Misreading and mistreating those who mourn.

Job 4–5

After Job suffered the tremendous disaster of having his children, employees, and livestock all killed in one day, three of his friends came and sat shiva with him. Jb 2.11-13 For a week they said nothing.

Then Job vented for a chapter.“Wish I’d never been born; Jb 3.3 why didn’t I die at birth; Jb 3.11 I wish I were dead.” Jb 3.20-22 The usual stuff people say when they’ve suffered an earth-shattering loss, particularly when loved ones die. Stuff we’re supposed to listen to, sympathize with… and watch these people in case they actually try to act upon any of it. (Half the time they’re all talk, but sometimes they’re not, so it’s best to err on the side of caution.)

But you know how humans are: We try to fix one another. We don’t leave it in the hands of professionals, who know how to guide people to make good choices. We tell ’em, “You know what you oughta do,” and tell them so. Or worse, we try to do it for them.

So in Job, here’s where all the bad advice begins. The first to talk was Job’s friend Elifáz of Teyman (KJV “Eliphaz the Temanite”). Therefore he’s gonna get picked on first. It is, as the LORD told Elifáz at the end of the book, wholly inaccurate information about the LORD. Jb 42.7 Yet I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard my fellow Christians proclaim all same foolish things. It’s like they never even read this book… well, beyond the first chapters and the happy ending.

Job 4.1-6 KWL

1 Elifáz of Teyman replied. He said:

2 “Are you too weary for anyone to prove a thing to you?

Who’s able to stifle your sayings?

3 Look, you’ve strengthened many, and made weak hands strong.

4 Your sayings upheld the stumbling and strengthened bent knees.

5 But now this comes to you, and you’re ‘weary.’ It smites you and you panic.

6 Wasn’t your fear of God overconfidence? Your path of integrity your hope?”

There y’go, Elifáz. Start smacking him while he’s down.

Before this disaster, Job was a great man, a wise man, full of good advice, ready to help people when they were in need. Then disaster struck, and he understandably fell to pieces. “So where’s your God now? Where’s your faith? Did you even have faith before?”

Okay. In the Christian life, sometimes we’re gonna go through crises of faith. Which is totally normal: When we don’t know any better, we mistakenly put our faith in the wrong things. Rituals instead of relationship, things instead of people, feel-good ideas instead of truth, “I now know best” instead of “I’m wrong but Jesus is right,” putting people on pedestals where they don’t belong, declaring doctrines non-negotiable when they totally are, and conversely prioritizing favorite attitudes over the real non-negotiables.

In order to set us right, sometimes the Holy Spirit has to smash these idols. Which will really discombobulate us. We thought God gave these things to us, or wanted us to believe or have them, or would never interfere with such things… and how mean it was of him to take ’em away. Like pouty children, sometimes we even don’t care to talk to our Father for a good long time afterwards.

But this wasn’t at all what Job was doing.

Job hadn’t made an idol of his kids, employees, and livestock. He didn’t turn on God; he’d made a big point of saying such behavior was stupid. Jb 2.9-10 Job had integrity: He didn’t follow God only when times were good. We get like that. We love him when we’re prosperous, but when times get rough we’re no longer sure he’s around—or if he even exists. Job wasn’t going through any such crisis of faith. But Elifáz’s words suggest that’s what he assumed was happening. He totally misread the situation.

Get hold, and get rid, of your anger.

James 1.19-21.

God is stable. Jm 1.16-18 He’s not prone to wild mood swings, nor does he have some secret evil plan where he tricks us into sin Jm 1.12-15 as an excuse to smite us—which he conceals beneath a veneer of goodness. God’s no hypocrite.

And, as is appropriate for God’s followers, we shouldn’t be that way either. Ordinarily humans are creatures of extremes. Our emotions tend to be wild, crazy, out of control… or totally repressed. If we’re the overemotional sort, we point to the emotionless sort as totally wrong, and vice-versa. The repressed person objects to emotions as wildly inappropriate, and emotional people as possible candidates for heavy medication. The out-of-control person objects to emotionless people as unhealthy and stunted, and at some point they’re gonna snap and need some of that heavy medication themselves.

But the fruit of the Spirit is prahýtis/“gentility,” or gentleness—the ability to keep control over our emotions. A Spirit-following Christian doesn’t fly off the handle at every little thing, in wrath and fury. Nor do we feel nothing… including love, joy, and compassion. The Spirit helps us keep a grip on our feelings.

But of course, Christians pretend our rage is righteous anger, or even that it’s all God’s idea. We even try to make it sound like fruit. James objected to the idea in this passage:

James 1.19-21 KWL

19 Know this, my beloved fellow Christians: Be quick to listen, everybody. Slow to speak, slow to anger.

20 Men’s anger doesn’t empower God’s rightness.

21 So gently get rid of every filthy thing, every evil advantage.

Pick up the message which is implanted with the power to save your souls.

General revelation: How to (wrongly) deduce God from nature.

GENERAL REVELATION 'dʒɛn(.ə).rəl rɛv.ə'leɪ.ʃən noun. The universal, natural knowledge about God and divine matters. (Also called universal revelation, or natural revelation.)

2. What the universe, nature, or the human psyche reveal to us about God.

A number of Christian apologists love, love, LOVE the idea of general revelation. And I always wind up on their bad side, because as a theologian I have to point out it’s a wholly unreliable form of revelation. It’s so useless it actually does pagans more good than Christians.

This, they really don’t wanna hear. Because they’ve pinned so many hopes on it.

Y’see, apologists deal with nontheists, people who don’t believe in God and are pretty sure he’s never interacted with them before. What apologists try to do is prove God has so interacted with them before. If the nontheist can’t remember any such events, the apologist will try to point to nature and claim, “See, that’s a way God interacted with you!” God made a really impressive sunset, or God not-all-that-supernaturally cured ’em of a disease, or God created one of their kids, or they had a warm fuzzy feeling which kinda felt divine.

Or, if we’ve got a more philosophically-minded apologist, they’ll try to argue that certain beliefs in a westerner’s brain can’t really work unless there’s a God-idea somewhere deep in that brain. Absolutes of right and wrong supposedly can’t exist unless there’s an absolute authority like God to define ’em. Or an unfulfilled desire for a higher power has to be based on an actual Higher Power out there somewhere.

Apologists like to regularly tap the idea of general revelation, and bounce from there to the idea of special revelation—that God actually does tell us stuff about himself, and particularly did so through Jesus.

Me, I figure all this general revelation stuff is quicksand. That’s why I like to leapfrog it and get straight to Jesus. Apologists waste way too much time trying to prove God exists by pointing to nature, reasoning, and the human conscience. But while they’re busy unsuccessfully trying to sway a skeptic, we could’ve just prophesied, proving there’s such a thing as special revelation… and now we’re talking about Jesus while the apologist is still trying to explain why intelligent design isn’t merely wishful thinking.

Why is general revelation quicksand? Because we’re looking at creation, trying to deduce God from it. We’ve began with the assumption creation sorta resembles its creator; that it has his fingerprints all over it, so when we know what it’s like, we can sorta figure out what God’s like.

So look at the people God created, and the way we think and reason. Look at the intelligence which had to go into some of the more complex things and beings in the universe. Look at the attention to detail, the intricacy, the mathematical and scientific precision, the way everything all neatly fits together. Tells you all sorts of profound things about the creator, doesn’t it?

Well, actually, no it doesn’t.

Jesus sentenced to death by the Senate.

Mark 14.61-64 • Matthew 26.63-66 • Luke 22.67-71

I’m discussing the three synoptic gospels because if you read John, the way it’s worded makes it sorta look like Jesus didn’t even have a trial before the Judean Senate. First Jesus went to the former head priest Annas’s house, Jn 18.13, 19-23 then he went to the current head priest Caiaphas’s house, Jn 18.24, 28 then he went to Pilate’s headquarters Jn 18.28 with the death penalty already in mind. Now, it may have been that in between stops at Caiaphas’s house they went to trial, but John neither says nor suggests so. John was probably written to fill in some blanks in Jesus’s story, but every once in a while like this, it creates whole new blanks.

Anyway, back to the synoptics. My previous piece was about Jesus testifying about himself. Today it’s what Jesus was guilty of, and why they sentenced him to death.

Mark 14.61-64 KWL 61B Again, the head priest questioned him, telling him, “You’re Messiah, the ‘son of the Blessed’?” 62 Jesus said, “I am. You’ll see the Son of Man— seating himself at the right of God’s power, coming with heaven’s clouds.” 63 Tearing his tunic, the head priest said, “Who still needs to have witnesses? 64 You heard the slander. How’s it look to you?” Everyone sentenced Jesus guilty, and to be put to death.

Matthew 26.63-66 KWL 63B The head priest told him, “I put you under oath to the living God so you’d tell us: Are you Messiah, the ‘son of God’?” 64 Jesus said, “As you say, but I tell you: From this moment you’ll see the Son of Man— seating himself at the right of God’s power, coming with heaven’s clouds.” 65 Then the head priest ripped his robe, saying, “Jesus slandered God.” Who still needs to have witnesses? Now look! You heard the slander. 66 What do you think?” In reply they said, “Jesus is guilty and deserves death.”

Luke 22.67-71 KWL 67B They were saying, “If you’re Messiah, tell us.” Jesus told them, “When I told you, you wouldn’t believe. 68 When I questioned you, you wouldn’t answer. 69 From now on, the Son of Man will be seating himself at the right of God’s power.” 70 Everyone said, “So you’re the ‘son of God’?” Jesus declared, “I’m as you say.” 71 They said, “Why do we still need to have witnesses?— We heard it ourselves from Jesus’s lips.”

As Mark and Matthew make obvious, Caiaphas was absolutely sure the whole room just heard Jesus commit slander. Mk 14.64, Mt 26.65 Luke only indicates the stuff Jesus said was illegal in some way. Lk 22.71

Problem is, whenever I tell this story to Christians, the idea of what Jesus might’ve done wrong goes right over their heads. They figure, as we do, that Jesus never did anything wrong. Never sinned. 2Co 5.21, He 4.15, 1Pe 2.22, 1Jn 3.5 Therefore any verdict which convicted Jesus of sin was wrong. Which is absolutely right. But they think the wrong verdict wasn’t because the Judeans had misinterpreted the Law, or misunderstood who Jesus was: They think this was a kangaroo court, trying to get Jesus by hook or by crook—by legal trickery, or by breaking the Law themselves. And many a preacher claims exactly that: The priests broke all the Talmud’s rules about how courts were to be held… and never mind the fact the Talmud wouldn’t yet be written for centuries. Really, they’ll accept any evidence this was a sham trial.

But other times it’s because Christians believe the Judean Senate was the old dispensation, and Jesus is the new dispensation, so they were trying him by an out-of-date Law. As dispensationalists they believe Jesus broke the Law all the time. On Sabbath, fr’instance. But thanks to the new dispensation, these acts of willful defiance towards God’s Law no longer counted. Freedom in Christ, baby!—Jesus could’ve straight-up murdered and robbed people had he chose (although they’ve got various explanations why the Ten Commandments, despite being the very heart of the old covenant, still apply somehow). The Senate weren’t aware God was no longer saving them under the old rules anymore, and executed Jesus anyway.

Fact is, Jesus’s trial was perfectly legal under existing law. They got him on slander. Had it been any other person in the universe who said what Jesus did, it totally would be slander. Had the Senate believed Jesus is as he says, they’d have correctly set him free. They didn’t, so they didn’t. So it was a miscarriage of justice. Wrong verdict.

Jesus testifies about (or against) himself.

Mark 14.60-64 • Matthew 26.62-66 • Luke 22.67-71

Messiah means king.

Christians forget this, because to us, Messiah means Jesus. So when the ancient Judeans wanted to know if Jesus was Messiah, to our minds their question was, “Are you the guy the Prophets said was coming to save the world and take us to heaven?” and there are so many things wrong with that statement. One of ’em being that’s not what anybody in the first century meant.

If you know your American (or British) history, you’ll remember a tory is someone who prefers the status quo, and a whig is someone who really doesn’t. (I’m not gonna use “liberal” and “conservative,” ’cause the United States is such a mess, everybody’s a whig.) Regardless of how you like or hate the status quo, “Messiah” means one of two things:

Tory: You’re a traitor. ’Cause the Romans and Judean senate are in charge, and you’re here to overthrow ’em, and we can’t have that.

Whig: You’re a revolutionary. (So… whom do you want us to kill? Lk 22.49)

This is why Jesus, though he totally admitted he’s Messiah, didn’t just stupidly walk around Israel telling everybody he was their king. Instead he told ’em what his kingdom looks like. Tories may still hate and fear it, and whigs may (and do) entirely disagree with Jesus about the sort of fixes to make on society. But if they really listen to Jesus’s teachings about the kingdom, they’ll know what Jesus means by “Messiah”—as opposed to what popular culture, including Christian popular culture, claims.

To Joseph Caiaphas, the tory head priest who ran the Judean senate in the year 33, it didn’t matter what Jesus taught about his kingdom. Caiaphas’s whole deal was if Jesus in any way claimed to be king, that was treason. Only the Romans could appoint a king—and in the absence of a king, the title functionally fell to Rome’s emperor, Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti filius Augustus. Jn 19.15 Appointing yourself king without Caesar’s authorization: Big big trouble. Jn 19.12 Which is precisely what Caiaphas wanted Jesus to get himself into. The Romans would kill him for it, and no more Jesus problem.

So after a couple hours of a shambles of a prosecution, Caiaphas put a stop to all that and got to brass tacks.

The poor you will always have with you. So screw ’em.

Matthew 26.11.

It’s kinda obvious when people quote the following verse out of context: They always drop the second part of the sentence. ’Cause the context is found in that part.

Matthew 26.11 KJV

For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.

Although I have often heard plenty of Christianists quote this verse in its entirety, just to make it look like they’re quoting it in context… then quickly say, “And the part I wanna focus on are those words ‘Ye have the poor always with you,’ and never mention the other clause again. It’ll only get in their way.

The point they wanna make with it? They wanna justify doing nothing for the poor.

Because there are poor people in the world. Somebody wants to help them. Give to them. Create jobs for them. Create charities to help them. Create social programs to take care of them. Enlist their aid, whether through private donations or tax dollars… and they don’t wanna help.

Now how does a Christian, the recipient of God’s infinite grace, who’s been warned by Jesus to not be stingy towards others because of how much grace we’ve been given, Mt 18.21-35 justify refusing the needy? Simple: This out-of-context verse. “Jesus said, ‘Ye have the poor always with you.’ This means we’re never gonna successfully get rid of poverty. There are always gonna be needy people. It’s a fool’s errand to fight it. Do you believe Jesus or don’t you?”

Oho, so it’s a matter of whether we believe Jesus, is it?

As if Jesus’s words were meant to condemn the poor to stay in their caste and never leave it. Because wealth must be some kind of signifier as to whether God deems them worthy, deserving, or righteous. Some lazy people sorta need to stuffer from poverty. Hence they’ve been perpetually condemned with it. And don’t you do anything for ’em. They gotta learn to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps; you’ll teach ’em to be dependent on you and they’ll never stop begging you for help; they’ll interpret your generosity as weakness and take you for granted; they’ll drain the fruits of your labor and give nothing back, like parasites. “If you give a mouse a cookie” and all that.

I don’t need to go on. You can get more of that hateful thinking from any Ayn Rand novel. Certainly not from Christ Jesus.

Christianism’s usual idols.

Christianism is a socially-acceptable outward form of Christianity. Whether there’s any actual Christianity underneath it, isn’t for me to say. Sometimes there’s a real live relationship with Jesus, an actual indwelling of the Holy Spirit, resulting in some of his fruit, mixed in there somewhere. But the reason I still call it Christianism is ’cause there are glaring errors in the religion. Way too much fake fruit. Way too many compromises with the gospel.

Compromises, I should add, made for the sake of accommodating other gods. Christianism creates a façade of Christianity, but underneath it there are a lot of other religious practices which don’t follow Jesus much. They support other ideas. They seek other powers. They promote other movements. And if Jesus teaches otherwise, they mute him, reinterpret him, or ignore him, in favor of those less-than-Christian goals.

In a word, it’s idolatry. And since it’s everywhere, and plenty of other “good Christians” believe and practice the very same thing, Christianists assume it’s part of Christianity, and never ask themselves what the Spirit really wants ’em to do. Even when he’s given them serious doubts about popular Christian culture: They suppress those doubts and embrace the culture. They feel very pleased with themselves for turning off their brains, figuring that’s what God expects us to do when we “love the Lord your God with all your mind.” Mk 12.30 Makes ’em righteous Christians.

This resistance kinda exacerbates the problem. Because the Spirit is shouting so loud, in order to quench him Christianists try to keep themselves too busy to listen. They focus on public displays of piety. They pray and meditate less often, and when they pray in public, it’s always at God or towards God, never with God. (Lots of ’em aren’t sure he talks back anyway.) They claim the Spirit illuminates what the scriptures mean when they read their bibles, but in reality they look for meaning in their study bible notes, or in their favorite preachers and books.

If you don’t listen to God, of course there’s gonna be way less fruit. Less repentance, change of heart, internal struggle against sin, or pursuit of holiness. Less worship.

And more idolatry.

Idols: Prioritize nothing ahead of God.

What happens when worship goes anywhere but towards the Almighty.

Idol /'aɪ.dl/ n. Image or representation of a [false] god, used to worship it.

2. Person or thing that’s greatly loved, revered, or worshiped.

[Idolatry /aɪ'dɑl.ə.tri/ n., idolater /aɪ'dɑl.ə.dər/ n.]

It’s often said humans were created to worship. It’s something humans do instinctively; so much so, most people on the planet believe in a god of some form. Thus if we’re not worshiping YHWH/“Jehovah”/“the LORD,” the one true God, we’re just gonna latch ourselves to some other god, or something else, and worship that.

Might be a spouse, parent, child, friend, or some other loved one. Might be a pop star. Or a position in business or government. Or power. Wealth. The pursuit of the perfect high, whether from drugs or sex or adrenaline. The pursuit of a comfortable existence. Some possession or hobby or philosophy you intend to devote all your time and life to. You name it, you can make an idol of it.

Anything we prioritize above God, or pursue instead of God, is an idol.

Now yeah, this is a relatively recent definition of “idol.” It’s not the definition we see in the bible. The authors of the scriptures definitely meant the statues of pagan gods. The LORD banned them, you recall. (Arguably he banned people from making them of himself too, which is why throughout Christian history, different movements keep trying to get rid of Jesus statues and paintings.)

Exodus 20.3-6 = Deuteronomy 5.7-10 KWL

3=7 “For you, there mustn’t be any other gods in my presence.

4=8 Don’t manufacture any idol for yourself;

any form from the skies above, from the land below, from the water below the land.”

5=9 Don’t bow down to them. Don’t serve them.

For I’m your LORD God: I’m El-Qanná/‘Possessive God.’

I have children suffer consequences for their parents’ evil

—and the grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—when they hate me.

6=10 But I show love to a thousand generations

when they love me and observe my commands.”

The problem with limiting the definition of “idol” to paintings and statues, are kinda obvious:

Not every god has a statue. Ancient middle easterners made loads of statues of their gods. Most cultures do. But some cultures don’t: They recognize their gods as too holy to be depicted by inadequate human art. Pharaoh Akhenaten, fr’instance, ordered the Egyptians to only depict his god Aten as a circle. So not every organized religion is gonna have a god-statue. And if all we do is get rid of statues, yet do nothing about the problematic underlying beliefs, we’ve really done nothing.

Certainly not every disorganized religion has a god-statue. Wealth-worshipers don’t set up a shrine to Mammon in their homes; nor even their summer homes. But they’re as devout a worshiper as any adherent of any other religion. It’s just when they’re Christian, they don’t always realize all the compromises they’ve made to the gospel in favor of their stuff. Or they may totally recognize their devotion, but would never call it “worship.” (Even if it is; too crass.)

Um… we have statues. Every so often some Christian will read Deuteronomy 5.8 and say, “Wait, I have images of Jesus round the house.” There’s the crucifix on the wall. Ikons in the office. In the rec room there’s a kitschy figurine of Jesus playing soccer with neighborhood kids. Christian art is everywhere; doesn’t it violate God’s command?

Sanctus.

A really old, really popular rote prayer.

The name Sanctus comes from the first word of the Latin translation of this prayer.
Musical bonus: A song by a friend of mine, James Thomas La Brie. Big instrumental first part; and of course his version of the Sanctus in the “Hosanna in the Highest” part. YouTube The first three lines come from Isaiah 6.3, where the serafs are shouting in praise of the LORD; the last three come from Matthew 21.9, where the people shout in praise as Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey.

Holy holy holy Lord

God of power and might

Heaven and earth are full of your glory

Hosanna in the highest

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord

Hosanna in the highest

The form comes from St. John Chrysostom. Earlier English translations, as are found in the Book of Common Prayer, have for the second line, “God of Sabaoth.” The Roman Missal has “God of hosts.” These are all translations of the Hebrew YHWH Chavaót/“LORD of vast numbers,” and Christians have variously translated chavaót as hosts, armies, “power and might,” troops, “angel armies” if you’re gonna make assumptions about what his armies consist of (and why can’t God mobilize his billions of human followers?), or “Sabaoth” if you don’t care to translate it. Me, I tend to go with “LORD of War,” because whenever YHWH Chavaót appears in the bible, the author usually expects God to kick some ass.

Many of these ancient prayers have of course been set to music. That’s the way most Protestants know of them: When I first wrote about the Sanctus years ago, one of the more common responses I got was, “I thought this was a worship song.” Well it is. But first it was a rote prayer. Musicians rediscover rote prayers all the time, and set ’em to music. If they don’t rhyme, chances are they began their existence as a prayer.

And like many a rote prayer, we can use this prayer to help us meditate. You wanna get your mind off the things around you, and concentrate on God? You tap those rote prayers. Repeat them to yourself, focus on the words, focus on the Lord, and praise him.

Jesus getting abused by his guards.

Mark 14.65 • Matthew 26.67-68 • Luke 22.63-65 • John 18.22-23

I’d already mentioned Jesus getting slapped by one of his guards:

John 18.22-23 KWL

22 Once he said these things, one of the bystanding underlings gave Jesus a slap,

saying, “You answer the head priest this way?”

23 Jesus answered him, “If I speak evil, testify about the evil. If I speak good, why rough me up?”

The other gospels likewise tell of how the people in charge of him began to abuse him. In Mark it was after he’d been found guilty. But in both Matthew and Luke, it was before his actual trial before the Judean senate. They didn’t care to wait for a trial; they’d already judged him guilty themselves.

Mark 14.65 KWL Certain people began to spit on Jesus; to cover his face and punch him, to tell him, “Prophesy! Which underling gave that punch?”

Matthew 26.67-68 KWL 67 Then they spat in Jesus’s face and punched him. Those who hit him 68 were saying, “Prophesy to us, Messiah: Which of us hit you?”

Luke 22.63-65 KWL 63 The men surrounding Jesus mocked him, roughing him up 64 and covering Jesus’s face, saying, “Prophesy: Which of us hit you?” 65 Many other slanderers said such things to Jesus.

This sort of behavior offends many people nowadays. Irritatingly, not all.

Our laws have declared prisoner abuse illegal. Rightly so. Even when a person is guilty, we’re not to punish ’em in ways they’ve not been properly sentenced to. The judge sentences a person to five years, and that person should determine community service or prison, hard labor or solitary confinement. Not the sheriff, nor the warden. Separation of powers, y’know.

Of course there are a number of people who take a lot of perverse glee in the idea of convicts experiencing worse in prison. Jokes about prison rape are a little too commonplace, considering this is a crime that needs to be exterminated. But some people love the idea of murderers and rapists experiencing especially rough treatment in prison. Serves ’em right, they figure. Thing is, violence doesn’t discriminate. Someone incarcerated for fraud or theft can be attacked, same as someone in prison for lesser crimes. People won’t make rape jokes when it’s a beloved family member serving time. And definitely won’t find it amusing if it were them who, thanks to some mixup, found themselves in a holding cell with some angry, rapey thugs.

To hear such people talk, if it were up to them, we’d go right back to the bad old days of beating confessions out of suspects. Some of these folks even claim to be Christian. So how come Jesus’s experience at the hands of his accusers, never convinced ’em otherwise? Never made ’em realize “innocent till proven guilty” is always the way to treat suspects?