Partisanship is a work of the flesh.

In Paul’s list of works of the flesh in Galatians, one of the words he used is ἐριθεῖαι/epitheíe. The King James Version translates it as “strife;” the ESV went with “rivalries,” and the NIV and NASB with “selfish ambition.” I translate it “partisanship.”

No, I didn’t translate it this way because I wanna rebuke partisanship, and needed a bible verse to back me up. I got it out of Greek dictionaries when I translated this Galatians passage years ago. I’ll quote ’em for you. My Liddell-Scott-Jones lexicon has this:

ἘΡΙ̅ΘΕΊΑ epiθ'eɪ.ɑ noun. Labor for wages. Hesychius, “Lexicography”

2. Canvassing for public office. Intriguing. Aristotle, “Politics.”

3. Selfish or factious ambition. Jm 3.14, Pp 1.17 Intrigues, party squabbles. Ga 5.20

Joseph H. Thayer has this in his lexicon:

eritheias (eritheuō to spin wool, work in wool, Heliodorus 1.5 middle in the same sense; Tb 2.11 used of those who electioneer for office, courting popular applause by trickery and low arts; Aristotle, “Politics” 5.3 the verb is derived from erithos working for hire, a hireling; from the Maced. age down, a spinner or weaver, a worker in wool; Is 38.12 LXX a mean, sordid fellow), electioneering or intriguing for office; Aristotle 5.2-3 hence apparently in the New Testament a courting distinction, a desire to put oneself forward, a partisan and factious spirit which does not disdain low arts; partisanship, factiousness; Jm 3.14, 16, Pp 1.16, 2.3 Ignatius “Philadelphians” 8 equivalent to contending against God. Ro 2.8, 2Co 12.20, Ga 5.20

Lastly a contemporary Greek teacher, William D. Mounce:

the service of a party, party spirit; feud, faction; 2Co 12.20 contentious disposition, selfish ambition; Ga 5.20, Pp 1.17, 2.3, Jm 3.14 by impl. untowardness, disobedience. Ro 2.8, Jm 3.16

The word was originally used to describe weavers. At some point in the past, weavers began to use their guild to influence city politics—and were willing to do anything it took to gain political power. So the word evolved to mean that instead. It means partisanship.

Galatians 5.19-21 KWL

19 Fleshly works are obvious in anyone who practices the following:

Promiscuity. Uncleanness. Unethical behavior.

20 Idolatry. Addiction. Hatred. Rabble-rousing.

Too much zeal. Anger. Partisanship. Separatism. Heresy.

21 Envy. Intoxication. Constant partying.

And other people like these.

I warn you of them just like I warned you before:

Those who do such things won’t inherit God’s kingdom.

Of course partisans are gonna seriously be in denial about this. Which is why they tell me, “It only says partisanship because you made it say that,” and point to other translations they like much better. Translations which imply it’s totally okay for them to be partisan!

Okay… but in those other translations it says “strife,” “rivalries,” and “selfish ambition.” Don’t partisans regularly do that stuff too?

Wanna feel the Holy Spirit? Crank up the bass.

Wanna feel the Holy Spirit? Crank up the bass.

I joke all the time about this with the people in my church: If you want people to really feel like the Holy Spirit is in the building, get on the soundboard and make sure the bass guitar, the bass drum, and all the lower notes on the keyboard, are cranked all the way up to 11. Conversely if you want ’em to feel like he’s missing, you do the opposite and turn all of ’em off.

It’s one of those jokes which is funny because it’s true. If you actually did this, it’s actually how people would respond. The higher the bass, the more people “felt” the Spirit move. Turn it all the way down and you’ll get, “I don’t know what was wrong this morning, but I wasn’t really feeling the Spirit today.”

’Cause bass causes stuff in the building to vibrate. Including people. Most of us know this already… but we never really think about how else it affects us.

Go to any movie theater and you know they make darned sure there are subwoofers under the floor, and they’re cranked all the way up. They want you to feel every crash, bang, gunshot, and explosion in that movie. Low sound waves shake your innards, and turn a spectacle into an experience.

Same with dance clubs. Same with concerts. People weep at concerts. Same as they’ll weep at worship services. It doesn’t always register how this is the physical effect of soundwaves, and how our brains have connected the sensation to our emotions, so it triggers us. All we know is we feel.

So when people don’t know there’s a difference between spirit and emotion (or even when we’re totally aware of this fact, but we’ve never bothered to discern which is which), we’ll assume the feelings are the Spirit at work. Especially when it feels really good.

Conversely, when “my spirit is downcast,” we’re still talking about emotions and sensations. Not anything the Spirit is actually doing—and he’s usually doing quite a lot! But because we don’t feel something positive, we presume he must be absent.

This isn’t a uniquely Christian thing. Most people don’t know the difference between spirit and emotion. Most people don’t think there is any difference. Pagans in particular, but I’ve caught even mature Christians making this mistake as well. I know better, and even I slip up sometimes. I’ve yet to meet a Christian who hasn’t.

Pan-millennialists: “It’ll all pan out in the End.”

My seminary offered an End Times class in the school catalog, and I was really interested in taking it—for the obvious reason that I wanted to understand the End Times apocalypses better.

But in the three years I spent there, none of the professors ever bothered to teach it. Which I get: Years later I taught a Sunday school class on Revelation, and good Lord it was like herding cats. Nobody wanted to study the text! They just wanted to spout theories about the End—specifically their favorites, and most of ’em had grown up reading Hal Lindsey stuff, so they subscribed to his particular strand of Darbyism. I ended the class after we finally got through Jesus’s letters to the seven churches; I was so tired of listening to the small group’s members picking apart current events looking for omens.

Hey, End Times stuff provokes people! Especially fearful people, who are terrified the great tribulation is gonna be activated by their political opponents, and force ’em into hiding; they don’t all fully trust that Jesus will rapture them before tribulation starts. (Nor should they.) So they study End Times stuff so they can be prepared for every eventuality. Knowledge is power, right?

And then there are the people who don’t wanna study this stuff. Who roll their eyes every time End Times passages get quoted or referenced or alluded to. Who intentionally skip church services when they find out the preacher’s gonna talk about Revelation or the back half of Daniel. Who think Hal Lindsey’s a fearmongering charlatan, and not just because Hal Lindsey’s a fearmongering charlatan.

Ask these people whether the age is gonna end and Jesus is gonna return, and for the most part they’re gonna say yes. Because they’re not heretics; they do believe Jesus is returning for the living and the dead, exactly like the creeds say. It’s just… whenever we discuss the End Times, it just sucks. The fearful Christians take over the discussion, exactly like they took over my Revelation class, and suck all the joy and hope and grace out of it with their twisted revenge fantasies.

So what do these people believe about the End? That God’s in control. So it’ll all pan out. More than one of them have jokingly told me they’re “pan-millennialists” for this reason. It’ll happen however it happens. Till it does, they’re not gonna fret about it.

Some of ’em like to quote Jesus on the subject:

Acts 1.6-7 NASB

6 So, when they had come together, they began asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time that You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” 7 But He said to them, “It is not for you to know periods of time or appointed times which the Father has set by His own authority…”

Jesus’s apostles figured Jesus had returned from the dead… so now it’s time for the End, right? Messiah would free Israel from the Romans and take over the world, and it’d be the millennium, right? And Jesus’s response was, “You don’t need to know when that’ll happen,” then get raptured. Ac 1.9 He’ll come back, Ac 1.11 but still: You don’t need to know when that’ll happen.

So these folks don’t worry about it. The End will come when God decides it’s time. The End will unfold however God decides it’ll unfold. We don’t need to panic, worry, agitate, or flinch at “signs of the times.” We just need to keep following Jesus.

Heavens!

HEAVEN 'hɛ.vən noun. The dwelling place of God, his angels, and debatably good humans after they die. Traditionally depicted as above the sky.

2. A euphemism for God himself. [“Sin displeases heaven.”]

3. The sky, perceived as a vault containing the sun, moon, planets, and stars.

4. A place of bliss. [“This is heaven!”]

5. Short for the kingdom of heaven, i.e. God’s kingdom.

6. The state of being in God’s presence, namely after death.

[Heavenly 'hɛv.ən.li adjective.]

As you can see, there are multiple definitions of our word “heaven.” But when Christians talk about heaven, we mean the dwelling place of God. Right?

Not really. In fact not usually.

In my experience, when Christians talk about heaven, we’re actually talking about the kingdom of heaven. In other words, God’s kingdom. Which is meant to happen here on earth. We Christians are supposed to be already living like it’s here—and when Jesus returns, he’ll fully set it up and run it. But too often Christians act like this kingdom does not happen on earth, and never will: It’ll happen in heaven. In the future. After we die. When we do stuff in heaven, “heaven” is always way later. Or we describe the stuff we’ll be doing in New Jerusalem… which is actually in New Heaven, which is not even the same heaven the scriptures typically mean.

I listed six definitions of heaven. No, I’m not gonna therefore say there are six heavens, like C.S. Lewis did when he wrote about four loves. There are likely more definitions of heaven than even that.

But there are Christians who claim there are multiple heavens. Not just the current heaven, and the New Heaven of Revelation 21. There’s the seven heavens of Dante Alighieri’s Paradisio, the 10 heavens of the Pharisees, and the three heavens which you’ll hear Evangelicals talk about ’cause they’ve neither read Paradisio nor 1 Enoch.

Confused yet? Maybe a little. Hope not. Let’s start with the bible’s descriptions of the heavens.

The Dives and Lazarus Story.

Luke 16.19-31.

This story is often called the Story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, or Lazarus and the Rich Man, depending on who oughta come first. Since it’s actually not about Lazarus, stands to reason the rich man should come first. Traditionally this man’s been called Dives (usually pronounced 'daɪ.viz instead of like the verb) ’cause that’s what he’s called in verse 19 in the Vulgate; dives is Latin for “rich.” So I’m gonna call him Dives; it saves time.

Every once in a while some literalist insists this story is not a parable. This is the only story where Jesus refers to someone by name—so they figure this must mean something, and claim Jesus is straight-up talking about a real-life guy named Lazarus, who lived in first-century Israel. Some of ’em even claim the Lazarus of this story is Lazarus of Bethany, Jesus’s personal friend whom he later raised from the dead, Jn 11.1-44 and this is how Lazarus died. Which makes no sense, because Lazarus’s family asked Jesus to come cure him; they didn’t just dump Lazarus at Dives’s door, hoping this idle rich guy might uncharacteristically do something charitable.

On the other extreme, we have people who insist this story is pure fiction. Primarily because they have very different beliefs about afterlife. Jesus, they insist, is not accurately describing what happens when people die. We go to heaven. Or hell. Some insist we’re immediately resurrected and live in New Jerusalem from now on; others claim we live in some glorified spiritual form while we await the Resurrection. Hindus and Buddhists believe we get reincarnated, and of course pagans and Mormons believe we become angels.

In some cases, the Christians who insist Jesus isn’t accurately describing afterlife are dispensationalists who believe this used to be the way afterlife worked—maybe—but not anymore. There’s a popular Christian myth called “the harrowing of hell,” which says before Jesus died to atone for our sins, God saved nobody by his grace—therefore nobody but the most saintly people ever, like Job or Abraham (and here, Lazarus), could make it to paradise. Nobody had the karma! So they were forced to wait in hell till Jesus died. Once he died, Jesus went to hell, same as them… but with keys! He unlocked the gates, stepped on gatekeeper devil Belial’s neck, freed all the Old Testament saints, and took ’em with him to heaven. And now, nobody experiences anything like Jesus describes in this story. Christians go to heaven.

Considering that God isn’t limited by time whatsoever, it makes no sense that he can’t apply Jesus’s then-future atonement to the sins of the people who existed before Jesus. In fact there’s every indication he did: Their sins, which were many, never hindered him with instigating relationships with them!

Nah, both the literalists and the myth-believers have it wrong. This story is a parable. Lazarus isn’t a literal guy. But this is, loosely, what the afterlife looks like. Then, and now. And it’s meant as a warning to those of us who are wealthy, but don’t bother to use our wealth to further God’s kingdom. If all we care about is our own comfort, we may not experience any such comfort in the afterlife. Billionaires beware.

Luke 16.19-31 KWL

19 “Somebody is wealthy.

He’s wearing purple and white linen, partying daily, in luxury.

20 Some pauper named Lazarus was thrown out by the plutocrat’s gate,

covered in open sores,

21 desiring to be fed with whatever fell from the plutocrat’s table,

but the dogs which came are licking his sores.

22 The pauper comes to die,

to be carried off by the angels to Abraham’s fold.

The plutocrat also dies and is entombed.

23 In the afterlife, the plutocrat lifts up his eyes—

he’s getting tortured in the pit—

and sees Abraham far away,

and Lazarus in his folds.

24 Calling out, the plutocrat says, ‘Father Abraham!

Have mercy on me and send Lazarus,

so he might dip his fingertip in water, and might cool my tongue,

because I suffer great pain in these flames!’

25 Abraham says, ‘Child, remember:

You received your good things in your life,

and Lazarus likewise received evil.

Now, here, he is assisted—

and you suffer.

26 In all this space between us and you, a large gap was fixed

so those who want to come to you from here, can’t.

Nor can they pass from there to us.’

27 The plutocrat says, ‘Then I ask you, father,

might you send Lazarus to my father’s house?

28 For I have five siblings—so Lazarus might urge them,

lest they also come to this place in the pit.’

29 Abraham says, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets. Heed them.’

30 The plutocrat says, ‘No, father Abraham!

But if anyone comes back from the dead to them, they’ll repent!’

31 Abraham tells him, ‘If they don’t heed Moses and the Prophets,

neither will they be convinced when someone rises from the dead.’ ”

Jesus forgives, then cures, a paraplegic.

Mark 2.1-12, Matthew 9.1-8, Luke 5.17-26.

The story of Jesus curing the paraplegic lowered down through the roof, is one of the more famous stories in the gospels. Partly because the paraplegic’s companions were so eager to get him cured, so believed Jesus could cure him, they committed serious property damage. And partly because Jesus’s first act wasn’t to cure him—it was to forgive him.

That second thing is why bible scholars call this story a controversy pericope, which is a fancy way of saying it’s a story which provokes debate about who Jesus really is. Not among us Christians; we already know he’s God. Jn 1.14 But among Pharisees, Jesus’s fellow Galileans, and his new followers—who didn’t know this yet, and it’s because of these stories they figured it out. Jesus isn’t just a guru, just a prophet, just our king; he’s God-become-human.

But because people couldn’t fathom God becoming human (and a lot of people still can’t!), Jesus steps on a lot of toes. Pagans and heretics still try to explain his divinity away by claiming we Christians misunderstand him, and claim he’s God when he’s only a really enlightened human… or saying we’re all kinda God and Jesus is just better at it than average; or saying he’s a lesser god but not the God. Closed-minded folks firmly embrace any interpretation of Jesus which doesn’t offend them any, and we outrage them by showing them where the bible pokes holes in these wrong ideas. (Welcome to my world.)

Well. This story takes place in Mark and Luke right after Jesus cures a “leper,” and in Matthew after Jesus visits the Dekapolis and kicks 2,000 demons out of some guy. Various gospel synopses like to link this story up with a different paraplegic Jesus cured at a pool. But that happens in Jerusalem; this happens in Jesus’s home base of Capharnaum.

The gospels don’t say whose house it is, and a lot of Christians like to speculate it’s Simon Peter’s—for no good reason. Most likely it’s Jesus’s house. Yes, Jesus’s. People assume he had no house, ’cause he elsewhere says the Son of Man “had no place to lay his head,” Lk 9.58 but that’s because he traveled. When he wasn’t traveling, when he stayed in Capharnaum, he lived somewhere. Likely with family. James and John were Jesus’s first cousins, so likely he lived in their family home.

Who, I’m sure, were initially startled to find their home overrun with Jesus’s followers. Then horrified when a bunch of guys decided to bust through the roof and drop a paraplegic on ’em.