Ash Wednesday: Lent begins.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten fast. It gets its name from the western custom of putting ashes on our heads. What’s with the ashes? It comes from bible: Ashes were used to ritually purify sinners. Nu 19.9 So it’s to repeat that custom.

Varoius Christians figure it also comes from the ancient middle eastern custom of putting ashes on one’s head when grieving. 2Sa 13.19, Jb 2.8 What’re we grieving? Well, Easter comes after Holy Week, when Jesus died, so they’re kinda grieving Jesus’s death. Even though he’s alive now, their emphasis is his horrible suffering and death, and they mourn that. Lent is one of the ways they mourn that. So, ashes.

Thing is… in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us when we’re fasting not to broadcast it.

Matthew 6.16-18 NRSVue

16“And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

In many churches ashes are ritually sprinkled on one’s head, but in English-speaking countries the custom is to use the ashes to draw a cross on Christians’ foreheads. I don’t know how pleased Jesus is with those of us who wear these crosses on our foreheads all day. I think he’d much rather we show off our devotion by being fruity.

But over the past decade, mainline Christians have started to use the forehead-cross thingy as an outreach tool. Instead of only doing the ritual in their church buildings, their pastors go to public places with ashes, and draw crosses on anyone who asks.

• Sometimes they’re Christians who go, “Oh I forgot it’s Ash Wednesday; I’m gotta go get my ashes!”
• Sometimes they’re Christians who didn’t grow up with this ritual: “Ash Wednesday? What’s that? Well I’m Christian, so I’m gonna get a cross too.”
• Sometimes they’re Christian jerks: “Oh that’s a Catholic thing; that’s as good as paganism or sorcery; I’m not doing that.”
• And sometimes they’re pagans who think they’re Christian, or pagans who wanna try something “spiritual.”

Regardless, the mainliners’ goal is to get more people to think about Jesus than usual. It does do that.

Don’t break up with unbelievers!

1 Corinthians 7.10-17.

When I was growing up, both Mom and my pastors taught us kids we shouldn’t date non-Christians. Because, God forbid, you were gonna fall in love with them, marry them, and now you were gonna have perpetual disagreements with your pagan spouse about religion. Then we’d have kids, and she’d of course object to me wanting to raise ’em Christian. Then she’d let the Jehovah’s Witnesses talk to her some morning, join them, and now I’d have to deal with all the heretic garbage they taught her. Or pick some other worst-case scenario; just imagine your spouse turns into a massive jerk… and presume you somehow won’t turn into one too.

Done? Good. I myself didn’t need to imagine any worst-case scenarios, ’cause I grew up with a Christian mom and an atheist dad, so I knew exactly what that looked like. Dad didn’t forbid us kids from going to church with Mom and becoming Christians, but he certainly wasn’t thrilled about it. And he especially wasn’t thrilled whenever he did something immoral—usually theft—and his Christian kids would object, and spoil his evil fun.

In the Roman Empire, divorce was widespread, and people did it for any and every reason. So if a Roman’s spouse got mixed up in some new gnostic religion, and was suddenly spending all the family’s money on it, and our hypothetical Roman wanted nothing to do with it: Divorce! Easy-peasy. Property gets divided, and you go your way with your money. And your spouse goes to temple with all their money, and leaves temple with no money, but at least you still got all your money.

Some of this attitude leaked into Jesus’s culture, and as a result a number of Jews likewise divorced for any and every reason. And certain Pharisee rabbis let them. This, despite the LORD telling Malachi he hates divorce. Ml 2.16 NKJV The rabbis would simply find a convenient loophole which permitted divorce in this instance… and could always somehow find a way to permit divorce in every instance. Human depravity is clever like that.

When Jesus was questioned about the issue, he said nope, divorce was never God’s idea. Moses permitted it “because of your hard-heartedness,” Mt 19.8 KWL i.e. your closed-mindedness; people won’t accept any scenario where divorce isn’t an option. Indeed Jesus’s own students came to him afterwards and objected Mt 19.10 —and Jesus said yeah, not everyone’s gonna accept this teaching. Mt 19.11 People should go into marriage expecting it to be lifelong, but they just don’t. They want, “just in case,” loopholes. We all want loopholes.

So some of the first Christians figured religion oughta be one of those loopholes, right? If a Greco-Roman pagan became Christian, but her spouse was a massive Zeus worshiper and wanted to stick with Zeusery, what was she to do? Especially if he demanded she come to temple with him, and couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t worship Jesus and Zeus, just like she worshiped Athena and Zeus, or Demeter and Zeus, or Artemis and Hera and Hestia and Zeus. Why’s Jesus so exclusive? What, are you monotheist now?

So that’s the cultural background to today’s scripture—namely, how Paul and Sosthenes addressed the whole pagan-spouse problem.

The background of the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5.1-2.

Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount begins in Matthew 5, where Jesus “went up into a mountain” Mt 5.1 KJV to teach his students (Greek μαθηταὶ/mathité, “pupil,” KJV “disciple”).

Matthew 5.1-2 KWL

1Seeing the crowds,

Jesus goes up, into the hill,

and as he is sitting down

his students come to him.

2Opening his mouth,

Jesus is teaching his students,

saying…

and he starts with the Beatitudes.

Y’notice my translation has “hill.” The original Greek text has ὄρος/óros, which can mean either “hill” or “mountain,” and the person (not necessarily St. Jerome) who originally translated Matthew for the Vulgate decided it meant montem, “mountain,” so that’s how Christians have historically interpreted it. That’s why it’s the Sermon on the Mount, not Hill.

Thing is, I’ve been to the Mount of Beatitudes in northern Israel, where Christian tradition says Jesus gave this sermon. It’s a hill.

A view of the Mount of Beatitudes from Capharnaum. See that domed building? That’s the octagonal Church of the Beatitudes, built by the Roman Catholics in 1938. Berthold Werner, Wikimedia

True, not everybody agrees what the difference is between a hill and a mountain. In English and American custom, a mountain is 1,000 feet above its surrounding geography. But of course if the locals are used to calling a nearby hill “the mountain,” state geographers might disagree, but it’s a mountain to the locals regardless. The same is true with the Mount of Beatitudes: Christians keep calling it a mountain, but it’s not. It’s only about 200m (about 650 feet) above Lake Tiberias (i.e. the Sea of Galilee). It’s actually 25m below sea level. Where I’m sitting in the Sacramento Valley, as I write this, I am at an elevation 31m above the Mount of Beatitudes. That’s how low of a “mountain” it is.

The 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘴.

Most movements have slogans; they help promote the movement. The Protestant movement is no different. When it began in the 1500s, the Reformers came up with slogans. Back then the international language of Christendom was Latin, so of course the slogans are all in Latin.

The three I’m writing about today are called the solas—because they all start with the Latin word sola. You’re probably more familiar with the masculine form of it, solo, which is also an English word and means the very same thing: Alone, only, unaccompanied, done by one person without assistance. Anyway, the three slogans are:

Sola fide, “by faith alone.”

Sola gratia, “by grace alone.”

Sola scriptura, “by scripture alone.”

In the 20th century, various Christians created two more slogans which they claim are also part of the solas: Solus Christus, “Christ alone”; and soli Deo gratia, “glory to God alone.” I have no problem with people coming up with new slogans, but they aren’t part of the original solas, so I won’t talk about them as much.

So… why am I bringing up some five-century-old Latin slogans? Because sometimes you’re gonna hear Christians quote them, talk about them, use them… and use them wrong. The early Reformers had specific reasons for coining these slogans, and we gotta know what they meant by them before we just quote ’em haphazardly.

And even if people don’t use the Latin words—if they use the English translations “by faith alone,” “by grace alone,” and “by scripture alone,” or translate ’em into any other language and teach Christians about ’em—again, let’s know what the Reformers meant by them.

Do we perform sacraments or ordinances?

ORDINANCE 'ɔr.dɪ.nəns, 'ɔrd.nəns noun. Authoritative order or decree.

2. Religious ritual; particularly one ordained by Christ.

3. What Evangelical Christians call sacraments.

When I talk about certain Christian rituals, I call them sacraments. And you’re gonna find many Evangelicals really don’t like this word.

These folks think of “sacraments” as a Roman Catholic word… and some of them are a bit anti-Catholic… and some of ’em are extremely anti-Catholic. They still got a lot of hard feelings about the Catholics, dating all the way back to the original Protestant spats with Roman Catholicism. To them, “sacrament” has a lot of bothersome Catholic baggage attached… so they refuse to use it.

What do they call Christian rituals then? Well Evangelicals could just call ’em rituals, but for some reason we never really wanted to; it makes us think of dead rituals, or dead religion, which they’re not. Somehow the word “ordinances” caught on. Or “holy ordinances.” ’Cause Jesus ordained them.

The two ordinances which Evangelicals tend to single out, are holy communion 1Co 11.23-26 and baptism. Mt 28.19 Some of us also recognize Jesus also mandated foot-washing, Jn 13.14-15 but not every Evangelical lists it as an ordiance. Probably because they don’t wanna wash feet, which sorta merits its own article.

Anyway. Communion and baptism are definitely ordinances… and you’ll find Evangelicals tend to also practice all the other sacraments the Catholics do. They just won’t call them sacraments. Or ordinances, ’cause they figure Jesus didn’t ordain them. Although often the apostles did.

CATHOLIC SACRAMENT	EVANGELICAL EQUIVALENT	WHO ORDAINED IT
Baptism	Baptism	Jesus
Confirmation	Confession of faith at baptism	Peter
Eucharist	Holy communion	Jesus
Penance	Counseling, confession, and intercession	James
Anointing the sick	Anointing the sick	James
Holy orders	Laying hands on people for ministry	The LORD, to Moses
Matrimony	Wedding ceremonies	9th-century Christians

As you notice, Evangelicals still anoint and pray for the sick. Still lay hands on people they’re sending out to do ministry. Still perform wedding ceremonies, funerals, and baby dedications. Still counsel and intercede for people. It’s just they won’t call these other things “ordinances” because they’re not the three ordinances Jesus gave us… and they’ll still try to avoid the word “ritual,” even though it’s precisely what we’re doing.

It’s all about “not doing as Catholics do,” even though we’re totally doing as Catholics do.

Using your imagination to meditate.

When I was a kid there was a Japanese TV show called Aníme Óyako Gekíjo/“Anime Parent-Child Theater,” which Americans know better as Superbook. Christian TV stations used to air it every weekday. Your own kids are more likely to have seen the 2009 American remake.

In the 1981 original, two kids named Sho and Azusa discovered a magic bible which transported them, and their toy robot Zenmaijikake, back to Old Testament times. (Yeah, they all had different names in the English redub: Chris, Joy, and Gizmo.) The kids would interact with the bible folks, who somehow spoke Japanese instead of ancient Hebrew, and were surprisingly white for ancient middle easterners.

The kids, and their robot in the red galero, have a not-at-all-awkward conversation with a buck-naked pre-genitalia Adam and Eve. Aníme Óyako Gekíjo episode 1, “Adamu to Eba Monogatari”

Well in the first series they did. In the second series—also called Superbook in the States—Pasókon Toráberu Tántei-dan/“Computer Travel Detective Team,” the kids totally ignored the bible characters ’cause they were trying to rescue a missing dog. Which is best, I suppose: Less chance they’d accidentally change history, and whoops!—now we’re all worshiping Mammon, and Biff Tannen became president. (Well…)

Obviously we’ve not yet invented time travel, and it’s not possible to have any Superbook-style adventures. But a whole lot of us would love to check out the events of bible times, and maybe interact with it. It’s why there are bible-times theme parks in the Bible Belt, like The Ark Encounter or The Holy Land Experience, which Christians flock to. (Or, for about the same price, actual real-life Israel, which I far more recommend.)

But when time travel or pilgrimage are out of the question right now, it is possible to meditate on a story from the scriptures, by imagining ourselves there as it happened, imagining ourselves watching it as it took place.

Some Christians call this practice Ignatian meditation, after St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. In his 1524 book Exercitia Spiritualia/“Spiritual Exercises,” Ignatius taught his followers to not just contemplate certain passages in the bible, like Jesus preaching in synagogue or temple, or teaching students, performing miracles, getting born, getting crucified, paradise, hell…. Instead, really mentally put themselves there. Imagine breathing the air. Feeling the weather. Hearing the sounds, smelling the smells. Being in these places.

The idea is to stop thinking of these events as just stories, but as real-life history. Stuff that truly happened. Stuff the prophets and apostles truly experienced. Stuff where God came near and interacted with humanity—same as he does now. Stop looking at them from the outside, and visualize yourself in the inside, in the bible, fully immersed in the story, just as you’re fully a part of God’s salvation history now.

Try this with the passages you’re reading now. Put yourself there, in your mind. See what new insights come out of it.

Which of Jesus’s temptations came second?

Matthew 4.5-10, Luke 4.5-12.

In Matthew, the order of Jesus’s temptations is

1. Stones to bread. Mt 4.3-4
2. Jumping from the temple. Mt 4.5-7
3. Bowing before Satan. Mt 4.8-10

And in Luke, it’s

1. Stones to bread. Lk 4.3-4
2. Bowing before Satan. Mt 4.5-8
3. Jumping from the temple. Lk 4.9-12

The gospels are agreed that stones to bread came first, but not about whether bowing before Satan or jumping from the temple came second and third.

Does it matter? Not really. But if you’re a biblical inerrantist, and insist the bible has no errors, one of the gospels mixed up the order.

And if you’re a biblical inerrantist, you’re gonna downplay this fact as much as you possibly can. Because there’s no reasonable explanation for how one of the gospels isn’t wrong about the order of the temptations.

So instead… you’re gonna do the very same thing non-inerrantists like me do. You’re gonna say the order isn’t important. That the authors of the gospels likely put the temptations in the order they did, intentionally—because they were writing to different audiences, and wanted to emphasize different things. The author of Matthew wanted to move from near venues to far—from right there in the wilderness, where Jesus chose to fast; to Jerusalem, the capital of Judea; to the Roman Empire and the world. And Luke chose to end his version of the temptations story in Jerusalem, the epicenter of the Judean religion, to emphasize Jesus’s special relationship with his Father—“if thou be the Son of God,” Lk 4.3, 9 KJV as Satan kept saying.

And okay, this explanation might work for you. But back when I was a little kid, and my pastors and Sunday school teachers kept insisting the bible is inerrant, this explanation absolutely didn’t work for me. Kids are literalists! We knew—from the many times we tried to fudge the truth, and subsequently, correctly got in trouble for it—you don’t get to play fast and loose with the order of events when you tell a story. Parents, historians, cops, and courtrooms don’t allow it. Nor should they! So why does Matthew or Luke get to?—and how can you say the bible’s inerrant when you’re saying one or the other of them deliberately introduced an inaccuracy?

Nope, doesn’t work. That is, till you’re older, throw up your hands in frustration, and decide what the heck; we’re gonna accept that either Matthew or Luke changed the order around… yet still call ourselves literalists and inerrantists, because the Fundamentalists in our churches seem to be really insistent that we remain literalists and inerrantists. If we’re not, they might call us heretics, or get us removed from our ministries. So, best to keep up that appearance as best we can, and call ourselves literalists and inerrantists even though we’re not really.

Oh, and please don’t bring up Jesus’s two genealogies either.

Typical TXAB correspondence.

Since I’m paying for TXAB’s domain name, I figured I may as well use it for my email address too. Problem is, whenever you post your email address on a website, people find it and send spam to it, and now most of my spam goes to that address instead of my personal email address. So if your comments get lost in my spam folder: Sorry! I try to fish them out.

Questions? Comments? Email. But remember, my feedback policy means I can post it. And if it’s something like these questions, I’ve already answered it! Isn’t that handy?

Anyway it’s time I caught up on some correspondence, isn’t it? And today I’m gonna answer some of the emails I typically get.

Q. I love your blog! Would you consider linking to my blog? I really need to rise in search engine rankings. In return maybe I can make a small donation to you, or a ministry of your choice.

You really would not believe how often I get this request, or a variation of this request, from people who want to make a living by blogging. I turn them all down.

There are many ways to get a lot of traffic to your blog. My way has been to just keep generating relevant, informative content for 20 years. Works great! But I understand if you don’t have the patience for that… especially if you have a day job you’re kinda desperate to quit.

I have noticed certain blogs taking off big-time, and quickly, because the blogger wrote a book. I would recommend you do that. Find a literary agent, ask ’em if there’s anything on your blog that might make a good book, develop a whole book out of it, find a publisher who’s wants to produce and publicize it, and use your blog to help promote it. Watch the traffic pour in.

The downside: If your blog permits comments, you’re gonna spend a whole lot of time moderating comments. Lotta nutjobs out there! You might have to turn them off entirely, as I did. But if you have the time, and can filter out all the chaff from the wheat, your commenters can also attract people to your blog. There are a few sites that I visited regularly because the commenters were just as insightful as the writers.

Moving on!

God’s names. (And a bunch of his adjectives.)

New Christians—and a bunch of us older ones too—tend to be fascinated by the fact God has a lot of different names.

No, I’m not talking about the different words for “God” in other languages: Theos, Deus, Dios, Diyos, Dieu, Dia, Dio, Zeu, Gott, Gud, Hudaý, Bog, Buh, Elohim, Allah, Ulah, Dev, Ram, Atua, Kami, Haneunim, and so forth. Those are neat too, as are the many different ways humanity has rendered “Jesus.” But people who are into that, are more into languages. Your average Christian is more into the many different things God is called in the bible.

You can also buy a poster of a lion with a bunch of Jesus’s titles on it. ChristianBook.com

There’s “God,” of course. There’s “the Lord” or “the LORD,” depending on the original-language words we’re translating. There’s his personal name יְהוָֹה/YHWH, which we’ve turned into “Yahwéh” and “Jehovah”; and the Hebrew phrase it comes from, אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה/ehyéh ashér ehyéh, “I am who I am,” or “I Am” for short.

Then there are the adjectives which indicate which God we’re talking about God Almighty, God Most High, the Living God, the Mighty God, Father God, God the Creator, the God of Israel, God of Abraham, God of our fathers, and so forth.

And I haven’t even got to the titles yet. Like Ancient of Days, Alpha and Omega, Lord of Hosts, and so on. Go to your average Christian bookstore (assuming your local one hasn’t shut down, or moved to the internet) and they even have a poster covered in God’s titles. Suitable for framing, if you’re not a teenager but still like posters.

Bust out some Hebrew to go along with it, and some Christians will get sloppy with excitement. I can write articles about God’s attributes till my fingers go numb, but many a Christian doesn’t give a rip about theology: They just want easy ideas which they can meditate upon and come up with their own insights about. One of the easiest ideas to mentally play with is one of God’s names, so these folks just love God’s names.

There’s just something about them. Because, as many Christians teach, there’s power in God’s name. Jr 10.6 Power, power, wonder-working power. Power to break every chain, break every chain, break every chain.

But I should first point out these many names of God… are not necessarily what God names himself.

Unanswered prayers.

Some months ago I was talking with a fellow Christian about unanswered prayers, and he said, “Y’know, there’s really no such thing as unanswered prayer. God answers every prayer. It’s just sometimes his answer is no. But that’s an answer!”

Okay, it’s true our “unanswered prayers” might be things God has legitimately answered—with no, or “not yet.” Stuff like “Come Lord Jesus” which he will answer, eventually.

But sometimes he legitimately has not answered certain prayers. ’Cause sometimes he says he’s not gonna answer them.

Micah 3.4 ESV

Then they will cry to the LORD,

but he will not answer them;

he will hide his face from them at that time,

because they have made their deeds evil.

Generally if you’re an unrepentant evildoer—if you’re sinning, you know you’re sinning, you know Jesus would have you do otherwise, you don’t care and aren’t sorry, you fully intend to continue sinning, and nothing God says or does will move you—I don’t think it’s realistic to expect God to heed you.

It’s like when Jesus warns us,

Matthew 6.14-15 ESV

14“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Jesus orders his followers to forgive, Lk 6.37 and Paul and Timothy advise us to forgive just as we ourselves have been forgiven. Cl 3.13 If we refuse to forgive, we’re defying Jesus—and if we defy Jesus, again, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect God to heed us. Especially if we’re asking his forgiveness.

I know, I know; I hear all the time from Christians who think God has to forgive every nasty thing they do, ’cause cheap grace. They wanna know how I can say God won’t forgive us, ’cause doesn’t grace mean he forgives absolutely everything? And yes, grace does mean that. But when you’re defying God and his Messiah, when you’re resisting his will, you’re also resisting his grace. You can’t get the grace when you reject the one who gives it!

It’s the same deal with unrepentant evildoers. If you reject the one who answers our prayers, why on earth or in heaven should we expect him to listen to our prayers? Makes no sense. But since when have humans ever made sense?—which is why unrepentant evildoers try to pray, get no answer, and think God’s the one at fault. Or that he’s not even there. Or other such nonsense.