Formal prayer: How to get distant with God.

by K.W. Leslie, 30 April 2019

Let’s get right to it: The purpose of formality is distance. It’s to measure off a “proper,” unapproachable space between you and the person you’re being solemn with. Because decorum considers closeness and informality to be inappropriate.

I know; a lot of people insist that’s not at all why they’re formal with God. They do it out of respect. Like the way you respect your boss, a judge, an important official, royalty, or even your parents: You show your respect by treating ’em formally.

Well that’s rubbish. And parents are a perfect example of why it’s rubbish. I respect my mom—and I don’t treat her formally at all. If I did, she’d think I was angry with her for some reason. Because again: Formality is about distance. People who treat their parents formally are not close with them. And parents who raise their kids to treat them formally, who demand decorum from them because they feel it means respect, always wind up with emotionally distant kids. Sometimes they wonder why they aren’t close, and can’t figure out why their relationship is so dysfunctional. Well duh.

So if you’re formal with God, but you can’t fathom why you’re not as close with God as other Christians: Well duh.

I respect God. Of course. But we’re not formal. We were never meant to be. God went out of his way to deliberately bridge every gap which might exist between himself and humanity. Sin?—defeated and forgiven. Death?—getting undone. Distance?—he’s everywhere! Karmic debt?—he doesn’t even do karma.

So why do Christians treat God formally? Either because, like kids whose parents foolishly raised them to be distant, it’s what we were taught. Our churches are led by dysfunctional Christians who are distant from God, and they’re getting us to repeat their behavior, and likewise be distant from God.

Or worse: They like being distant from God. A present God is uncomfortable. They feel unworthy, or convicted of sin, or judged. (Whether these feelings are legitimate is another discussion.) They prefer there be some space between them and the Almighty. Formality is the perfect way to maintain the illusion: He’s a holy, holy God, far removed from his sinful creatures… and so he leaves ’em alone.

So if you wanna be distant from God, formality’s the way to go. And I would hope you’re as repulsed by the very idea as I am.

Goodness, and lawless Christians.

by K.W. Leslie, 29 April 2019

If you know Jesus—really and truly know Jesus, not just know of him—you’re gonna want to follow him. You’re gonna want to do as he teaches, and actually try to obey his commands instead of shrugging them off with, “Well, they’re nice ideals, but they’re not gonna be practical.” You’re gonna want to be good.

Goodness is a fruit of the Spirit. A rather obvious one: God is good, so shouldn’t those who have the Holy Spirit in us be likewise good? Shouldn’t he encourage us to be good, empower us to do good deeds, be gracious to us when we drop the ball and help us return to goodness? Shouldn’t he point us in the direction of sanctification, of living holy lives, unique from the rest of the world—where goodness is a huge factor in why we’re unique?

Likewise if you don’t wanna be good, not only do you lack the Spirit’s fruit: You’re probably not even Christian. And yes, bluntly saying so has a tendency to really offend people: “Goodness doesn’t make you Christian! That’s legalism. How could you say that?” Well I didn’t say that. I said you have to want to be good. You have to make the effort. You’re gonna suck at it in the beginning; everybody does; it gets easier with practice. And I didn’t say goodness makes you Christian; only the Holy Spirit does that. But the lack of goodness, or substituting it with hypocrisy and hoping no one will notice, indicates the Holy Spirit isn’t in your life—and if he’s not there, you’re not Christian. Period.

Let’s not be naïve. “Obey Jesus” is a hard lifestyle choice. The world is against us. Christianists have gone to a lot of trouble to swap real obedience with their cheap knockoff, and sometimes they’ll fight goodness just as hard as Satan itself. They’ll claim Jesus’s commands were nullified by a new dispensation, or they’re only meant to describe God’s kingdom after Jesus returnsnot before. They’ll claim our resistance to evil is really works righteousness and legalism; that trying to be better is another form of pride; that our commonsense interpretation of God’s commands is extremism, whereas the proper way to interpret them is to water ’em down till they’re nothing but water.

Plus our own selfish tendencies are gonna fight us. And yes, the devil might fight us too… but you’ll find the devil’s far easier to beat than your own flesh. We start off with a lot of ingrained bad habits, and conquering ourselves has to be done first. Which a lot of people never bother to do. Most of us simply relabel all our bad behaviors with Christianese names, and presto-changeo, we’re fixed now! But widespread popular hypocrisy is still hypocrisy.

Still, if we have the Holy Spirit in us, we’ll want to do better. And we’ve got to trust him to help us out with this. We absolutely can’t do it alone. God offers us power to live for him. Grab it with both hands. You accepted his salvation. Now accept his sanctification.

Courtship: Dating… but no sex.

by K.W. Leslie, 24 April 2019

Years ago I worked at a Christian camp. For the summer program we’d hire college students to be counselors. Some of them grew up Christian; some of them had only been Christian a short time; some of them had only claimed to be Christian on their applications, but didn’t know Jesus from Obi-Wan Kenobi. (Actually they may have known a lot more about Obi-Wan than Jesus.)

Once, while hanging out, one of the longtime Christians mentioned her brother was “courting” a certain girl. The Christian newbie in our group got a confused look on her face—she wasn’t familiar with the term.

“Courting,” I explained, “is dating. But no sex.”

The newbie nodded, understandingly. Some of the group grinned.

The girl who introduced the term “courting” objected.

SHE. “That’s not what it means.”
HE. “Does he bring chaperones to the dates?”
SHE. “No…”
HE. “No kissing? No hand-holding? No touching of any kind?”
SHE. “No.”
HE. “They go off and do things together, by themselves? But not sex.” [As far as she knew.]
SHE. “Yes.”
HE. “The rest of the planet calls that ‘dating’.”

’Cause to be fair, many Christians do add extra expectations to what they’ll call “courting.” When Christians use that term, it can range from my basic definition (dating, but no sex) to an arranged marriage—I’m not kidding—where the parents interview their children’s prospective spouses, approve them, and supervise every single interaction between the kids till they’re wed. Even listen in on phone calls and read their texts.

However, I should also bring up a couple I knew in college who called what they were doing “courting”—and yep, they were having sex too. They just wanted to use the Christianese word.

The whole point of having a unique Christian word for dating, is because nowadays “dating” can pretty much mean anything. And because self-control is a fruit of the Spirit—and promiscuity isn’t—Christians usually don’t equate dating and sex… and pagans totally do. “I’m dating” means “I’m sexually active.” If they “wanna go out with you,” it’s ’cause they hope to have sex with you. If they “had a date last night,” they had sex.

Yep, it’s a jungle out there. So “courtship” implies civilization. It suggests a couple aren’t simply trying to get into one another’s pants, but want to really get to know one another. Want to develop a friendly, loving relationship—the kind of solid basis for a marriage.

But I should point out: Courtship doesn’t come from the bible. Isn’t found in the bible at all. Seriously.

Quit praying to Satan!

by K.W. Leslie, 23 April 2019

There’s an traditional African folk song called “What a Mighty God We Serve.” If you grew up Christian, maybe you heard it in Sunday school. Sometimes adults sing it too. Goes like so.

What a mighty God we serve
What a mighty God we serve
Angels bow before him
Heaven and earth adore him
What a mighty God we serve

Years later I found out it had some more lyrics—words my children’s and youth pastors never bothered to have us sing. Maybe you can guess why.

I command you Satan in the name of the Lord
To take up your weapons and flee
For the Lord has given me authority
To walk all over thee

There are variations. There’s “put down your weapons” in the second line (which makes way more sense); there’s “stomp all over thee” in the fourth, along with stomping movements.

Anyway. Lots of churches tend to give these lines a miss, so lots of Christians aren’t aware of ’em. I particularly remember one summer youth camp: The pastor got all the kids to sing along with the first part, but when she broke into the second part, the kids sat there confused—why’s she singing to the devil? Anyway, because they didn’t sing along, she concluded, “I guess you don’t know that part,” and went right back to the “What a mighty God we serve” bit they did know.

As to why churches don’t teach it: Well you are singing to the devil. And shouldn’t. Don’t do that.

Likewise there are a number of Christians who pray to the devil. You may have seen it happen. Someone gets up to pray, and in the middle of all their other praises and petitions to God, they put him on pause, and get Satan in on this conference call.

“And Satan, we rebuke you. We bind you. We cast you out. You have no authority here. You have no business in this place. You get out of here, Satan. You’re under our feet.”

And so on. You get the idea.

Again: Don’t do that.

I know. Your pastors do it. Your prayer leaders do it. Christians you greatly respect do it. Loads of people do it. And they shouldn’t do it either.

Jesus is put in his sepulcher.

by K.W. Leslie, 19 April 2019

Mark 15.42-47, Matthew 27.57-61, Luke 23.50-56, John 19.38-42.

On the afternoon of Good Friday, after a flogging and crucifixion, Jesus died. Roman custom was to just leave the corpse on the cross for the birds to pick at, but Jewish custom was to bury people immediately. On the very same day they died, if possible. And since the next day was Sabbath—and in the year 33, also Passover—they especially needed to get everybody off the crosses and buried posthaste.

Now in previous generations, “buried” means buried: Dig a hole in the ground deep enough for animals to not get at the corpse, put the body in, fill the hole back in. In Jesus’s day, Jewish custom had changed. Now what they did was wrap the body in moist linen strips, and put it on a stone slab in a sepulcher. This way the body would rot quickly—and after a year or so, there’d be nothing left but bones, which were then collected and put into an ossuary. (They figured in the resurrection, all God needed was the bones—same as in Ezekiel’s vision.)

So whenever people make a big deal about Jesus’s empty tomb… well frankly, at one point or another, every Judean sepulcher would be empty. ’Cause they’d take the bones away.

So that’s what happened after Jesus died. Joseph of Ramah (Greek Ἀριμαθαίας/Arimathaías, Hebrew רָמָתַ֛יִם צוֹפִ֖ים/Ramataym-Chofím, KJV Ramathaimzophim), a senator who hadn’t agreed with the vote to condemn Jesus, Lk 23.51 took it upon himself to take care of Jesus’s body. All the gospels give him his due credit.

Mark 15.42-47 KWL
42 When evening came—because it was Preparation, the day before Sabbath—
43 respected senator Joseph from Ramah, who was also awaiting God’s kingdom, came.
Daring to enter Pontius Pilate’s house, he asked for Jesus’s body.
44 Pilate was surprised Jesus was already dead.
Calling the centurion, he asked him if Jesus was already dead,
45 and learning it from the centurion, Pilate gave the corpse to Joseph.
46 Buying linen, taking Jesus down, Joseph wrapped him in linen.
He put the corpse in a sepulcher hewn from rock, and rolled a stone over the sepulcher’s door.
47 Mary the Magdalene and Mary mother of Joses saw where the corpse was put.
Matthew 27.57-61 KWL
57 Come evening came a wealthy man from Ramah named Joseph, who himself was a student of Jesus.
58 This Joseph went to Pontius Pilate to ask for Jesus’s body. Then Pilate commanded it be given.
59 Taking Jesus’s body, Joseph wrapped it in pure linen
60 and put it in Joseph’s own new sepulcher, cut from rock,
rolled a large stone against the sepucher’s door, and went away.
61 Mary the Magdalene and another Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.
Luke 23.50-56 KWL
50 Look, a man named Joseph, using his position as a senator—
a good and righteous man; 51 this Joseph hadn’t agreed with the senate and its action—
from Ramah, Judea, who awaited God’s kingdom—
52 this Joseph went to Pontius Pilate to ask for Jesus’s body.
53 Taking the corpse down, he wrapped it in linen
and put it in a stonecut sepulcher in which no one had yet laid.
54 It was Preparation Day, and Sabbath was beginning.
55 The women who had come together with Jesus from the Galilee, followed Joseph.
They saw the sepulcher and how Joseph arranged Jesus’s body.
56 On returning, they prepared spices and myrrh,
and once it was actually Sabbath, rested according to the command.
John 19.38-42 KWL
38 After these things Joseph from Ramah, who was Jesus’s student (secretly, for fear of the Judeans),
asked Pontius Pilate that he might take Jesus’s body.
Pilate allowed it, so Joseph came and took Jesus’s body.
39 Nikodemus, who had first come to Jesus at night, also came
bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloe vera weighing 100 Roman pounds [72.5 English pounds, 32.9 kilos].
40 So they took Jesus’s body and tied the spices to it with strips, as is the Judean burial custom.
41 A garden was in the place where Jesus was crucified,
and in the garden, a new sepulcher in which no one had yet laid.
42 So there, on the Judean Preparation Day,
because it was near the sepulcher, they arranged Jesus’s body.

“My God, why have you forsaken me?”

by K.W. Leslie, 18 April 2019

Mark 15.33-36, Matthew 27.45-49.

Before he died, Jesus shouted out something in a language his bystanders didn’t recognize. And a lot of present-day commentators don’t recognize it either. We know it was Psalm 22.1, but some of us say Jesus quoted it in Aramaic; some say Hebrew. Which was it?

The reason for the confusion is that Mark and Matthew don’t match. Both of ’em recorded Jesus’s words as best they could—but they did so in the Greek alphabet, which doesn’t correspond neatly to Hebrew and Aramaic sounds. So here’s what we got. (And if your web browser reads Unicode, you might actually see the original-language characters.)

VERSEORIGINALTRANSLITERATION
Ps 22.1, Hebrew אֵלִ֣י אֵלִ֣י לָמָ֣ה עֲזַבְתָּ֑נִי Elí Elí, lamá azavettáni?
Ps 22.1, Aramaic (Syriac) ܐܠܗ ܐܠܗܝ ܠܡܢܐ ܫܒܩܬܢ Elahí Elahí, lamaná šavaqtaní?
Mk 15.34, Greekἐλωΐ ἐλωΐ, λεμᾶ σαβαχθανί;Elo’í Elo’í, lemá savahthaní?
(or σαβακτανεί/savaktaneí in the Codex Sinaiticus.)
Mt 27.46, Greekἠλί ἠλί, λεμὰ σαβαχθανί;Ilí ilí, lemá savahthaní?

Just based on how the gospels’ authors wrote the word for “my God,” Elí in Hebrew or Elahí in Aramaic, it kinda looks like Mark was quoting an Aramaic translation of the psalms, and Matthew the Hebrew original.

But it seems to me the most likely Jesus would quote bible in Hebrew. For three reasons:

  1. That is the language King David wrote his psalm in.
  2. It’d explain why the people who heard Jesus quote it, didn’t understand him. Judeans and Galileans spoke Aramaic; that’s what the New Testament meant by Ἑβραϊστί/Evrahistí and Ἑβραΐδι/Evra’ídi, “Hebraic.” Jn 5.2, Ac 22.2, 26.14, Rv 9.11 In the first century Hebrew was a dead language, only spoken by scribes like Jesus.
  3. It’s way easier to confuse Elí with Ἡλίας/Ilías, the Greek version of אֵלִיָּה/Eliyyáhu, “Elijah,” than it is Elahí.

Regardless, in my translation the words in Jesus’s mouth are Aramaic in Mark, and Hebrew in Matthew. ’Cause that’s what the authors were apparently going for.

Mark 15.33-36 KWL
33 When the sixth hour since sunrise—noon—came,
darkness came over all the land till the ninth hour.
34 At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Elahí Elahí, lamaná šavaqtáni?
which is translated, “My God my God, for what reason have you left me behind?” Ps 22.1
35 Some of the bystanders who heard it said, “Look: He calls Elijah.”
36 One of the runners, filling a sponge of vinegar, putting it on a reed, gave Jesus a drink,
saying, “Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him.”
Matthew 27.45-49 KWL
45 From the sixth hour since sunrise—noon—
darkness came over all the land until the ninth hour.
46 Around the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Elí Elí, lamáh azavettáni?
That is, “My God my God, why did you leave me behind?” Ps 22.1
47 Some of the bystanders who heard it said this: “This man calls Elijah.”
48 One runner quickly left them: Taking a sponge full of vinegar, putting it on a reed, he gave Jesus a drink.
49 The others said, “Let’s see if Elijah comes, and will save him.”

Awright, now that we have the language sorta squared away, let’s get to what was going on here.

When Jesus made John responsible for his mother.

by K.W. Leslie, 17 April 2019

John 19.25-27.

Only John has this story. Which has caused no end of speculation about Jesus’s family situation.

John 19.25-27 KWL
25 Standing by Jesus’s cross were his mother, his mother’s sister Salomé,
Mary wife of Clopas, and Mary the Magdalene.
26 So Jesus, seeing his mother and the student he loved standing by,
told his mother, “Ma’am, look: Your son.”
27 Then Jesus told the student, “Look: Your mother.”
From that hour on, Jesus’s student took her as his own.

John’s list of the women who watched Jesus die is the same as the other gospels, with the addition of Jesus’s mom and himself. He never referred to Jesus’s mom as “Mary,” because he was trying to refer to as few Marys as possible, so as not to confuse everybody with how common the name “Mary” was. (Same as his own name; notice in his gospel the only “John” in it is John the baptist.)

Anyway. All these people at the cross, save Mary the Magdalene, were family. Salomé was Mary the Nazarene’s sister; Mary “of Clopas” was Joseph the Nazarene’s sister-in-law; John himself was Salomé’s son and Jesus’s first cousin. For various reasons Christian figure John was the youngest of Jesus’s students—maybe 16 or even younger at the time of Jesus’s death—and his youth might’ve been why he was able to get to the places he did, and be a firsthand witness to Jesus’s trial and death. Who’d suspect a kid?

But y’notice despite all this family around, Jesus’s siblings weren’t there.

And there’s no reason they wouldn’t be. Jesus was killed the day before Passover. Jn 19.30-31 We know Jesus’s siblings regularly went to Jerusalem for the feasts, Jn 7.1-10 as required by the Law. Dt 16.16 So they weren’t all the way back in Nazareth; they were in Jerusalem. In fact Luke notes they were still in Jerusalem 50 days later. Ac 1.14 No doubt they knew the Romans were killing their brother. And they weren’t there.

Only their mother, their aunts, and their cousin John had the guts to be there for Jesus. They did not.

So as the only male family member present, who was there for Jesus to call upon? Right: His beloved student.

The “unbelieving” thief.

by K.W. Leslie, 16 April 2019

Mark 15.27, 32, Matthew 27.38, 44, Luke 23.32-33, 39.

Okay. Did the believing thief, now the unbelieving thief.

The gospels state two thieves were crucified with Jesus—

Mark 15.27 KWL
They crucified two thieves with Jesus: One on the right, one at his left.
 
Matthew 27.38 KWL
38 Then two thieves were crucified with Jesus, one at right and one at left.
 
Luke 23.32-33 KWL
32 They brought two others with Jesus, evildoers to be done away with.
33 When they came to the place called Skull, there they crucified Jesus and the evildoers,
who were at right and at left.

—but they never did identify them, so Christian tradition named ’em Dismas and Gesmas. Never did say which one was on the right, and which was on the left. All we know was at first, both were railing at Jesus—

Mark 15.32 KWL
“Messiah, king of Israel, has to come down from the cross now, so we can see and believe him.”
And those crucified with Jesus insulted him.
 
Matthew 27.44 KWL
Likewise the thieves crucified with Jesus insulted him.

—and then Dismas had a change of heart, asked Jesus to remember him, and Jesus offered him paradise.

Whereas all Gestas has gone down in history for doing is saying this:

Luke 23.39 KWL
One of the hanging evildoers was slandering Jesus, saying,
“Aren’t you Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

Popularly this is interpreted as Gestas’s unbelief. Because he was slandering Jesus: He was calling him things he’s not. Most folks misinterpret ἐβλασφήμει/evlasfímei as “hurled insults,” like the NIV has it. (It’s similar to the KJV’s “railed.”) But the proper translation is to blaspheme, or slander. Gestas wasn’t simply cussing Jesus out. He was saying stuff he deep-down knew wasn’t so. He knew Jesus is Messiah—but was too angry, too much in pain, to confess it.

Same as a lot of antichrists. They know who Jesus is. They realize he’s not exaggerating; his followers haven’t just taken an obscure Galilean rabbi and made up stuff about him; Jesus is on the level, and he’s Lord. But they don’t wanna follow him. Don’t wanna repent. Don’t wanna submit. Don’t wanna let go of their rage and bitterness. They’d rather die first. As Gestas literally did.

“Why isn’t God granting my wishes?”

Part of the reason Gestas was furious with Jesus is in his demand, “Save yourself and us!” He was nailed to a cross, same as Jesus. Not just tied to it, like the movies and art depict, as if only Jesus got the worst of it; nailed. Four spikes through the wrists and ankles, through the most sensitive nerves in the body, guaranteed to be non-stop agony till he died—sometimes days later. (Although because Sabbath was at sundown, the Romans “mercifully” killed the victims later that day—by breaking their legs so they could no longer pull themselves up to breathe.) Every minute was suffering.

Gestas didn’t want to end his suffering by dying, but by getting rescued. And here right next to him… was Messiah! The anointed king of Israel. The guy who’d rescue Israel from Rome, if Pharisees were to be believed. So if he’s really Messiah, shouldn’t his followers come rescue him so he could achieve the Pharisee End Times prophecies? Since Jesus was widely known for his miracles—curing the sick, multiplying food, throwing out devils—shouldn’t he have access to God’s supernatural might in this situation too? Why on earth was he permitting the Romans to kill him?—he should be able to speak a word and end his own pain! What was wrong with him?

See, very few of us have the patience to tolerate a moment of what Jesus did. If we could put a stop to it, we absolutely would. If we could put a stop to others’ pain, we absolutely will. We’ll give them the very best painkillers there are. We’ll give ’em morphine, heroin, whatever. We’ll even kill them, and justify it by saying it was out of mercy.

So Gestas was in agony—and wanted to know why Jesus, who had the power to immediately stop it, wouldn’t. It’s basic theodicy: Why does a good God put up with such evil things in his universe?

But when people are in great pain, they don’t truly want an explanation. They only want the pain to stop. Gestas didn’t care what Jesus’s thinking or plan was. Didn’t care that, as the thief on the other cross pointed out, they totally deserved crucifixion. He wanted off the cross. Jesus could get him off the cross, but wouldn’t. So to Gestas’s mind, Jesus sucked.

And how often do other people, Christians included, think the very same way? When we’re suffering—even when the suffering is our own fault, the natural or legal consequence of our own sin or stupidity—we don’t care God tried to warn us away from it, never promised us a suffering-free life, frequently lets things naturally unfold, or is even gonna make something redemptive out of what we’re going through. We don’t care about God’s will. We want our will to be done.

Gestas isn’t any different than most of humanity. Let’s not judge him as if we’re any better than he. If we were in his shoes—or on his cross—we’d likewise be screaming for Jesus to get us out of there. Really, we’d be nuts if we didn’t.

But the fact we’d even be screaming at Jesus means, to some tiny degree, we do believe. Otherwise we wouldn’t waste our breath. (Especially considering how painful it was to even get a breath when you’re being crucified!) We believe enough… to be majorly disappointed in God.

Of course we oughta have more faith than that. Enough to trust God regardless. So we’d better pray. Because, God forbid, we may one day find ourselves in Gestas’s type of situation, where things look terrible and we’re furious at God for not giving us an obvious escape. We’d better pray for the faith strong enough to overcome even that. ’Cause we never do know when we’ll need it.

Jesus comforts the believing thief.

by K.W. Leslie, 15 April 2019

Mark 15.27, 32, Matthew 27.38, 44, Luke 23.32-33, 39-43.

Jesus was crucified at about “the third hour [after sunrise],” Mk 15.25 and died at the ninth. Mk 15.34-37 Sunrise on 3 April 33, in that latitude (and before daylight-saving time was implemented), is at 5:24 AM. But “third hour” and “ninth hour” are hardly exact times; figure roughly from 8:30 AM to 2:30 PM he was on that cross. Six hours, slowly suffocating.

His cross was in between that of two evildoers Lk 23.33 or thieves. Mk 15.27 Christians like to imagine these guys were worse, like insurrectionists, or highwaymen who murdered their victims. ’Cause karma: If you’re getting crucified, it’d better be for murder or something just as awful. One of these guys implied they were getting their just desserts, Lk 23.41 so shouldn’t that make ’em murderers? Death by crucifixion sounds like way too extreme a penalty for mere thieves.

But we have to remember we’re dealing with Romans here. For them, everything merited death. They didn’t care the penalty didn’t fit the crime: They just wanted thievery to stop. So, one strike and you’re out. Thieves knew this was the risks of the job. But like all criminals, they figured they were smarter than the authorities, and they, unlike their dumber colleagues, would get away with it. These guys didn’t: The Romans caught ’em and crucified ’em. And that’s the way the game is played.

We don’t have their names. But you gotta call ’em something, so Christian tradition calls these guys Gestas and Dismas. Meh; whatever. Since Dismas was the guy who turned to Jesus and got into paradise, he’s now St. Dismas. (And 25 March is even St. Dismas’s Day. How ’bout that.) Whatever his actual name is, that idea isn’t wrong: He’s in the kingdom now.

Two of the gospels make it sound like they neither thief had any love for Jesus. They joined right in with all the non-crucified folks mocking Jesus.

Mark 15.27 KWL
They crucified two thieves with Jesus: One on the right, one at his left.
 
Matthew 27.38 KWL
38 Then two thieves were crucified with Jesus, one at right and one at left.
 
Luke 23.32-33 KWL
32 They brought two others with Jesus, evildoers to be done away with.
33 When they came to the place called Skull, there they crucified Jesus and the evildoers,
who were at right and at left.
 
Mark 15.32 KWL
“Messiah, king of Israel, has to come down from the cross now, so we can see and believe him.”
And those crucified with Jesus insulted him.
 
Matthew 27.44 KWL
Likewise the thieves crucified with Jesus insulted him.

But at some point during those six hours, Dismas had a change of heart, and when Gesmas was sniping at Jesus, Dismas decided to stand up for him.

Luke 23.39-43 KWL
39 One of the hanging evildoers was slandering Jesus, saying,
“Aren’t you Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
40 In rebuking reply, the other said, “Have you no respect for God? We’re under his judgment!
41 And we rightly so, for we got the consequence for what we practiced.
But this man did nothing wrong.”
42 He said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43 Jesus said, “Amen! I promise you’ll be with me in paradise today.”

Paradise? What about heaven?

Popular culture insists when we die, we go to heaven. Popular Christianity tends to do likewise. And it’s sorta true… but it skips an awful lot of stuff which happens inbetween now and heaven.

See, heaven isn’t the place of the dead, but the living. There are no dead people in heaven. Jesus is there—but as you recall, he’s not dead. He got resurrected. The Father is there; angels of various species are there; plus people whom God decided to take to heaven early. Like Elijah. And, according to some traditions, Jesus’s mom.

When we die, we go to the afterlife. Which gets called by various things in the bible. Usually ἅδης/ádis, “hades,” or as the KJV confusingly and inaccurately puts it, “hell.” It’s what the Apostles’ Creed means when it states Jesus “descended into hell”: He went to the afterlife. Not the burning pool of fire and sulfur; that doesn’t exist yet. Hades isn’t necessarily a place of torment. For those who reject God, yes it’s gonna suck. For those who trust God, it’s gonna be peace and comfort as we await our resurrection. It’s going to be, to use Jesus’s word, παραδείσῳ/paradeíso, “paradise.”

But paradise is gonna be temporary. ’Cause once Jesus returns, he’s raising all us Christians from the dead. 1Th 4.16 And at the very End, he’s raising everyone else from the dead. Rv 20.12 Those who reject God are going into the fire, Rv 20.15 and those who don’t will live forever with God in New Heaven. Rv 21.1-4 That’s when we go to heaven. Not right away. But eventually.

People don’t always wanna hear that. They much prefer the pop culture idea: “We’re going to heaven! To be with Jesus forever!” And maybe even become angels, like the pagans believe; and watch over our loved ones, and listen to them whenever they talk at our graves. Unless they’re boring and ramble on and on and on, ’cause I’ve been to the cemetery and heard people talk to dead spouses; if they’re listening to that day in and day out, they’re clearly not in any good part of the afterlife. Egad.

Most of us figure when people are in mourning, now is not the time to correct their theology. Problem is, they never correct it any other time, and let ’em keep on believing heaven is the afterlife. And that we never leave this afterlife.

Well. The Pharisees taught there is an afterlife, and paradise within it. They even located it in the “third heaven,” 2Co 12.2 seven heavens below the place where God dwells (and five below the stars in the seventh heaven), so technically it’s not the heaven, God’s heaven. But it’s not on earth either.

This is the paradise Jesus spoke of. He and Dismas would die that day: Jesus from running out of strength due to his flogging and blood loss and sleep deprivation, and Dismas from the Romans breaking his legs Jn 19.32 so it’d be impossible to pull himself up to breathe, and he’d suffocate quicker, and be dead before sundown. But they’d be in the afterlife together—in the good part of the afterlife, in paradise.

I know; plenty of Christians have explained paradise away as a “spiritual paradise,” as Thomas Aquinas put it: He meant heaven, right? ’Cause everybody knows when people die they go to heaven. And thus we embrace our favorite beliefs instead of what Jesus likely meant. As usual.

Was this the answer the thief wanted?

Realistically, I doubt Dismas ever heard Jesus’s statements to his students that he was gonna die yet rise on the third day. So if he knew anything at all about the resurrection—that Jesus would die that day, but rise once Sabbath was over and take possession of his kingdom—this info had to have come directly from the Holy Spirit. There’s no possible way Dismas could’ve deduced it.

But if the Spirit had told Dismas no such thing, what could we reasonably expect him to think? Two possibilities.

  • He imagined Jesus was gonna get rescued (miraculously or not), survive crucifixion, and see his kingdom come.
  • He was delirious from pain, and didn’t know what Jesus’s condition was—but deep down believed Jesus is Messiah, so it was only a matter of time before he took possession of his kingdom.

Either way we’ve got faith there. Wrong or wack, but still faith.

But Jesus’s response referred to paradise, not the kingdom. The afterlife, not the present, nor even the age to come. Death, not life. He and Dismas were gonna die; he to come back in a few days, and Dismas to come back once Jesus takes his kingdom. Either way, it’s not a timeline Dismas expected. Heck, even Jesus’s students had it wrong, and he’d told them how many times he was gonna die and come back?

So Dismas may not have expected to hear this response from Jesus. But I believe Jesus meant it as comfort, and I expect it was comforting. Dismas had every reason to assume he’d never make it to a good afterlife. More likely something hotter, something which stank more than crucifixion. But instead, thanks to God’s grace, he was gonna be with Jesus, and receive comfort instead of torment. So there’s that.

It probably bugged Jesus that he couldn’t offer Dismas anything more at that time. Usually Jesus didn’t just offer kind words and nothing more, like some pathetic chaplain who doesn’t really believe in miracles (and frankly, won’t always mean it when they offer stale platitudes): Jesus cured the suffering. But at the time, the healer couldn’t heal. Just like his enemies taunted.

The women who watched Jesus die.

by K.W. Leslie, 11 April 2019

Mark 15.40-41, Matthew 27.55-56, Luke 23.49, John 19.25.

Various Christians like to point out, “There were actually two groups of people following Jesus: There were the disciples, and there were the women.” Though y’notice they seldom bring up the women till we get to one of the stories in the gospels about the women.

With some due respect to these Christians, there were not two groups following Jesus; there was one. His students. The people who supported him, served him, and listened to his teachings. The Twelve were a special group of students whom Jesus singled out, and of course there were plenty of students who didn’t stick around after Jesus taught something too hardcore for them. But everyone who followed him, he considered a student. That includes the women.

Yes, history describes Pharisee rabbis as only instructing young men—and I remind you in Jesus’s culture you were “a man” at age 13, which is why I keep referring to his students as kids. That was their expectation, anyway: If men were gonna live under the Law, they needed to be trained, while still young, how Pharisees interpret the finer points of the Law. But let’s be blunt: The rabbis taught ’em all the Pharisee loopholes. This way they could appear religious, but not have to struggle all that hard when it comes to the things which really tempt people. It’s what Jesus called straining out the gnats, but swallowing camels. Mt 23.24 Basically lessons in hypocrisy. And as we know, Jesus taught no such thing; he totally expected his students to be authentic God-followers. Still does.

But rabbis didn’t just get teenage students. Friday nights, when they held Sabbath synagogue, people of any age showed up. And sometimes throughout the week, these same people might show up and listen to a lesson. And bring questions.

Synagogues segregated women in the back, and in open-air classes like Jesus taught, they’d still customarily sit in the back or on the sidelines. Ostensibly they were waiting for their brothers or spouses or kids, or were only there to tend to the rabbi’s needs. In reality they were also getting an education. They weren’t permitted to ask questions, and in so doing spoil the cultural illusion. They weren’t allowed to sit up front with the boys, like Mary of Bethany totally did, Lk 10.39 and be overt students. But Jesus was totally fine with Mary’s behavior. Lk 10.42 And most rabbis approved of the women listening in. (After all, mothers were expected to raise good Pharisee kids, and how’re you gonna do that if you don’t know what Pharisees teach?)

So the women were Jesus’s students too. Same as the boys. So they weren’t among the Twelve; why should this stop anyone from likewise sharing Jesus with the world? Or stop Jesus from sending ’em on their own missions?

Okay. This said, I oughta point out the women who were at Jesus’s cross, the women who watched him die, were not necessarily students. One certainly was: Mary the Magdalene. But the others who were listed by name, were actually Jesus’s family members: His mother and aunts.

Mark 15.40-41 KWL
40 There were women watching from far away,
among them Mary the Magdalene, Mary mother of little James and Joses, and Salomé.
41 When in the Galilee, these women followed Jesus and served him.
Many other women had traveled with Jesus to Jerusalem.
 
Matthew 27.55-26 KWL
55 There were many women there, watching from far away,
who followed Jesus from the Galilee, who served him.
56 Among them was Mary the Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Joses,
and Salomé mother of Zebedee’s children.
 
Luke 23.49 KWL
Everyone who knew Jesus were standing far away, watching this,
including the women who followed him from the Galilee.
 
John 19.25 KWL
Standing by Jesus’s cross were his mother, his mother’s sister Salomé,
Mary wife of Clopas, and Mary the Magdalene.

So according to John, Jesus’s mother was there. And according to all the gospels, so was Mary, the wife of Joseph’s brother Clopas, the mother of his apostle James “the less”; and Salomé (some ancients called her “Mary Salomé,” maybe mixing the aunts together), Jesus’s mother’s sister, the wife of Zebedee and mother of his apostles James and John.

Yep, family. Now you see why they stuck around.

Watching from afar.

Since various Christians don’t recognize the family connections, they make various other assumptions as to why the women stuck around but the men didn’t. And maybe—maybe—there’s some legitimacy to some of them. But probably they’re just reading their own cultural assumptions into things.

Fr’instance cracks about their level of commitment. Because the boys all fled, or pretended not to even know him, but the women stuck around. So people like to make statements about the women’s loyalty, devotion, boldness, fearlessness… traits we do honestly see more often among female Christians than male Christians. But this casual observation misses and ignores several things in the gospels. First of all Jesus wanted the kids to get away, Jn 18.8 and not be arrested and crucified with him. Second, some of the boys did stick around to see what happened, like Simon Peter, John, and Judas Iscariot; and possibly others. And third, the women’s loyalty wasn’t based on what they believed; they were family. They didn’t have to believe in Jesus (though they did); they’d be there for him regardless, because that’s what family does. Should do, anyway.

I’ve heard people claim the men had to go into hiding lest the Romans suspect them of being fellow revolutionaries; but the women could be out in the open because the Romans would never suspect them. It’s a profoundly naïve statement. Have none of them read about Yaél?

Judges 4.17-22 KWL
17 Siserá fled by foot to the tent of Yaél, Khevér the Qeyni’s woman.
(There was peace between king Yavín of Khachór, and Khevér the Qeyni’s house.)
18 Yaél went out to meet Siserá, and told him, “Master, come in; don’t fear.”
He went inside her tent. She covered him with a rug.
19 Siserá told Yaél, “Please give me a little water to drink; I’m thirsty.”
She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him again.
20 Siserá told Yaél, “Stand at the tent door.
If a man happens to come and ask you—to say, ‘Is there a man here?’ you say no.”
21 Then Yaél, Khevér’s woman, took a tentpeg, and put a hammer in her hand.
She came to Siserá quietly, and pounded the peg through his temple into the ground.
He was sleeping soundly, and weary. He died.
22 Look, as Barák pursued Siserá, Yaél came out to meet him,
and told him, “Come. I’ll show you the man you’re seeking.”
He came into her tent, and look: Siserá lay dead, the peg in his temple.

If you’ve never read the apocrypha, it’s understandable if you’ve never heard of Judith, who likewise killed an enemy general. Women make some of the fiercest insurgents. The Romans had plenty such women in their own history, and would’ve been stupid to disregard them. That’s why the women wisely kept their distance. Frankly those people who think the women were beneath noticing, are letting their own sexism distort their interpretation.

The women wisely stayed back, not just ’cause of the Romans, but because they likely knew themselves: They‘d want to intervene, interfere, and get killed for their efforts. All they could really do was stand back and watch the horrifying spectacle.

It had to be hard for Jesus to know they were watching. He knew the end of the story—and really so should they, ’cause he foretold it more than once. But like his other students, the women likely didn’t believe it. And either way, watching Jesus die had to be awful. Christians who watch Jesus movies are fully aware how the story ends, but watching movie-Jesus die still makes us weep. ’Cause that’s someone we love getting beaten to death. So how much worse was it for the women who knew Jesus best?

Churches who wanna “restore” Christianity.

by K.W. Leslie, 10 April 2019
RESTORATIONIST rɛs.tə'reɪ.ʃən.ɪst adjective. Wants to return Christianity to what they consider the beliefs and practices of the earliest Christians.
[Restorationism rɛs.tə'reɪ.ʃən.ɪz.əm noun.]

Humans really like to reboot things. Not just Spider-Man movies; there are lots of things we figure have broken, got too complicated, or run down; so maybe it’d be best if we take ’em back to the drawing board and start over. Maybe we can improve upon the original. Or maybe the original was best, so let’s go back to that.

And Christians keep trying to do it with Christianity. We look at all the traditions our culture has layered upon the church and think, “Well that’s not what the ancient Christians taught… and maybe we should never have taught that to begin with.” We wanna get back to basics. Reset the religion to its factory settings, like a phone—where it worked just fine until we started adding all these “useful” apps which just gummed things up.

So every so often, Christians will start a church and claim they’re running it the way Jesus’s first apostles did. They’ve “rediscovered” something which other Christians have left by the wayside. Like certain vital doctrines, or supernatural gifts, or leadership models other than the whole supervisor/elder Christians/congregation setup taught in 1 Timothy. (The fivefold ministry idea has become recently popular; whereas four centuries ago Protestants had decided to try democracy, i.e. congregationalism.) Or they claim they got whole new revelations from God which change everything: The Latter-day Saints claim angels pointed their prophet to extra books of the bible; the Watchtower decided to give Arianism another try; the Pentecostals (originally; few think this way anymore) figured the Holy Spirit turned the miracles back on for the very last dispensation; the Adventists (originally; again, few think this way anymore) figured they had correctly calculated what day Jesus was returning.

And of course there’s backlash: Plenty of Protestants, and people of other new Christian groups, individually decide their churches were wrong to chuck all their valuable traditions, so they quit their churches and join liturgical congregations like the Lutherans, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, or Orthodox.

It’s all about rebooting their religion: What did Jesus originally teach, and how did the apostles originally worship? ’Cause whatever that was, they wanna do that.

Whenever they ask me about it, I point ’em to the Didache. ’Cause it is what the ancient Christians taught! But I remind them the Didache isn’t bible. Even though some ancient Christians totally wanted to include it in the New Testament, ultimately they didn’t. Because how we worship God is optional. We have freedom in Christ to follow our consciences, and decide for ourselves what’s gonna further our relationship with Jesus… and what isn’t. And if old practices help, great!—do them. And if old practices don’t—’cause sometimes they don’t—don’t do them; to you they’re gonna be dead religion, and we’re striving for living religion.

Those who wanna “restore” Christianity to the beliefs and practices of the earliest Christians, likewise are striving for living religion. Which is great. But are they going about it the right way? There’s the real question. It’s not about re-adopting old practices; nor is it about adopting new practices which they’re pretty sure the Holy Spirit gave ’em to fix Christianity. It should always be about following Jesus more closely, and producing good fruit.

Synoptic gospels: The three gospels which sync up.

by K.W. Leslie, 08 April 2019
SYNOPTICS sə'nɑp.tɪks plural noun. The synoptic gospels.
SYNOPTIC GOSPELS sə'nɑp.tɪk 'ɡɑs.pəls plural noun. The gospels which show a great deal of similarity in stories, wording, structure, order, viewpoint, and purpose. Namely Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

You’ll notice in my articles on Jesus’s teachings I often line up the different gospels in columns. ’Cause they’re telling the same story, but in slightly different ways. But even so, they sync up rather well. The phenomenon is pretty well described by the Greek word σύνοψις/synopsis, “see with [one another],” so three of the gospels get called synoptic.

John is an obvious exception. I can sync it up from time to time, but nowhere near as well. Its author was clearly telling his own stories.

There’s a rather obvious explanation for why the synoptics line up: Mark was written first. The authors of Matthew and Luke simply quoted Mark as they put together their own gospels. Sometimes they quoted Mark word-for-word; sometimes not. The author of Luke admitted other such sources existed—

Luke 1.1-4 KWL
1 Since many people have decided to arrange a narrative about the acts we accomplished,
2 just as they were given to us by the first eyewitnesses who served the Word,
3 it occurred to me to help write out everything accurately from the beginning to you, honorable Theófilus,
4 so you might know with certainty about the word you were taught.

—and it turns out he availed himself of those sources. Mark included.

But—no surprise—there are Christians who have a big problem with the idea the gospels’ authors quoted one another. Including some scholars.

Some are bugged by the idea of anybody quoting anybody. What they’d much rather believe is that each of the gospels’ authors wrote independently of one another… and all their stories happen to match. Miraculously. Which would definitely convince them the gospels are reliable… but nobody else. Y’see, talk to any police detective and they’ll tell you: When every witness’s story lines up too perfectly, they colluded. No question.

A more reasonable problem, which bugs a lot of Christians, is the idea of Matthew quoting Mark. Because the apostle Matthew was one of the Twelve, who personally followed Jesus and learned from him directly. Whereas the apostle Mark was a student of Paul, and later Peter… and therefore didn’t learn about Jesus firsthand like Matthew; he learned about Jesus secondhand from Peter, and thirdhand from Barnabas and Paul. All this stuff was confirmed by the Holy Spirit, but still: Why on earth would Matthew quote Mark? What could Mark possibly know that Matthew didn’t?

So these Christians’ theory goes like yea: ’Twasn’t Mark, but Matthew, who wrote his gospel first. (Maybe even in Aramaic, the language of Jesus and Matthew’s homeland, instead of Greek.) Then Mark later published an abridged Greek version of Matthew. And Luke later quoted Mark… or Matthew; whichever.

Meh; it’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility. But we’ve no proof there’s an Aramaic original of Matthew, and we don’t know why Mark would want to write a shorter gospel instead of including every Matthew story.

But the more important thing to remember is the names we attached to the gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John—were attached there by tradition. We don‘t actually know who wrote ’em. They’re anonymous. The apostles and prophets put their names on their books and letters, but the authors of the gospels felt Jesus is way more important than them, so they left their names off. Deliberately; the author of John called himself “the student Jesus loved,” and the only John in his gospel is John the baptist.

We think we know who wrote the gospels, and it’s entirely possible we got the right guys. There’s some hints in Luke/Acts that Luke’s the author, and many more hints in John that John bar Zebedee wrote it. But Mark actually has no such hints. Nor Matthew. Matthew might not have written Matthew. Or it was some other guy named Matthew who wrote it, who’s not the same Matthew in the Twelve.

Power through prayer.

by K.W. Leslie, 02 April 2019

Humans covet power. So I fully expect by titling this article “Power through prayer,” I’m gonna get a few readers who think, “I’d like some power, and this fella claims I can get it through prayer; let’s see whether there’s anything I can use.” (More accurately, “Let’s see whether he tells me something I care to do.” If it takes too much effort, or takes us too far out of our comfort zones, people prefer alternative routes. True of medicine, politics, Christianity, and of course our prayers.)

Generally there are three types of Christians who wanna know about gaining power through prayer.

  1. “PRAYER WARRIORS.” These’d be the folks who think prayer is how we do spiritual warfare. Not resisting temptation, like the scriptures describe; they believe spiritual warfare consists of praying against all the evil in the world. They want everything they pray against to be vanquished.
  2. SIGN-SEEKERS. These Christians wanna see miracles. They wanna do miracles. They want the Holy Spirit to empower them to do every mighty act they can think of: Sick people get instantly cured, axheads float, sundials go backwards, fillings turn to gold, fire falls from the sky. Anything which demonstrates God’s really among us and endorses them.
  3. POWER SEEKERS. These people want temporal power. They wanna be in charge of a church, ministry, or nonprofit. Or they want to be financially successful—have a nice house, own a nice car, pay off their mortgage, take all the vacations missions trips they always wanted to…. Or they want political power. Whatever gives them the ability to direct their lives the way they wish.

So all these folks wanna be “strong in the Lord, and the power of his might,” Ep 6.10 KJV whether they’re thinking of God’s armor or not. They want their prayers regularly answered with yes. Their wishes are… well, not God’s commands, for they’d never put it that way. But essentially yeah: They want God to do as they ask.

The problem? These people covet power. Not God. God’s a means to an end, not the Beginning and the End. Learning how to have power through prayer, basically means learning to manipulate God, and have our way with the Almighty. It’s the exact opposite of how our relationship with God is meant to work.

And those who seek powerful prayers, have to watch out lest we share this motivation. Because it’s absolutely the wrong motivation. We follow him. Never the other way round.

Spiritual warfare: Resist temptation!

by K.W. Leslie, 01 April 2019
SPIRITUAL WARFARE 'spɪr.ɪtʃ.(əw.)əl 'wɔr.fɛ(.ə)r noun. Actively opposing the activity of evil spirits by resisting temptation, exposing their hidden involvement, and exorcism.
2. Popularly (but inaccurately), vigorous prayer, singing, or other acts of worship.
[Spiritual warrior 'spɪr.ɪtʃ.(əw.)əl 'wɔr(.ri).ər noun.]

Spiritual warfare is fighting evil. Plain and simple.

Every human, Jesus obviously included, gets tempted to do the self-serving, self-satisfying thing, regardless of whether it’s wise or right or good. And usually if someone else is urging us to do it, it’s for their own self-serving, self-satisfying reasons. In the case of evil spirits, it’s so they can spread evil, chaos, and corruption—and of course ruin us. So when we realize there are evil motives mixed up in our decision-making process, we gotta fight those temptations, expose the evil, and maybe even exorcise the evil spirits.

It’s hardly a complicated idea. But you know humans. We complicate everything.

Usually with false definitions. Visit a lot of churches, and yeah, they’ll correctly describe spiritual warfare as opposing and fighting evil. Funny thing is… their way of opposing it isn’t always to resist temptation. Sometimes they never even talk about resisting temptation. That’s not the evil they worry about. What they’re worried about are other people. Namely pagans, their nonchristian lifestyles, and their godless politics. Namely their fears that pagan behavior is corrupting our nation and families, and threatening to start the cycle and trigger God’s wrath upon us. Or at least rob us of God’s blessings.

Eek! How are we to fight this evil? Well you won’t find such Christians talking about integrity, personal accountability, confession, and other activities which help us behave ourselves and develop the fruit of self-control. Instead we’re encouraged instead to pray really hard. Sing harder, and it’ll create a positive atmosphere where somehow evil can’t thrive. Pray harder, and really contort yourself in asking God for stuff. Go through all the motions of Christianity, and supposedly this is “spiritual warfare.”

It’s why people who pray a lot like to call themselves “prayer warriors,” and musicians like to claim, “Worship is warfare.” They’re not necessarily resisting temptation… but they’re certainly agitating themselves against evil.

But you do realize Jesus and his apostles describe neither prayer nor music as warfare. Because they’re not. Resisting temptation is.