Manic Christianity.

When you’re a brand-new Christian, you tend to geek out at everything.

It’s totally understandable. Newbies are so hungry to learn, yet know so very little. So they constantly lose their tiny minds about all the cool stuff they’ve just discovered. “Wow, have you read this verse? Have you read this book? Have you heard of this preacher? Are you going to this conference? Check out this worship album!” They’re like fangirls and fanboys at a convention. Their enthusiasm is fun; I wish more Christians were as excited about Jesus as they.

Problem is, some longtime Christians sound exactly like they do—excited about every new discovery they’ve just made about Christianity—and it’s like, “Wait, you’ve been Christian for 20 years. This is stuff you should’ve learned already. Why haven’t you?”

Well duh: They’re not growing as Christians.

They discovered a new book, and were all hyper about it, and devoured it, and lived by it a few weeks, and then forgot about it. And a year passed, and they didn’t grow any. And then they discovered another new book, and got all hyper about that book for a time. They’re still making baby steps of faith, and the reason they’re all excited about it is because they’re still spiritual babies.

And every time they come across a new Christian resource, they think this is the resource which is really gonna get ’em to grow into mature Christianity. It’s not, because a resource doesn’t make mature Christians; the Holy Spirit does, by growing good fruit in us. The resources just teach us a thing or two. Some of it practical, some of it really not, but knowledge ain’t maturity. Fruit is.

And this lack of maturity expresses itself as mania. That’s why they’re as twitchy as yapper dogs, years or decades after they said the sinner’s prayer. They haven’t developed the fruit of gentleness, so their emotions are still getting tossed hither and yon by every new Christian fad—or sometimes really old Christian fads they’ve only just discovered. They don’t have emotional control because they’re not working on growing fruit. They think, wrongly, these wild emotions are a sign of a growing faith: They’re still so excited about Jesus!

But all too often this turns into chasing that spiritual high, instead of following Jesus.

Giving compliments to God.

People commonly think praise and worship are just synonyms for the word compliments: If you praise God, you say nice things about him, to him. “Oh Lord, ooh you are so big, so absolutely huge; gosh we’re all really impressed down here, I can tell you.” Like that.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with complimenting God. He’s awesome! The problem is sometimes we aren’t really complimenting him; we’re telling him this stuff because we think it’s part of the formula for getting our requests answered. When we pray—and many Christians actually believe and teach this!—we have to begin with the compliments. We have to tell God nice things and butter him up praise him properly.

As demonstrated, they claim, by the Lord’s Prayer: “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” is supposedly praise. Not prayer requests for God to make his own name holy, bring about his kingdom, and encourage us to obey him. Anyway, because they imagine these are praises not requests, they insist the Lord’s Prayer begins with praise… so our prayers should begin with praise. Start by telling God how awesome he is. “Dear heavenly Father… ooh you are so big…” and so forth.

Again: Nothing wrong with complimenting God; nothing wrong with beginning our prayers with compliments. Nothing wrong with entire prayers consisting of compliments. Some of the psalms are nothing but compliments.

Psalm 145.0-7 CSB

0A hymn of David.

1I exalt you, my God the King,

and bless your name forever and ever.

2I will bless you every day;

I will praise your name forever and ever.

3The LORD is great and is highly praised;

his greatness is unsearchable.

4One generation will declare your works to the next

and will proclaim your mighty acts.

5I will speak of your splendor and glorious majesty

and your wondrous works.

6They will proclaim the power of your awe-inspiring acts,

and I will declare your greatness.

7They will give a testimony of your great goodness

and will joyfully sing of your righteousness.

David ben Jesse had loads of plaudits to give God for what he’d done. No doubt we can all think of great things God did in the bible, and hopefully we also have some testimonies of great things he did in our own lives. Or how he graciously behaves towards us when we interact with him.

Jesus steps out of public.

John 11.54-57.

After raising Lazarus from the dead, after the Judean senate and head priest decided maybe Jesus oughta die to keep the Romans pacified, Jesus decided maybe he ought not be where the Judeans could easily grab him.

John 11.54-57 KWL

54So Jesus is no longer walking boldly among the Judeans,

but is leaving from there to a region near the wilderness,

to a city called Efrém.

He’s staying there with the students.

55It’s getting near the Judean Passover,

and many are leaving their land

to Jerusalem for Passover

so they might purify themselves.

56So those who are seeking Jesus

are also saying to one another

as they stood in the temple,

“What do you² think?

Might he choose to not come to the feast?”

57The head priests and Pharisees gave a command,

that when anyone knows where Jesus is,

they should make it known,

so they might arrest him.

“Purify themselves” in verse 55 refers to the people who’d traveled to Jerusalem from far away, and because there was no way of traveling long distances without becoming ritually unclean, they gave themselves an extra week to get ritually clean. So, lots of washing and baptizing. As soon as all the local pools are full of dusty diaspora Jews, you know Passover’s coming.

When I taught on this passage previously, one of the kids in the study said, “What’re they arresting him for, raising Lazarus? Was raising the dead illegal?” I had to remind him ancient Judea didn’t have any Fourth Amendment; only a command against kidnapping, Ex 21.16 which supposedly they weren’t doing because they were immediately gonna try him, condemn him, then have the Romans kill him.

And they expected to have him in their clutches fairly soon, since Jesus had to come to Jerusalem for Passover, because the Law said every adult male had to come to temple for Passover. Dt 16.6 Add to that they “gave a command” that if anyone knew where Jesus was, they had to tell them.

Really don’t wanna go to church.

There’s a guy whose blog I’ve followed for years. Not so much anymore; since about 2010 or so, he’s really been telling his readers, and anyone else who might listen, to quit their churches. Stop going, he says. Just stop. Stay home. You’ll be a lot happier.

And I get it. There were times in my life where I didn’t wanna go to church either. For the usual excuses.

SLEEP! What moron decided church services should happen first thing in the morning on our day off? I’m not a morning person; I don’t like anything first thing in the morning; not work, not school, not even breakfast. Give me an evening service.

CHAPEL COUNTS, RIGHT? I went to a Christian college, which had daily chapel services. Every morning, 25 minutes of worship songs, 25 of preaching. (Sometimes more music, sometimes more preaching.) A week’s worth of chapel provides plenty of both those things… so why go to a church service to get more? That became my excuse for skipping church for a semester. Me and a lot of other students.

I’M OUT OF TOWN. The other excuse that semester was I already have a church… 100 miles away, and impractical to visit every Sunday. And since I have a church, why visit some other church? So I used this reason to ditch all the nearby churches, none of which I cared for. And I did go to church whenever I went back home on college breaks. But while I was at school, I figured it was okay to miss 10 weeks of services.

DON’T GOTTA GO EVERY WEEK. Which… is actually true. If you’re in leadership, and I often am, you’re obligated to be there weekly. If not, you can miss a Sunday here and there. Now, when I was in my don’t-wanna-go phase, it wasn’t just here and there; it was a lot. And I know a number of Christians who only attend once a month; and of course there are twice-a-year Christians who only visit Easter and Christmas. If that; sometimes they just watch the Easter and Christmas services on YouTube.

WE HAVE FREEDOM IN CHRIST! In context, the passage about freedom of conscience Ro 14 is about looking out for weaker Christians, not the freedom to be irresponsible. But as you’re well aware, irresponsible Christians don’t give a rip about context.

I CAN DO THIS ON MY OWN, Y’KNOW. In my late teens I had grown really annoyed with the people of my church, so this was my excuse for a few weeks. ’Cause we totally can do a lot of this stuff on our own.

• Pray?—no problem.
• Sing worship songs?—easily done.
• Learn from fellow Christians?—I have Christian books. Nowadays I have the internet. There’s no shortage of Christian content.
• Study the bible?—okay, I got a study bible.
• Tithing? Well kinda. I could donate money to myself for “religious” expenses. Or I could give money to charity. Or I could spend all of it at a Peets one afternoon while I sit there reading some Christian book; wouldn’t that totally count?
• Take holy communion? Um… I could eat saltines and grape juice on my own, and call it communion. Problem is, the vital element in communion is, y’know, actual communion with fellow Christians. So that makes it tricky.

Same as all our other rituals which require the participation of fellow Christians. Plus evangelism: Once you share Jesus with someone, where do you take ’em so they can be taught Christianity and mentored? Well I could do it by myself… but that’d mean I’m starting a church, right?

There are plenty more excuses out there. Some of them get pretty complex, and as a result they kinda merit whole articles, because it takes a little time to take these excuses apart. But for plenty of Christians, any excuse will do. They simply don’t wanna go. So they don’t.

The first psalm: Meditate on the scriptures.

Psalm 1.

For years I’ve been writing about psalms, but I’ve never written anything on the first one. Even though it’s the second psalm I memorized. (The first was the 23rd, and honestly I got it memorized because of the Keith Green song.) I used the text-to-speech feature on my Macintosh Quadra to recite Psalm 1 in the New International Version to Edvard Grieg’s “Í höll Dofrakonungs úr Pétri Gaut,” or “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” as we call it in English. So now it’s permanently in my brain that way. I suppose I could re-memorize it to the Scottish metrical version… but nah; what’s important is it’s in there.

But yes, I retranslated it for this bible study. Didn’t make it rhyme yet.

Anyway. The first psalm, Beatus vir, “Blessed is the man,” begins the first book of Psalms. If you’re thinking, “There are five books of Psalms?” yes there are; they’ve been mashed together into the one book of Psalms in your bible, but originally they were five. We don’t know who wrote Beatus vir, though some folks will claim it’s Ezra because it’s about meditating on the Law of Moses, and Ezra was a scribe, and scribes did just that. But that’s a lousy reason to insist Ezra wrote it. Anybody who thinks there’s wisdom to be found in the Law would appreciate this psalm, and anybody back in bible times who felt that way would’ve written such a psalm.

My translation second. I figured first I’d give you the version from the 1550 Church of Scotland prayer book. They sing it to the same song as “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”

Psalm 1 Scottish psalter

1That man hath perfect blessedness,

who walketh not astray

In counsel of ungodly men,

nor stands in sinners’ way,

Nor sitteth in the scorner’s chair:

2But placeth his delight

Upon God’s law, and meditates

on his law day and night.

3He shall be like a tree that grows

near planted by a river,

Which in his season yields his fruit,

and his leaf fadeth never:

And all he doth shall prosper well

4The wicked are not so;

But like they are unto the chaff,

which wind drives to and fro.

5In judgment therefore shall not stand

such as ungodly are;

Nor in th’ assembly of the just

shall wicked men appear.

6For why? the way of godly men

unto the Lord is known:

Whereas the way of wicked men

shall quite be overthrown.

You want it to sound authentic, try singing it in a Scottish accent. Go ahead; I’ve got time.

The Jesus prayer.

In Psalm 123.3, the psalmist asked the LORD to show grace to his people. Quote it? Why sure.

Psalm 123.3 NRSVue

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,

for we have had more than enough of contempt.

The Septuagint translated it ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς, Κύριε, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς/eléison imás, Kýrie, eléison imás, “Mercy on us, Lord, mercy on us.” And in Jesus’s Pharisee and Taxman Story, it comes up again.

Luke 18.9-14 NRSVue

9He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ 13But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

To this day you’ll hear Christians pray a variation of Psalm 123.3, plus the taxman’s prayer, and Jesus’s name for good measure. We call it “the Jesus prayer.” It’s a really simple, really popular rote prayer. Probably the simplest.

Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ (or υἱέ Δαυὶδ/“son of David”) ἐλέησόν με, τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν/Kýrie Yisú Hristé, yié tu Theú, eléisón me, ton amartolón. “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Sometimes it gets shortened all the way down to Ἰησοῦ ἐλέησόν/Yisú eléison, “Jesus have mercy,” or Χριστέ ἐλέησόν/Hristé eléison, “Christ have mercy,” or most often Κύριε ἐλέησόν/Kýrie eléison (yes, same as in the Mr. Mister song), “Lord have mercy.” But no matter the form it takes, it’s the “Jesus prayer.”

It’s similar to what Bartimaeus shouted at Jesus to get his attention. We pray it for the same reason. We want mercy.

Mark 10.46-52 NRSVue

46They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” 50So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” 52Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Good for him. ’Cause when we pray the Jesus prayer, sometimes we get naysayers who object to our praying this prayer. “Stop the vain repetitions. Mt 6.7 KJV That’s not how Jesus taught us to pray!”

Actually it is how he taught us to pray. In his Persistent Widow Story, he taught us to be persistent, to cry out to God day and night, and not lose heart. Lk 18.1-8 This is that. It’s the prayer equivalent of a knock on the LORD’s door. It’s not a vain repetition; we’re praying for good reason! (Better be, anyway!) We’re knocking so the door might be opened to us. Lk 11.9 Sometimes we gotta knock more than once. Sometimes we gotta get loud. But when we mean it, we’ll get his attention. He’ll hear. And respond.

The Judean leaders plot to kill Jesus.

John 11.45-53.

In the other gospels, we read of Jesus annoying the Pharisees of his community to the point they start conspiring with the Herodians to kill him. Mk 3.6 But that’s in Herod Antipas’s province; that’s in the Galilee. Judea’s a whole different province.

In Jesus’s day, in the 30s CE, Judea was run directly by Rome, who sent a procurator—at this point in time, the prefect Pontius Pilate—to keep the peace, and make sure the Romans got their taxes. But day-to-day stuff was handled by Judean nobles, who mimicked the Roman senate by creating their own senate. They called it a συνέδριον/synédrion (Syriac ܣܢܗܕܪܝܢ/sanhedrín), “sit-together, council,” and people get the idea this was a legislative or judicial body. It really wasn’t either of them: It was an oligarchy, same as the Roman senate. These were the noble families, the rich families, the “important” people of the province, presided over by the temple’s head priest. (Until the Romans took over, the head priest was also the king of Judea; now he was just appointed by the procurator.) Bound by the Law of Moses—although they certainly bent it every which way—but yeah, they ruled the province wherever the Romans didn’t.

And Jesus’s raising of Lazarus threw ’em into a panic.

John 11.45-48 KWL

45So, many of the Judeans coming to mourn with Mary,

upon seeing what Jesus does,

believe in him.

46Some of them go off to the Pharisees

and tell them what Jesus does.

47So, the head priests and Pharisees gather in the senate

and say, “This person does many miracles.

48When we leave Jesusᴾ free to do so,

everyone will believe in him,

and the Romans will come,

will take us away,

plus the land and the nation.”

Well that escalated quickly: “If everyone believes in him, the Romans will destroy us!”

As I said, the senate consisted of all the important people in the province. Many of ’em were Pharisees, and Pharisees had a whole End Times Timeline which told of a Messiah coming to overthrow the Romans. Of course if you don’t believe Jesus is that Messiah—and they didn’t, ’cause Jesus didn’t act at all like they wanted—it means his overzealous followers might try to overthrow the Romans anyway, and you wind up… well, with what actually happened in the year 70. This fear the senators articulated in the last three lines of verse 48? Spot on.

The head priest, Joseph Caiaphas, then stepped in and shrewdly said no, things don’t have to be that way.

John 11.49-50 KWL

49A certain one of them, Joseph Caiaphas,

being head priest that term,

tells them, “You² don’t know anything,

50nor do you² consider this:

It is better for you² that one person might die for the people,

and the whole nation might not be destroyed.”

If it sounds a little bit like a mafia don trying to quiet the agitated members of the other crime families by saying this could easily be solved by whacking the troublemaker… well yes it does. Oligarchs are oligarchs, you see.