Can’t hear God? Read your bible!

by K.W. Leslie, 31 May 2022

Prayer is talking with God, and the emphasis is on with God: Yeah we talk to him, but it’s not a one way-monologue where he doesn’t speak back. We don’t presume, like pagans do, that God’ll tell us stuff like “the universe” does—with omens, signs, coincidences, and other superstitions which can easily be misinterpreted, same as all natural revelations. We talk, and God definitely talks back.

That is… till he doesn’t.

’Cause sometimes we can’t seem to hear him. Much as we try, we can’t detect what he’s telling us. Sometimes because we’re too stubborn or impatient to listen. Sometimes because haven’t listened to the last thing he told us to do, so he’s waiting for us to act on that before he tells us anything more. (Oho, didn’t think of that one, did you?) And sometimes because we’re listening to him instead of reading our bibles.

Y’see, too many of us Christians get into the bad habit of not reading the scriptures. And once we’ve learned to hear God, we figure, “Why bother?” God already tells us what we need to know! Why dig around some 2,000-year-old book for answers when we can just ask our Father, “Hey, what do I need to know rght now?” I mean, if it really is a need-to-know deal, God’ll come through, right?

Yeah, it’s immature behavior. It’s like a history student skipping the textbook, and asking Siri or Google for the answers to every line on the take-home exam.

God’s training us to be better than that. You think Jesus, just because he is God, has godly wisdom and character in abundance, figured it was okay to give the scriptures a pass? Nuh-uh. He made darned sure he knew ’em better than everyone. Jesus read his bible. We’re to be like Jesus, remember?

So from time to time, when he feels we need to crack our bibles and get back into ’em, God puts his side of the conversation on pause. Or he straight-up tells us (as he has me, many times), “I already answered that in the scriptures; read your bible.”

Hence that’s become my go-to response whenever somebody tells me, “I haven’t heard from God lately,” or otherwise complains God feels so distant, or the heavens feel like brass when they pray. Dt 28.23 My usual advice: “Read your bible.”

Okay, maybe you already do read your bible. Good. Keep it up.

The Geneva Bible: The first really good English bible.

by K.W. Leslie, 30 May 2022

The English-language bible of William Shakespeare, of John Bunyan, of John Donne, of the first colonists who founded the future American states—namely the pilgrim fathers who traveled aboard the Mayflower and founded Plymouth and Massachusetts—was not the King James Version. And no, this isn’t a knock on the KJV; it didn’t exist yet. It was first published in 1611, and this stuff predates it.

And some of it doesn’t. Despite the publication of the KJV, many people held onto that previous English translation and used it instead. Like Oliver Cromwell, the Puritan parliamentarian who overthrew King Charles Stuart in 1649, who published an assortment of 150 bible verses, called The Souldiers Pocket Bible, for his troops: The verses didn’t come from the KJV.

It’s called the Geneva Bible because it was translated in Geneva, Switzerland, by a team of Protestant scholars who fled England during the reign of Mary Tudor (as Queen Mary 1, 1553–58).

Geneva Bible title page
A Geneva Bible title page, published in London by John Barker in “1599.” That’s the date Barker put on all Geneva Bibles published after King James banned their production in 1611. Houston Baptist University

Tudor was a Roman Catholic. In part for political reasons, since her legitimacy as queen was based on it; in part for personal reasons, as she had been convinced by her Catholic family members she had to save England from the “heresy” of Protestantism. So Tudor started persecuting Protestants, particularly Protestants who had dared to translate the bible into English without Catholic permission. The persecution began with John Rogers, who had dared to revise the Tyndale Bible; he was burned to death in 1555. Protestant scholars decided it was safest to go into exile in a good Protestant country.

Since most educated Englishmen spoke French, where better than a French-speaking country? And since many of ’em were Calvinist, where better than the city Jean Calvin himself governed, Geneva? Several hundred Protestants thus became refugees in Geneva.

There were English-language bibles at the time, but not good ones. John Wycliffe's bible was only partially complete, and many Protestants still considered him heretic. William Tyndale made a pretty good translation of the New Testament, but he was also considered heretic, and executed for it in 1535. Myles Coverdale, who was neither a Greek nor Hebrew scholar, borrowed Tyndale’s NT, cobbled together an Old Testament from German bibles and the Vulgate, and published the Coverdale Bible in 1535; parts of it are still used in the Book of Common Prayer. And there’s that unfortunate John Rogers I just mentioned: He’d borrowed Tyndale’s NT, parts of Tyndale’s and Coverdale’s OTs, published it under the name “Thomas Matthew” in 1537, and it came to be called the Matthew Bible.

So since these refugees had time—and the resources of a whole lot of Protestant scholars who’d moved to Geneva under persecution—they decided to tackle a new bible.

Jesus’s great commission.

by K.W. Leslie, 29 May 2022
Matthew 28.16-20 KWL
16 The 11 students go to the Galilee,
to the hill where Jesus first appointed them.
17 Seeing Jesus, they worship him—
but they hesitate.
18 Coming forward, Jesus speaks to them:
“All power in heaven and earth is given to me.
19 So go make students of every nation!
Baptize them in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
20 Teach them to retain everything I commanded you.
Look, I’m with you every day
till the end of this age.”
Previously:
  • “The resurrection in Matthew.” Mt 28.1-10
  • After Jesus was resurrected in Matthew, the angel told Mary and Mary to tell the other students that he’d meet them in the Galilee. In other gospels they didn’t believe the women, but Matthew skips all that: The students went right home to the Galilee.

    Did the Holy Spirit tell ’em where to meet Jesus? No idea. It’s entirely possible they guessed: “Well, where should we expect to see him? Um… how about where he first made us apostles? In Matthew that’s actually the hill where Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount. Kind of a profound place, so sure, it stands to reason that’s where they should see him.

    Me, I figure Jesus would’ve shown up at any place they picked. Maybe at the beach where he first called Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Maybe his house in Capharnaum, or the synagogue. Maybe his mom’s house in Nazareth. After Jesus rose, the way the gospels describe him, he now appears to have the ability to appear and disappear—so he could reappear anywhere, right?

    But I admit there’s every chance we Christians have wholly misinterpreted this “new power” of Jesus’s. When Jesus became human he limited himself. He’s wholly divine, but gave up the power we typically associate with divinity. A number of us would really like to imagine the newly resurrected Jesus got some of his power back. But maybe he didn’t; maybe his “appearing” and “disappearing” isn’t some superpower that resurrected humans now have, but some supernatural ability any Christian can exhibit as the Holy Spirit allows. Remember, the evangelist Philip disappeared too. Ac 8.39

    Anyway, Jesus appeared to them on the very hill they chose, and that’s where he gave ’em what Christians tend to call “the great commission.” Frequently we capitalize it. I don’t; you know which great commission I’m talking about.

    Ascension: When Jesus took his throne.

    by K.W. Leslie, 26 May 2022

    If we figure Luke’s count of 40 days Ac 1.3 wasn’t an estimate, but a literal 40 days, on Thursday, 15 May 33, this happened.

    Acts 1.6-9 KJV
    6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? 7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. 8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. 9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

    I usually translate ἐπήρθη/epírthi, which the KJV renders “he was taken up,” as “he was raptured.” ’Cause that’s what happened. He got raptured into heaven.

    From there Jesus ascended (from the Latin ascendere, “to climb”) to the Father’s throne—to sit at his right hand, Ac 2.33, 7.55-56 both in service and in judgment. We figure Jesus’s ascension took place the very same day he was raptured, so that’s when Christians have historically celebrated it: 40 days after Easter, and 10 days before Pentecost Sunday.

    Some of us figure ascension celebrates Jesus’s rapture. And yeah, we can celebrate that too… but the way more important thing is Jesus taking his throne. When we say our Lord reigns, you realize his reign began at some point. Wasn’t when he died, and defeated sin and death; wasn’t when he rose from the dead, and proved he defeated sin and death. It’s when he took his throne. It’s his ascension day. Which we observe today.

    Why the United States doesn’t control our guns.

    by K.W. Leslie, 25 May 2022

    I have friends outside the United States who look at our rampant gun violence, notice how our mass shootings even happen on a daily basis, and wonder why in God’s name we do nothing about it.

    Two reasons. The first is Americans consider gun ownership a right. Not an option, not a privilege, a right. We even put it into our Constitution.

    Y’see in the 1760s and ’70s, the British occupying forces tried to take Americans’ guns away lest we start a revolution. (’Cause we were gonna.) Once we Americans got our independence, we became fearful lest the Brits, or any other government, try to take us over, or go too far to curtail our liberties. So we made gun ownership the fourth article of the Bill of Rights, which became our Constitution’s second amendment.

    A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

    Guns aren’t an obvious and inherent right. This is why the Congress had to spell out their justification for guns: If we’re gonna remain a free state, we need militia, armed civilians who can help our police and armed forces defend our homeland. Some folks assume our National Guard fulfills the role of a militia, but nope; guardsmen are part of the Army and Air Force, and not civilians. (As demonstrated whenever guardsmen are called in to stop civilian unrest.) The way we keep civilians at the ready, is we let ’em keep their guns. And make sure they know how to properly use ’em. So once people hear the British are coming—or the Soviets, the North Koreans, the Iranians, the terrorists, or whoever’s the boogeyman today—they can grab their rifles and fall in.

    Thing is, we Americans tend to describe our rights as sacred and God-given. In other words holy. With all the other baggage which comes with civic idolatry.

    Proper religion involves self-control, but civic idolatry means when we Americans get it into our heads that something’s a right, we treat it as an unlimited right. Zero control. No limits. Absolute.

    Fr’instance freedom of speech. We treat it like we can say absolutely anything, no matter how offensive, profane, or seditious. And should be able to say anything, without any repercussions from our neighbors or employers. That’s why we’re often stunned when there are totally repercussions: We lose jobs, money, status, or relationships over the dumber things we say. But what’d people expect would happen? Freedom of speech only means government can’t censor or censure us. Everybody else can.

    So that’s the very same way many an American gun nut looks at guns: The right to bear arms means we can own any gun we like, decked out with any accessories or ammunition we like, take it anywhere, and shoot anyone we perceive a threat. ’Cause it’s a right. Constitution says so, which makes it sacred.

    Now read the second amendment again. It describes our American militia as well regulated. Is it? Not in the slightest. Largely it’s not regulated at all.

    This is where the United States goes horribly wrong. If the amendment were scripture, we’d be guilty of taking it out of context. Our militia is unregulated, and whenever any politician tries to regulate it, the gun nuts scream tyranny. And the gun lobby has bought so many senators, nothing gets regulated. Nothing changes for the better. Hence the daily shootings.

    Doubt is our friend.

    by K.W. Leslie, 24 May 2022

    You might’ve heard the following verse before.

    Matthew 21.21 NIV
    Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.”

    Jesus says ἐὰν ἔχητε πίστιν καὶ μὴ διακριθῆτε/e’án éhite pístin ke mi diakrithíte, “when you have faith and don’t hesitate,” though most translations follow the KJV’s lead and go with “doubt not.” Either way, people assume he’s contrasting opposites: Hesitation, or doubt, is the opposite of faith.

    So either we have faith or we have doubt—so have faith, and never doubt. Doubt is bad. Doubt is evil. Doubt is how the devil convinces us to never do as the Spirit wants.

    But in college I studied logic. (Hey, it’s a math class, and I wasn’t a fan of math, but logic sounded like something I could get into. Boy did I.) In logic I learned a lot of supposed “opposites” aren’t really. What’s the opposite of big? It’s actually not small. Big and small are contrasts, not opposites. A big coffee is not the opposite of a small coffee. Big faith isn’t the opposite of small faith either.

    Same with hot and cold, black and white, young and old, male and female. Especially male and female. They’re not opposites; they’re complements!

    The proper opposite of anything is its absence. The opposite of big is not big. Which could be medium, small, tiny, or even 3XL; what makes it opposite is it’s not what we want. Not what we’re looking for. And that’s not just something relatively smaller; it’s everything else. When it’s not as big as we want, it’s the opposite of big. “That’s not a ‘big.’ Get me a ‘big’!”

    Likewise the opposite of black is not-black. The opposite of young is not-young. The opposite of love is not-love. And the opposite of faith is not-faith.

    Now, if the definition of a word is precisely the same as that opposite, it’s a true opposite. The opposite of true is not-true, i.e. false. The opposite of patient is not-patient, i.e. impatient. Does doubt mean precisely the same as not-faith? Actually no: It means not enough faith. There’s still a little faith in there! There oughta be more, and sometimes there’s not enough faith for no good reason, ’cause we really oughta trust God more than we do.

    But sometimes we don’t have enough faith for a totally valid, very good reason: This isn’t a God thing.

    ’Cause sometimes it’s not. There are a lot of things which Christians claim are God things, claim are holy, claim are Christ Jesus’s expectations for his followers, claim are mandatory doctrines or mandatory practices. Are they? Well… we doubt. And it turns out we’re right to.

    I’ll go so far as to say the reason we doubt is because the Holy Spirit is making is hesitant. The Christianese term for this is, “I have a check in my spirit,” which usually means “I don’t think we should”—and because we can sometimes be giant hypocrites, we phrase it so it sounds like the Holy Spirit is making us hesitant. But sometimes it’s actually not hypocrisy! Sometimes it really is the Holy Spirit telling us, “Whoa there little buckaroo. That’s a cliff you’re heading towards.”

    Sometimes we call this supernatural discernment: We know something’s not right, don’t know why, but trust God enough to put things on pause. Other times it takes no revelation from God whatsoever; any onlooker can see it’s all kinds of wrong. And we should practice the regular kind of discernment as well—though you’d be surprised and annoyed how often Christians don’t, and get suckered into all sorts of cons. We can be some of the most gullible people sometimes.

    Other times the Holy Spirit will obviously tell us, “No; don’t.” Ac 16.6-7 Won’t necessarily tell us why. Nor does he need to! (We gotta trust him, y’know.) But clearly those “doubts” we might sometimes have, aren’t always gonna the product of doubting God. Sometimes they’re just the opposite. We doubt circumstances. We doubt fellow Christians. We doubt everything but God.

    It’s a great thing to have the sort of mountain-moving faith Jesus speaks of. It’s just as great to pay attention to our doubts, lest we attempt to move the wrong mountains. ’Cause doubt isn’t always our opponent! Often doubt is our friend.

    And few Christians have been taught this. Or even understand this. They’ve been taught Christians should never, ever, EVER doubt. Shove all those doubts out of your mind. Turn ’em off like a lightswitch. Suppress them. Fight them. Psyche yourself into believing.

    In other words, embrace denial. And because denial’s a lie, it doesn’t legitimately get rid of our doubts. Instead, denial unravels our faith and turns us into hypocrites.

    Y’see, whenever we Christians have doubts, our next step is to investigate. Confirm whether those doubts are valid. Find out whether there’s anything rock solid behind them, or whether we’re getting scammed by some Christian who only wants our money or loyalty. If these things are of God, they can absolutely hold up to scrutiny. If they’re not, they don’t—and the people trying to pull us in those directions get really angry, and all sorts of other fleshly behavior starts coming out of ’em.

    Use those doubts to get solid about what you oughta believe and who you oughta follow—and get closer to God.

    Relevance versus holiness.

    by K.W. Leslie, 23 May 2022

    Relevance became a pretty big buzzword among young Christians in the late 1990s. I was one of those young Christians back then, so I’d hear it all the time: “If we wanna reach our culture for Jesus, we can’t be one of those old fuddy-duddy Christians who act like we were wrong to progress past the 1950s. We gotta be able to interact with people outside the popular Christian subculture—and not just to critique and condemn them. We gotta be relevant.”

    And no, this wasn’t just some clever reasoning we could use on old people whenever we went out and got tattoos. Well, okay, some of us went that route; but most of us honestly did mean it. The cultural conservatism of American Evangelical Christianity was making it impossible for us to share the gospel with our pagan peers.

    And by “impossible” I don’t just mean really, really hard. I mean impossible.

    Maybe you read my piece, “The limitations of legalists.” Maybe not; I’ll summarize anyway. Back in college I was trying to share Jesus with some pagans, and there was this conservative Evangelical who tried to insert himself into our conversation. To make him go away, I invited the pagans to a pub. Conservative guy’s tradition not only forbade alcohol, but even setting foot in a pub; shunning the appearance of evil y’know. It did the job and got rid of him.

    The reason I knew to pull this stunt with him, is because I used to be the very same kind of conservative Evangelical. I would never have set foot in a pub—and not just because I was underage. I would’ve presumed anybody who practiced pub evangelism was probably a rotten Christian. (Even though I was a big fan of C.S. Lewis, and he hung out in pubs all the time—which I justified to myself by saying, “Well he’s British,” and ignoring the fact Britain has a drinking problem. Not to pick on Britain; my own homeland definitely has a drinking problem too. But I digress.)

    See, if you don’t live in the Bible Belt, you gotta interact with (gasp!) liberals. Your neighbors and coworkers are often gonna be progressives who don’t bother to read the Moral Majority’s voter guides, and vote for the wrong party. How on earth are you gonna share Jesus with them? Many Bible-Belt Christians have told me they don’t even try anymore, and have abandoned them to the devil. But where I live, we don’t have that luxury… and some of them are so close to God’s kingdom, and all they need are a few nudges in the right direction.

    The “Forgive me” prayer.

    by K.W. Leslie, 17 May 2022

    Part of the Lord’s Prayer is the line, “Forgive us our sins.” Or “Forgive us our debts,” or “Forgive us our trespasses”; it all depends on the translation. Jesus goes on: “As we forgive those who sin against/trespass against/are indebted to us.” It’s one line in the whole of the prayer.

    But there’s a whole category of prayer which consists of begging God’s forgiveness for sins. Sometimes it’s a part of a bargain with God—we wanna ask him for stuff, and we wanna first make sure we have a clean slate with him before we start negotiating. But most of the time it’s because we’ve sinned, we know it, we feel bad or guilty about it, and we wanna repent and get right with God.

    Emotions vary. Some of us get mighty weepy. Lying on the floor, mascara running, blubbering, sobbing, snot pouring out of our noses, and so forth.

    I’m not one of those. I’m the type which is really annoyed with myself for repeating the same stupid sins. Far less weeping; far more angry self-recrimination. Still others are upset, frustrated, embarrassed, exasperated, resigned, furious, woebegone… There’s no one way people feel, and they won’t always feel the same way every single time. But the one thing we have in common isn’t emotion, but unhappiness. We fell short of God’s glory. So we repent.

    (Well… some of us don’t repent. We don’t like being on the wrong side of God, and wanna rectify that. But we don’t really have any plan to change our behavior any. I’ll discuss that rotten attitude another time.)

    There are two ways Christians approach the “Forgive me” prayer. Some of us are just crushed by it. Others of us are blasé: “Hey, sin’s a part of life, and God knows I’m not perfect.” There are attitudes in between, but these are the main two extremes I find in Christians: Those who worry we’re taxing the limits of God’s grace, and those who take this grace way too much for granted. There’s a happy medium in there somewhere. That’s what we should seek. Sin should bother us… but God has us covered! 1Jn 2.1 So repentance shouldn’t be a regular meltdown. Grace should take away all the extremes, and leave us feeling sorry, but not bothered.

    The sepulcher guards.

    by K.W. Leslie, 16 May 2022
    Matthew 27.62-66 KWL
    62 In the morning,
    which is [the Saturday] after preparation,
    the head priests and Pharisees
    assembled with Pontius Pilate,
    63 saying, “Master, we remember this imposter said while alive,
    ‘After three days I rise.’
    64 So command the sepulcher to be secured for three days,
    lest his coming students might steal him,
    might tell the people, ‘He’s risen from the dead!’
    and the last imposture will be worse than the first.”
    65 Pilate tells them, “You have a guard.
    Go secure it as best you know.”
    66 Those who go, secure the sepulcher,
    sealing the stone with the guards.
     
    Matthew 28.2-4 KWL
    2 Look, a great quake happens,
    for the Lord’s angel, which comes down from heaven,
    upon coming, rolls away the stone
    and is sitting down upon it.
    3 Its appearance is bright as lightning,
    and its clothing white as snow.
    4 The sepulcher guards shake in terror of it,
    and become like the dead.
     
    Matthew 28.11-15 KWL
    11 As the women leave, look:
    Some of the guards, coming into the city,
    report to the head priests everything that happened.
    12 Getting together for a meeting with the elders,
    taking enough silver to give the soldiers,
    13 the priests were saying, “Say this:
    ‘His students, coming at night, stole him as we slept.’
    14 And when this is heard by the governor,
    we’ll convince him, and you needn’t worry.”
    15 Those who took the silver, did as the priests taught,
    and spread this word throughout the Judeans
    until this very day.

    There’s some debate among Christians as to who these soldiers are. Did Pontius Pilate send his own soldiers to secure the sepulcher? Or were these Senate police?—the same guys who secured the temple for the priests; the same guys who arrested Jesus; the same guys who handled Senate security? When Pontius said, “You have a guard,” did he mean “You can have my guards,” or “You already have guards, and don’t need any of my guys”?

    I lean towards temple guards. Here’s why.

    Why Amazon is my favorite Christian bookstore.

    by K.W. Leslie, 13 May 2022

    Unless you count all the mini-bookstores found in the larger churches, my hometown has only one bookstore. One. It’s downtown; it mostly sells used books.

    We used to have a Borders, a Crown Books, a Book Outlet, and multiple used bookstores. And a Family Christian Stores—which wasn’t so much a bookstore as a one-stop shop for all Christian. They had books, but they had even more Christian tchotchkes: CDs, shirts, toys, art for the walls. “Jesus junk.” Now we have just that one bookstore… and the book sections at Walmart, Costco, Target, the other department stores, and the thrift stores. (And the local library’s monthly book sale.)

    Why can’t a town of 102,000 sustain a new-books bookstore? Because those stores, for the most part, didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t realize, till it was too late, their primary competition was Amazon—and that Amazon had ’em so beat, people would shop at Amazon while browsing their stores. I did it myself. I’d browse their stacks, find a book I was interested in, take down its ISBN, and look it up on Amazon. Guess who always had the better price.

    No, Amazon doesn’t pay me to sing their praises. Even though I link a lot of the books, movies, and albums I mention on TXAB to their website.

    I learned a long time ago, and keep seeing it: No matter the bookstore, Amazon offers a lower price on the same book. Even if the bookstore marked everything at 20 percent below the suggested retail price. Even when the books are on the clearance shelf at 60 percent off. Even when they’re in a $2 bargain bin. Even when I find ’em at Dollar Tree for $1.25. Amazon regularly has ’em beat.

    I’m not the only bookstore customer who noticed this. I’ve seen other customers browse the bookstore… then whip out their smartphone, compare prices, go with Amazon, and buy nothing from the bookstore but their coffee. If that. Too often Starbucks is cheaper.

    Unitarians: Those who insist God’s not three.

    by K.W. Leslie, 12 May 2022
    UNITARIAN ju.nə'tɛr.i.ən noun. A person or doctrine which emphasizes God’s oneness, and rejects the doctrine of the trinity.
    2. [capitalized] A member of a church or group which asserts this belief.
    3. adjective. Having to do with this belief, or with unitarians.
    [Unitarianism ju.nə'tɛr.i.ən.ɪz.əm noun.]

    Christians correctly understand God’s a trinity. One God; three people (or “persons,” as theologians prefer, but it’s bad English) who are the one God. Well, most of us do; there are holdouts who insist he’s not. They tend to fall into one of two camps:

    • MODALISTS. Those who say the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God… but really all three of them are just one person. Not three people. Just one person in different modes.
    • UNITARIANS. Those who say the Father is God—and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not.

    People are more familiar with unitarians—mostly because there are entire unitarian denominations, like the Unitarian Universalists, the Unitarian Christian Church, and Unity Church. (The United States has even had four Unitarian presidents.) But that’s also because unitarianism is very obviously non-trinitarian, and very obviously denies Jesus is God. Whereas modalists will never say Jesus isn’t God. For that matter you’d likely never even know they were modalist… until you start asking ’em about trinity and they reply, “Well I really don’t like to use the word trinity to describe God…” then go on to explain why they say he’s not.

    The main difference, y’notice, is modalists believe Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God. Unitarians do not. Well, generally unitarians do not; some of ’em are kinda pantheist and believe everyone is God. But for the most part, they insist God is One: One person, one being, one heavenly Father (or Mother; some of ’em aren’t particular); our Creator, the Almighty, and infinitely good. And while they consider Jesus to be Lord and Savior and King, they don’t consider him God. Same with the Holy Spirit—although I’ve known a few unitarians who believe the Spirit is God, but like modalists, don’t believe he’s a different person than the Father. To them, “Holy Spirit” is just one of God’s titles, like when certain indigenous Americans refer to God as “the Great Spirit.”

    But unitarian doesn’t just describe Christians. Technically it describes everyone who believes in the One God, and doesn’t believe he’s a trinity. Most unchurched pagans figure there’s one God, aren’t so sure about Jesus, and know nothing about the Holy Spirit—and this description would mean they’re unitarian. Every Muslim would be unitarian: They definitely believe in one God, believe Jesus is a prophet but not God, and believe the Holy Spirit is a messenger of God but also not God. Religious Jews are unitarian, Sikhs are unitarian, Baha’is are unitarian.

    But if you’re unitarian and call yourself Christian, you’ve chosen to ignore the scriptures which reveal God as a trinity. Which puts you outside historical orthodox Christianity and makes you heretic. And here I gotta remind you heresy does not send you to hell—but it does greatly interfere with getting to know and trust God, so it always needs to be dealt with.

    By Law we’re good as dead—so live for Jesus!

    by K.W. Leslie, 11 May 2022
    Galatians 2.17-21 KWL
    17 “While looking to be justified by Christ,
    if we’re found to be sinners ourselves,
    then isn’t Christ a servant of sin?”
    This ought not be said!
    18 For if I rebuild the things I destroy,
    I stand up for my own transgressive behavior.
    19 For I, through the Law,
    die to the Law so I can live for God.
    I was crucified with Christ.
    20 I no longer live. Christ lives—
    in me. He now lives in flesh.
    I live by faith in the Son of God, who loves me
    and hands himself over for me.
    21 I don’t reject God’s grace,
    for if rightness comes by Law,
    then Christ died for nothing.
    Previously:
  • “Paul and the apostles of note.” Ga 2.6-10
  • “Paul challenges Simon Peter.” Ga 2.11-14
  • “Being good justifies nobody. Nobody.” Ga 2.15-16
  • Paul’s academy trained him in Greco-Roman rhetoric, the art of speech and debate. Most of us don’t know how the Romans practiced rhetoric, so sometimes we struggle to follow Paul’s arguments, and come to some very different conclusions than he was trying to make. This is nothing new; few things are. Peter rebuked ancient Christians for doing the very same thing. 2Pe 3.14-15

    Anyway it’s why I translated verse 14 with quotes. Paul’s doing a rhetoric thing: He’s quoting what other Christians have said, and responding μὴ γένοιτο/mi ghénito, “This ought not [be said]!” Most bibles translate it some variant of the KJV’s “By no means”—this is an idea we oughta strongly oppose. It’s heresy.

    So apparently this is what certain early Christians were teaching, particularly the legalists in Antioch. “You claim you’re following Jesus. But you sin. Everybody sins. You shouldn’t, but you do. So are you saying Jesus is okay with your sins? It’s fine with him if you sin? He even endorses your sinful lifestyle? (Because certainly we would never say this.) You need to stop; Jesus can’t save a willful sinner.”

    To some degree we still hear this from today’s legalists. Yes, of course we’re to resist temptation and quit sinning—but they turn it into something we have to do lest we lose salvation. Lest we undo everything Jesus did for us. Lest Jesus himself reject us, because sin offends him so much, and he simply can’t work with people like us. It’s a mindset which entirely goes against Jesus’s stated practices in the scriptures, and of course grace. But that’s kinda to be expected of legalists.

    So Paul preemptively deals with this one: No it’s not okay to sin. Jesus doesn’t say that; Paul didn’t write that. Sin is still evil and wrong. But the fact Jesus works with and through sinful humans, does not mean he endorses sin, nor overlooks sin, nor did some behind-the-scenes jiggery-pokery which nullifies the Law and means nothing’s a sin anymore.

    What he did do, is kill our sin. Killed it on the cross with himself. Killed us on the cross with himself. Our penalties are paid for. Our debts are paid. Now follow Jesus.

    Hearing God. It’s vital!

    by K.W. Leslie, 10 May 2022

    Prayer is of course talking with God: We talk to him and he talks back. It’s not a complicated idea—though Christians obviously overcomplicate it all sorts of ways.

    And because it’s talking with God—’cause he talks back—prayer is therefore the most common, usual way God communicates with people.

    Yep, even more common than bible. I know; I’m fully aware plenty of Christians claim bible is the only way God communicates with people. They believe this because it’s what they’ve been taught: “God doesn’t talk to people anymore, so stop trying to hear him and read your bible.” And hey, if you shut your ears to everything God tells you in prayer, in dreams, through prophets, or even full-on personal appearances, of course you’re gonna claim he only communicates through bible. It’s like someone who throws out their phone and computer, burns their mail, refuses to interact with anyone in person, and only communicates by carrier pigeon: Okay, guess we’d better get some carrier pigeons. God’s frequently willing to work around our ridiculous arbitrary rules. But for normal people, we pray and he talks back.

    I’m also aware there are Christians who insist they don’t hear anything. They’ve tried hearing God, but they got nothing. So they gave up and presume prayer is unidirectional: We talk, he hears, but he says nothing—’cause he doesn’t need to say anything, ’cause he said everything he cares to say in the scriptures. Such people are easily swayed into believing God only talks through bible. You can find whole churches full of people who claim they never, ever hear God in their prayers.

    But you’ll also find that’s what they tell you when other people from their church are around. In private, they’ll confess they did hear God once. Or twice. Or all the time.

    And hearing God is confirmed by the scriptures. All over the scriptures. ’Cause the guys who wrote the scriptures heard God, and they’re writing about other people who likewise heard God. The whole reason there are scriptures in the first place is because people hear God. Yeah, certain cessationists are gonna claim prophecy doesn’t work that way; that prophets opened their mouths, God took ’em over like a ventriloquist manhandles a puppet, and his voice came out of ’em. Or his words flowed from their pens. Whichever. But that’s more like the mumbo-jumbo we find among Spiritualists and pagan religions; it’s not at all how God works. The prophets came to God with questions—

    Habakkuk 1.2-4 GNT
    2 O LORD, how long must I call for help before you listen, before you save us from violence? 3 Why do you make me see such trouble? How can you stand to look on such wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are all around me, and there is fighting and quarreling everywhere. 4 The law is weak and useless, and justice is never done. Evil people get the better of the righteous, and so justice is perverted.

    —and God responds with answers.

    Habakkuk 1.5 GNT
    Then the LORD said to his people, “Keep watching the nations around you, and you will be astonished at what you see. I am going to do something that you will not believe when you hear about it.”

    (Followed by an answer they probably didn’t like at all—if you keep reading Habakkuk.)

    This is why prayer and prophecy is so closely connected: It’s how God gives prophets his messages for other people. We’ll ask God questions; he’ll give answers, and add, “Tell this to others.” ’Cause other Christians have the same questions, and God’s answer applies to them too.

    But of course if you don’t pray—or you think all your prayers are unidirectional—you’re not gonna get prophecies like this. Or have any prophecies in your church at all. Or you’ll have what your preachers claim are “prophecies,” but they’re all angry, political, fruitless, and otherwise inconsistent with God’s character.

    The resurrection in 𝘔𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘸.

    by K.W. Leslie, 09 May 2022
    Matthew 28.1-10 KWL
    1 After sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week,
    Mary the Magdalene (and the other Mary) comes
    to see the sepulcher.
    2 Look, a great quake happens,
    for the Lord’s angel, which comes down from heaven,
    upon coming, rolls away the stone
    and is sitting down upon it.
    3 Its appearance is bright as lightning,
    and its clothing white as snow.
    4 The sepulcher guards shake in terror of it,
    and become like the dead.
    5 In reply the angel told the women, “Don’t fear, you two:
    I knew you seek Jesus the crucified.
    6 He’s not here. He’s risen, just as he said.
    Come see the place where he was laid.
    7 Go quickly; tell Jesus’s students
    that he’s risen from the dead,
    and look, he goes before you into the Galilee.
    He will see you there. Mark what I tell you!”
     
    8 The two, leaving the sepulcher quickly,
    with fear and great joy,
    run to report to Jesus’s students.
    9 Look: Jesus meets them, saying, “Hello!”
    They come to him, grasp his feet, and worship him.
    10 Then Jesus tells them, “Don’t fear.
    Go. Report to my brothers
    so they can leave for the Galilee,
    and there they will see me.”

    Ordinarily in the synoptic gospels, if they share a story in common, Matthew and Luke typically use Mark as the main source of their information. It’s why the gospels sync up so well.

    But in the resurrection stories, they don’t sync up very well at all. Oh, they get the basics right. Jesus rises before dawn, the women get there first, there’s an angelic explanation of what just happened, and everybody’s freaked out because they weren’t expecting it—even though Jesus totally foretold it.

    The stories are all different because the writers of the gospels aren’t quoting one another anymore. They’re quoting four different people who were there. Tradition claims Mark gets its data from Simon Peter… though if that’s so, why didn’t Peter tell Mark about running to the sepulcher to see for himself? Lk 24.12, Jn 20.3-10 John of course is written by an eyewitness; we don’t know Matthew’s source (and no, it’s not the apostle Matthew; there are two Matthews); and we don’t know Luke’s.

    What we do know is Matthew and Luke chose to go with their independent sources rather than Mark—probably because they figured they had a better account. More details, perhaps. Mark does after all end with the women being told Jesus was risen… then drops the story. Hence other endings were added. Endings which ancient Christians much preferred.

    Abortion, and Christian conservatives.

    by K.W. Leslie, 06 May 2022

    Abortion doesn’t come up in the bible. At all.

    Infanticide does. Many ancient cultures used to strangle or smother a baby after birth. Ex 1.16 Or drown it, either in a nearby river Ex 1.22 or the local bathhouse. The Romans were notorious for exposing their unwanted kids to the elements: If a patriarch didn’t consider their child healthy enough, or simply didn’t want another kid, he could order it to be abandoned in the woods, to die of exposure.

    The scriptures don’t specifically condemn such practices as murder… but neither do they treat ’em as if they’re not murder.

    Miscarriage does come up in the bible. Again, it’s not condemned as murder. But it’s not like the ancients didn’t know how to trigger a miscarriage. There were certain herbal poisons you could take, and a miscarriage would result. Sometimes the mother would die too, but them’s the risks. Since people didn’t care for these risks, what they usually went with was infanticide.

    Now there is a command in the Law which indicates God doesn‘t approve of triggering a miscarriage.

    Exodus 21.22-25 KJV
    22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

    “Her fruit depart” implies a premature birth; “mischief follow” implies the baby is born dead, or dies. So the guy who punched the mother could merit a life-for-life penalty. Unless the judge or her בַּ֣עַל/baál, “master”—her patriarch, meaning her husband, father, brother, father-in-law, or whatever man had the care of her—had mercy, the perpetrator would be executed. Usually by her closest male relative, who was instructed to take vengeance in such cases. Nu 35.19

    Now obviously there are Christians who read this passage differently. They figure “her fruit depart” means of course the child died, and “mischief follow” actually means the woman had complications, which varied. Hence that list of “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” etcetera: These were all the types of “mischief” which might follow. If the man knocked her eye out, he’d have to pay with his own eye. But if the man knocked her fetus out… he’d only have to pay a fine. Because a fetus doesn’t count as a life. And hey, they could always make another.

    So, some Christians are adamant this passage proves a fetus is a baby, and other Christians are adamant this passage proves just the opposite. Which one they go with, largely depends on their abortion politics.

    Because, like I said, the bible is mum on the subject of abortion.

    Not that people don’t try to read abortion into all sorts of verses. And frequently they take the scriptures out of context—because they’re not really interested in what these passages are actually about. They have an ax to grind. They’re entirely sure they’re right, and God has taken their side. True of most political issues, but abortion especially.

    Christians who don’t believe God’s a trinity.

    by K.W. Leslie, 05 May 2022

    God’s a trinity. Jesus is God, his Father is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; yet there’s only one God, an idea which shoulda sunk in after read in the Old Testament about the Hebrews trying to worship multiple gods. Nope, there’s just the One God—and these three are the One God.

    And that’s a hard concept for a lot of people. It’s a paradox, and they simply can’t allow God to be a paradox: God is reasonable, rational, logical. Not impossible. And when we’re trying to explain our belief in God to other people, it’d help a whole lot if he didn’t sound impossible. So they downplay trinity as much as they can… and in some cases, dismiss it altogether. God, they insist, is not a trinity.

    Some of these people happen to consider themselves Christians. Sometimes really good Christians, as opposed to Unitarians who consider Jesus and his teachings to be optional. They actually strive to follow Jesus’s teachings. They just… don’t really care for the trinitarian idea. Lots of them lean more towards modalism, the belief God isn’t three people (or in theologian-speak, “persons”), but has different modes—and sometimes he’s the Spirit, sometimes the Father, sometimes Jesus.

    Problem is, modalism—and any other theory about God which denies the idea of trinity—is inherently flawed. We Christians didn’t just make up the idea of trinity. We found it in the bible. We tried to explain it, couldn’t, and came up with a doctrine which states what little we do know… and likewise what we can’t say trinity is, ’cause it goes too far, and it’d be wrong. God’s not a three-headed, three-bodied, three-pronged being. He’s not a committee of three gods which speak in union, like the Mormons posit. He’s not one guy with three personalities, like someone with dissociative identity disorder whose three alters happen to also be nice guys. He’s not working in three modes.

    These alternative ideas are wrong, and often so wrong it gets in the way of people’s relationship with God. (And may get in the way of their salvation.) That’s why we call ’em heresies.

    Of course people regularly, incorrectly think “heresy” means bad. (Usually ’cause certain cultish heretics are really bad people.) So they’re gonna be offended by my calling them heretics. “I’m no heretic. You are. You’re the heretic. Trying to get people to believe in three gods…” No I’m not; three gods is a heresy too.

    But okay, in the interest of fairness I’ll present their point of view. Generally they stick to five points.

    Levites: A tribe of priests.

    by K.W. Leslie, 04 May 2022

    If you’ve heard of “the 12 tribes of Israel,” I remind you ancient Israel had 13 tribes, not 12. Yet the bible regularly, consistently refers to the 12 tribes, because it’s referring to the tribes which had land, which had territory we could see on a map, designating their borders and landmass. One of the tribes had no such territory. Just cities—which were located without the boundaries of the other tribes. The tribe wasn’t on the map, so it wasn’t listed with the 12.

    This tribe would be Levi, the descendants of Levi ben Israel, Jacob and Leah’s third son. He’s notorious for plotting with his elder brother Simeon to kill a Canaanite who raped their sister… and while they were at it, kill every last man in the rapist’s city. Ge 34 Jacob greatly disapproved of his homicidal sons, and as patriarch he could’ve totally punished them for it, but it seems he did nothing. The only thing he did was “bless” them by prophesying Simeon and Levi (really, their tribes) would be scattered.

    Genesis 49.5-7 NKJV
    5 “Simeon and Levi are brothers;
    Instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place.
    6 Let not my soul enter their council;
    Let not my honor be united to their assembly;
    For in their anger they slew a man,
    And in their self-will they hamstrung an ox.
    7 Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce;
    And their wrath, for it is cruel!
    I will divide them in Jacob
    And scatter them in Israel.”

    Bible doesn’t say anything about them hamstringing an ox, so I can’t speak to that. Maybe it was something they did while murdering Canaanites; maybe it was some sick ’n twisted fun they had as kids—some kids get off on torturing animals, and it’s no surprise when they grow up to be mass murderers. But that’s pure speculation.

    In any event Simeon’s descendants, or tribe, were granted a territory which was wholly surrounded by Judah—and the Simeonites were eventually absorbed into that tribe. As for Levi’s descendants, the Levites (Hebrew לֵוִיִּי/Levyíy, or לֵוִי/Leví for short), they were granted cities, not territory.

    Seems rather harsh to curse Levi’s descendants for their murdery ancestor. But in fact this wasn‘t a curse. The LORD did this to designate Levi’s tribe—yep, the entire tribe—as his priests.

    Israel was God’s chosen people. Levites became the chosen of the chosen. They weren’t to become farmers (well, other than farming their own gardens), nor merchants, nor builders. Instead they were to worship God, maintain the worship sites, carry out God’s rituals, and otherwise help their fellow Israelis follow God. Priesthood, not land, was to be their birthright.

    So whenever we find the word “Levite” in the bible, it’s considered a synonym for priest.

    And of course Christianity has a parallel. Every Christian is likewise a priest.

    “Praying right.”

    by K.W. Leslie, 03 May 2022

    Prayer is, as I’ve said, simply talking with God. But for many Christians, it’s a profound ritual which connects us with the divine… so that we can get stuff from him.

    This is why their focus is so much on effective prayer. On powerful prayer, and how “the power of prayer” can change one’s life. On appeasing God… as if he’s a petty human oligarch who won’t give us what we want unless we suck up to him in just the right ways, and if we get any one part of the ritual wrong, “Whoops! Didn’t do that right. No grace for you.”

    From time to time I get rebuked for “praying wrong.” For not being formal enough, not bowing my head, not closing my eyes, not being solemn enough (or at all; I have no problem making jokes with God), not taking my hat off. I remind you when the LORD first spoke to Moses, he never told him to remove his keffiyeh; only his shoes. Ex 3.5 But y’know, different cultures.

    The idea that we activate prayer through our good works, is of course crap. But popular crap. And because the people who practice this crap will actually get their prayers answered—not because they did the rituals right, but because God is good; it’s correlation not causation—they’re convinced the crap works. You’re never gonna change their minds about it. I’ve tried; I’ve failed.

    Since they are still legitimately talking with God, I figure that’s the important thing. Yeah they’re wasting their own time and effort in trying to talk with him “right,” and they unnecessarily agitate themselves over the rest of us who “boldly approach the throne of grace” He 4.15 i.e. approach God informally, ’cause we can, ’cause he’s Dad. But don’t let them bug you. Talk with God, and don’t fret at all about making sure you’ve prostrated yourself properly. He doesn’t care about that, and we shouldn’t either.

    The long ending of 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘬.

    by K.W. Leslie, 02 May 2022
    Mark 16.9-20 KWL
    9 [Rising at dawn on the first of the week,
    Jesus first appears to Mary the Magdalene,
    out of whom he had thrown seven demons.
    10 Leaving, this woman reports
    to the others who were continuing with Jesus,
    to those mourning and weeping,
    11 and they’re hearing that Jesus lives—
    and was seen by Mary!—and don’t believe it.
    12 After this, as two of them are walking,
    Jesus is revealed in another form, going with them,
    13 and leaving, they report to the rest.
    The rest don’t believe them either.
    14 Later, as the Eleven are reclining at table,
    Jesus appears, and rants against
    their unbelief and hard-heartedness,
    for people had seen him risen up,
    and they don’t believe it.
     
    15 [Jesus told them, “Go into the world
    and proclaim the gospel everywhere to every creature.
    16 Those who believe and are baptized will be saved.
    Those who don’t believe will be judged.
     
    17 [“Miracles will accompany the believers:
    In my name, people will throw out demons.
    People will speak in tongues.
    18 People will pick up snakes in their hands,
    and if anyone drinks poison, it won’t injure them.
    People will lay hands on the sick,
    and they will be well.”
     
    19 [So after Master Jesus’s speech to them,
    he’s raptured into heaven and sits at God’s right.
    20 Leaving, these apostles proclaim everywhere
    about the Master they work with and his message,
    confirming it through the accompanying signs. Amen.]

    This passage—often found in brackets in our bibles—is called the Long Ending of Mark. I already wrote about the Short Ending. Mark wrote neither of these endings. Some eager Christian, unsatisfied with the abrupt way Mark ended—or unhappy with the brevity of the Short Ending—tacked it onto Mark in the 300s or 400s. Speaking as someone who’s translated all of Mark, I can definitely say he doesn’t write like Mark.

    However. Even though Mark didn’t write it, it’s still valid, inspired scripture. Still bible. No, not because of the King James Only folks; they have their own reasons for insisting it’s still bible, namely bibliolatry. Nope; it’s bible because it was in the ancient Christians’ copies of Mark when they determined Mark is bible. It’s bible because it’s confirmed by what Jesus’s apostles did in Acts and afterward. It’s bible because it’s true.

    Those who insist it’s not bible, are usually Christians who insist it’s not true. And like the KJV Only folks, they have their own ulterior motives.