Amen!

AMEN ɑ.mɛn, eɪ.mɛn exclamation. Utterance of support or agreement.

Amen probably comes from the Hebrew verb אָמַן/amán, “to support, assure, trust.” Sorta the Hebrews’ way of replying, “True.” For the most part, we Christians use amen as a way to end our prayers. Like when you say “goodbye” on a phone conversation, or “over and out” on a radio conversation. My childhood Sunday school teachers even described it as “hanging up.”

Custom is, we gotta finish our prayers with amen. Or the popular incantation “In Jesus Name amen.” Or, if you want everyone else in the room to say amen along with you: “And all God’s people said…” (or “the church said,” or “we all said”) at which everyone was conditioned to reply, “Amen.” Sometimes the three-syllable “A-a-men.”

As you know, some Christian customs are more than just traditions: We gotta do them. They’re virtually commands. If you don’t end a prayer with amen, it confuses people. Wanna really throw off your prayer group? Next time you lead prayer, don’t bother to “hang up.” Just start speaking to them as you ordinarily would, and watch ’em get all agitated: “You didn’t say amen. You gotta say amen.” As if God ever gets confused. As if he thinks we’re still speaking to him unless we “get off the phone,” so to speak.

No, we don’t need to end prayers with amen. You realize even the Lord’s Prayer doesn’t end with amen? Lk 11.2-4 Yet Christians will still go bonkers if we skip amen. It’s become an obsessive-compulsive thing with them; it’s like someone who simply can’t knock an odd number of times, and has to knock twice or four times or six times, but never thrice. And you just knocked thrice. Some of ’em will even say an annoyed amen for you.

But this insistence on capping our prayers with amen, misses the entire point of the word. What’s amen mean again? True. Why would you say “True” at the end of a prayer? Because the rest of us are listening to it, and agree with its content: “What you said is true. What you requested is good. So be it. Amen.”

This being the case, having “all God’s people say amen” at the end of a prayer is appropriate. It’s not just the prayer leader trying to get recognition: It’s consensus. Do you agree with what was just prayed? I’d hope so. (That is, I’d hope the prayer leader didn’t pray anything inappropriate. It’d suck not being legitimately able to mean amen when we say it.)

This also being the case, do we need to cap our own prayers with amen? Seems a little redundant to agree with ourselves. Yet we do it anyway… ’cause it’s unthinking, brainless custom. You know, dead religion.

When did Jesus say amen?

Jesus says amen in the gospels all the time. And you probably never noticed it, ’cause bibles don’t translate it “amen.” They use other words.

KJV. “Verily.”

ESV, NIV, NRSV. “Truly.”

GNB, NJB, NLT. “Truth.”

NKJV. “Assuredly.”

Because Jesus uses amen to declare what he’s about to say is absolutely valid, as good as a promise. Not end his prayers. Here’s five instances from his Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5.18 KWL

“Amen! I promise you all: As long as the heavens and earth exist,

not one yodh nor one penstroke will ever be taken out of the Law till it’s achieved.”

 

Matthew 5.25-26 KWL

25 “Be quick to cooperate with your opponent—whoever you get in the way of—

lest your opponent turn you in to the judge, the judge to the bailiff, and you’re thrown into prison.

26 Amen! I promise you: You’ll never come out of there

till you work off your last quarter.”

 

Matthew 6.2 KWL

“So whenever you do charity, don’t toot your own horn,

like hypocrites do in synagogue and on the street, so they can be praised by people.

Amen! I promise you: They got their wages.”

 

Matthew 6.5 KWL

“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who really like standing in synagogues

and the corners of the main streets, praying so they might be seen by the people.

Amen! I promise you all: They got their credit.”

 

Matthew 6.16 KWL

“When you fast, don’t be like the sad-looking hypocrites

who conceal their faces so they look to people like they’re fasting.

Amen! I promise you all: They got their credit.”

Jesus prefaces his statements with amen (or “amen amen,” two of ’em, in John) because he wants it clear he’s making a statement we can utterly depend on. It’s why I translate these statements, “Amen, I promise you.”

Hence we should get the idea amen isn’t a word to be thrown around lightly. As so many hypocrites do.

Inappropriate amens.

See, amen means we agree. In responsive churches, like my Pentecostal church, whenever the pastor says something people agree with, you’ll hear people in the congregation say (or shout) “Amen!”

In fact there are certain Christians whom you can count on to say amen to pretty much everything their pastor says. Whether he makes any sense or not; whether she’s quoting bible in context or not. Popular culture tends to call these folks “the amen corner”—they’re the ones who can be counted on to go along with any harebrained thing you say or do. Like political devotees.

From what we’ve seen of the amen corner’s unkind, out-of-control lives, we know they’re not actually following Jesus. That’s why they’re so quick with the amens. That’s why they sit within earshot of the podium; if the sermon’s getting recorded, they’ll be heard on the audio. They’re sucking up because they’re trying to hide their sins. It’s more hypocrisy.

The rest of the church says amen when we actually agree. But not always. Too often we’re hypocrites too: We say amen when we oughta agree, but deep down we don’t necessarily.

Or we wanna look like we were paying attention. We say amen to some long-ass prayer we weren’t really listening to; meanwhile our minds were wandering, and we spent the last 15 minutes debating with ourselves whether to have Mexican or Chinese for lunch. ’Cause we like Chinese, and it’s less expensive; but the kids always want Mexican; but the kids have no taste, and all they ever order is quesadillas anyway, and that’s just cheese and tortillas and barely counts as Mexican food; and I’m the adult here dangit… oh wait, did they just say “In Jesus Name all God’s people said”? Gotta say amen now!

Not only should we never say amen to any prayer we don’t agree with: Sometimes we need to speak up. Sometimes the prayer leader needs correcting. Hopefully that’s very rare. But it can happen, and when it does, us saying amen to it means we’ve vocally agreed to a rotten prayer. Bad example for fellow Christians, and doesn’t honor God any.

I know; people don’t wanna make trouble. Which says all sorts of things about their lack of courage, or their church’s dysfunction. Either way, grow a spine. I’m not saying you have to stand up and proclaim anathema (the opposite of amen, which literally means “accursed”) upon such prayers. Just don’t blindly, or falsely, say amen. If you don’t mean it, don’t say it. Let your yes be yes, your no be no, Mt 5.37, Jm 5.12 and your amen be amen.

And privately get this stuff sorted out. Have an honest relationship with one another.

One who brings justice to the gentiles.

Isaiah 42.1-4, Matthew 12.14-20.

After Jesus cured the man with the paralyzed hand, this happened.

Matthew 12.14-20 KWL

14 Going out, the Pharisees took a meeting about this—so they could have Jesus destroyed.

15 Jesus, who knew this, left there, and a great crowd followed him; he had cured them all.

16 Jesus had rebuked them, lest they reveal what he might do

17 so that he might fulfill the word from the prophet Isaiah, saying,

18 “Look at my servant whom I chose, my beloved. My soul approves of him.

I put my Spirit in him, and he’ll bring justice to the gentiles.

19 He won’t struggle or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.

20 He won’t split a broken reed, won’t extinguish smoking linen, till he can issue justice in victory.

21 Gentiles will put their hope in his name.” Is 42.1-4

Since Matthew quotes Isaiah and says Jesus fulfilled it, Christians presume this particular part of Isaiah is a messianic prophecy; that it’s specifically about Jesus. I may as well translate it too, instead of just translating Matthew’s translation of it:

Isaiah 42.1-4 KWL

1 “Look at my slave. I support him, my chosen one. My soul is pleased with him.

I put my Spirit upon him: Judgment goes forth to the gentiles.

2 He doesn’t cry out, doesn’t stir things up; his voice isn’t heard in the street.

3 He doesn’t break up crushed reeds, nor put out a dimming wick.

Judgment is issued to promote truth. 4 Likewise he doesn’t fade nor break down till he brings judgment to the earth.

The border lands await his instruction.”

Y’notice there are minor differences. No, not because I translated it differently; it’s because either Matthew was quoting a bad copy, or paraphrasing. (I prefer to think he was paraphrasing.) Matthew simply laid his ideas on top of Isaiah, same as Christians still do… and really shouldn’t.

Anyway, because Christians don’t understand what fulfillment means, again we assume the Isaiah passage is about Jesus. It’s actually not. It’s about Israel. The LORD specifically said so in the previous chapter of Isaiah.

Isaiah 41.8-9 KWL

8 “And you, my slave Israel, Jacob whom I chose, my beloved Abraham’s seed:

9 I seized you from the land’s end, called you one of its chiefs, and told you,

‘You’re my slave, my chosen. I don’t reject you.’ ”

No, he didn’t switch from Israel being the servant he meant, to Messiah being the servant he meant, in the course of a few verses. He was still telling Isaiah about Israel. He’s gonna put his Spirit on Israel and use the nation to promote justice among gentiles. True, Israel isn’t currently doing the best job of promoting justice towards anyone but fellow Israelis. But I don’t figure this prophecy is describing the present day anyway.

The LORD has big plans for Israel—and for Jesus as Israel’s king. So it’s entirely likely this prophecy refers to Israel when it’s finally following its Messiah during his millennium, after his second coming.

Meanwhile Matthew jumped the gun a little, ’cause though Jesus was starting his kingdom it hasn’t come yet. (Keep praying for it!) So in what way did Jesus fulfill this Isaiah passage in the first century?

Before you go book shopping…

This Christmas, some of you are getting gift cards or gift certificates. I regularly get Starbucks cards—which is great, ’cause that’s exactly what I want. I’ll definitely use ’em. Yes, I’m at Starbucks as I write this.

Anyway, some of these gift cards will be for bookstores. Maybe Amazon, maybe not. And as Christians who wanna get religious about our relationships with Jesus, some of us are likely thinking of buying Christian books and resources, and stuff that’ll help us get better at Christianity. I know I do.

And, when I was newly devout, I wasted a bunch of money on stuff that really didn’t do any of those things. Likely so will you. We all do. Our zealousness overtakes our wallets. But hold on there, little buckaroo: Don’t get all fired up to ride off an’ lasso some steer, ’cause you might just wind up with some bull.

If you go to a brick ’n mortar Christian bookstore, first thing you’re gonna notice is they sell an awful lot of “Jesus junk.” And bibles; most of their money comes from bibles. But they also sell art, T-shirts, CDs, devotionals, romance novels without any sex in ’em (with Amish girls on the cover, just to tell everyone who catches you reading one, “Nope, the clothes are staying on”), inferior Christian fiction, bestselling Christian books by famous authors, and classic Christian books by famous dead Christians.

There are some actually useful books in there. But more of them are junk. Even among the classics. They’re nice sentiments, disguised as God-inspired wisdom. They’ll make you feel good, like they’re expected to. But you won’t grow any closer to Jesus, won’t get any more spiritually mature, won’t grow in the Spirit’s fruit, won’t anything. I used to own bookshelves of that rubbish.

How d’you tell the difference? Which of them should you buy? Well maybe this article’ll help get you started.

The seven deadly sins.

The “seven deadly sins” confuse a lot of people.

Back in 2008, a rumor spread that the Vatican declared more deadly sins. It came from an interview with Gianfranco Girotti, the head bishop of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary. (I know; this sounds like the Vatican prison. It’s actually the theologians who handle questions about sin, repentance, and forgiveness.) Anyway, in Girotti’s interview with L’Osservatore Romano on 7 March 2008, he listed certain present-day practices which he believed have a harmful global impact: Pollution, drug trafficking, embryo-destroying research, other unethical human experiments, abortion, pedophilia, and economic injustice.

Somehow the press converted this into “The Vatican announced there are new sins!” And since your average reporter (lapsed Catholics included) know bupkis about the seven deadly sins, they just assumed there are now 14 deadly sins. Now littering is gonna send you to hell.

Like I said, they confuse people.

Most people figure they’re a Roman Catholic thing. And they largely are. Few Protestants teach on ’em. More of them, particularly the Fundamentalists, consider way more things to be deadly sins than seven. Like voting for the wrong political party.

Loads of people think the seven deadly sins are in the bible. And they actually are. Just not in the form of a list.

I’ve heard Protestants claim the list is found in Catholic bibles. Well, maybe if it’s a Catholic study bible, it’ll be in the notes, but no. You’ll find passages—in all bibles—which rebuke these attitudes and the behaviors they cause. And whether you’re Catholic or not, you might wanna know about them. So here’s the list, in convenient chart form.

DEADLY SIN		LATIN	OUT-OF-CONTROL DESIRE	OPPOSITE VIRTUE
1.	LECHERY	luxuria/“sexual lust”	For sex. Cl 3.5	Purity
2.	GLUTTONY	gula	For food, drink, intoxicants. Ek 16.49	Moderation
3.	GREED	avaritia/“avarice”	For money, wealth, possessions. Ep 5.3	Generosity
4.	LAZINESS	acedia/“sloth, discouragement”	To evade responsibility, avoid work, stay uninvolved. Mt 25.26	Integrity
5.	WRATH	ira/“anger”	To fight, take revenge, act out of rage or bitterness. Ep 4.32	Meekness
6.	ENVY	invidia/“begrudge”	To covet, be jealous. Mk 7.22	Kindness
7.	PRIDE	superbia/“magnificence”	To exalt oneself: Self-praise, self-promotion. Mt 7.22	Humility

What makes ’em deadly? Well, they’re works of the flesh. And those who choose a lifestyle of works of the flesh don’t inherit God’s kingdom. Ga 5.21 Their lifestyle implies they’re not saved: They don’t have the Holy Spirit indwelling them, making ’em fruity, making ’em not want to sin, getting them to reject the sort of lifestyle which burps up deadly sins.

Fasting on the feast days.

Christian holidays are also known as feast days. The term comes from the bible, ’cause that’s how the LORD described the holidays he instituted for the Hebrews: “Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year,” Ex 23.14 KJV namely Passover, Pentecost, and Tents. Christians turned Passover into Easter, added Christmas, usually downplay Pentecost, and usually skip Tents… but otherwise yeah, on Christian holidays we tend to do a bit of feasting. (And on St. Patrick’s Day, drinking.)

Thing is, Evangelicals regularly forget Christmas is 12 days long. Our secular culture thinks it’s one day—beginning and ending on 25 December. If the decorations stay up till New Year’s Day, it’s only because you personally struggle to let go of things. Give it up; take ’em down. Hey, the stores are already getting ready for Valentine’s Day.

In reality Christmas continues till Epiphany. But because Evangelicals follow the culture, and tend to dismiss ancient custom as “Catholic,” they figure Christmas is over and the next major holiday is New Year’s Day.

And what’s the best way to start a new year? No, not partying till pukey. It’s to focus on what God’s will might be for the year.

What’s he want us to do? If we can figure it out and do it, maybe God’ll reward us by taking away suffering and showering us with wealth. Or, y’know, spiritual blessings. But let’s be honest: Deep down we’re kinda hoping for material ones.

So in order to really focus on God, really listen for his voice, and demonstrate to him and ourselves we really mean it, Evangelicals dip into one of our old Christian traditions… and fast.

Well, kinda. North Americans usually refuse to defy our stomachs and palates; even for Jesus. So we made some adaptations about what “fasting” means; we don’t go anywhere remotely as hardcore as Jesus. We skip a meal at most. Some of us go on a diet we like to call “the Daniel fast.” This way we deprive ourselves, but we’re not actually starving. And hey, we might lose a little weight, as we resolved to do anyway.

Evangelical churches get so eager to get started on that sweet, sweet Daniel fasting, we start right away. On 1 January if possible. Okay, maybe 2 January, because it’s so hard to start fasting when we’re hung over snacking as we watch New Year’s football games. We can put it off a day. But 2 January for sure!

Okay, so we start fasting on 2 January. Which is the ninth day of Christmas; a feast day.

Are we supposed to fast on feast days? No.

But as I said, Christians don’t know it’s a feast day. So we’ll fast anyway. And various other days throughout the Christian year.

Our suffering servant.

Isaiah 53.

Mixed in with all the Messianic prophecies about a king who’d restore Israel, conquer the world, and set aright everything gone wrong, there are also prophecies about a suffering servant who’d get crushed.

We Christians likewise recognize these prophecies to be about Jesus. But people only realized it after the fact. Before Jesus went through his suffering, Pharisees believed these prophecies can’t be about Messiah. He’s gonna conquer the world! It’s gonna be an easy victory, achieved through the Almighty’s power. Suffering and death? Has to be some other guy.

Y’might recall as soon as Jesus brought up the very idea this suffering servant was him, his best student Simon Peter recoiled. “This will never happen to you,” was his rebuke. Mt 16.22 Human nature being what it is, we pick and choose the bible passages we like, skip the rest… and consequently miss most of the story. ’Cause the parts we avoid are frequently the really important parts. Jesus’s death saves the world just as much, if not more so, than his second coming will.

The Pharisees believed Messiah would come once, to conquer the world. They presumed he’d do it same as other conquerors: Take it by force, and make humanity submit. Smite his enemies with an iron scepter. Politically-minded Christians figure they can take over their society on his behalf, and make our nation into an outpost of his kingdom. They don’t realize Jesus demonstrated, by humility and self-sacrifice, not conquest, how very much he deserves the world as his inheritance. They don’t get how he gets people to submit to him out of love, out of recognizing the absolute wisdom and rightness of his rule. That’s much harder to achieve than mere force. (Plus there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in the idea of forcing people to submit, instead of getting ’em to want to. Such is human nature.)

But winning the world through his suffering, rather than seizing it by force, is what Isaiah saw him do. And reported thisaway.

Isaiah 53 KWL

1 Does anyone believe what we’ve reported?

The LORD’s arm is upon this person who’s been revealed.

2 He grew up in God’s presence like a sapling, like something rooted in dry ground.

We could see nothing honorable in his form. He wasn’t anything to look at.

3 People dismissed and refused to hear him. A man in pain, familiar with illness,

dismissed like one who hides his face from people—we took no account of him.

4 But in fact he’d taken up our illness. He carried our pain.

We figured he’d been smited: God had struck him down to humble him,

5 but he was wounded for our rebellion, crushed for our evil deeds.

Our peace came from his punishment. His beating brought us healing.

6 Like sheep, all of us have wandered off; we all went our own way.

The LORD put all our evil deeds on him.

7 He was abused and humiliated, and didn’t open his mouth.

Like a sheep to slaughter, or an ewe to her shearers, is silent: He didn’t open his mouth.

8 Arrested, judged, he was carried off. His peers—who spoke up for him

when he was cut off from the land of the living? beaten for the evil deeds of my people?

9 They put him in the grave with evildoers, with the rich in death,

though he’d treated no one violently. No deceit was in his mouth.

10 The LORD was pleased to crush him, to make him unwell, to make his soul a guilt offering,

and see his seed survive. God will prolong its days. The LORD is pleased to make it prosper in his hand.

11 God will be satisfied by the trouble of this servant’s soul:

He will be right in knowing the righteous one, my servant, will bear the weight of both the great and the evildoers.

12 Therefore I will give him something from the great ones. He’ll be given spoil with the mighty ones.

For under them, his soul was poured out to death. He was counted with the rebels.

He carried the sin of the great. He brings light to the rebels.

The Son who was given us.

Isaiah 9.6-7.

Isaiah ben Amoch (KJV “Amoz”) was a prophet all his life. His book contains prophecies spanning the 60-plus years of his ministry in the second half of the 700s BC. And it was during this time, in 722, that the Assyrian Empire conquered and scattered northern Israel.

Isaiah lived in southern Israel, also called Judah or Judea. The Judeans worried greatly about the threat of Assyrian invasion. A number of Judeans were convinced the LORD would never let any dirty foreigners conquer their great land; after all, God’s temple was there, and he’d never let ’em destroy his temple. And a number recognized, same as Isaiah, their covenant with God dictated he’d totally let the land get taken if his people defied him. If you didn’t believe this, just look at what happened to northern Israel.

But even when we think the End has come, that everything’s been destroyed and is over and done with, God knows better. He had Isaiah say this to all Israelis—both the defeated, discouraged northerners scattered all over Assyria; and the southerners fearfully getting their End Times bunkers ready in Judea:

Isaiah 9.6-7 KWL

6 For a child was begotten by us. A son was given to us. The empire is on his shoulder.

His name is called Wondrously Helped by God, Great God, Eternal Father, Peace Chief.

7 There is no end to the abundance and peace of his empire, over his kingdom, David’s throne.

It establishes it, upholds it with justice and rightness, from now to forever.

The zeal of the LORD of War does this.

It’s another messianic prophecy, a prediction of a messiah, “anointed king,” like David ben Jesse—but a greater messiah, the Messiah, who’d rule Israel forever. More; he’d conquer the world.

Christians have definitely adopted this passage as applying to Jesus. We regularly refer to him by these titles.

• WONDERFUL (as in KJV; פֶּ֠לֶא/pelé, “unique, great, difficult, miraculous”). Properly this describes the next word—it tells us which sort of counselor this Messiah is—but Christians frequently interpret it on its own, and describe Jesus as wonderful. Which he is; I’m not saying otherwise.
• COUNSELOR (as in KJV; (יוֹעֵץ֙/yohéch, “YHWH-aided”). Because people insist on word-for-word translation, they convert this idea into too few words. In the 1600s a counselor was what you called an aide or assistant, meaning someone who helps you, and not just with useful advice. Yohéch means the LORD’s the one providing the aid. This Messiah’s gonna be miraculously helped by God. But, y’know, Christians prefer the idea of Jesus being our counselor—which, again, he is. 1Jn 2.1
• MIGHTY GOD (אֵ֣ל גִּבּ֔וֹר/El-Gibbór, “God the powerful warrior”). The word El means “God,” but same as in our culture, it can refer to a lowercase-G “god” who’s not so much a divine being as just a really powerful person, like a superhero. So the folks who initially read Isaiah might not’ve taken this literally and imagined Messiah would be God incarnate; he’d just be a really mighty king. Thing is, Jesus is God incarnate. So, y’know, take it literally.
• ETERNAL FATHER (אֲבִיעַ֖ד/aviád, “perpetual father,” KJV “everlasting Father”). Occasionally we get modalists who insist this means Jesus is the Father, and use it to confound how trinity is described. Properly, this refers to how the ancients tended to call their spiritual leaders “father” (something Jesus discouraged Mt 23.9), and this Messiah would likewise be their spiritual father—but not merely for a short time. He’d perpetually be their father. He’d be their go-to guy about God.
• PEACE CHIEF (שַׂר־שָׁלֽוֹם/sar-shalóm, KJV “Prince of Peace”). A sar refers to any leader, and Hebrews used it to describe nobles, generals, civic leaders, or anyone else in charge. Messiah’s gonna be in charge of peace: He’s gonna get it, and grant it to his people.

So if you’re worried about the specter of chaos and war looming over your land, if you’re one of those dark Christians worried the End is nigh ’cause things are worse than they’ve ever been, this Messiah’s gonna put everything right. He’s gonna take over and fix the world.

Hallelujah!

Hallelujah is actually two Hebrew words. הַ֥לְלוּ/hallelú, the command “All of you, praise!” (KJV “praise ye”), and יָ֨הּ/Yah (KJV “Jah”), short for יְ֭הוָה/YHWH, “Jehovah, the LORD.” When we say hallelujah, or its Greek variant ἀλληλούϊα/allilúia (Latin and KJV “Alleluia”), we’re literally saying, “Praise the LORD,” which is why many bibles translate it that way.

There are certain Jews who insist the -jah ending of the word absolutely does not refer to YHWH. That’s because they consider God’s name far too holy to say aloud. (Certainly too holy to abbreviate with some nickname like Yah!) But they wanna say hallelujah, and don’t wanna replace it with “hallelu-Adonai” or “hallelu-haShem” or one of their other euphemisms they use, like the Christian substitution “the LORD.” So they claim Jah means something else, like “yea!” Which is kinda ridiculous, considering all the Hebrew personal names which deliberately end in -iah or -jah, such as Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Nehemiah. These names are deliberate references to YHWH; their parents wanted the LORD’s name to be part of their names, and remind them who their God is. Most Jews recognize Jah is totally an abbreviation for YHWH—and since it’s not the whole holy name, it’s okay to say it. So they’ll say hallelujah with no hesitation.

My mom once participated in a prayer ministry in Israel. At one point, when they worshiped together, someone got the clever idea to sing a popular worship song together. One that’d been translated into dozens of languages, so each of them could sing it in their native tongue and it’d harmonize, despite the cacophony of different languages. But when they call came to the word hallelujah in the song… no surprise, they all sang “hallelujah” together. It’s the one word we all have in common. It’s probably more universal than the word “okay.”

To pagans, hallelujah is an exclamation of joy. In the Leonard Cohen song (assuming you aren’t more familiar with the version Cloverton rewrote for Christmas) it’s a euphemism for disappointing lust. Some of the pagan stuff has leaked into Christianity, with the result being people who shout “Hallelujah!” at stuff we probably shouldn’t praise God for. But most Christians correctly understand it means “Praise the LORD,” and that’s why we say it: We’re praising God. We’re encouraging and provoking others to praise God. It is phrased as a Hebrew command after all.

“Prevenient grace”: Already there, without limit.

PREVENE pri'vin verb. Arrive first, come before, pre-exist.

[Prevenient pri'vin.jənt adjective, prevenience pri'vin.jəns noun.]

Time for an old-timey word, prevenient. One you’ll really only find theologians use anymore. But I gotta inflict it on you—sorry—because so many Christians use it to describe how God’s grace works.

Y’might already know humans are selfish, and this self-interest distorts everything we do. Including everything good we try to do: There’s gotta be something in it for us. Even if it looks and feels like there’s nothing in it for us—if it’s an absolute act of sacrifice, one which harms us instead of benefits us, one which makes us feel awful instead of noble—there’s still something way deep down, embedded in the core of our being, which gets some satisfaction from it. Otherwise we we’d never voluntarily do it. That’s just how messed up we are. “Totally depraved,” as the theologians put it.

But people usually pretend this messed-up core doesn’t exist, and claim it was a truly selfless act; that it proves we humans aren’t all bad. But self-justification is also selfish.

This total depravity means we’re too messed up to save ourselves. We’re never gonna be good enough. Even if, by some mathematically impossible fluke, we follow all God’s commands to the letter, we’re still gonna have this hanging over us: It wasn’t done out of love for God. We did it so we could claim righteousness. We want to be “good people.” We want the good karma; we want to merit heaven. Don’t lie; it’s totally why we go to all the trouble. It’s a pride thing. And God never did care for pride. Jm 4.6, 1Pe 5.5

So how can we be saved? Well duh; only God can save us. We gotta trust God.

But aren’t we pretty far gone? Aren’t we too messed up to trust God? We’re so self-centered, so focused on ourselves, humanity is spiritually dead inside: We can’t hear the Holy Spirit poking us in the conscience. Before we can turn to God, doesn’t he first have to transform something within us?

Sure. And he did. When Jesus died for the world’s sins, 1Jn 2.2 he took out sins both past and future. Ro 3.25 His act of atonement worked its way backwards and forwards through time, so that everyone receives God’s grace—from Adam and Eve, to you. Thanks to Jesus, through Jesus, every human on the planet, no matter how messed up, has the ability to recognize we need God to save us. We had the ability before we even realized we needed it.

This grace was always around. Always available. Prevenient.

Yeah, there are other Christians who insist it’s not. It’s not prevenient; it’s particular. God doesn’t offer grace to just anyone. He only offers it to the repentant. Or to the elect. He doesn’t waste his grace on people who want nothing to do with him, on people who will never turn to him. Grace is only for certain people, a limited few.

This idea doesn’t come from bible. Not that people don’t try to twist certain verses really hard, and claim it totally does. It comes from graceless humans. We don’t consider the whole of humanity worth saving; we figure there are sinners who just aren’t worth it. Jesus can’t have wasted his precious life on them. So, in these Christians’ minds, he didn’t. It’s a ransom for many, Mt 10.45, 20.28 not all.

Our infinite God has infinite resources, infinite love, infinite grace, and the ability to save absolutely everyone who turns to him. And wants to! 2Pe 3.9 But not all the world is willing. Mk 13.34, Mt 23.37 To all who receive him, he makes them his children. Jn 1.12 To all who don’t… he tries again. And again. His mercies never come to an end. Lm 3.22 ’Cause he’s patient like that.

Humans, not so much. And we project many of these selfish, depraved qualities upon God, and limit his grace because we lack grace. They feel it depletes their karma to waste love on people who will never reciprocate. They can’t justify this irrational, unbiblical idea, so they reframe it this way: They don’t love everybody because God must not love everybody—because he’s so almighty, so sovereign, his love would overwhelm and transform everyone it touches. Since not everyone is overwhelmed and transformed, God must not have loved them; certainly not in the way he loves us. So if he doesn’t love the world (despite Jesus saying he totally does Jn 3.16), why should they waste their love on ingrates? Hence limited love. Limited atonement. Limited grace.

It’s totally inconsistent with how Jesus describes his Father:

Matthew 5.43-48 KWL

43 “You heard this said: ‘You’ll love your neighbor.’ Lv 19.18 And you’ll hate your enemy.

44 And I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors.

45 Thus you can become your heavenly Father’s children,

since he raises his sun over evil and good, and rains on moral and immoral.

46 When you love those who love you, why should you be rewarded?

Don’t taxmen also do so themselves?

47 When you greet only your family, what did you do that was so great?

Don’t the foreigners also do so themselves?

48 Therefore you will be egalitarian,

like your heavenly Father is egalitarian.”

Our heavenly Father loves both good and evil people—and grants his amazing grace to both. To all. Without limit. Preveniently.

Don’t be ashamed of Jesus.

Mark 8.34 – 9.1, Matthew 16.24-28, Luke 9.23-27.

Christianity embarrasses a lot of people.

Which I get. I have a coworker who’s one of those dark Christians who’s all about judging sinners, ’cause she thinks their sins are gonna trigger the End Times. She thinks she’s just keeping things real and telling the truth, but my other coworkers think she’s a loon. I think she’s a loon. I don’t wanna be associated with that.

Thankfully I know the difference between that particular brand of angry, blame-everybody-but-ourselves doctrine, and Christ Jesus and his gospel. So when people ask what I think, I can tell ’em I don’t believe as she does; I believe in grace. My Lord isn’t coming to earth to judge it—not for a mighty long time—but to save it. I proclaim good news, not bad.

Other Christians… well they don’t know there’s a difference between dark Christianity and Christ Jesus. Or they do, but don’t know how to articulate it. So they mute the fact they’re Christian, and hope they can pass by unnoticed.

And sometimes, just to make sure nobody guesses they’re Christian, they don’t act Christian. They’re as profane as any pagan, and get drunk or stoned and fornicate just as often. They don’t bother to produce fruit. And when Easter or Christmas rolls around, and they slip up and mention they’re going to church for the holidays, their friends and coworkers are startled: “Wait, are you a f--king Christian?” They had no idea, ’cause these folks are neither religious nor holy.

What’s Jesus think of these people? Well they embarrass him.

’Cause if we’re truly following him, if we want to follow him, we’re not gonna be like everyone else; we’re gonna stand out and be weird. Our lifestyle isn’t gonna be about what pleases us or gets us off; it’ll be about self-control and emotions under check and taking other people into consideration. It’s not gonna be about judging our neighbors, but loving them (and not in that angry way which dark Christians claim they’re actually doing). We’re gonna act like his followers, not pretend we don’t really know the guy.

And when he says stuff which rattles us, kinda like he did in the previous passage, we’re gonna deal with it, instead of pretending he never said any such thing. Everything he teaches, everything, is part of the package. Take it or leave it.

Mark 8.34-37 KWL

34 Summoning the crowd with his students, Jesus told them, “If anyone wants to follow me,

renounce yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me.

35 For whoever would only want to save their soul, will wreck it.

Whoever would wreck their soul for my and the gospel’s sake: They’ll save it.

36 For what good is a person who wins the whole world and damages their soul?

37 For what might a person give in exchange for their soul?”

 

Matthew 16.24-26 KWL

24 Then Jesus told his students, “If anyone wants to come after me,

renounce yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me.

25 For whoever would only want to save their soul, will wreck it.

Whoever would wreck their soul for my sake: They’ll find it.

26 For what will benefit a person when they win the whole world and destroy their soul?”

 

Luke 9.23-25 KWL

23 Jesus told everyone, “If anyone wants to come after me,

renounce yourself, pick up your cross each day, and follow me.

24 For whoever would only want to save their soul, will wreck it.

Whoever would wreck their soul for me: This person will save it.

25 For what good is a person who wins the whole world, and damages or ruins themselves?”

If the only thing you care about is your soul, by which I and Jesus mean your lifeforce, your public life, or your eternal life—if all you care about is how other people think of you, or the comforts of living an unchallenging daily existence—you’ve chosen a life without Jesus. You’re gonna get wrecked.

How not to rebuke someone over the internet.

Questions? Comments? Email. But remember, my feedback policy means I can post it. Maybe even make fun of it.

Y’might notice on some of the older TXAB articles, the Disqus comments have closed. I put an expiration date on posting comments on the article itself. It’s just weird when someone comments on something years later. It’s weird when they do it on YouTube (and super annoying when it’s something inane, like “Hey, who else is watching this video in 2019?”); it’s weird when they do it anywhere. So I prevented it on this site.

But nothing can stop you from throwing me an email, so people will do that.

So I got feedback on my article, “The fear of phony peace.” Wasn’t positive. A lot of Christians believe the great tribulation is definitely gonna follow the rapture, and somehow my saying otherwise is doing people a disservice: Christians need to be prepared for… utterly escaping all the bad stuff?

Seems if we did need to be more prepared for anything, it’d be in case the rapture doesn’t precede tribulation, and we do have to live through 3½ to 7 years of suffering. In which case one of Jim Bakker’s buckets of End Times pizza would be looking pretty good pretty fast. But this person’s pretty sure my rejection of getting skyhooked out of suffering is “false doctrine.” I’ll let him say it.

So you’re saying that the antichrist wont make a peace treaty with Israel and break it after 3.5 years?

I had tremendous respect for your teaching until the fear article. You are the one deceived. I am gifted to discern right and wrong doctrine. And boy! You are wrong! No other way to say it.

I know you will try to persuade me further but don’t. I have done all the research and you are just wrong. Now you are accountable for spreading false doctrine. I admonish you to remove this garbage and get right with the Father once again. You can’t go doing that. You can’t.

Peace to you.

My response to him was, “Okay, you persuade me. Give me the scriptures.” But he didn’t respond. Likely he figured it’d be a frustrating waste of his time. Maybe so. When people are convinced we’re right (whether it’s him or me), someone who won’t accept this can get really aggravating. When he’s absolutely certain his reasoning is sound, yet I keep poking holes in it (as I was trained to)… well you can quickly see why ancient Athens decided to be rid of Socrates.

So this fellow rebuked me. Productively? Not unless you count this article, which I’m gonna use to show you how not to rebuke someone over the internet.

Preaching the dictionary.

Nine years ago I visited a family member’s church. The pastor had just started a series about home-based small groups. His primary proof text came from Acts 2, namely the part where Luke described the brand-new Christians in Jerusalem, and how they got religious.

Acts 2.42-47 KWL

42 They were hewing close to the apostles’ teaching, to community, to breaking bread, and to prayers.

43 Reverence came to every soul, and many wonders and signs happened through the apostles.

44 Every believer looked out for one another, and put everything in common use:

45 They sold possessions and property, and divided proceeds among all,

just because some were needy.

46 Those who hewed close unanimously were in temple daily,

breaking bread at home, happily, generously, wholeheartedly sharing food,

47 praising God, showing grace to all people.

The Master added saved people to them daily.

He used the NLT, I believe. Its verse 46 goes like so:

Acts 2.46 NLT

They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity…

“They met in homes,” he pointed out. “The Greek word for ‘home’ is oikos.” (Yep, just like Dannon’s brand of Greek yogurt. See?—knowing Greek comes in handy. Although οἶκος is properly pronounced íkos.) “And according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, that means ‘a dwelling; by implication, a family.’ So what that verse really means is that they met as families.”

Um… no it doesn’t.

Íkos means house or home. It’s why the NLT rendered it as “homes.” It’s why most bibles render it that way. It’s what anybody who took Greek 101 understands it to mean; íkos is one of the first words we learn, appears in the Greek New Testament 112 times (114 in the Textus Receptus), and it’s a really easy concept. Hence bible translators aren’t being inexact when they render it “house” or “home.” They know what they’re doing. It’s why bible publishers, and bible translation committees, hire ’em.

If “They met as families” were a better translation, you’d see it translated that way in most bibles. If it was a valid alternate translation, you’d see it translated that way in at least one bible. But check out all the different English translations on Bible Gateway, and you’ll find not one translator decided, “Y’know, íkos really means ‘family,’ so let’s go with that.”

So why’d this pastor make this claim? ’Cause he wants the Christians of his church to meet together in one another’s homes, and be family together. Which is a great idea! It’s precisely what church is meant to be. It’s just he was trying to prove it by misusing a Greek dictionary, and wow his congregation by dropping on them a secret, cryptic meaning of íkos which they’d never heard before. Wow, “home” really means “family”!

And yeah, in certain contexts it can mean that. Like Joseph being of David’s house, Lk 1.27, 2.4 or when Paul told his Corinthian guard he and his “whole house” would be saved. Ac 16.31 In these instances it meant family. But all translation depends on context. If it didn’t—if every instance of íkos means family—then let’s talk about Solomon building the LORD a house, Ac 7.47 and do try to not sound ridiculous.

Expository preaching… if that’s what’s even happening.

EXPOUND ɪk'spaʊnd verb. Present and explain (a theory or idea) systematically and in detail.

2. Explain the meaning of (a literary or doctrinal work).

[Exposition ɛk.spə'zɪʃ.(ə)n noun, expository ɪk'spɑ.zɪ.tɔ.ri adjective, expositor ɪk'spɑ.zə.dər noun.]

I regularly run into this situation: People like to compliment their favorite preachers by calling them “great expositors.” Apparently they’ve learned exposition is the very best way to preach, so when they like certain preachers, that’s what they call ’em.

And once again, this is one of those situations where I gotta quote Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride.

Giphy

’Cause I listen to these preachers for myself, and find they’re not great expositors. Or even expositors.

Oh, they can preach. They have outstanding abilities as public speakers. They know how to keep their listeners’ attention. Some of ’em have even done their homework, and teach the scriptures admirably. But expositors? Nope.

They get called “expositors” because they’ll go verse-by-verse through a bible passage. They start with verse 1, and talk about it a bit. (Or a lot.) Then verse 2. Then verse 3. And so on. They’re a series of talks, each of ’em prefaced by a verse. Because the preacher does quote every single verse in a passage, people think this is what makes a sermon expository.

Nope. What makes it expository is they expound on the verses. They have to actually analyze and explain what every verse means. Preferably in detail. And their message has to be about explaining what it means.

Whereas most of these “expository” sermons are really just preachers quoting bible, then using the bible verses to riff about the topics they wanna talk about. Whether these topics have anything to do with the verses they just quoted. Sometimes they do. Sometimes not so much.

Nontheists and prayer.

Whenever you talk prayer with a nontheist or antichrist, they’re gonna scoff at you because they’re entirely sure you’re praying to no one.

You only imagine you’re praying to someone, they insist. You only think God answered your prayers, but it’s just coincidence; or you’re selectively reinterpreting “signs” from nature and claiming they’re God-things. You’re only pretending that’s God’s voice in your head talking back to you; it’s really your own. You want so bad for God to be real, for prayer to be valid, for Christianity to be true, you’ve psyched yourself into everything. But it’s pure self-delusion.

Yeah, sometimes I talk with some people, so I’ve heard their condescending explanations before. They’d probably work on me… if there was no such thing as confirmation. Test the bloody spirits! 1Jn 4.1

See, when I think God’s told me something, I don’t just run with it. I’m patient. I double-check. ’Cause we’re supposed to double-check. Not double-checking is how Christians wind up doing some dumb stuff, insisting God’s behind it, and wondering why on earth none of the things they think God told them actually come to anything. Duh; it wasn’t actually God! Remember all that stuff our hypothetical nontheists said about about prayer? Totally true in these presumptuous Christians’ cases: They psyched themselves into thinking God spoke to them, but they never confirmed it’s really him. Turns out it’s really not.

It’s why there are a lot of Christians stumbling around, claiming God told ’em this or that, and no he didn’t. It’s also why the nontheists and antichrists mock them: It totally confirms them, and their godless beliefs.

So we Christians gotta wise up. God does talk to us, and regularly answers prayer, but if you wanna know it’s truly him, you gotta prove it.

And once you can prove it, you can answer these nontheists: “I know it’s God ’cause I spoke with a fellow Christian, and God told him the very same thing he told me, and there’s no way we could coincidentally guess the same thing.” Or “I know it’s God ’cause I asked him for something ridiculously specific, and he came through; there’s no way I coincidentally got what I wished for.”

Oh, I’m not saying it’ll convince them they’re wrong. It won’t. Their minds are closed. But it’ll make ’em fumble a bit, ’cause they never ever expected you to point to objective, concrete evidence. They weren’t taught to expect such things when they learned atheist apologetics. (Yes, there’s totally such a thing as atheist apologetics. Why do you think they all use the same uninspired arguments? For the very same reason we wind up using all the same uninspired arguments.) Nontheists presume, since most Christians don’t do objective evidence, none of us do. Show ’em otherwise.

That time Jesus called Simon Peter “Satan.”

Mark 8.31-33, Matthew 16.21-23, Luke 9.21-22.

Most people are aware Simon Peter was Jesus’s best student. That’s why he’s always first in the lists of the Twelve—even ahead of Jesus’s cousins!—and why there’s all the stories about him in the gospels and Acts. Thing is, because there are so many stories about him, we regularly get to see how he screwed up.

And certain Christians wind up with the wrong idea about him—that he was nothing but a screwup till the Holy Spirit empowered him. Nope; sometimes he got it right. When Jesus asked what the students thought he was, Peter correctly answered, “You’re Messiah,” and Jesus blessed him for it. Blessed him so good, Peter’s fans still venerate him. Maybe a little too much, but that’s a whole other article.

Today’s story is about one of the times Peter screwed up, and it comes right after the story where Peter identified Jesus as Messiah and got blessed. But bear in mind the stories come after one another. The time these two stories occurred might’ve been weeks apart. ’Cause once it was clear Jesus’s students recognized him as Messiah, Jesus had to set them straight about what Messiah had to undergo. Contrary to popular expectation, contrary to everything Pharisees claimed about how the End Times timeline went, Messiah wasn’t about to violently overthrow the Roman Empire and take over the world. He was going to be rejected by the Judeans, and die.

Mark 8.31 KWL Jesus began to teach his students it was necessary for the Son of Man to greatly suffer; to be rejected by the elders, head priests, and scholars; to be killed; and to be resurrected after three days.

Matthew 16.21 KWL From then on, Jesus began to teach his students it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, to greatly suffer under the elders, head priests, and scribes; to be killed; and to be raised on the third day.

Luke 9.21-22 KWL 21 Jesus rebuked them, ordering them to never say this, 22 saying it was necessary for the Son of Man to greatly suffer, to be rejected by the elders, head priests, and scholars; to be killed; and to be raised on the third day.

And be resurrected on the third day. Or “after three days” in Mark, which probably got tweaked by the other gospels’ authors since literalists might nitpick. But considering how Jesus’s students reacted on the first Easter, they seem to have forgotten all about that part. Hey, sometimes kids just don’t pay attention.

Now, if you grow up only hearing one interpretation of the End Times, and someone you respect suddenly introduces you to another interpretation (or in Jesus’s case, the fact it’s actually not the End yet, and won’t be for millennia) your first response, your basic instinctive self-defense mechanism, is to not believe it. Because you’ve never heard that before. Because you prefer your old ideas: Y’might not even like them, but you’re used to them; you’re comfortable in them. And frankly the idea of Messiah overthrowing the Romans, is way more satisfying than Messiah being killed by the Romans. Who doesn’t wanna see Jesus kick some ass? Heck, certain Christians are still hoping to see him do that at his second coming. Deep down, they don’t really like the idea of a kind, gentle, humble, loving Lord; they want his wrath to look exactly like their wrath.

So some of the students didn’t like this new teaching of Jesus’s. Peter in particular.

Sock-puppet theology: Meditation gone bad.

Let’s begin with a frequently-misunderstood passage, which I’ve elsewhere discussed in more detail.

Hebrews 12.1-2 KWL

1 Consequently we, being greatly encircled by a cloud of witnesses,

throwing away every training weight and easily-distracting sin,

can enduringly run the race lying before us,

2 looking at the start and finish of our faith, Jesus.

Instead of the joy lying before him, Jesus endured a cross, dismissing the shame.

Now he sits at the right of God’s throne!

This is a sports metaphor. Since we do track and field events a little differently than the ancient Romans did, stands to reason Christians will mix up some of the ideas. The “cloud of witnesses” among them: It refers to the runners. It’s our fellow Christian witnesses, running through dirt, kicking up dust. Since today’s stadiums use polyurethane and rubber tracks—so we can actually see the runners, not a massive dust cloud—we don’t recognize the historical context of this verse anymore. Hence Christians guess at what νέφος/néfos, “cloud,” means… and guess wrong. Usually it’s heavenly spectators.

So now lemme bring up John C. Maxwell’s book Running with the Giants. I worked at a church camp a decade ago, and this book was inflicted upon me as a devotional. Leadership principles are Maxwell’s shtick, and he had 10 leadership principles to share. Like many a Christian, he wanted to put ’em into the mouths of bible characters, so it’d look like these principles come from bible. And since he knows little about historical context—and certainly doesn’t care, ’cause it’d make book-writing so much harder… well you can quickly see why I dislike this book.

The book begins with Maxwell envisioning a stadium with Christian track ’n field going on. From time to time, a great figure from the bible comes down from the “cloud of witnesses” in the stands, to encourage us runners. They’re not running with us, in Maxwell’s imagination; they’re all done. Now they have stories and life lessons to share; which is the point of the book.

After getting these life lessons from Abraham, Esther, Joseph, Moses, and Noah, by the sixth chapter Maxwell was so jazzed about all their good advice, he “can’t wait to act on the empowerment I have received” from them, “to put it to good use.” Maxwell 79

Except none of it came from them. Maxwell put all the words in their mouths. As anybody who knows historical context can tell, ’cause very little of what he imagined his “bible characters” said, are what they’d actually say. Far more what a present-day motivational speaker says.

The fear of what meditation might “open you up to.”

Years ago in a prayer group, our prayer leader asked us to sit a moment and meditate on the lesson we’d just heard.

“And I know,” she said; “some of you are worried about this whole ‘meditation’ thing. You’re worried it’ll open you up to evil spirits or something. Well, you’re Christians. It won’t.”

She didn’t go into any further detail; she wanted to get to the exercise, and didn’t want to spend the rest of prayer time explaining why it won’t happen. I’ve got time, so I will explain.

There are a lot of Christians who are big on what they call “spiritual warfare.” Which isn’t at all what the scriptures call spiritual warfare, i.e. resisting temptation: They think spiritual warfare means we fight evil spirits. Mostly by praying against them, but often by constantly, carefully watching out for boogeymen. Because they believe evil spirits are everywhere. Everywhere. Behind every corner. Even in the corners of our prayer closets. Waiting to pounce.

This dark Christian mindset makes ’em super paranoid. They call it being watchful or vigilant, but really it’s a lifestyle of fear. The sort of fear actual evil spirits can use to keep Christians far away from anything unfamiliar. Particularly new stuff the Holy Spirit himself is introducing into our lives to encourage growth and fruit. If it doesn’t look like the stuff their church does, or the popular Christian culture, or even just looks like something they don’t feel like doing, they presume that’ can’t be of God. Thus they follow their comforts instead of Jesus, and never doubt the two might not be the same thing at all.

So, meditation. As I said in the appropriate article, the middle eastern stuff is about filling our minds instead of blanking them, and the Christian stuff is about filling our minds with God. We think about him. We contemplate him. We go over what we read in the bible, what he’s shown or told us recently; anything God-related. Eliminate distractions as best you can, and do some deep thinking.

But if all you’ve known thus far are the pagan forms of meditation—if, really, you’re surrounded by it—you’re gonna think that’s the default. Maybe wrongly presume “Christian meditation” is an attempt to Christianize the pagan stuff. Except, as your paranoid dark Christian friends might warn you, some pagan practices can’t be Christianized. They’re just too inherently wrong.

Well, we’re not appropriating the eastern practices. If you know your ancient middle eastern or Christian history, you’ll know people have been practicing Christian-style meditation for at least as long as easterners and Hindus have. Our practices developed and evolved very differently. ’Tain’t the same thing. No matter what physical traits we might share—like sitting down, closing one’s eyes, controlled breathing, concentration. No matter what external accouterments we might also have in common—maybe soothing music, candles, privacy, whatever. If you’re worried the tchotchkes might lead you astray, go ahead and leave them out. But don’t believe the rubbish of fearful Christians who don’t meditate, and clearly lack the fruit of peace.

Meditate.

MEDITATE 'mɛd.ə.teɪt verb. Think deeply or carefully about something.

2. Focus one’s mind for a period of time, for religious, spiritual, or relaxation purposes.

[Meditation mɛd.ə'teɪ.ʃən noun.]

Mention meditation to the average person, and images immediately come to mind of sitting cross-legged on the floor, hands out, eyes closed, humming “Om” or something mindless. ’Cause you’re trying to blank your mind.

And that’d be eastern meditation. It’s the sort we find among Hindus, Buddhists, and Californians. It’s grown in popularity because it’s a useful way to get rid of stress and relax. But it’s not middle eastern meditation, the sort we find among Christians.

Well, assuming we even meditate. Many don’t. Those who do, stumbled into the habit and don’t realize we’re actually meditating. Or we were given other names for it, like “contemplation” or “practicing God’s presence” or “Christian mysticism”—a term which tends to weird dark Christians out just as much as “meditation.” Many such Christians are terrified that if we practice any form of meditational exercise, we’re opening ourselves up to evil spirits, which’ll quickly rush in like shoppers on a Black Friday, and demonize us. (Assuming they even can demonize someone with the Holy Spirit in ’em. Dark Christians might officially teach it’s not possible… but always allow for the possibility. Yes it’s a paradox; they don’t care. Whatever keeps us fearful and cautious.)

I explain elsewhere why that sort of thinking is ridiculous. In proper Christian meditation, we open ourselves to nothing and no one but God. It’s not about blanking the mind, hoping insight will somehow fill the vacuum. Just the opposite. It’s about filling the mind. Namely with God.

We sit, stand, lie down, hang upside down—whatever position works for you—shove every other distraction out of the way, and think. Hard. Turn an idea over in our minds. Analyze it. Play with it. Repeat it till it’s memorized, or till we understand it better. And ask God questions about it: What can he reveal to us about this?

Yep, it’s a form of prayer. Which makes it all the crazier when dark Christians tell us, “Don’t do that! It’s demonic.”

Yep, this practice may sound mighty familiar, ’cause you’re already doing it. You just didn’t realize it was called meditation. People tend to call it “thinking really hard,” and when we talk to God about it, “lifting it up in prayer.” It may be a regular discipline; then again maybe not. But Christians stumble into meditation all the time, because it’s so useful. And it really oughta become a regular practice.

What do people think Jesus is?

Mark 8.27-30, Matthew 16.13-20, Luke 9.18-21.

Provincial leaders in the Roman Empire liked to suck up to their emperors, which is why there were cities named Καισάρεια/Kesáreia, “Cæsarea,” dotting the empire. Ancient Israel had two. The usual city referred to in the New Testament as Cæsarea is also called Cæsarea Maritima; it’s on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel. The other is in Philip Herod’s province, so it got called Cæsarea Philippi. Today it’s called Banias.

Banias is actually an Arabic distortion of its original name, Πανειάς/Paneiás. It was named for the pagan god Pan. Likely Pan was originally Baal-Gad, one of the many Baals in the middle east, and when Alexander and the Greeks attached Greek names to everything, they referred to this Baal as Pan. The Greeks depicted Pan as a goat-man with a flute, but Pan comes from πάντως/pántos, “everything”: It’s a nature god, and therefore the god of everything. It’s considered a minor god because it didn’t have a large following, but Pan-worshipers thought their god was a big, big deal. They built a big ol’ shrine to Pan there, and it’s still there for tourists to gawk at.

Overt paganism tends to creep out certain religious Christians, who stay far away from any “wicked” city which practices such things. Of course Jesus knows all about the covert paganism going on in our supposedly “righteous” cities, which is why Caesarea didn’t bug him any more than Kfar Nahum… or Jerusalem. People are messed up no matter where you go, and our “righteous” avoidance of the appearance of evil doesn’t make us any more holy, or score us more karma points with God, like we imagine it does. On the contrary: We can’t minister to the lost when we’re “too good for them,” and we’re not all that good when we refuse to obey God and love our neighbors, pagan or not. Jesus doesn’t discriminate in that way, so of course he took his students to such cities.

In a city named for Caesar, you’d naturally see monuments dedicated to Caesar-worship. Herod 1 had deliberately built a temple there for the purpose. (Yeah, he also rebuilt the LORD’s temple in Jerusalem, but don’t think for a minute he did it for anything other than political reasons.) Technically they weren’t worshiping him, but his genius (pronounced 'ɡɛ.ni.us, not as our English word 'dʒin.jəs), his guardian spirit. Our word genie comes from the Latin word… and the Greek word for it would be δαίμων/démon.

But over time, Romans stopped worshiping the guardian spirit and simply worshiped the Caesars directly. After each Caesar died, the Roman senate voted to declare them to be gods. They believed whenever you worshiped ancestors as gods, they actually became gods; the Olympians would actually have to include ’em in their pantheon. Some pagan Romans didn’t even wait for ’em to die, but worshiped the living emperor as a god. Same as the ancient Egyptians worshiped their pharaohs.

So that’s what people said the Caesars were… so naturally Jesus wanted to talk about what people said he was.

Mark 8.27 KWL Jesus and his students went into the villages of Caesarea in Philip Herod’s province. On the road he was questioning his students, telling them, “What do people say I am?”

Matthew 16.13 KWL Jesus went into the Caesarea area in Philip Herod’s province, and questioned his students, saying, “What do people say about the Son of Man?”

Luke 9.18 KWL It happened while Jesus was praying alone, though with the students around him, he asked them, saying, “What do the crowds say I am?”

As you know, plenty of pagans nowadays admit Jesus is a wise man and great moral teacher… and little more. Muslims, and some Jews, say he’s a prophet… and again, little more. People of other religions, plus nontheists and skeptics, say much the same as the pagans, although they’re more honest in their disregard: Wise or not, they have no interest at all in following him.

So what do we Christians think he is?

Christians who lack faith.

Nope, didn’t title this piece “Christians who doubt.” Because everybody doubts.

Which isn’t a bad thing. Jesus doesn’t want his followers to be gullible simpletons who can’t discern the difference between truth and rubbish. Mt 10.16 If we just put our faith in people indiscriminately—believe everything our friends say, believe everything the politicians tweet, believe everything the anti-vaxxer websites claim, never fact-check our preachers to make sure what they’re telling us is valid—we’re gonna be such fools. Doubt away.

But there’s a very particular form of doubt Jesus objects to most: Doubting him.

So when we talk about “Christians who lack faith,” it’s not about Christians who question all the doctrines and teachings which we presume are settled, like good postmoderns will do. It’s about Christians who lack faith in Jesus.

Yep him—not fellow Christians. And sometimes these Christians will try to mix these categories together: They’ll insist if you doubt them, you do doubt Jesus, ’cause they’re totally channeling Jesus. Nope. ’Tain’t the same thing. Don’t let them tell you otherwise. People will fail us, and Jesus is the only exception. Trust him without exception. Trust them as long as they remain trustworthy… and forgive ’em when they screw up, ’cause they will, ’cause we all do.

Now these not-as-trustworthy Christians have largely been successful at muddling who we’re to trust: A lot of Christians do trust their churches and preachers and Christian institutions. And trust ’em more than Jesus. That’s why they believe so much Christianist rubbish, and when we try to correct ’em with what Jesus actually teaches, they won’t believe us. Which is predictably typical human behavior: The more we’re around certain people, the more we grow to trust them, whether they deserve it or not. Spend all your time around Christianists, spend none with Jesus, and of course you’ll trust them more than him.

And too often Christians passively trust Jesus—by which I mean they believe things about him, and believe he’ll be there for us at the End, but following him now is a whole other deal. They’re more likely to follow the people they can see, and since they’ve not yet seen Jesus they treat him as hypothetical or imaginary.

This passive trust certainly resembles faith, but really it’s just procrastination: People who expect they’ll trust Jesus later. Not now. They don’t now. Not enough to do as he says, go where he goes, take the risks he tells us, nor heed the Holy Spirit’s course corrections. Where we are is more comfortable than where he wants us. We trust circumstances, not Jesus. That’s unfaith.

The Good Shepherd Story.

Hang on. Porting you to the updated article.

Relativism. (’Cause we aren’t all that absolute.)

RELATIVISM 'rɛl.ə.də.vɪ.zəm noun. Belief that truth, knowledge, and morals are based on context, not absolutes.

[Relative 'rɛl.ə.dɪv adjective, relativist 'rɛl.ə.də.vɪst noun.]

Relativism is a big, big deal to Christian apologists. I’ll get to why in a minute; bear with me as I introduce the concept.

Some of us were raised by religious people, and were taught to believe in religious absolutes: God is real, Jesus is alive, sin causes death, love your neighbor. Others weren’t raised religious, but they grew up in a society which accepts and respects absolutes. Like scientific principles, logic, mathematics, or a rigid code of ethics.

The rest—probably the majority—claim they believe in absolutes, but they’re willing to get all loosey-goosey whenever the absolutes get in their way. They might agree theft is bad… but it’s okay if they shoplift every once in a while. Murder is bad… but dropping bombs on civilians during wartime is acceptable. Lying is bad… but it’s okay to take an iffy deduction on their taxes. And so on. These absolutes aren’t all that absolute when it conveniences them. So they’re not really absolute; they’re relative.

Yeah, it’s total hypocrisy to claim you believe in absolutes, but regularly make exceptions for yourself. But just about everybody does it. We Christians in particular: We judge others—sometimes harshly—for making mistakes, but we live under grace; we’re forgiven, not perfect. Still hypocrisy though.

And recognizing this, a number of people have decided to straight-up deny anything is absolute. Everything’s relative. Usually, all things being equal, certain things are true. (Like the bible’s proverbs.) But we can always make exceptions to these truths; therefore none of these truths are absolute. Sometimes they’re false. Postmoderns are known for doubting whether every “absolute truth” is really all that absolute. But these relativists insist nothing’s absolute. At all.

When a well-known Christian quits Jesus.

Back in July, Christian popular author Joshua Harris announced he’s no longer Christian. Which was a bit of a shock to people who hadn’t kept up with him—who only knew him from his books, particularly his best-known book I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Which no doubt has prompted a lot of headlines and comments about Harris kissing Jesus goodbye. I had to resist the temptation to use that for this article’s title.

I was obligated to read I Kissed Dating Goodbye at the Christian school where I taught. Some of my students’ youth pastors were inflicting it on them. It’s basically his promotion of “courtship,” as certain conservative Evangelicals call sexless, heavily chaperoned dating. In the book it’s how he claimed God wants people to find their mates. In my article on courtship, I pointed out the bible depicts no such thing; courtship is entirely a western cultural construct. Nothing wrong with it when it’s voluntary; everything wrong with it if your parents or church force it upon you.

Which should really tip you off as to what sort of “Christianity” Harris was immersed in. When you’re convinced our western cultural standards is as Jesus would have us live, y’got Christianism, not Christianity. And once you realize you got that wrong, it’ll shake your faith, as it absolutely should. But the danger of that shaking is you might think it’s all wrong, top to bottom, makeup to marrow—and quit Jesus.

I don’t know if that’s exactly what happened to Harris. He might describe it as far more complicated than that. No doubt there were a number of factors in his decision to leave Christianity. But superficially… it sure looks like it.

Harris certainly isn’t the first well-known Christian to go apostate, and whenever this happens, it tends to shake all their Christian fans. “Wait, I was following him, and he went wrong… so what does it mean for me?” Only that you oughta be following Jesus instead, so do that! But if you’re really nervous that you mighta been taught some untruth, relax. You’re not justified by your beliefs; you’re justified by trusting God. Keep trusting him, ask the Holy Spirit to help you inventory your beliefs to see whether any are misbeliefs, ditch any wrongness or heresies you find within you, and you’ll be just fine. God’s got you.

Altar calls: Come on down!

ALTAR 'ɔl.tər noun. A table or block used as the focus for a religious ritual, particularly offerings or ritual sacrifices to a deity.

2. In Christianity, the table used to hold the elements for holy communion.

3. In some churches, the stage, the steps to the stage, or the space in front of the stage, where people go as a sign of commitment.

During our worship services, sometimes Christians are invited to leave our seats and come forward to the stage. It’s called an altar call.

Thing is, we’re not sure how the term originated. ’Cause the stage, or the front of the stage, wasn’t called an altar back then. The altar was the communion table. My guess is people were originally instructed to gather by the communion table. In a lot of churches, that altar is front and center; in the church I went to as a child, it was right in front of the preacher’s podium.

But when evangelists held rallies, whether at a concert hall, sports arena, outdoor stadium, theater, high school gym, or grade school cafeteria, or any venue where there is no communion table, they’d say “Come to the altar” anyway. Force of habit, I guess. So people came forward… and assumed something around there was the altar. The stage, perhaps.

You realize when we don’t clearly define things for the people of our churches, people just guess. And guess wrong. It’s why so many Christians don’t know what a soul is. Hence many new Christians have guessed the stage is the altar, so the word has evolved to mean a stage too. As if the people on stage are our ritual sacrifice to God. (Considering how some of them mangle the scriptures, some butchering is apparently still part of our services. But I’ll stop the ranting there.)

Anyway, altar calls used to generally be for people who wished to become Christian. The evangelist would invite ’em forward, and a pastor or elder would lead ’em in the sinner’s prayer. In many churches this is still true; it’s the only reason they have altar calls. “Come lay down your life at the altar,” is the idea: Submit to God, accept his salvation, let Jesus be your Lord, and let him make your life more abundant.

The altar call began as a dramatic way for people to visibly demonstrate they repented and were turning to God. They didn’t do altar calls in the bible though. John the baptist and the first Christians preferred baptism. But nowadays, churches expect you to go through some sort of baptism class first, so the altar call became an acceptable Evangelical substitute: Wanna give your life to Jesus? Come forward. One of our prayer team will pray with you.

Not every church does it, of course. In really large churches it’s not practical to move masses of people to the front of the auditorium. Some churches don’t approve of the public display. Show-offs will act like they’re publicly repenting, and really they’re just trying to get attention. Certain emotionally unstable people will come forward to every altar call, and go through the whole ritual time and again: They’ll repent, they’ll get prayed over, they’ll have a nice cathartic cry… and they’ll come back next week and do it all over again. Do they ever actually repent? Maybe. But really they’re there for the emotional release.

So if they don’t do altar calls, they do something like it: “If you haven’t yet received Jesus, meet us in the fellowship hall after the service,” or “Come talk to me about it later.” It’s a lot less emotional… which they prefer, ’cause it means people put some thought into turning to Jesus, instead of letting their emotions sway them. Speaking for myself, I don’t care whether it’s an emotional or thoughtful response; either can take. Likewise people can rethink, then turn their back on, either response. The important thing is we have some venue where people can turn to Jesus.