ll kill him.

And then—part of the same Hebrew paragraph—God decides Adam needs a partner, because when humans are alone, we get weird. It’s not just when Christians skip church. Everything God created is good, Ge 1.31 but this particular situation is not good.

Genesis 2.18-25 KWL

18The god YHWH said, “It’s not good

that the human is all by himself.

I will make for him a helper,

like his counterpart.”

19The god YHWH shaped from the soil

every wild living creature

and every bird of the skies.

He brought them to the human

to see what the human called them.

Whatever the human called each living soul,

that was its name.

20The human called the names

of every beast, bird of the sky,

and every wild living creature.

As for the human, he didn’t find a helper,

like his counterpart.

21The god YHWH made

a deep sleep fall upon the human,

and he slept.

God took one of his ribs

and filled in the flesh under it.

22The god YHWH built the rib,

which he took from the human,

into a woman,

and brought her to the human.

23The human said,

“Now this is a bone from my bones,

flesh from my flesh.

For this person will be called woman,

for this person was taken out of man.”

24This is why a man will leave his father and his mother

and cling to his woman.

They become one flesh.

25The two of them were naked—

the human and his woman.

They felt no shame.

The author of Genesis (who isn’t Moses, but for convenience, I call him “Moe”) tells us right away in verse 24 the reason for this story: It’s why women and men pair up. It’s why women and men have a closer relationship with one another than between parents and children. We’re fully compatible. We’re partners. The woman was created as “a helper, like his counterpart.” She was meant to be Adam’s equal.

No, not a subordinate. Sexists will insist women are created to serve men. It is true we humans are created to serve one another, but that’s regardless of race or gender: White men like me are created to also serve women and nonwhites. (And not by bossing them around; that’s just a devilish redefinition of service.) Men serve women; women serve men. But sexists wanna find biblical reasons for their godless attitudes, and they’ll distort Genesis to justify it.

The bonkers thing is, Genesis was written in a sexist, patriarchal culture, where women were likewise considered subordinate to men. And even then, the writer of Genesis doesn’t describe God creating women to serve men. She’s an עֵ֖זֶר/etsér, “help, aid, rescue.” When the man can’t do it alone, the woman helps. Same as the man—when the woman can’t do it alone, the man helps. Same as God—when we can’t do it alone, the Holy Spirit helps. She’s his counterpart, his partner, his advocate, his friend, his love. They complete one another.

Any interpretation which doesn’t affirm their equal status and mutual service, is exploitative. And is wholly inappropriate for Christians.