How elders must encourage fellow Christians to behave.

Titus 2.1-10.

Throughout ancient literature, sages would put together a list of rules for how every person’s meant to fulfill their role in a family. Husbands act like this, wives act like that. Sons do this, daughters do that. Male slaves do this, female slaves do that. Scholars call them household codes. We find a few of them in the bible too. Like today’s passage.

The list in Titus likewise includes slaves, because slavery was legal in the Roman Empire. But God forbade people from treating slaves like animals instead of people, and Greco-Romans generally shared that attitude about their slaves: They’d become slaves because they lost a war, or were dirt poor and sold themselves (or were sold by family members) into it, or they were criminals and slavery was the punishment. American slavery was entirely different, regularly ignored scripture (as Americans do, ’cause we love to imagine we’re exceptions to the rules), and was rightly abolished. But if we were to port these household codes into the present day, the instructions to slaves would sorta apply to household employees—housekeepers, groundskeepers, nannies, maids, butlers, contractors. With the obvious caveat that employees can quit or be fired. Slaves didn’t have those freedoms.

Popular American culture has their own household codes. Most of ’em have to do with authoritarian men trying to establish their own little despotic patriarchies—they want their wives and children to submit to them, instead of mutually loving one another as is taught in the scriptures. A lot of toxic masculinity is mixed into today’s household codes, as men try to insist “only real men” behave certain ways. (And men who reject these ideas somehow aren’t real men. Yet this doesn’t mean they get to identify as women!) There’s a lot of sexism, vulgarity, and inconsistency in the way they teach it. It’s all very fleshly and graceless. Denounce it wherever you see it, and stick with the bible.

Titus 2.1-10 KWL

1 Speak out, Titus, about whatever comes up,

with healthy teaching.

2 Elders ought to be in their right minds.

Well respected. Self-controlled.

They should have healthy faith,

healthy love, healthy consistency.

3 Women elders likewise with devout behavior.

Not backstabbing.

Not enslaved to heavy drinking.

Teachers of good things,

4 so they might train the new Christians

to love their men, to love their children.

5 Self-disciplined. Clean.

Good at running a household.

Submitting to their own men,

so God’s word won’t be slandered.

6 Teenagers likewise:

Help them in self-discipline.

7 In everything present yourself,

as an example of good works.

In teaching, integrity and honesty,

8 a healthy, irrefutable word,

so those from the opposition might respect it,

having nothing evil to say about us.

9 Slaves are to obey their own wardens

in every acceptable way.

Not to argue.

10 Not to embezzle.

Instead demonstrate all good faith

so God our Savior’s teaching will decorate everything.

Now y’notice Paul’s list began with instructions to Titus about the sort of traits we oughta see in as church elders. The men are to behave thisaway; the women are to behave thataway. But then, in 2.4, as Paul’s explaining what the women elders oughta be teaching the newbies… it mutates into a household code. Verse 5 arguably applies to either the elders or the newbies; I would say both. Verses 6-8 are obviously about Christian teenagers; verses 9-10 are obviously about Christian slaves.

So yeah, this passage didn’t begin as a household code. But it became one. Because every Christian oughta become an elder. All of us should aspire to Christian maturity. Therefore every man and woman should become an elder in our churches, and contribute to its leadership and upkeep.

How the “elders” of Crete 𝘥𝘪𝘥 behave.

Titus 1.10-16.

Epimenides of Cnossos was a shepherd, living on Crete. He claimed one day he took a nap in a cave that’d been dedicated to Zeus, and woke up 57 years later with the gift of prophecy. Meh; I figure he was just an old guy who decided to finally publish his youthful poetry. Next to none of it has survived to our present day, but in Paul and Titus’s time it was still pretty famous. Paul even quotes a line from his ode to Zeus, called the Cretica:

…having built you [Zeus] a tomb, holy one, great one.

Cretans always lie, the evil beasts. Lazy stomachs.

But you aren’t dead! For you live, and live forever!

For in you we live, move, and have our being.

Yep, Paul also quoted it in Acts 17.28. Epimenides meant Zeus, but Paul repurposed it to mean the LORD. It more accurately describes the LORD anyway.

I don’t know whether the Cretica prejudiced Paul against the people of Crete when he finally met them in person. Acts doesn’t tell of him spending a lot of time there; at most a week, ’cause his ship was anchored there due to foul weather. Ac 27.7-13 Likely he visited again at another time. In any case he encountered many people among the Christians who were just awful, and the very last thing he wanted Titus to do was put such people in positions of authority. It’d ruin the church.

Titus 1.10-16 KWL

10 For many people do refuse to submit to others.

They’re all talk, and misleading.

Particularly those of the circumcision faction.

11 It’s necessary to muzzle them—

whatever teachings knock down whole houses,

which they ought not teach,

but do to gain an immoral advantage.

12 A certain one of their own—a prophet!—says,

“Cretans always lie, the evil beasts. Lazy stomachs.”

13 This witness is true.

For this reason rebuke them quickly,

so they might have a healthy faith,

14 paying no attention to Jewish myths,

and human commands which turn away from truth.

15 Everything is ritually clean to clean people.

To contaminated people, and unbelievers,

nothing is clean—

instead it contaminated them, the mind, and the conscience.

16 They claim they know God,

and their works deny it—

being disgusting and disobedient,

and worthless in every good work.

Don’t mince words Paul; how d’you really feel about Cretans?

How the elders of Crete oughta behave.

Titus 1.5-9.

Paul left Titus in Crete because its churches had a leadership vacuum. I mean, there might’ve been people the Christians imagined were leaders, but Paul considered them inadequate, as we can tell from what he had to write to Titus. They lacked spiritual maturity. Titus didn’t.

Here, Paul reminds Titus that maturity—good fruit and good character—correctly defines a person who’s considered an elder of the church. You’re not an elder without it, and ought not be a leader without it.

Titus 1.5-9 KWL

5 This is why I have you remain in Crete:

So you might organize the things we leave there.

So you might designate elders for each city,

as I commanded you.

6 If a certain person has no controversy about them,

a one-woman man,

has believing children,

has never been accused of excessive living

nor of being unsubmissive

7 —for a supervisor has to be uncontroversial,

being like God’s butler.

Not arrogant.

Not quick-tempered.

Not drunk.

Not picking fights.

Not greedy for “prosperity.”

8 Instead, loves strangers.

Loves goodness.

Sound-minded.

Fair.

Pious.

Self-disciplined.

9 Holds tight to what’s consistent

with the message of faith as taught,

so he might be able to help in the sound teaching,

and in rebuking those who contradict it.

A number of Christians claim Paul’s only describing pastors, ’cause Paul mentioned “a supervisor” in verse 7. (Greek ἐπίσκοπον/epískopon, KJV “bishop,” NIV “overseer.”) This is a word the New Testament tends to use to describe bishops and head pastors; it’s not just any church leader. Thing is, the elders of a church do supervise all sorts of things in a church, whether they have the title “pastor” or not. And really everyone in church leadership should be qualified to step up when the pastor or bishop isn’t available; everybody should meet these ground-floor qualifications, no matter what title they have. Got it?

The apostle’s job.

Titus 1.1-4.

Okay, tackling Titus this week. Paul wrote this letter to Titus during his last missionary journey of 63–66. That journey isn’t told of in Acts, but it took place after Paul stood trial before Nero Caesar in 62 and was acquitted; and took place before Paul was arrested again, stood trial before Nero again, and that time was beheaded in the year 67. Nicopolis, Epirus, Greece was one of the cities on Paul’s itinerary, and where Paul expected to see Titus again. Tt 3.12

Titus was a member of Paul’s apostolic team, a Greek Ga 2.3 originally from Crete (Greek Κρήτη/Kríti), the largest of the Greek islands, about 160km off the coast of the Greek mainland, and 100km southwest of Türkiye. There were Cretans at the first Pentecost, Ac 2.11 and for all we know Titus was among them.

But since Paul calls Titus his son in this letter, Tt 1.4 Christians figure Paul likely introduced him to Christ Jesus. Though elsewhere in the scriptures Paul calls him a brother 2Co 2.13 and partner; 2Co 8.23 so if Paul had led Titus to Jesus, these descriptions indicate Titus had quickly matured to a point where Paul considered him an equal in Christ. Paul occasionally sent Titus to help out churches and deliver his letters. Corinth, fr’instance. 2Co 2.13

In this letter, Paul states he’d sent Titus back to Crete to organize Jesus’s church there. Tt 1.5 From what little we know, that’s where Titus served till he died, either in the 90s or early 00s. The Church of St. Titus in Heraklion, Crete, still has his skull.

Titus, along with 1–2 Timothy, are called the “pastoral epistles” because, duh, they were written to pastors. Naturally they contain a lot of advice from Paul to these two pastors about how to best do their jobs, and it’s served as useful advice for every other Christian about how to be in leadership. That’s why we study it.

As usual, Paul’s introductions were done Roman-style, so you could unroll the scroll a little bit, quickly read the author and the recipient, and roll it back up. Paul’s introduction in this letter is a little wordier than usual, ’cause he’s trying to slip some theology in there.

Because certain scholars try to make a name for themselves by challenging everything, some of ’em have tried to argue Paul didn’t really write this letter, and Titus wasn’t really the recipient. Few take these scholars seriously. I don’t.

Titus 1.1-4 KWL

1 Pávlos, God’s slave

and Christ Jesus’s apostle,

consistent with the faith of God’s selected ones,

and consistent with the recognition of the truth—

consistent with piety—

2 in the hope of life in the age to come,

which the never-lying God promised

before the time of this age.

3 He made his message of this eternal life known

through preaching in our own time,

which was entrusted to me

according to the command of our savior God.

4 To Titus, my genuine child

according to our common faith:

Grace and peace from God the Father,

and Christ Jesus our savior.

Notice it took four verses to get to the typical Christian greeting of “Grace and peace from God and Christ.” Let’s unpack that, shall we?

Pride Month.

A Gallup poll released in February 2022 revealed 7.2 percent of Americans identify themselves as queer—by which I mean something other than heterosexual. Either lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, or any other categories not covered by the first four. The four make up the acronym LGBT, and while other letters have been added to it so as to include every possible shade of queerness, most folks stick to LGBT, ’cause it’s the acronym which has been around longest.

Anyway. The younger the adults are, the more these percentages go up.

• Generation X (people born between the mid-1960s and 1980, which’d include me) is about 3.3 percent non-hetero.
• Gen Y, the millennials (1980 to the mid-’90s), is at 11.2 percent.
• Gen Z, the zoomers (mid-’90s to mid-2010s) is at 19.7 percent.
• Gen Alpha wasn’t polled. They’re still kids, y’know.

I didn’t include the stats for baby boomers (mid-1940s to mid-’60s) and silents (late 1920s to mid-’40s) because—let’s be honest—a bunch of them are still “in the closet,” hiding their non-heterosexuality. Or they’re in denial.

And I question those Generation Z figures. Because—let’s keep being honest, shall we?—some of the younger adults don’t know what they are. Young people are still figuring it out! Some of them might legitimately be queer. Some might not be, but they’re trying out queerness, because being straight hasn’t really worked out for them. I’ve got one coworker who figures he’ll try anything once, and that includes gay stuff, because who knows?—maybe he’s gay. He doesn’t know, and aren’t parents always telling their kids about food, “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it”? So he’s trying it.

Yeah, I can already hear my conservative readers from here, wailing and wringing their hands: “Woe is us; our nation is going to hell.” Relax folks; it was always going to hell. Isn’t that what your favorite End Times prognosticators have always taught? (Or were you paying more attention to your favorite politicians than them?)

But lemme leap back to that previous comment I made about baby boomers and silents. ’Cause if you think I was just making a joke about ’em, no I wasn’t. If you think I was just being facetious, I’m really not. There have always been queer people. They’ve been hiding. Those low numbers in those older generations do not mean there used to be fewer of them, but their numbers are growing. They mean many of ’em are still hiding.

Because not too long ago in America, you could get murdered over it. Still can. All it takes is someone with hate in their heart, who thinks nobody’s looking, who thinks God’s actually okay with murdering people over it. ’Cause you can certainly get that idea when you quote certain anti-gay scriptures.

Leviticus 20.13 KJV

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

There are other countries, like Russia and Uganda and Saudi Arabia, which have made laws based on such scriptures, and will jail and execute you for being gay, and think they’re righteous for doing so. And when you listen to certain conservatives in the United States, they think those countries are absolutely right to do it… and wanna know why we won’t do it too.

Well duh; because we’re not the nation of ancient Israel. Because their covenant with God is not ourcovenant with God. We don’t even have a national covenant with God. True, one idiot or another claims the Mayflower Compact, or the U.S. Constitution, or the Bill of Rights, is a covenant with God… and of course these things absolutely aren’t. Likewise some Christian yutz might cobble together a statement or declaration or creed, and claim they’re establishing a national covenant with God, and of course they don’t speak for all American Christians any more than I do. No Christian nor church does.

Our Constitution (specifically article 6 section 3, and amendment 1) establishes no religion, nor religious system, over this country. The United States may be predominantly Christian, but because it was founded at a time when open warfare between Christian sects was still going on in Europe, it was deliberately made a pluralistic society. As such we can have among our citizens and residents Christians and pagans, Jews and Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, Wiccans and nontheists, and no covenant is in violation. God’s not gonna smite us with tornadoes because we harbor gay people. Nature will, because we won’t stop polluting.

So all those conservatives who imagine God’s gonna be very, very cross with America unless we purge every queer person from sea to shining sea? Man have they got God wrong. There’s an awful amount of projection in their interpretation of God: They are upset and hostile towards non-heterosexuals, so they imagine God shares all their frustration and rage. After all, they imagine they’re tight with God; surely he’s at least as pissed and murdery as they.

And that’s where we are this LGBT Pride Month.

When pagans believe they’re Christian.

In the United States, roughly seven out of 10 people believe they’re Christian. I live in California, where it’s six of 10. I’m not pulling these numbers out of my tuchus; the national stats and state stats are from the 2019 Pew Forum study. Those numbers might’ve gone down a bit since the pandemic.

But generally they match my experience. Whenever I share Jesus with strangers, about two out of three tell me they’re Christian already. They don’t necessarily go to church; that’s another issue. But they definitely figure they’re Christian. For all sorts of reasons:

• Personal experiences with Jesus. Even personal appearances.
• They said the sinner’s prayer once.
• They’re a regular at their church. (How regular varies. Many figure twice a year counts.)
• They got baptized.
• They were raised Christian. Or their family’s Christian.
• They consider themselves spiritual. And when they contemplate spiritual matters, Jesus is in the mix somewhere.

Now, let’s explode that last reason: They’re “spiritual”—by which they nearly always mean they believe in supernatural things like God, spirits, and the afterlife. And for the most part, they have happy thoughts about it. If they identify as Christian, Jesus is included in their spirituality. But once we analyze their spiritual beliefs, we find what they really believe looks a lot more like this:

• There’s a God. Jesus is his son (but not God though, nor God’s only son) and the holy spirit (note the lowercase) is God’s power (but not God though).
• God loves everybody and wants us to be nice to one another.
• Death means we go to heaven, and probably watch over the living somehow.
• Organized religion is unnecessary, and just confuses things.

Basically it’s what pagans typically believe. Of course there are exceptions, but generally that’s it. It’s the belief system of popular culture. It’s not Christianity.

Nope, these folks aren’t Christian. They’re Christianists.

They’re a subcategory I call incognito pagans: They honestly think they’re Christian! After all, it’s how popular culture loosely defines Christianity. They like Jesus! They believe he’s a good guy. They have their weddings and funerals at churches. If you deny Jesus it’ll actually offend them. If their kids decide to become Muslim or Hindu (or tell ’em they’re gay) suddenly they really get Christian—usually to the surprise of their kids, who usually thought their parents didn’t believe anything.

But no, they’re not Christian. They have no Holy Spirit within them. Which is why they produce none of his fruit. As far as their knowledge about Christ is concerned, they couldn’t tell a Jesus quote from a Benjamin Franklin proverb. Since they figure they’re saved, they’re good; why bother to learn about their Savior? That’s for clergy to worry about. For theologians; for academics and experts. Meanwhile they have bigger things to worry about.

Speaking as one of these experts, our religion has to have a living and active relationship with Christ Jesus at its core. They don’t have that. At all. So they’re pagan.

Which they don’t realize. And will totally object to, when you call ’em on it. It’s the one area of knowledge they refuse to concede to the clergy and experts.

Tell ’em they’re not Christian, and they’ll loudly insist they are so: “Who are you to tell me I’m no Christian?” Doesn’t matter if you’re a pastor, professor, bishop, or pope: Suddenly they get to define what “Christian” means. And it’s not based on fruit, nor orthodoxy, nor even Christ Jesus and the scriptures. It’s based on their best judgment. Which is simply more proof they’re pagans.

We Christians recognize we don’t define what a Christian is: Jesus does. That’s why we look for fruit and orthodoxy. Simple combo. Heretics let the orthodoxy slide, and hypocrites and cultists let the fruit slide. The rest of us realize we can’t just claim the title “Christian” without the faith and good works: We gotta actually follow Jesus. Pagans don’t realize this, and think all it takes to be Christian, is they gotta name it and claim it.

As a result, there are a lot of the people showing up on surveys as “Christian” who aren’t really. It’s how they self-identify. Not how Christ identifies them. They’re not truly his.

Fake Christians.

I used to write about fake Christians a lot.

Probably too much, which is why I went cold turkey for a few years. It was getting a little graceless of me. I mean, based on my criteria, 15-year-old me would’ve been a fake Christian. And I wasn’t! Yeah, there was a lot of hypocrisy in my life. But I was legitimately Christian. A lousy one, but an authentic one.

So lemme ’splain what I mean by fake Christian: Somebody who claims to be Christian, or gets mixed up in Christian activities or the Christian subculture. But knowingly, deliberately, isn’t.

• Like a politician who goes to church to win votes, or meets with pastors to get their approval. But in private he thinks Christians are easily-fooled idiots. After all, he just fooled ’em.
• Like a business owner who puts a Jesus fish on her business cards to get Christians as customers. But she never goes to church. Privately, she has a lot of contempt for those who do.
• Like a husband who goes to church with his family because he approves of the moral guidance religion can provide. But he never follows its guidance. Doesn’t think he needs to; he’s good! And would think you’re a fool if you ever seriously suggested it to him.
• Like a woman who wants her neighbors to think she’s a good Christian woman, because they appear to be good Christian women, and she’d like to fit in, and not be rejected as the neighborhood heathen.
• Like a man who’s offended because his coworker is living with his girlfriend “in sin.” Who’s offended when anyone’s gay or lesbian or bisexual, because “that’s a sin.” Who’s offended when someone figures they're nonbinary or trans, because “that’s a sin” too. But when anyone calls him out on his regular practice of sleeping with skanks every weekend, suddenly “what I do in my private time is none of your f---ing business, and who are you to judge me?”

Fake Christians aren’t interested in Jesus. They’re only interested in the fringe benefits of Christianity. And in predominantly Christian countries and communities, there are plenty of benefits! You fit right in.

• “Fellow” Christians will automatically accept you!—’cause even though we Christinas are supposed to love everyone, loads of us suck at it.
• “Fellow” Christians will unquestioningly endorse you!—’cause even though we’re supposed to test everything, loads of us suck at it.
• “Fellow” Christians will often show you abundant grace!—’cause even though we’re supposed to show grace to everyone, loads of us suck at it. And don’t really extend grace to our own as much as we should.
• Plus you can be as bigoted as you like, but say it’s really because you’re offended by “sin.”

If you're a con artist of any level, we Christians are easy pickings. Too easy.

The flood story.

In Genesis there’s a story about a massive flood. Rain for a month and a half; waters which covered every hill in the area, and killed every living thing. It was, states the author of Genesis, God’s way of getting rid of the violence in the land: He got rid of everybody except this one righteous (well, righteous enough) family.

Starts like this.

Genesis 6.11-21 KWL

11 To God’s face, the land was ruined.

The land was full of violence.

12 God saw the land. Look, ruin!

all flesh ruined its way in the land.

13 God told Noah, “To my face,

the end of all flesh is coming:

They fill the land with violence before them.

Look, the land is ruined!

14 Make yourself a box of cypress trees.

Make living spaces within the box.

Plaster it from the inside to the outside with asphalt.

15 This is how you’ll make it:

A box 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, 30 cubits high.

16 Make a window in the box, a cubit from the top.

Make a doorway in the box’s side.

Make bottom, second, and third floors.

17 Look at me: I bring the deluge of waters on the land

to destroy all flesh on it,

the breath of life under the heavens:

Everything on the land dies.

18 I raise my relationship with you.

Come into the box.

You, your sons, your woman, your sons’ women with you.

19 All living things, all flesh:

Two of all comes into the box to live with you.

They’ll be male and female.

20 From the bird to its kind,

from the animal of its kind,

from all which swarms the ground of its kind,

two of all comes to you to live.

21 Take with you all the food you can eat.

Gather it for yourselves.

It’s for food, for you and them.”

22 Noah did everything God commanded him to do.

So God has this man, Noah ben Lamekh, build himself a big black box…

Yeah, black box. What d’you think an ark is, a boat? What, were the Hebrews carrying around the Boat of the Covenant through the desert for four decades? Did Indiana Jones excavate a Nazi-killing gold boat, or am I remembering that movie all wrong?

But you’d be forgiven if you made the mistake of thinking a תֵּבַ֣ת/tevá is a boat. After all, American popular culture has the image of a boat cemented in everybody’s brain. Noah built a boat, they say—and on dry land! How the neighbors must’ve laughed and jeered at Noah and his kids for building a boat on dry land. Then when the floodwaters came, boy did they get their comeuppance.

Except it nowhere says in the bible, nowhere in Genesis, that Noah built a boat. That bit about the jeering neighbors? Not in the bible either. I know; you’ve been told this story so many times, you half remember it being biblical, don’t you? Nope. Go read Genesis 7 again. Isn’t there. Never happened.

Wait, what about those people in Kentucky who made the Ark Encounter, the life-size Noah’s Ark which they claim is totally based on the bible? Again, read your bible. Read that bit of Genesis 6 I just translated, in any translation you please. But remember, “ark” means box. God told Noah to build a box. Covered in כֹּֽפֶר/kofér, “bitumen,” or asphalt, so it wasn’t be bare or stained wood, like the Ark Encounter depicts it. It’d be black as the roads outside your house.

Arguably log-cabin style, ’cause it’s made of עֲצֵי גֹ֔פֶר/ačé-gofér, “trees of cypress.” God didn’t say planed wooden planks. I know!—you imagined Noah building a boat, so of course you imagined him building it out of planks, but there’s nothing in the bible to describe what Noah did with the trees once he chopped ’em down. Now, figuring a cubit is half a meter (or half a yard, if you’re American like me), Noah was instructed to make it 150 by 25 by 15, square. Not with a curved bow to easily cut through water, and certainly not with a rudder—who’s gonna steer it? What’s its destination? Why would Noah presumptively assume his box would even float?—for all he knew, it might stay where it was, underwater, watertight, waiting for the floods to pass.

The Kentucky monstrosity is entirely based on popular Christian culture, based on what generations of American preachers and their art have speculated about Noah’s box. Something which actually requires less faith in God than Genesis is describing. ’Cause they imagine Noah built something seaworthy, that could survive on its own—instead of something God would have to miraculously preserve, and did.

So whenever skeptics ask me whether I believe the bible’s flood story, I can’t give them a simple yes. I do believe the story. But the story I believe is the plausible one we find in the bible. Not as it’s told by young-earth creationists, who turned it into Christian mythology… then turned that into junk science.

Do you have friends in your church?

Christians tend to go to church for five reasons.

• MUSIC. We love music, and the church has good music. It’s like going to a weekly rock concert! And if we never help fund the church, it’s free!
• TEACHING. We wanna learn about God, Christianity, and the bible. We want a good informative sermon. We want good informative bible studies. We wanna know more.
• SERVICE. We feel a great personal reward in ministering to the needy, and the church has some ways to do that, and encourages us in it.
• SACRAMENT. We gotta stay connected with God, and what helps are the rituals we can only do as a group. Like praising together, praying together, holy communion, and so forth.
• FELLOWSHIP. We wanna see our friends.

Churches tend to focus primarily on sacrament, sermon, or music. Today I’m gonna bring up the fellowship thing. It’s a way bigger deal than a lot of Christians realize.

Well, some of us already realize it’s a big deal. It’s why certain churches structure things so people can interact a lot. They have a lot of small groups, and promote ’em constantly. They have a “meet ’n greet time” in the middle of the service, which can go on for as many as ten minutes. (I used to take advantage of my church’s meet ’n greet time to go get another cup of coffee.) They have potlucks and pizza parties and movie nights and other social functions—sometimes monthly, sometimes weekly. And they refuse to create a church café, ’cause they know the way people tend to run ’em, it’ll ultimately discourage fellowship.

This fellowship activity isn’t for any ulterior motive. That’s the motive. They want the people of their church to make friends with one another. Jesus ordered us to love one another; Jn 15.12 they’re trying to make it happen. You’re not gonna love one another when you don’t know one another. You’re not gonna make friends with your fellow Christians when they’re nothing more than the other people who go to your church.

Yeah, there are fringe benefits to the people in your church making friends with one another: They’re gonna come to church to see their friends. Or, to put it shorter, they’re gonna come to church.

That’s what got me coming to church, back in my young-hypocrite years: My friends were there. I could do without the church services themselves: The music sucked. The sermons were shallow. (Coincidentally, I and my faith were also sucky and shallow, so more likely this was just me.) I would’ve had no problem with sleeping in Sunday mornings, like every other pagan. But I looked forward to sitting in the back of the church auditorium, quietly goofing off with my buds, whether it was Sunday morning or Thursday night youth group.

I grew out of the hypocrisy, but it’s still true: Lotta times I don’t feel like going to church. But if I have friends there, and I wanna see them, I go. If I find out my friends are gonna be absent—they gotta work, they’re on vacation, they’re out sick, and so forth—there goes my motivation to attend.

or they’re on vacation, or otherwise won’t attend—sometimes I’ll attend anyway, and sometimes I won’t. And I’m far from the only one.

In fact one church I went to, I had really spotty attendance because all my friends left. I used to have lots of friends at that church, including some of the pastors. Some left for work-related reasons, some for ministry-related reasons. Lots because they were college students and graduated. Some because they just decided they were done with that church. My final year there, before I moved away, I had no friends there. Just acquaintances. Nice people, but not friends. So some weeks, when I felt like going to Noah’s Bagels instead of church, that’s precisely what I did.

Later I moved, it was time to go church-shopping, so I visited one church—we’ll call it “Mars Hill.” Went to the morning services; went to the evening services; said hi to loads of people. One evening, about a month in, the head pastor finally said hi, and we chatted a bit. He was the only one who bothered to chat a bit. He was also, sad to say, going through a severe health crisis at the time, so he couldn’t make any other time for me. But none of Mars Hill’s other leaders bothered to fill in for him, and none of Mars Hill’s other people cared to venture outside their cliques. I really patiently hung around three months, but just didn’t make connections. So I didn’t stay.

The next church: Made friends immediately. Guess where I did stay.

Why I went to an all-white church.

When I was 11 years old, my family moved to a city in California which was about 60 percent white, 40 percent Latino, 10 percent every other ethnicity combined. Same as much of California south of Sacramento.

New city means new church. Mom went looking for churches which’d be a good fit for young children; I’m the eldest of four. We tried a few. We ended up at a certain church; in another article I referred to this particular place as “Maypole Church,” and I don’t see any point in changing its name again. Maypole was very Fundamentalist, very dispensationalist, and very sexist—all of which I no longer am. But the folks there did make sure we kids got to know our bibles, which is the important thing.

Oh, and Maypole was super racist. Which we didn’t know at the time… but the fact they happened to be 100 percent white should’ve tipped us off.

Every so often, Maypole would be 99 percent white: A black, Latino, or Asian family would visit. There’s an Air Force base nearby, and white airmen would invite their nonwhite friends to come worship with them at Maypole. But within a few months, these nonwhite friends would stop attending. They’d go elsewhere.

I never knew why. Never thought to ask why. Never assumed it was about race. Never thought to ask. Yep, I was a clueless white kid.

Never gave the racial issue any thought at all… till I started to invite my high school friends to Maypole’s youth group. My high school was right next to the Air Force base, and was just as integrated as the U.S. Air Force. I’ve always been raised in multiethnic neighborhoods, and (other than a brief stint in the country) always lived in multiethnic neighborhoods. I never solely made friends with white kids. And most of the high school kids were fellow Christians, and if they didn’t have a youth group, I invited them to mine. So they came—for a few weeks. Then stopped. Found excuses not to come along.

ME. “Why don’t you wanna go?”

THEY. “That group ain’t right.”

ME. “Ain’t right? What ‘ain’t right’ about it?”

THEY. [uncomfortably] “It just ain’t right.”

I assumed it had to do with doctrines. Like I said, Maypole was very Fundamentalist. Maybe more so than they were comfortable with. My church wouldn’t compromise, but maybe theirs would, like the rest of all the other churches. You know; typical Fundie paranoia.

Then I finally invited a white high school friend to church. He wasn’t Christian; he was a pagan who was open to the idea. He didn’t stop attending after two weeks; he stuck around. Largely because he really wanted to have sex with one of our youth group’s girls. I never saw him make a decision for Jesus, but I did see him invite a number of his other friends to the group. He did a better job recruiting kids than I did. So that’s a win… I guess?

First he invited a white friend, who stuck around a month… till he realized Christian girls weren’t quite as loose as he’d prefer. Then a Latino friend, who stayed three weeks. But yep, as you could guess: Left because “That group ain’t right.”

Every Spring Break our youth group took a “mission trip” to Baja California Norte to pitch in at a Mexican church’s Vacation Bible School. There, I saw for myself how many of our kids were super racist towards Mexicans. Our youth pastor cracked down on it as best he could. (Well, considering how certain Maypole parents would get him fired if he ever kicked their kids out of the group.) Still, this was finally when I realized just what my nonwhite friends meant by “That group ain’t right.” Indeed they weren’t right.

And as we know, kids don’t become racist in a vacuum. They get it from their parents.

I’m not accusing the leadership of Maypole Church of racism. Not the pastors; probably not their deacons. But obviously there were just enough racists in my youth group to block any outreach I did—or anyone did—to nonwhites in my high school, in our city, everywhere. I presumed my church was a safe place, as all churches should be. It wasn’t.

I stopped going to Maypole in 1991. Last I checked, they’re still predominantly white.

Jesus’s last words, in 𝘓𝘶𝘬𝘦.

Luke 24.44-53.

After Jesus demonstrated to his students he’s alive—actually alive; he’s not a ghost, nor did he switch places with someone at the last second and get him killed (which is actually what Muslims believe). He showed ’em his hands and feet; he had ’em, unlike middle eastern ghosts, and clearly he’d been a victim of crucifixion, but was fine now. He ate fish. He breathed on them, in another gospel. He’s real. Solid. Alive.

This being the case, it’s time to have yet another little talk about what’s meant to happen to Messiah. The Pharisee beliefs which were still tangling up Jesus’s students, in which Messiah descends on Jerusalem, conquers it, conquers the Romans, and conquers the world? Yeah, he’s not conquering the world that way. Jesus’s initial victory had to be over death, not the government. He had to defeat sin, not some political party. Still true, no matter what Christian nationalists might claim.

Luke 24.44-53 KWL

44 Jesus tells the students, “These are my words,

which I speak to you while I’m with you:

All which was written about me

in Moses’s Law, the prophets, and the psalms,

has to be fulfilled.”

45 Then Jesus opens the students’ minds

so they can understand the scriptures.

46 Jesus tells them this: “This is what was written:

Messiah is to suffer,

and to rise from the dead on the third day,

47 and to preach of repentance in his name,

of forgiveness of sins,

to every people-group,

starting in Jerusalem.

48 You are witnesses of these things.

49 Look, I send out my Father’s promise with you!

Stay in the city till you’re clothed

with power from on high.”

 

50 Jesus leads the students as far as Bethany.

Lifting his hands, he blesses them.

51 This happens as Jesus is blessing the students:

He’s removed from them, and is carried into heaven.

52 The students, falling down to worship Jesus,

return to Jerusalem with great joy.

53 They’re always in the temple,

praising God.

I should point out these last four verses seem to conflict with what Luke later wrote in his Acts of the Apostles. In Luke Jesus took ’em way out to Bethany and was raptured from there; in Acts it was Olivet, less than 2,000 cubits away. Ac 1.12 In Luke it looks like Jesus was raptured really soon after Easter, but in Acts Jesus hung out with them for more than a month. Ac 1.3 Certain people who hate the idea of any discrepancies in the bible will try to explain these bible difficulties away: “Well Jesus only led them in the direction of Bethany, but stopped at Olivet; and it only looks like it was really soon after Easter, but doesn’t say it was.” Yeah yeah, whatever. I don’t think minor discrepancies matter. The important thing is Jesus is alive, but the reason we don’t see him still walking the earth is Jesus was raptured.

On to the last words.

Changing God’s mind.

If you know your bible—heck, if you’ve seen The Ten Commandments movie with Charlton Heston—you know the Hebrews had a major lapse in behavior when they were at Sinai.

The previous month, the LORD handed down his 10 commandments, then Moses hiked back up the mountain to get further instructions, and while gone the people decided they wanted an idol. Whether this idol was meant to represent the LORD or some other god, we don’t know. What we do know is the idol violated the very command the LORD handed down last month. Ex 20.4-6 Understandably, the LORD was pissed.

Exodus 32.7-14 NRSVue

7 The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10 Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.”

11 But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” 14 And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

That’s right. The LORD changed his mind. That LORD. The Almighty backed down. A lowly human got him to do it.

It’s far from the only passage in the bible where God changes his mind. There are dozens. Here’s a few notable instances:

• God regretted making humans. Ge 6.5-7
• God regretted making Saul king. 1Sa 15.11
• God relented from destroying Jerusalem with plague. 2Sa 24.16, 1Ch 21.15
• God showed Amos two visions that he immediately took back after Amos protested. Am 7.3, 6
• If a nation repents, God takes back the disaster he had planned for it. Jr 18.8, 26.3, 26.13, Jl 2.13-14, Ps 106.45 Like Judah Jr 26.19 and like Nineveh. Jh 3.10
• If a nation goes rogue, God takes back the good he had planned for it. Jr 18.8, 10 And gets really tired of doing this. Jr 15.6
• We used to be God's enemies, but now we're his friends. Ro 5.6-11

Problem is, these changes in God’s intent flies in the face what many Christians believe. Because these folks don’t believe God changes his mind. Ever. At all.

King David’s utter trust in God.

When I translate psalms, I try to make ’em rhyme. I borrowed the Scottish psalter’s 8·6·8·6 iambic meter, but you’ll notice it’s different. Asterisks indicate where David put סֶֽלָה/seláh; nobody knows what it means, so I skipped ’em.

Psalm 4 KWL

0 For the director. For strings. David’s psalm.

 

1 When I call out to you, my God,

my righteous one, reply!

You widen narrowness for me.

Show mercy! Hear my cry!

2 Oh sons of men, how long will my

successes bring you shame?

Why do you all love empty things?

Why follow lies? How lame.*

3 Know this—that for himself, the LORD

the pious ones he’ll choose.

The LORD, when I call out to him,

will listen, not refuse.

4 So shake in awe, and don’t trespass.

Make mute your hearts in bed.

*

5 Present more righteous offerings,

and trust the LORD instead.

6 The great might say, “Who knows what’s good?

And who will show the way?”

LORD, lift your face, your countenance,

and light our path each day.

7 You give joy to my heart, my God.

I’m thinking of the time

my heart was full because it had

a lot of grain and wine.

8 In peace, together, I lie down

and off I go to sleep.

Because of you alone, oh LORD,

I live in safety deep.

There are a great many things taught about David ben Jesse, the third king of Israel. Like people who teach he’s only the second king of Israel—’cause they don’t count Ishbaal ben Saul. (The Deuteronomistic historian, who wrote 2 Samuel, calls him “Ishbosheth” ’cause he objected to the suffix -baal, ’cause Baalism.) Samuel ben Elkanah didn’t anoint Ishbaal king, so many a Christian will insist he doesn’t count. Same as they tend to skip presidents they don’t like, even if they legitimately were president. But I digress.

The LORD refers to David as “a man after mine own heart,” Ac 13.22, 1Sa 13.14 because David did whatever the LORD told him. Whatever else David was—and he was a lot of good things, but also a lot of bad—he was bananas for God. And the LORD honored him for it.

Problem is, a lot of Christians are bananas for David. Particularly Christians who like to teach about leadership, whether church or business leadership. They tend to hold David up as the best example of a successful CEO. And he’s really not; Jesus is. But these folks find it way easier to put words in David’s mouth, and assign him motives which—conveniently!—sound exactly like their motives. There’s an awful lot of sock-puppet action going on there.

As a result of trying to focus only on David’s successes, victories, and positive enthusiasm, these teachers frequently skip or skim over the parts of the psalms where David’s just frustrated, angry, struggling, lamenting his situation, just railing against his enemies, or dealing with the consequences of his own sins. Like I said, he did a lot of bad things. He was a lousy father, a horny womanizer, an impatient and short-sighted judge, and a straight-up murderer. Not traits you want in a successful CEO, do you?

These teachers whiff past David’s real difficulties, and treat ’em as if God quickly mopped them up, and David leapt from success to success. They fail to realize the psalms contain David complaining about his problems a lot. Because it’s not easy being king! Plus, y’know, the lousy fathering, the horny womanizing, the sloppy judgment, the murdering.

But being bananas for God means he did totally trust God to get him through every single one of his problems. Even though he had ’em. Just like we do.

Yeah, that “word for everybody” is for 𝘺𝘰𝘶.

Back in college we had someone in a prayer group get up and say, “God just laid something on my heart.”

I’ll call her Justine. No, God didn’t literally put something on Justine’s physical heart, or even her spiritual one. All this “my heart” talk is pure Christianese lingo. Basically God told her something. I don’t know whether the “just” means he only a moment ago told her this, or he only told her this; “just” is a Christianese filler word and has lots of meanings. But I’ll stop nitpicking her Christianese now.

God told Justine something. She believed it was something he wanted her to share… and when you share what God told you, that’s prophecy. That’s really all prophecy is; it’s not complicated. We complicate it with a lot of otherworldly, magical ideas, but that’s just cosmetic trickery. It’s only “God told me this, so I’m telling you what he told me.”

“Somebody in this room,” Justine said, “is feeling really depressed. Really downhearted. Broken. Like they don’t know how they’re gonna get through the day.” And she went on like that for a bit. Someone—she didn’t know who—was having a rough time and needed encouragement. Well she wanted to encourage that person. God loves that person. You’re not alone. And other encouraging words. So cheer up, dangit!

Our prayer leader thanked her, so Justine sat down and we went back to praying for stuff.

Once the prayer meeting was over, my roommate and I were talking about this prophecy during dinner.

HE. “Y’know, I’d really like to know which of us was feeling that way. I know Justine probably didn’t want to name names and embarrass anyone, but if God thought it was important enough to bring up to the whole room, you’d think he would’ve said exactly who it was.”

ME. “He didn’t have to. It’s Justine.”

HE. “Wait, she was talking about herself?”

ME. “Yep.”

HE. “So this was just her ploy for sympathy?”

ME. “No no; she legitimately thinks it’s somebody else in the room with the problem. But you know everybody in the room. Which of them is having serious trouble in their personal lives?”

HE. [thinks a moment] “…Justine.”

ME. “There you go.”

HE. “So God gave her a word… for herself?”

ME. “Yep. It wasn’t for the rest of us. He told her he knows what she’s going through, and he’s here for her. But she’s in denial, so she immediately thought, ‘This has gotta be a message for somebody else,’ and basically told on herself.”

HE. “Whoa.”

ME. “I’ve been in denial myself. It’s really messes with your ability to hear God.”

HE. “So what do we do?”

ME. “Pray. Her roommate was there; she knows what’s going on; she’ll be there for her. Now Justine herself just has to figure out what’s going on.”

And gradually she did, though it took some months. But the reason I recognized this phenomenon is because this wasn’t my first encounter with it.

Codependent prophets.

Here’s a phenomenon you run into all the time in 12-step groups for adult children of addicts and alcoholics. (Which I am, which is why I know this.) Addicts’ family members are often codependent people, meaning we spend all our time managing their problems… and never adequately deal with our own. Or figure, “My issues are nothing compared to theirs”—and yeah, they might be lesser issues, but they’re still issues. Sometimes really big issues. Stuff we can’t afford to be in denial about.

Hence codependent people have a bad habit of diagnosing everybody else’s problems, but when it comes to recognizing our own hangups and bad behaviors, the blinders are on. And they’re not coming off without a struggle. Sometimes a fight.

This situation with prophets who are really speaking about themselves: Same deal. Very same deal. The Holy Spirit is trying to help them. But they can’t accept it yet; they insist their issues are nothing compared to that of other people. The message has gotta be for somebody else. And hey, God’s messages for somebody else: That’s prophecy! They got a prophecy! “Hey everybody, check out the prophecy!”—and they proceed to tell on themselves.

Once you learn to recognize this kind of codependent behavior, you’re gonna quickly notice Christians who lack spiritual maturity doing it all the time. Newbies do it. Kids do it. Christians who never grow up do it. There’s this one lady who used to attend my church, who believed she had a really powerful gift for prophecy, ’cause God tells her so many things! But she kept telling herself they were messages for other people, and prophesied them… and now everybody knew what issues she was currently dealing with.

Thick blinders. She never realized how her prophecies always, always perfectly applied to herself. And once people pointed it out to her, her response was, “Oh that’s an interesting coincidence,” but never noticed it was always the case.

Remember how I said codependent people have a bad habit of trying to diagnose others? Codependent people also have a bad habit of trying to become counselors, therapists… and prophets. ’Cause they think they can help! And admittedly they often can; they’ve seen some stuff. But prophets need to be humble, and realize these messages from God may not necessarily be for others, but ourselves, and ask God whether they’re actually for everyone in the room, or the church. They might not be.

But their prophecies might still minister to others. And themselves.

Years ago I went to at a prophecy conference at a nearby church, ’cause I wanted to see what they meant by “activating prophecy.” (I wrote about that elsewhere.) In the middle of the conference, one of the speakers gave us a thought-provoking exercise.

She told us, “I’m gonna have you write a message from God to someone. But I’m not gonna tell you who the message is for, till it’s time to give it. So ask the Holy Spirit what he wants to share with that person. Then write it down. You’re gonna hand that message to that person.”

Weird, but why not. I asked, got something from the Holy Spirit, and wrote it down. Each of us wrote down what we were pretty sure the Holy Spirit told us.

“Okay,” she said, “now look at your paper. That message is actually for you.”

Big surprised reaction from the audience. Kinda pleased reaction, because it turned out a lot of these messages really were suitable for the people who wrote ’em down.

Mine said, It’s okay to have doubts. Hey, it worked!

But the reason this trick worked for everyone, was ’cause of the very same phenomenon this entire article is about. God tells us stuff—and we regularly think the message is for someone else, and it’s frequently our own issues. When I asked the Spirit to tell me something, and started listening to him really hard, what came up was what was already in my conscience. Stuff the Spirit was already telling me to work on, to do. And because I’m just as human as the next person, a lot of the stuff the Spirit tells us is true for everyone. Which is why it’s so easy for us to densely assume, “Hey, that’s for my neighbor”—same as we do with convicting sermons and bible passages.

This fun little exercise tricked the roomful of wannabe prophets into taking their blinders off, just for a moment. That’s why it worked so well.

But it also made me realize every prophet does this. I’ve yet to find one who doesn’t. Unless the Spirit’s message gets really specific (“You need to change your PIN number because your sister’s been sneaking money out of your bank to pay for her video poker addiction”), his messages are usually nudging us to follow Jesus better—and everybody needs to follow Jesus better. It might be my dirty laundry, but everybody’s got laundry.

And everybody, prophets included, need help cleaning the laundry. Help from God; encouragement from one another. We’re all going through stuff. One of the healthiest things we can do is admit this to one another, and pray for one another. Prophets who stand up and state these things aloud might be telling on themselves, but they’re getting these issues out into the open. Ultimately it’s a good thing. Ultimately it ministers to far more people than just the prophet.

So that’s why I don’t wanna tell immature prophets, “Stop telling on yourselves.” Go right ahead and tell on yourself. But realize your messages might be more for you yourself, than you realize.

Lastly, the skeptics.

Yeah, I realize there are gonna be skeptics who say, “So all these prophets are declaring what their own consciences are bothering them about? That’s not God. That’s them. Your conscience isn’t God. It’s all the stuff you’ve been conditioned by your parents and society to believe are right and wrong. It’s pathology, not prophecy.”

There are even Christians who claim to believe in prophecy, yet say this too. Mostly because they don’t believe God regularly speaks to us through prayer, to our spirits, through our consciences. They think prophecy consists, and only consists, of profound God-appearances like a vision or an audible voice. Like an epiphany which blows your mind, or the Holy Spirit possesses you momentarily like one of those psychics claim their spirits do. Bonkers stuff like that.

To them, God doesn’t speak through anyone’s conscience. ’Cause consciences, they figure, don’t work like that. Their theories about how consciences do work, don’t involve anybody adding new morals and values and guidelines to them. Don’t involve the Spirit’s fruit, or the Spirit constantly working on us—and having a lot to say.

Now yes, since the Spirit’s fixing our defective consciences, sometimes the messages we think are the Spirit, are really just us repeating our own defective, demented beliefs. Hence sock-puppet theology and bad prophecies—and the regular need to double-check prophecy against scripture and fellow Christians, lest we get God wrong. I’ve heard many prophets get up, vent their spleen, and think they’re just sharing what God told ’em, but their fleshly attitudes and statements reveal there’s no God in any of it. Just bile. The Christian’s conscience is a mix of godliness and junk, and we’d better learn the difference before we prophesy!

Hence some of the more pressing things in our consciences are gonna be the issues the Spirit wants us to work on most. And if you’re dabbling in prophecy, it’s inevitable that at some point you’re gonna get up and proclaim that thing which presses on you hardest. You’re gonna tell on yourself.

Relax; ain’t no shame in that. Mature Christians have been there too. Some of us are still there, and need the reminder to fight harder. Humans are alike. Christians are alike. We need to hear these things from time to time. And to pray for one another. So keep right on doing it.

As for the naysayers, I can only hope that one of these days a prophet stands up in their churches and declares something which is precisely what they’re going through. I can only hope they have enough sense to set their pride aside, receive it, repent, come forward, and get ministered to. We’re all struggling. We all need grace. That’s why God’s prophets need to remind us of his grace, and this happens to be one of the ways it comes to their minds. Don’t knock it; it works.

When Jesus had to prove he’s alive.

Luke 24.35-43.

To western thinking, this happened the very same day Jesus was resurrected, but late at night. To middle eastern thinking, days are from sundown to sundown, so it’s the next day. But John remembered it as being the same day, Jn 20.19 maybe right before sundown. I’ll discuss John’s point of view another time.

It happens right after two students had just got back from Emmaus after a Jesus-sighting. They show up, they tell everyone what they just experienced… and then this happens.

Luke 24.35-43 KWL

35 The students are telling the other students

what happened on the road,

and when they recognized Jesus in the breaking of bread.

36 While the students were talking about these things,

Jesus stands in the middle of them,

and tells them, “Peace to you all.”

37 Becoming startled and afraid,

the students are thinking they see Jesus’s ghost,

38 and Jesus tells them, “Why were you freaked out?

Why do objections rise up in your minds?

39 Look at my hands and my feet, because I am myself.

Touch me and see!—for a ghost doesn’t have flesh and bone,

as you see I have.”

40 Saying this, Jesus shows them his hands and feet,

41 yet they don’t believe Jesus, wondering in joy.

Jesus tells the students, “Does anyone have food here?”

42 They give Jesus a piece of roasted fish,

43 and taking it, Jesus eats it in front of them.

Jesus just appears. John says he just appeared in the middle of a locked room; Jn 20.19 there was no way for him to get in except through the windows, and he didn’t go in through the windows. He was just… there.

There are a billion different guesses as to how he just appears, but let me remind you none of them are bible. Neither Luke nor John says how he appears. So don’t go insisting you know exactly how he did it, and everyone else’s theory is wrong. You don’t know. I don’t know. And it might blow your mind for me to say this, but maybe even Jesus doesn’t know. Must we know? Nah.

Obviously when a man just appears in front of everybody, people tend to freak out, and the suddenly-appearing person has to tell them “Fear not!” Lk 1.13, 1.30, 2.10 lest they soil themselves in terror. I suspect that’s a lot of the reason Jesus doesn’t blink into a room like this with just anyone. But it certainly didn’t help his argument that he’s not a ghost; sudden appearances are the sort of things we expect ghosts to do, right?

Attendance and membership numbers, and institutional dishonesty.

The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Evangelical denomination in the United States. That’s why I pay attention to its goings-on: What the Southern Baptists are up to, is usually what a lot of Evangelicals are up to. Even though Christians are supposed to follow Jesus, not the crowd, we have a bad habit of following the crowd, and the SBC makes up a big chunk of this crowd.

Lifeway Research is the SBC’s research firm. They do surveys and find out what the current trends are in the SBC and United States. It’s data you can use—assuming you don’t immediately go into self-defense mode or denial when it tells you what you don’t want to hear.

And this week Lifeway Research reported how things are going with Southern Baptist numbers. Attendance is up by more than 5 percent, baptisms are up by more than 16 percent, and giving is up by almost 2 percent. All welcome news. Membership, however, is down about 3 percent—and that was their headline. As was Religion News Service’s headline, when they summarized Lifeway Research’s report.

Attendance is nice, but membership is a bigger deal to Baptists. Because the common belief is members commit. Attendees visit the church, but we’ve no idea whether they’ll still be around after the summer, or if they’re not visiting four or five churches in town at once. Attendees might volunteer to pitch in here and there, and might put money in the offering buckets, but we can’t really count on them to be there every month like members.

Well, that’s the expectation. It’s not been my experience. I’ve been to churches where some members haven’t attended in years. They became members because we were having a membership class, so they went, took the classes, signed the papers, and officially joined. Then they got “too busy” over the summer, or over Christmas, or over tax season, or whatever. They left to go somewhere else. Exactly like the “attendees” supposedly will.

These mayfly members really oughta be removed from the church rolls, but aren’t. Usually because the church bylaws say they can only formally quit, or have to commit some sort of mortal sin, followed by due process… or not. Or they do get automatically removed after a certain period of non-attendance, but it’s an awfully long period, like years. Or there are no official rules, but leaders keep ’em on the rolls because maybe they’ll be back. But they won’t.

And of course there are always dishonest leaders who keep ’em on the rolls so they can claim, “I pastor a church of 500!” when it’s really more like 300 on our better Sundays.

So membership’s in decline. Has been in decline since 2006. There were 16.3 million SBC members back then; there are 13.2 million members now. Last time it was this low was 1978.

Okay, but attendance is up! That’s good news, right? How many attendees did the SBC churches have in 2022? Let’s see… 3.8 million?

They’re fretting about only 13.2 million members, but nearly TEN MILLION MEMBERS AREN’T COMING TO CHURCH. Shouldn’t that be the headline?

Okay, to be fair, we just had a pandemic, and a lot of people have been watching their church over the internet instead of attending in person. But by now, if they haven’t come back, if they’re not making any regular effort to stay in contact with fellow church attendees, they’re gone. They quit. Hope they’re going somewhere, but they’re clearly not going to your church. Heck, my church had a board member who did that.

Remember what I said about dishonest leaders? That’s what Lifeway Research’s numbers are revealing. The Southern Baptist Convention is not 13.2 million strong; they’re less than a third of that. The attendance number is the real number. The rest is padding.

Yeah, okay, some of it might be justifiable. Shut-ins who simply have to watch the services over the internet, who stay connected with their churches through email and texts and Facetime and active social media interactions, should still totally count as members. Depending on how interactive they are, I’d even count them as in-person attendees: They’re participating in the service nearly as much as the in-person folks. Sometimes more! But even if we generously add a million of them to the attendance total, we’re still talking about a third of the reported membership number.

What Lifeway Research’s data unfortunately reveals… is that Southern Baptist leadership, beginning at the local church level, is not honest about the real number of people in their church bodies. Maybe this dishonesty is the result of a technicality—“But the bylaws say we can’t get rid of these 200 non-attending members!”—but it’s dishonesty all the same. And if the church is institutionally dishonest about something as small as attendance… what else is going on with them?

Well, a lot actually. The SBC has had a lot of scandals lately. Google ’em. It’ll depress you.

A “servant heart.”

SERVANT HEART 'sərv.ənt hɑrt noun. Or servant’s heart: The humble attitude one expects to find in someone who is beneath them.

One of the complements we Christians pay one another is to describe someone as having a “servant heart” or “servant’s heart.” Meaning they’re happy to serve.

Ever been to a restaurant where the service was just fantastic? Your waiter was immediately available when you wanted her, and stepped away whenever you didn’t. She took your orders, and made useful suggestions to make your meal better. She brought you everything you wanted—sometimes before you even knew you wanted it!—and brought extra, just in case. She kept the drinks filled and plates cleared. And, believe it or not, wasn’t doing this for a tip (though you absolutely should tip such people), but because she wanted you to have a good time, and was happy to do whatever it took to create it.

Or perhaps you’ve been to a store where the clerks show you just what you’re looking for, offer you a discount you weren’t expecting, and accomodate all your needs and then some. Or hired a contractor and she finished the job early, under budget, using the best materials, expertly done. Or a housecleaner who does likewise.

And these people don’t undermine you, don’t say horrible things about you when your back is turned, don’t grumble the whole time about how they hate their jobs, don’t do shoddy work or try to slip you a defective product, and don’t demand extra pay or extra tips or five-star reviews regardless of how lousy a job they did. I’ve seen way too many people who expect praise for the least amount of effort, who are clearly not meant to be in the service industry… but unfortunately they lack the humility to do anything else, which is why there are way too many of ’em in the service industry. But enough about them.

Jesus taught his Twelve, and all the rest of us Christians, this:

Mark 10.42-45 NLT

42B “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. 43 But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

If you wanna be great in God’s kingdom, it doesn’t work like the world’s kingdoms—with people jockeying for position, and making their subjects show them honor. That, Jesus says, is not for us. It’s not the leadership style he himself models. Our Lord came to serve humanity. Still does. And when he rules the world in person, he’s still gonna be that way; don’t get any weird ideas that everything Jesus teaches goes out the window once he’s in power. He’s still gonna be our example of the very best of servants.

So it’s a trait every Christian needs to develop, and it’s valid and high praise when someone in the church already has that trait.

Test every prophet.

Every Christian can hear God. (If we listen. Not all of us do, or know how to, or even know to. That’s another article.) And if God gives us something to share with another person, that’s prophecy. It’s not a complicated concept. Every Christian can potentially be a prophet.

No, not specially-anointed individuals who’ve been assigned that specific ministry office by the Holy Spirit. Those folks might be professional prophets, but that doesn’t mean other people can’t do prophecy. Same as monks, and people who run prayer ministries, might be professional petitioners, but every Christian should pray. God doesn’t put limits on who can do what in his church. We do—and shouldn’t.

That said, anybody—literally anybody—can come up to you and say, “God told me to tell you [SOMETHING THEY THINK IMPORTANT].” Or sometimes they’ll go full KJV hairy thunderer and start it with “Thus saith the LORD,” but it’s the same general idea: God told ’em to tell you something.

Well they think God told ’em to tell you something.

Or they don’t think God told ’em anything, because he didn’t, and they’re phonies. Anything real can be faked, especially for personal gain. So of course there are fake prophets, and Jesus tells us to watch out for them. They’ll lead us astray, for fun and profit.

In bible times you could drag them out of town, throw them off a cliff, and throw heavy rocks down on their bodies. And if we could still legally do that, we’d have way fewer televangelists. But we can’t, and that’s probably best. There are a lot of newbie prophets who are just getting the hang of their ability, and they’re making mistakes. Sometimes they’re just plain wrong. We need to be gracious to these people, and get ’em to stop playing prophet till their accuracy rate is the appropriate 100 percent.

And even when they have a 100 percent accuracy rate, they could always slip up. God told ’em one thing, but they put their own spin on his message and said way more than they should have, and bungled the prophecy. It happens. Especially when certain Christians get overconfident, or when politics gets involved. (That’s likewise another article.) That’s why Jesus, the apostles, and the prophets of the bible, tell us to watch out. Every Christian is wrong in one way or another, and we’re supposed to double-check one another anyway. True of prophecy as well.

So here’s how to watch out for fake prophets. And if you wanna dabble in prophecy yourself, you’d better make sure you share the traits of a legitimate prophet.

A very short dinner with Jesus in Emmaus.

Luke 24.28-35.

Last week I wrote about Jesus meeting two of his followers enroute to Emmaus; most likely Emmaus Nicopolis, and most likely the followers were Jesus’s uncle Cleopas and cousin Simon. They didn’t recognize him, partly ’cause they were almost certain he was dead, partly ’cause he was unrecognizable; either veiled, or resurrection had changed what he looked like. If he now had white hair Rv 1.14 instead of the more common black, he might look very different.

They told him they expected Jesus the Nazarene to be Israel’s redeemer, but he was arrested and crucified. Lk 24.19-21 He told them Messiah was supposed to go through these things, and explained how the scriptures said so. Lk 24.26-27 They had a nice long walk ahead of them, so he had a few hours to go into great detail, although Luke doesn’t get into that. But after they reached Emmaus, this happened.

Luke 24.28-35 KWL

28 They come near the village where they’re going,

and Jesus makes like he’s going to go on further.

29 The students force Jesus to come with them, saying,

“Stay with us, for it’s near evening and the day’s already over.”

So he goes into the village and stays with them.

30 It happens while Jesus reclines with the students at dinner:

Taking the bread, he blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them.

31 The students’ eyes are opened, and they recognize Jesus

—and he becomes invisible to them.

32 The students tell one another, “Weren’t our hearts burning within us

when he was speaking to us on the road?

when he was opening up the scriptures to us?”

33 Rising up that same hour, the students return to Jerusalem.

They find the Eleven and those with them, having gathered together,

34 and are saying this: “The Master is risen indeed,

and appeared to Simon!”

35 The students are telling the other students

what happened on the road,

and when they recognized Jesus in the breaking of bread.

Every once in a while, some Christian balks at when Jesus προσεποιήσατο πορρώτερον πορεύεσθαι/prosepiísato porróteron porévesthe, “makes like he’s going to go on further,” which also gets translated as “acted” or “pretended” or “gave the impression.” They don’t like the idea Jesus behaved as if he was gonna do one thing, when really he was gonna do another. It strikes them as deceptive.

First of all, why wasn’t Jesus gonna go further? You recall in Matthew the angels, and soon after Jesus himself, told the women, “Tell the boys I’ll see them in the Galilee”? Mt 28.7, 10 He might’ve been headed for the Galilee right then for all we know.

But circumstances change. The students παρεβιάσαντο αὐτὸν/pareviásanto aftón, “force him” (or “urge him,” or “compel him”) to come home with them, and he changed his mind. You do realize Jesus can change his mind, right? He doesn’t have a foreordained cosmic plan which he’s obligated to rigidly, deterministically follow. If he did… then yeah, making like he’s going on without them when he really predestined they’d invite him to stay with them, is pure deception on his part. And every single other instance in the bible in which God changes his mind—in which Moses, David, Hezekiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and dozens of other folks talk him out of doing what he totally just said he was gonna do—is playacting. Pretense. Or to use the ancient Greek word for it, ὑπόκρισις/ypókrisis, from which we get our word hypocrisy.

I should also add Jesus has every right to test his followers; to tell them he’s gonna do one thing, but what he’s hoping is they’ll talk him out of it so he doesn’t have to do that. Just like when the LORD told the Hebrews that if they didn’t follow his Law, they’d be cursed. He didn’t wanna curse them! He didn’t wanna do any of that stuff to them. He wanted ’em to repent! But they failed his test. And if Jesus was just testing his students, to see whether they’d invite him into town, they passed—but he wasn’t kidding about going onwards. If they didn’t invite him into town, he’d just go somewhere else. (In fact, when he vanishes on them in verse 31, that might be where he vanished to; either way, that’s where he was going.)

Being an influencer.

No, I’m not writing about me being an influencer. I don’t wanna be. I know that sounds weird coming from a blogger, ’cause isn’t that why people blog? To get followers, and maybe nudge ’em in the direction of your thinking? (Or in the direction of your advertisers?)

And yeah, I’ve been writing op/ed pieces ever since high school, so I do frequently write with the hopes I might nudge people’s opinions in the same direction as mine. But I learned long, long ago that opinion pieces don’t actually do that. People never think, “Well gee, I don’t know what to think about this subject… so I guess I’ll go read a few articles by some strident partisans, and whoever’s got the best argument will win me over.” Never. Don’t kid yourself.

Generally they already have a trusted guru who tells them what to think. So they already unquestioningly think like she or he does, and anybody who says different is just plain wrong. Or they’re waiting for the guru to descend from the mountaintop with freshly-carved tablets, and refuse to make up their minds till then. Your average influencer dreams of being one of those gurus someday.

Or, on the other extreme, people don’t care. I’ve found that to be way more common. Pure, blistering apathy. They have other things they care about, like football. Or who’s winning Wrestlemania this year.

So why am I writing? Because I wanna talk about following Jesus better. I wanna be part of the support system for other people who wanna follow Jesus better. You can take my advice, or not; you can take other writers’ advice, or not. Either way, if you’re gonna follow anyone, follow Jesus. If you want to be influenced by anyone, let the Holy Spirit do it. Do what God wants you to do, as best you can figure out. The rest of us bloggers and podcasters and pundits?—either we help or hinder, either we produce good fruit or we’re just venting our spleens. And by all means, ignore the folks who hinder!

But you shouldn’t be elevating any one Christian, or even a team of Christians, to the status of guru. We have one guru. Or as Jesus puts it,

Matthew 23.1-12 (my paraphrase)

1 Then Jesus says to the crowds and his students:

2 “The ‘bible experts’ and the ‘devout Christians’ stand in the pulpit 3 hoping you do and observe whatever they might say. But don’t do as they do. They don’t practice as they preach.

4 “They strap heavy, hard-to-carry burdens on people’s shoulders. But they would never lift a finger to carry such things themselves. 5 All they do is for public spectacle. Obvious, showy Christian hats and T-shirts. Stylish Sunday-morning outfits. 6 They love being guests of honor at your dinners. They love to sit on the stage in your services. 7 They love to be greeted in public, and have people call them ‘the master.’

8 “You should not be called masters, for one is the Master, and all of you are sister and brother students. 9 You should not call anyone in the world ‘my spiritual father,’ for one is the Father, in heaven. 10 You should not call anyone ‘my spiritual guru,’ for one is the Guru, the Messiah.

11 “The best of you will be your servant. 12 Whoever promotes themselves will be taken back down to earth. Whoever themselves stays down to earth, will be promoted!”

You wanna be an influencer? You’re on the wrong track.