“All have sinned”—and will keep on sinning? God forbid.

Romans 3.23.

I have a lot of memory verses in my brain. Most are in the King James Version. Some of that is because I grew up Fundamentalist, and Fundies were really wary of any new translations of the bible. And some of that is just because I’m old: There just weren’t a lot of other bible translations. We had the Revised Standard, the New American Standard, the Living Bible, the Good News Bible, and the Modern English Bible. No NIV yet.

So of course I have this verse in my brain in the KJV—

Romans 3.23 KJV

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

—but weirdly I also have it memorized in the NIV. Well, the 1978 edition. Thankfully the 2011 edition is the same.

Romans 3.23 NIV

for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God,

Y’might notice neither translation ends the verse with a period, because verse 23 is part of a much larger Greek sentence. I’ll quote it in the NKJV because it doesn’t break the sentence apart.

Romans 3.22-26 NKJV

22BFor there is no difference; 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

It’s a paragraph-long run-on sentence—and breaking it down into smaller sentences does help make it more understandable. But the gist is that there’s no difference between Jewish and gentile Christians, since everybody sinned, everybody needs Jesus, and everybody just needs to trust Jesus.

But generally, Christians quote verse 23 as a proof text for how everybody sinned. Everybody. At some point in every human being’s life—heck, it happens at many points in our lives, but unless we’re seriously narcissistic, we can all admit it happened at least once—we committed a sin. Broke one of God’s commands. Lied, cheated, stole, dishonored our parents, coveted what we shouldn’t, worked seven days a week instead of six, hated instead of loved, prioritized other things over God.

Everybody has. No exceptions—but one; we totally make one for Jesus, ’cause duh, it’s Jesus. Jn 8.46 Roman Catholics also make an exception for his mom, ’cause you search the bible: Any stories of her sinning? Ever? No? All righty then.

And frequently, people make exceptions for fetuses and newborns, ’cause they never yet had the chance to sin. Seems only fair. But everyone else has sinned. You, me, everybody.

In context, Paul is making the point humanity isn’t right with God. Isn’t justified. And isn’t gonna get right with God any other way. Not by being a descendant of Abraham; best guess is Abraham currently has a half billion living descendants, and everybody knows not all of them are right with God. Not by being a descendant of Israel ben Isaac; same problem. Not by following God’s Law, and obeying every single one of his commands as best we can; we’ve all slipped up dozens of times. Paul had to remind the Romans no, righteousness comes by faith.

And because we’re justified by faith, gentiles can likewise be justified when they trust Jesus. God will graciously establish a relationship with them, and grant them his kingdom as well as his Jewish followers. It’s good news!

But those who proof-text this verse are seldom interested in the good news. Just the bad: All have sinned. Including you.

Preparing to feed the 5,000—in the synoptic gospels.

Mark 6.35-37, Matthew 14.15-16, Luke 9.12-13.

Though I’m going through John, and covering the Feeding Five Thousand Story from his POV, I pointed out all the gospels include this story: Both John, and the other three which we call synoptics, or synoptic gospels, ’cause they frequently share the same optics—they describe Jesus from the very same point of view. (Probably because Matthew and Luke are using Mark as source material. That’s the prevailing theory.)

John introduces the story with Jesus checking out the vast crowd, then asking his student Philip about buying bread for them Jn 6.5 —as a test, not because Jesus literally wanted him to buy bread, Jn 6.6 and to kinda give us an idea of the resources needed to feed such a crowd.

The other gospels approach it thisaway: It’s late, and the students think it’s high time Jesus’s audience went home.

Mark 6.35-37 KWL

35Since a late hour comes already,

Jesus’s students, coming to him, say,

“The place is wilderness

and it’s a late hour:

36Release them, so they go to the fields around, and villages;

they can buy themselves something they can eat.”

37AIn reply Jesus tells them,

“You give them something to eat.”

Matthew 14.15-16 KWL

15Becoming evening,

the students come to Jesus, saying,

“The place is wilderness

and the hour comes:

Release the crowd, so going to the villages

they can buy themselves food.”

16Jesus tells them, “They have no need to go.

“You give them something to eat.”

Luke 9.12-13 KWL

12The day begins to recline,

and the Twelve, coming up, tell Jesus,

“Release the crowd, so going to the villages around, and fields,

they can rest and can find provisions,

for here we are in a wilderness.”

13AJesus tells them,

“You give them something to eat.”

This differing point of view presents a minor bible difficulty: Is it Jesus’s students who notice the people getting hungry, and figure it’s time for them to leave and get food, or is it Jesus who notices, and decides it’s time to feed them? I say minor bible difficulty because it’s not at all hard to recognize both Jesus and his kids would realize it was time for dinner; and it’s not at all hard to imagine Jesus might talk to Philip about feeding them before he spoke to the rest of the Twelve.

Getting ready to feed 5,000.

John 6.1-7.

John didn’t write his gospel in chapters. Took a few centuries before some enterprising Christian divided the bible into chapters; took a bit longer before it was divided further into verses. But when John was divided into chapters, the editor largely did it right: In a lot of ’em, Jesus does a miracle, and there’s fallout as people argue over what this miracle means, and what it means about Jesus; and Jesus of course has to correct some of their wrong ideas. And today, popular Christian culture still pitches their theories about what these miracles and Jesus’s teachings mean, and the Holy Spirit of course has to correct some of our wrong ideas. Assuming we listen to him any.

So John 6 begins with the Feeding Five Thousand Story. All four gospels tell this story, ’cause it’s important: It reminds us God’s kingdom has unlimited resources. I’ll begin with the first part of the story.

John 6.1-7 KWL

1After these things, Jesus goes across the Galilean sea, Tiberias.

2A great crowd is following Jesus,

because they’re watching the signs

which he’s doing among the sick.

3Jesus goes up a hill with his students.

4It’s getting near the Judean feast of Passover.

5Jesus is lifting up his eyes,

seeing this great crowd come to him.

He tells Philip, “Where might we buy bread

so these people might eat?”

6Jesus is saying this test Philip,

for he already knew what he’s about to do.

7Philip is answering Jesus,

“The bread of 200 denarii isn’t enough for them!

—so each one might receive a little.”

The Galilean sea.

The 166km² freshwater lake in northern Israel—which we wouldn’t call a “sea,” but the ancient Galileans proudly did—was originally called כִּנְּרוֹת/Khinnerót, “harps,” although in modern Hebrew it means “violins.” Supposedly the name is because it’s harp-shaped. Meh; kinda. Considering that place names in the bible were regularly the result of something happening there, instead of what something kinda looked like, my bet is something involving multiple harps happened there—a contest, a festival, a popular harp-manufacturer; whatever. The origin is lost to history, of course.

Anyway, by Jesus’s day, Herod Antipas had renamed it Τιβεριάς/Tiveriás, “Tiberias,” after the city he’d founded on its southern bank, which he named to suck up to the Roman emperor, Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus. There’s no evidence Herod suppressed the original name—Luke still calls it “the lake of Genessaret,” Lk 5.1 ’cause Γεννησαρέτ/Ghennisarét is how Greek-speakers mangled the name Khinnerót. But Tiberias is how people outside Israel came to know it, which is why John used that name thrice.

We don’t know where the feeding took place. Some Christians have speculated it happened at Tiberias—that this is why the word Τιβεριάδος/Tiveriádos is in verse 1—but no; John was just using the proper name of the Galilean sea. We only know it didn’t happen at Bethsaida, ’cause Jesus goes there later.

Anyway. Crowds heard about Jesus curing people, so they wanted to check him out for themselves. And he did cure some of them. Mt 14.14, Lk 9.11 Then he climbs a hill, not to get away from them (although there is some of that), but so he can be seen, and maybe heard. The other gospels say he took advantage of the situation and taught ’em all day long. Mk 6.34-36 Maybe the Sermon on the Mount again; maybe something else. We don’t know.

Angry Jesus.

Some weeks ago I was speaking with someone about blogging on the gospel according to John. He expressed some excitement about it.

HE. “Oh yeah! You at the parts where Jesus really tears the Pharisees a new one?”

ME. “Getting there.”

HE. “I love that part.”

Doesn’t surprise me. He gets really, really angry at people whom he considers his political enemies, and loves to imagine himself tearing them a new one. Stands to reason he’d love seeing that same level of anger in Jesus.

And let’s be honest: Jesus does get angry sometimes! I’m not one of those interpreters who insist Jesus never did; that “God’s wrath” and “the day of wrath” are metaphors, or anthropomorphic euphemisms, for what’s really going on in God’s head, because God never really gets angry. Or insist, like the medieval scholastics used to argue, God can’t have legitimate human-type emotions, because that’d interfere with his immutable nature. (God does have an immutable, i.e. unchanging, nature. But the scholastics borrowed way too many ideas from Aristotle and the ancient Greeks, and went a bit wonky.)

Nope; sometimes God gets angry! We humans can legitimately piss him off. Whenever we openly defy him when we clearly know better; whenever we pretend to be righteous, but are hypocritically using our phony “righteousness” to stick it to others; whenever we take advantage of the weak and needy and marginalized, and assume we can easily get away with it because nobody’s watching. Human evil regularly enrages God.

It’s why the prophets and apostles kept pointing to a day when God would finally put things right—and called it “the day of the LORD’s wrath.” Ek 7.19, Zp 1.18, Ro 2.5, Rv 6.17 Because they expected, if not wanted, God to open up a can of whup-ass on humanity’s evildoers. (Presuming we’re not among them!)

But back to Jesus. Did Jesus get angry? Duh:

Mark 3.5 NLT

He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored!

In that story, Jesus was in synagogue, the people brought him a guy with a paralyzed hand, and accusers were watching Jesus to see whether he’d cure the guy, specifically so they could condemn him for “working” on Sabbath. Jesus rightly pointed out you can make exceptions for good deeds on Sabbath, Mk 3.4 but they didn’t wanna hear it. This was a setup; they weren’t interested in reason or God’s will; they just wanted to stick it to Jesus, and this guy with the messed-up hand was just a pawn in all this. Of course it made him angry. Shouldn’t it?

But I should also point out two things: This is the only place in the gospels where Jesus is said to be angry; and Jesus doesn’t act on his anger. At all. He cures the guy—which is something he’d have done either way, happy or angry. He doesn’t yell at the hypocrites; he doesn’t stop teaching and storm out of synagogue; he doesn’t make a whip out of rope and start flogging them.

Oh yeah; the story where Jesus makes a whip and drives the merchants and animals out of the temple. Christians constantly presume he’s angry in that story, ’cause flipping tables and cracking a whip sure sounds violent! But does the scripture say what his mood was when this happened? Raging like the Hulk in the comic books and movies? Or annoyed—“Aw nuts, this again”—and patiently moving their profit-making venture out of God’s sacred prayer space?

See, we’re projecting anger upon Jesus because we would get angry in these circumstances. We’re projecting anger upon Jesus whenever he condemns hypocrites, rebukes the thoughtless behavior of his students, or calls things as he sees ’em—and these things are pretty messed up! We would be angry.

And some of us don’t really give a wet crap about injustice and hypocrisy: We’re already angry. Injustice is just a convenient excuse to rage a bit, under the guise of “righteous anger.” But anger’s a work of the flesh, and we’re not following Jesus’s example and refusing to act upon it: We’re Hulking out.

Those accepting everyone and everything but Jesus.

John 5.41-47.

People regularly misunderstand this next bit because they regularly misdefine the word δόξα/dóxa, which Jesus uses throughout. The KJV translates it as “honour”—or as we Americans spell it thanks to Noah Webster, “honor.” And in American culture, “honor” means high respect. Great esteem. Reverence. Praises. Sometimes even worship… which makes some of us uncomfortable when people are getting honored like this, ’cause it can almost feel like idolatry. Honestly, sometimes it’s totally idolatry.

But dóxa doesn’t indicate a high opinion of someone; it just indicates one’s opinion. Good and respectable… or bad and infamous. It can go every which way. True, when Jesus is talking about the opinion people have of him, he rightly expects it should be a good one. He’s a good guy! He’s loving, kind, patient, generous, joyous; he exhibits all the Spirit’s fruit ’cause he’s loaded with the Holy Spirit. Jn 3.34 He never sins! Plus there’s the miracles—you remember this whole discourse was triggered by him curing someone who’d been disabled for decades. He’s done all sorts of good deeds like that. And let’s not forget he knows a ton about God and his kingdom.

Such a person should have the best reputation, whether it’s among devout religious people like himself, or among pagans who weren’t religious whatsoever, but who could nonetheless recognize a legitimately good, compassionate, and authentic guy when they saw him. Plenty of Christian ministers have just this kind of reputation: They’re well-known for their good character and good deeds, and everyone in their community respects ’em.

And then there’s Jesus among the people of Jerusalem. And they’re giving him crap because he cured the guy on Sabbath, and this must therefore mean he’s… evil? Wait, why’d they suddenly leap to that extreme? How messed-up is their thinking?

But lemme tell you: I run into plenty of people with the very same messed-up thinking. So have you. People who can’t fathom that a Christian minister is even Christian, simply because he’s a member of the wrong political party. Or because they don’t believe the Spirit does miracles anymore, and figure this person can’t possibly be doing miracles in the Spirit’s power; it’s gotta be the devil—and so they go straight to blaspheming the Spirit.

What’s their problem? It’s exactly the same diagnosis Jesus gives to his critics in Jerusalem: They don’t have God’s love within them. And without this particular fruit, no one can be trusted. No one can be loved. Jesus must be trying to deceive them for some reason, and no doubt they have plenty of paranoid, delusional guesses as to why. And since they imagine themselves devout, they’re pretty sure God gave them the power to discern just what he’s up to—and the power to ignore everything he says in his defense.

John 5.41-47 KWL

41“I don’t seek a reputation from people.

42But I knew you people:

You don’t have God’s love within yourselves.

43I came in my Father’s name

and you don’t accept me.

Another might come in their own name;

you’ll accept that person.

44How are you able to trust anyone?

You actually accept one another’s reputations?

You don’t seek the reputation which only comes from God?

45Don’t imagine I’ll accuse you before the Father:

Your accuser is Moses.

You once put your hope in him.

46For if you’re still trusting Moses,

it’s me you’re trusting,

for Moses writes about me!

47If you don’t trust those writings,

how will you trust my words?”

“Our thoughts and prayers are with you.”

When disaster strikes, whether natural or manmade, one of the most common platitudes we hear thereafter is, “Our thoughts and prayers are with you.”

In the past several years I’ve noticed the expression has seen backlash. Mainly because the politicians who say it most, are rather overt hypocrites. Their actions demonstrate they’re not thinking of the disaster victims at all. Their fleshly behavior also suggests they don’t pray either… or they’re praying in some weird manner which doesn’t change them whatsoever. You know, contrary to how prayer actually works.

Now yes, some of the backlash comes from nontheists who are pretty sure all prayer is bogus anyway. They don’t believe anybody’s listening, and we Christians are only talking to the sky. Prayers are therefore just as useless as when some pagans attempt to send positive thoughts, vibes, and energy towards the needy: All they actually do is psyche themselves into feeling really happy things, then feel a little burst of euphoria which they figure is them “releasing” those thoughts into the universe. And then… they’re back to life as usual. Unless the happy thoughts get ’em to deliberately behave in more positive, productive ways towards those around them; but usually they don’t. The universe is no different. Nor better.

Give you an example. One of the United States’ many mass shootings might take out more masses than usual. The news media covers it like crazy; the public is horrified; the usual senators (or more likely, their staffers who know how to use social media) stick things on the internet about how their “thoughts and prayers” are with the victims and their families. And those who want gun restrictions object: These particular senators have no plans to change the gun laws whatsoever, and if anything they’ll be wary of future gun restrictions, and continue to fight existing gun resstrictions. Which means more mass shootings are inevitable. So what good are those senators’ thoughts and prayers?

I mean, functionally it’s the same as when James objected to “faith” which lacked works:

James 2.14-17 GNT

14My friends, what good is it for one of you to say that you have faith if your actions do not prove it? Can that faith save you? 15Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and don’t have enough to eat. 16What good is there in your saying to them, “God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!”—if you don’t give them the necessities of life? 17So it is with faith: if it is alone and includes no actions, then it is dead.

Our “thoughts and prayers” frequently aren’t any different than wishing the needy well, but doing nothing to make ’em less needy. Sometimes out of our own laziness, sometimes our own ill will. And the needy aren’t dense. They see the irreligion in it. They’re calling us on it. Rightly so.

If our thoughts and prayers do nothing, our faith is dead.

Proof in Jesus’s favor—if you’re willing to see it.

John 5.30-40.

You might recall the story where Jesus cures some guy at a pool in Jerusalem. He’d been disabled for decades; people should’ve been rejoicing at this, ’cause God has a prophet in Israel who can cure the sick!

But instead the Judeans pitched a fit: Jesus cured this guy on Sabbath. To hypocrites like these guys, it sets a bad precedent: If God empowers good deeds on Sabbath, now they might have to do good deeds on Sabbath! Hence all their ridiculous arguments about how Jesus can’t be of God; God would never. Exactly the same as hypocrites nowadays, when they don’t care to help the needy, and offer ridiculous objections about any Christians who do. “Oh those people are active, unrepentant sinners,” as if Jesus didn’t regularly eat with sinners. “Oh those people are breaking the law,” as if Jesus didn’t likewise interact with people who violated the laws of Israel and God. But I digress.

Jesus correctly points out he can cure on Sabbath because his Father authorized him to do so. Because he is the Son of Man. This, despite all the obvious evidence Jesus is exactly who he says he is, his Judean critics didn’t care to hear.

Now before we get to today’s passage, I need to explain some of the historical and biblical context so it makes sense. Otherwise you’re just gonna read it and go, “Hmm. Why does Jesus say his testimony isn’t true?”

Elsewhere in John’s gospel, certain Pharisees object to Jesus’s teachings on legal grounds. No they’re not in a courtroom; no they don’t need to follow courtroom proceedings! But if you’ve ever debated someone, you might notice how, every once in a while, they might try to base some of their arguments and defenses on legal procedure and precedent. As if we’re in a courtroom, or in Congress, which we’re not. It’s not actually a valid debate tactic, but they’ll try it out anyway, and hope you never call ’em on it.

John 8.13 NRSVue

Then the Pharisees said to him, “You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.”

Literally they said ἀληθής/alithís, “true,” but no they weren’t accusing Jesus of lying (like the NKJV and other translations have it). Historical context, folks. Testifying about yourself didn’t count in court. It wasn’t “true,” i.e. valid, unless you had a second witness to confirm you. Like Moses put it:

Deuteronomy 19.15 NRSVue

“A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained.”

I should point out some commentators claim Judeans wouldn’t accept anyone’s testimony about themselves: If you were ever put on trial, you had to be silent, because your testimony didn’t count. This is of course rubbish; if you’ve read your bible you know people regularly spoke up at their trials. Jesus, Peter and John, Stephen, and Paul all made statements at their trials; Stephen took up an entire chapter. Ac 7 Jesus was even sentenced to death on his testimony: Nobody else’s testimony was proven valid! Mk 14.56-59 But Jesus testified he’s Messiah, Mt 26.63-66 and his testimony was certainly valid. Self-testimony certainly could be. Jn 8.14 It’s just Jesus’s listeners, in this case and others, wanted more witnesses.

Now whenever Jesus made significant statements, he usually started ’em with “Amen,” which gets translated “Verily verily” in the KJV, and “Very truly I tell you” in the NIV and NRSVue. He did so before these statements too. Jn 5.19, 24, 25 It’s actually an oath: He swears what he’s saying is true. He is the Son of Man; he will judge the world on the Father’s behalf. But yeah, by legal standards, he only provided his own testimony, so it shouldn’t hold up in court.

Thing is, they weren’t in court! (Well, there’s the court of public opinion, but you know how lawless that can get.) But if you wanna challenge Jesus on a point of Law, you’re in for it: Jesus knows the Law better than anyone. Whom do you think gave it to Moses? Yes, the correct answer is “the LORD”—and that’s Jesus.

So he’ll play along. You demand a second testimony? Fine; he’s got witnesses.

The bible’s not a biology textbook!

Leviticus 11.13-19, Deuteronomy 14.11-18, Jonah 1.17, Matthew 12.40

During a talk with a fellow Christian, we went off on a bit of a tangent.

ME. “…Like when Jonah got swallowed by the whale…”

HE. “Sea creature.”

ME. “Whale. How’re you getting ‘sea creature’ from kítus?”

HE. “From what?”

HE. “Kítus. The Greek word for ‘whale.’ The word Jesus used when he talked about Jonah being in the whale’s belly three days and nights. Mt 12.40 It’s the word we get our adjective ‘cetacean’ from, which refers to whales, dolphins, porpoises, and other marine mammals.”

HE. [confused; betcha he didn’t expect me to know what I was talking about] “But Jonah said he was swallowed by a great fish.” Jh 1.17

ME. “Sure.”

HE. “Well a whale’s not a fish.”

ME. “But it was a fish in Jesus’s day.”

HE. “Whales used to be fish…?”

HE. “Because the ancients classified them as fish. They figured if it lives in the sea, it’s a fish. Then somebody eventually realized some of these ‘fishes’ have lungs, and decided if you have lungs you’re not a fish, and humanity redefined ‘fish.’ Well, bible’s still using the old definition. So in the bible, whales are big fish.”

HE. [still confused] “But whales aren’t fish.”

ME. “Aren’t fish anymore. They were fish back in Jesus and Jonah’s day.”

HE. “So are you saying the bible’s wrong, or we are?”

ME. “Neither. The bible doesn’t define fish; it explains God. We define fish. You remember Adam got to name the animals. Ge 2.19-20 We get to decide what’s a fish and what’s not. And if we redefine fish, we can do that; it doesn’t violate the bible to do that. The only problem is when we try to update the bible to fit our definition of fish, and make the bible look inconsistent when it’s really not.”

This very issue came up again this weekend. My pastor had a little quiz about bible literacy, and I pointed out to him Jesus said Jonah was swallowed by a κήτους/kítus, “whale.”

Matthew 12.40 KJV

For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

It’s right there in red and white. Well, unless you’re reading a more recent translation which renders kítus as “sea creature” or “big fish.”

Amplified, LSB, NASB, NRSV: “sea monster”

CEV, GNT: “big fish”

CSV, NET, NIV: “huge fish”

ESV, MEV, NKJV: “great fish”

ISV: “sea creature”

But I remind you: None of these translations are accurate. None. They’re all conforming to the דָּ֣ג גָּד֔וֹל/dag gadól, “great fish,” of Jonah:

Jonah 1.17 KJV

The LORD arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah.

Jonah was in the fish’s bowels three days and three nights.

But to Jesus’s mind (at the time) a whale was a great fish. And isn’t Jesus in a position to know which species of “fish” swallowed Jonah? He said kítus, “whale”; so it was a whale.

My point is, if you know your history, there’s not actually a bible difficulty here! The problem is people don’t know history, and think there’s a difficulty if Jesus says “whale”… so y’notice a fair number of bible translators have changed the Lord Jesus’s words so that there’s no difficulty anymore. Which reveals all sorts of disturbing things about them. Namely a bothersome amount of intellectual dishonesty.

Quit praying to Satan!

There’s an traditional African folk song called “What a Mighty God We Serve.” If you grew up Christian, maybe you heard it in Sunday school. Sometimes adults sing it too. Goes like so.

♫ What a mighty God we serve

♫ What a mighty God we serve

♫ Angels bow before him

♫ Heaven and earth adore him

♫ What a mighty God we serve

Years later I found out it has more lyrics—words my children’s and youth pastors never bothered to teach us. You might be able to guess why.

♫ I command you Satan in the name of the Lord

♫ To take up your weapons and flee

♫ For the Lord has given me authority

♫ To walk all over thee

There are variations. I often hear “put down your weapons” in the second line, which makes way more sense than “take up your weapons.” There’s also “stomp all over thee” in the fourth—which comes with stomping movements, which are always fun.

Anyway. Lots of Sunday schools skip these lines, so lots of Christians aren’t aware of ’em. I hadn’t heard them in years; then they came up again in summer youth camp. The pastor got all the kids to sing along with the first part, but when she broke into the second part, the kids sat there confused: “Why’s she singing to the devil?” Anyway, because they didn’t sing along, she concluded, “I guess you don’t know that part,” and went right back to the “What a mighty God we serve” bit they did know.

As to why churches don’t teach it: Well you are singing to the devil! And shouldn’t. Don’t do that.

Likewise there are a number of Christians who pray to the devil. You may have seen it happen. Someone gets up to pray. Then, in the middle of all their other praises and petitions to God, they put the Lord on pause, and dial Satan in on our conference call.

“And Satan, we rebuke you. We bind you. We cast you out. You have no authority here. You have no business in this place. You get out of here, Satan. You’re under our feet.”

And so on. You get the idea.

Again: Don’t do that!

I know; I know. You’ve seen pastors and prayer leaders do it. You’ve seen Christians whom you greatly respect doing it. Loads of people do it. But they shouldn’t do it either.

“Don’t make me come down there!”

1 Corinthians 4.14-21.

The church of Corinth’s confusion about which faction to follow, about clever Christian teachings, about how blessed they are in Christ, provoked the apostles to send them someone trustworthy to correct the church: The apostle Timothy. 1Co 4.17 In the 60s Timothy wound up leading the church of Ephesus, but at this point in the 50s, he was apparently sent by Paul to various hotspots where the Christians were losing sight of the main thing, i.e. following Christ Jesus.

’Cause churches get like that! Still get like that. They follow popular teachers, they get all agitated about what sinners are up to, they dabble in politics (or get fully invested in ’em), they invent loopholes to justify all their sins, they relabel their fleshly behavior to make their evil attitudes sorta sound Christian. The Corinthians did all that stuff and more, and though Paul and Sosthenes rebuke ’em a lot for stuff like this, here Paul recognizes a letter alone is not gonna cut it: He has to send them a good example. Can’t be him right now; he’s in Macedonia. 1Co 16.5 But Timothy’s a good man, so he’ll send ’em Timothy.

1 Corinthians 4.14-21 KWL

14I don’t write these things to embarrass,

but to caution you all, like my beloved children.

15You may have myriads of teachers in Christ,

but not many parents,

for I’m your father in Christ Jesus, through the gospel,

16so I urge you to mimic me.

17This is why I send you Timothy:

He’s my beloved child and has faith in the Master.

He’ll remind you of my way in Christ Jesus,

just as I teach it everywhere in every church.

18Though I myself am not coming to you,

—and some will puff up about that—

19when the Master wills, I will come quickly.

I will know what’s what,

not by the teaching of those who’ve been puffed up,

but the power.

20For God’s kingdom isn’t about teaching,

but about power.

21What do you want?

Should I come to you with a stick?

Or in love, and a spirit of gentleness?

To be fair, though the apostles say, “I don’t write these things to embarrass, but caution you,” no doubt some of this stuff did embarrass them. They thought they were doing great! 1Co 4.8 But they were confusing material prosperity, and clever teachings, with success—as pagans typically do. By pagan standards they’re doing great! But by God’s kingdom’s standards—which to pagan minds, is upside-down in an awful lot of ways—they were completely buggered, and needed some hands-on course correction. They needed Timothy.

Read the bible this August. Yes, all of it.

Back when you were making New Year’s resolutions, one of them mighta been to read the bible. All the bible, from Genesis to the maps; probably using one of those bible-in-a-year plans. Lots of Christians do.

Then, somwhere around February or March, you kinda fumbled the plan. It happens to the best of us! Hopefully you got right back on it and caught up with the reading. Many don’t. Some skip over all the parts they missed, figuring they’ll read ’em next year. Some never do read ’em next year.

And some, of course, quit altogether.

But you realize you can pick up thty resolution at any part of the year, right? It doesn’t have to be in January. You don’t have to start reading the bible in January. In fact, some of the bible-reading plans have you read the bible twice or three times a year, meaning you start in January and July; or January, May, and September. But September’s usually super busy, and August is not… so hey, why not start in August? Get done in November instead of the busy, busy December.

Of course you can also read the bible in a month. It’s totally doable. I do it in January; you can do it in August. Or September, or October, or any month; if your August happens to be crazy busy, maybe next month would be better. But there’s no reason to procrastinate reading the bible… well, other than crippling depression, and for that you oughta see a doctor. But otherwise there’s not!

As I’ve written elsewhere, the year-long reading plans makesthe bible sound like a massive project, and it’s really not. An audio bible will be less than 100 hours long, and if you listened to it three hours a day (or 90 minutes twice a day), you’re done in 33 days. Audiobooks tend to go at a slow pace, so if you sped it up to 150 percent speed, those three hours will now be two. I of course read much faster than an audiobook will go. So can most of you. An hour of bible a day can get the bible done in a month. I know from experience; I’ve done it for years.

Though the bible’s a big thick book collection, going through the whole of it in August is far from impossible. Go for it!

How Jesus submits to his Father.

John 5.30.

After Jesus cured some guy, the Judeans objected because he did it on sabbath, so Jesus went into a teaching about how he works because his Father works—and he’s also gonna judge the world at the End.

He ends this declaration with this statement, which I figured I’d discuss on its own because it has to do with how Jesus submits to his Father. Submission is a loaded concept for certain Christians—especially since some of ’em are interpreting the idea in ways which wind up going heretic. So it’s turned this statement into a loaded one.

Statement first though.

John 5.30 KWL

“I can’t do anything on my own.

I judge just as I hear,

and my judgment is fair

because I don’t seek my own will,

but the will of the One who sends me.”

Just to remind you: Separation of powers is an American thing. Our executives don’t judge, and our judges don’t carry out their rulings but have cops and marshals who do that. But that’s obviously not how ancient kings work. Kings were the supreme rulers of their land, and were by themselves the supreme court—if a king ruled, there’s no overruling him.

Our ideas of plaintiffs and defendants, who got to argue their case before the judge; of laws and precedents the king was supposed to follow: Those are important. If the king actually follows those things, you’ll get a fair trial. But despots don’t care about any of those things, and do as they please. Rogue Supreme Courts ignore the Constitution and precedents, ignore the people who argued in front of them, rule according to their agendas, and make up ridiculous arguments to defend their rulings. Ancient and medieval kings didn’t even bother to defend themselves; they figured they had every right to rule as they pleased. Fairness? Fairness doesn’t matter.

In comparison, Jesus says he’s not a despot. He doesn’t judge on his own. He judges as he hears, meaning he listens to the plaintiffs and defendants before him. He follows a Law which defines good and evil. He takes God’s will into consideration; not his own.

As any good Israeli king should. As Solomon did. And of course, as Romans didn’t—they might be bothered to have fair trials when it was a fellow Roman on trial, like Paul, but if you didn’t have citizenship they’d simply torture you, as they almost did Paul. Ac 22.24-27 Or they’d delay your trial ’cause they wanted a bribe, likewise as they did with Paul. Ac 24.25 Right here, Jesus is contrasting his fair and righteous rule with that of Romans—and corrupt judges, like the senators who later sentenced him to death.

Because being a fair judge is what God wants. God cares about truth. God doesn’t want people unjustly punished and penalized. God doesn’t want the guilty to go free, the evildoer to unrepentantly get away with it. Corrupt judges look the other way because they favor the rich and powerful, and maybe want their wealthy friends to take ’em on vacations and help ’em buy RVs. Jesus in contrast will always rule fairly. Always.

But let’s be honest: Jesus totally has an agenda. He’s totally biased. He admits it. Ignore all those Christians who claim Jesus and God are the only unbiased judges in the universe; of course the LORD is biased. Fortunately for us, grace means he’s biased in our favor, which is why Jesus says in this very same passage, “I promise you the one who hears my word, and trusts the One who sends me, has life in the age to come and doesn’t go into judgment.” Jn 5.24 KWL Those who follow Jesus don’t get a trial! They go straight into the age to come. That’s the team we wanna be on.

So what other bias does Jesus confess to? He says it right there in today’s verse: “I don’t seek my own will, but the will of the One who sends me.” He’s not a despot who does whatever he wants; he only wants to do as the Father wants. The Father is a righteous judge; therefore the Son’s gonna be a righteous judge.

If you’re anxious Jesus is gonna be furious at sin, much like angry preachers are… well okay, he certainly hates sin. Especially when people exploit the poor and needy, and figure it’s okay because they went through all the proper religious motions to wipe out all their bad karma. The LORD already said, through Isaiah, he’s not listening to such people. Is 1.15 He wants ’em to repent!

Therefore he’s gonna be a righteous judge—who may be exorbitantly lenient on those who follow him, but judges everyone else fairly, on merit. And while there are many Christians who insist only the people who follow Jesus are gonna enter the age to come, I’m pretty sure Jesus is gonna extend grace to a lot more people than they’re expecting. People who honestly didn’t know any better; people who died before hearing the gospel, so they’re not penalized for rejecting it; babies who died before they could hear it, of course. Jesus is far more gracious than angry preachers. Or me!—there’s lots of people I wouldn’t let in, but thankfully I’m not the judge.

Terrified of God-experiences.

Here’s the dirty little secret you’re gonna find among the vast majority of people who insist we shouldn’t seek God-experiences: The very idea of coming face-to-face with the living God? Scares the poop out of ’em.

The reason they insist God doesn’t appear to people anymore, is because they’re hoping to goodness he doesn’t. They absolutely don’t want him to. Frightens them.

They’re also extremely nervous about the second coming. They might talk, and talk a lot, about how it may happen in their lifetime… but they really don’t want it to. That’s half the reason they’ve embraced End Times interpretations in which certain things must take place before Jesus’s return (even though nothing else has to): They want a heads-up. They wanna know he might be coming soon so they can get ready. Not because they’re sinning themselves sore and they wanna clean up first; mainly it’s to brace themselves for the absolutely petrifying prospect of encountering our Lord in person.

And of course they’re extremely nervous about death. Same reason.

Why are they afraid of God? Lots of reasons; none good. I suspect most of it comes from growing up, or worshiping, with Christians who don’t do grace. Been there! Instead of being introduced to a loving God who wants to save us, who already has a positive attitude towards us, who doesn’t merely have infinite patience for us but wants us to be with him… they’re taught all sorts of other unhealthy, dysfunctional things about God.

Mainly that God hates sin. That he can’t abide it; it absolutely cannot be in his holy presence. And since we humans are sinners… well when we stand before him, it’s not gonna be pleasant, is it? He’ll be furious with us. Good thing Jesus steps between his holy rage and us, and stops his Father from vaporizing us with a syllable. Although sometimes they’ve not been taught that either; sometimes Jesus is the one with all the holy rage, slaughtering sinners until the blood and gore is waist-deep over the land.

Seriously, that’s what they expect a God-experience to consist of. So of course they’re scared witless! They don’t want any such encounter with an wrathful God. They think we’re nuts for wanting to go there… and when we tell ’em how gracious God is, they’re pretty sure that can’t be a legitimate God-encounter, because God shoulda burnt us to a crisp. Must be the devil tricking people into believing God’s some kind of infinitely tolerant liberal. That way when Jesus finally does appear, these fools will run to embrace him, only to get butchered along with all the other sinners.

Yep, those graceless Christians really did the devil’s work on ’em—getting them to be terrified of the One who loves them the most in the universe.

Pretentious Christians and persecuted apostles.

1 Corinthians 4.6-13.

Every once in a while Paul uses irony—rhetorically says the opposite of what he actually means in order to reveal its ridiculousness. Irony is best known in its angry form, sarcasm. Yep, there’s sarcasm in the bible. ’Cause sometimes its writers get angry at injustice, sin, and stupidity—and the Corinthians were being kinda stupid by dividing themselves into factions. They should know better than to do this; they should be more spiritually mature than this! But they weren’t.

I myself don’t encourage Christians to get too sarcastic. Few to none of us have the self-control necessary to wield sarcasm safely. Contrary to those folks who say, “Sarcasm is my spiritual gift,” no it’s not. It’s a form of anger, and seldom a healthy form. I won’t even say Paul and Sosthenes were exhibiting a healthy form of it here. They were understandably irritated at the Corinthians right about now in their letter, but I’m pretty sure this passage alienated the Corinthians more than it got ’em to repent. (As is hinted by 2 Corinthians.)

My translation of the passage first, and I’ll expound on it afterward.

1 Corinthians 4.6-13 KWL

6I use the example of these things—

of myself and Apollos—

for you, fellow Christians,

so you might learn from us the saying:

“No more than what was written,”

so you don’t inflate one over another any more:

7What makes you special?

What do you have that you weren’t given?—

if it was given to you, why boast like it wasn’t given to you?

8Now you have enough?

Now you’re wealthy?

You rule like kings without us?

I wish you ruled like kings,

so we might rule like kings with you,

9for I think God puts us apostles on the lowest level,

like death-row inmates,

since we become entertainment to the world,

to angels and to humans.

10We are morons because of Christ.

And you are wise in Christ!

We, weak. You, strong!

You, glorious. We, dishonored.

11Even now, we still hunger and thirst and are naked,

and get punched, and are homeless,

12and are exhausted from manual labor.

We bless while we get told off.

We put up with persecution.

13We help others while getting slandered.

We become what the world cleans off their shoes;

even now, the scum of everything.

Like I said, the apostles used a lot of irony here: What makes the Corinthians special? Why do they boast about blessings as if they earned ’em? Why do they think they get to live their best lives, while at the very same time, the apostles feel like they’re living their very worst lives? What’s up with that?

And why does American Christianity consistently act exactly the same way as these dense Corinthian a--holes?

On judging your leaders. (As we should!)

1 Corinthians 4.1-5.

Paul and Sosthenes end chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians thisaway:

1 Corinthians 3.22-23 KWL

22Whether it’s Paul, Apollos, Kifa,

the world, life, death, the present, the future—

everything belongs to all of you.

23And you belong to Christ,

and Christ belongs to God.

I bring this up ’cause the next passage starts with οὕτως/útos, “therefore,” and a previous pastor of mine was extremely fond of saying, “Whenever you see a ‘therefore’ in the bible, read the verses before it so you’ll know what it’s there for.” The apostles wrote about how there shouldn’t be factions in Christ’s body period, much less fighting over one apostle or another, since all the apostles work for Christ anyway.

Likewise there’s nothing wrong with listening to multiple apostles! You can listen to Paul and Apollos; you don’t have to choose one or the other. You can listen to Kifa (which is Simon Peter’s Syriac nickname Jn 1.42) too. And the other guys who wrote the New Testament. And the great saints who followed Jesus after them, if they have anything which still encourages us to follow Jesus. And your pastor. And your favorite Christian authors, Christian preachers, Christian podcasters, Christian bloggers. We all work for Jesus.

Well… assuming we do work for Jesus. For that, you gotta use your noggin and first make make sure we do. Make sure we’re producing good fruit. Double-check everything we say against God’s character and the bible. And if we’re making honest mistakes, be gracious… and if we’re not being so honest, or hard-headedly demand you’re the problem, and how dare you critique the Lord’s anointed: Yeah, you need to keep far, far away from such people. Not every self-proclaimed Christian is all that Christian.

Wait, is it okay for us to judge Christian leaders? Well of course it is. I bring it up ’cause it’s right there in today’s passage.

1 Corinthians 4.1-5 KWL

1For this reason, people* should consider us

like Christ’s subordinates,

and managers of God’s revealed mysteries.

2Here in addition, it’s a requirement for managers

that one should find they have faith.

3To me, this is the smallest thing,

that I should be judged by all of you,

or by a day in a human court.

But I don’t judge myself either,

4for I didn’t know anything on my own.

But I was justified out of this:

The Master is the one judging me.

5Therefore judge nothing before the right time—

which is whenever the Master might come.

He will give light to what’s hidden in the dark,

and will reveal the plans of people’s hearts,

and then a commendation will come to each person from God.

Baptizing babies, versus baptizing believers.

As I wrote yesterday, when I was a baby I was baptized. My grandparents’ church believed in the practice of baptizing babies. The formal term for this is pedobaptism, although frequently—even among Americans!—you’re gonna see the British spelling and pronunciation, paedobaptism 'pi.doʊ.bæp.tɪ.zəm Mainly because, I suspect, when you talk about pedo– anything, people immediately think of pedophilia, and we’re not going there. But paedo– stuff reminds people of pediatricians, and they’re okay! So let’s talk paedobaptism then.

Baby baptism, or infant baptism, is the standard in older churches. They figure we, as Christians, have a covenant with God. And exactly like the ancient Israelis, part of that covenant obligates us to make sure our descendants grow up to follow God. The Israelis (and the Jews today) ritually circumcised their baby boys as their way of declaring, “This kid’s gonna grow up to follow God,” so paedobaptists baptize their baby boys and girls as a way of declaring the very same thing.

It took a few centuries for baby baptism to become the standard, but it’s locked in now. Orthodox, Catholics, and Ethiopians do it; Lutherans, Anglicans, and Moravians do it; and some Presbyterians, Methodists, Nazarenes, and Congregationalists do it—it’s become a controversy in their churches. The reason for the controversy is the Anabaptist movement. The ana– prefix means “re–,” because all the first Anabaptists were originally baptized as babies, figured that didn’t count, and got re-baptized.

The Anabaptists started in the early 1500s: A number of central European churches decided one shouldn’t be baptized until we make a conscious decision to follow Jesus. It’s a view which kinda makes sense—why baptize a baby who may grow up to never follow Jesus? I mean, your parents might intend to raise you Christian, but you have other ideas… and for that matter, your parents might change their minds and raise you as nothing whatsoever, much as some of my Christian family members have.

Perhaps you’ve encountered this phenomenon—I certainly have—where people don’t follow Jesus at all, yet imagine they’re Christian because their parents had ’em baptized. So if you ask ’em, they’ll tell you, “Oh, I believe in Jesus”—but they don’t know what he teaches, don’t produce good fruit, aren’t religious at all, and aren’t even good people. In what way are they Christian? Well they were baptized.

Anabaptist churches still exist, but the Anabaptist idea of believer baptism (or if you wanna use the formal term, credobaptism) was adopted by lots of Protestant churches. Namely the Baptists. And like I said, it’s become a controversy among some Protestants: Some of the churches which still do baby baptism have a noisy faction which wants ’em to stop it. Presbyterian churches especially; Jean Calvin believed in baby baptism, but a whole lot of Presbyterians have adopted the Anabaptist view.

I was baptized Catholic, but I was raised in believer-baptism churches, and still go to those churches. So my custom is believer baptism. The Anabaptist view is what I was taught, it’s what I’m pretty sure the scriptures encourage, and I think it makes way more sense.

But honestly… I read Calvin’s Institutes. I can see the point of view of those Christians who prefer baby baptism. And if there’s deliberately a later ritual in which those people who were baptized as babies can confirm they really do intend to follow Jesus… I don’t really have a problem with it. The important thing is you’re following Jesus. If you’re not, neither type of baptism matters, ’cause you’re not Christian!

I know, I know; it’s a controversy, so people are gonna demand I take sides, and preferably theirs. And demand I get enraged at the folks on the other side. Nope! Follow Jesus either way, and I don’t have a problem. Escalate this debate into a holy war, and I have a big problem—with you.

Rebaptism: Getting wet again.

When I was a baby, I was baptized. My grandparents were Roman Catholic; not good Catholics, but Catholic enough to want their first grandchild baptized. So I was.

Mom later became Christian. She doesn’t count her Catholic upbringing, ’cause she doesn’t feel she committed herself to Jesus till adulthood. I became Christian soon after. And our church was having a baptismal service, so the two of us decided to get baptized—her at 28, and me at 7.

Had we been in a Catholic church, we’d’ve learned about their sacrament of confirmation: You confess your faith in Christ Jesus, your bishop anoints you with oil (representing the Holy Spirit, who comes to indwell you when you believe in Jesus), and now your baptism counts. Now you’re Christian.

But of course I didn’t know any of that stuff. I only knew what my Protestant church taught me: When you come to Jesus, get baptized! So I did. Got rebaptized.

Lots of Christians get rebaptized. I’ve watched many of ’em do it:

• People who were baptized as infants into the Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, or Presbyterian church, who later decide infant baptism doesn’t count; they wanna be baptized as believers.
• People who were baptized, but later slid away from Jesus, and wanna get devout and rededicate themselves to him, so they figure they oughta be baptized again.
• People who leave a heretic church, and figure that church’s baptisms don’t count, so they want a baptism which does count.
• People who just wanna. Their kids are getting baptized, so they wanna be baptized too as a good example. Or someone’s holding a baptism at a cool location, like the Jordan River in Israel, and they want the memory of getting baptized there.

For these and all sorts of other reasons, people get rebaptized.

Yeah, there are certain Christians who think this is completely unnecessary. I’m one of them. But at the same time, I also think it’s harmless. You wanna be baptized again?—go ahead and get baptized again! Doesn’t offend God; doesn’t hurt anyone.

(That is, unless you take a wired microphone into the baptismal with you, which’ll kill you, so don’t do that. But otherwise, go right ahead.)

Dispensationalists and infallibility.

So here’s a weird little phenomenon I’ve discovered. I’ve actually seen it many, many times throughout my life, but didn’t recognize what was underneath it till recently.

I was talking to a fellow Christian a few weeks ago; we’ll call him Ayokunle. He’s dispensationalist, which means he believes God has saved people in many different ways throughout history. Darbyists believe God used six different ways, ’cause we’re in the sixth dispensation. But most of ’em figure there are at least two dispensations—one before Jesus, one after Jesus. Before Jesus atoned for our sins, they figure God saved people because they were good—if they followed the Law, God saved ’em, and if they didn’t, he didn’t.

Is this true? Not at all. God saves people by his grace, and he’s always saved people by his grace. Paul of Tarsus’s whole argument to the Galatians about why they needed to stop it with the legalism, was that God’s never saved anyone by good works. Abraham included! We’re right with God because we trust him, not because we followed commandments. Ga 2.16 If we ever could be saved that way, Jesus died for nothing. Ga 2.21

Anyway, my discussion with Ayokunle is because he loves to quote the old saying, “God works all things together for our good.” I’ve written on it elsewhere, and it doesn’t mean what he thinks it means. I told him so.

ME. “There’s an entire book of the bible which refutes you. Ecclesiastes.”

HE. “Hm?”

ME. “ ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.’ Ec 1.2 Vanities have no value. They mean nothing. They’re meaningless. But nothing God does is meaningless.”

HE. “Ecclesiastes?”

ME. “It’s a good read. Check it out.”

HE. “That is Old Testament.”

ME. “Correct.”

HE. “I am a New Testament Christian. Old Testament doesn’t apply.”

ME. “The bible doesn’t apply?”

HE. “New Testament does. Old Testament is of the old things which have passed away. ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ Rv 21.5 New Testament.”

ME. “So you don’t think the Old Testament should be in the bible.”

HE. “No; it should be in the bible. It has good stories. It tells us the history of the Jews. But it’s passed away. It’s dead.”

ME. “We’re not to trust it anymore for instructions on how to live our lives.”

HE. “Correct!”

ME. “But the 10 commandments are in there.”

HE. “Oh, the 10 commandments are in the New Testament too. We follow them. But the rest of the commandments are dead.”

ME. “So we can eat pork and shellfish.”

HE. “Yes!”

ME. “And have babies with our daughters.”

HE. “No! Why would you have babies with your daughters?”

ME. “I wouldn’t; that’s nasty. But it’s an Old Testament command to not have sex with your daughter. Lv 18.10 And you say that command is dead, so…”

HE. “No! No one should do that!”

ME. “Oh absolutely. But you said God no longer forbids it.”

HE. “Well there are natural laws.”

ME. “True. But people break those all the time, which is why God gives us biblical revelation. But you say it’s not biblical revelation anymore.”

He didn’t know how to answer that, so he quickly changed the subject. But it occurred to me afterward: In saying the Old Testament no longer counts, he also basically revealed he no longer considers it infallible.

In fact a lot of dispensationalists like Ayokunle explicitly teach the Old Testament failed: It didn’t successfully do the job of saving people! That’s why God had to replace its system of works-based salvation with grace. The Law no longer counts because it failed.

So when these folks claim they believe in biblical infallibility… well, it’s not consistent with everything they teach about the Old Testament. They might consider the New Testament infallible, but not the Old Testament. ’Cause it failed.

I pointed this out to a different dispensationalist I know, and after a bit of objecting, he finally said yeah, I got something there. If dispensationalists believe the Law failed to save, and needn’t be followed because it failed, then they can’t properly claim biblical infallibility. At least not for the whole bible. New Testament is fine.

“Morons” for Jesus.

1 Corinthians 3.18-21.

After Paul and Sosthenes wrote about us being bricks in the Holy Spirit’s temple, they finally bounced back to the subject of wisdom, which they’d kinda left behind in chapter 2 so they could go off on a tangent about how the Corinthians weren’t yet ready for deep stuff, and how they (and we) are collectively God’s temple. But now we’re back to wisdom. Namely God’s wisdom, granted to us Christians through the Holy Spirit—not spontaneously, as proven by every stupid Christian you’ve ever met, but when we listen to the Spirit and follow Jesus.

And if we wanna be wise, we gotta ditch what popular culture—including Christian popular culture, which has been fully infiltrated and corrupted by secular culture!—considers wisdom. Some of it is wise. Some really isn’t. In the United States, a lot of it is pragmatism—what works, as opposed to what’s good and right and moral. Most Americans figure if it works it’s good; then we go through all sorts of convoluted reasoning to explain why this also means it’s right and moral, and it’s not really.

Suppressing every other religion but Christianity, fr’instance—it sounds like it’d definitely make things easier for us Christians! And no doubt you can think of a lot of Old Testament verses which makes it sound right and moral. But is it moral to oppress people of other religions? Is it moral to obligate Americans to feign Christianity?—to go through all the motions, yet have no true personal relationship with Christ? What about when these hypocrites seek political power?—’cause they will; hypocrites love power. As you can see, the “wisdom” of Christian nationalism is profoundly stupid. But plenty of Christians fall for it.

So if you want wisdom, legit wisdom, listen to God.

1 Corinthians 3.18-21 KWL

18People must not delude themselves:

If any one of you thinks they’re wise in this age,

they should become morons so they could become wise,

19for this wisdom of the world

is moronic when compared to God.

For it’s written:

“The one who snares the wise in their subtlety,” Jb 5.13

20and again,

“The Lord knows the dialogues of the wise

—that they’re empty.” Ps 94.11

21So people must not promote other people,

for everything belongs to all of you.

22Whether it’s Paul, Apollos, Kifa,

the world, life, death, the present, the future—

everything belongs to all of you.

23And you belong to Christ,

and Christ belongs to God.

And, as the apostles add in verse 21-23, don’t divide Christianity into factions which follow one guru or another… because all these gurus work for the real guru, Jesus. Paul does, Apollos does, Kifa (i.e. Simon Peter) does, James does, John does, even John the baptist does. Likewise differing topics which Christians are free to debate about, like the world, life, death, the present, and the future: All of us get to speculate about ’em, and no one but Christ is the master of them. And us. Got that?

Blaspheming other people and things than God.

BLASPHEME blæs'fim verb. Say something about God (or holy things) which isn’t true. Slander.

2. Speak irreverently about God or holy things. Sacrilege.

[Blasphemer blæs'fim.ər noun, blasphemous 'blæs.fə.məs adjective, blasphemy 'blæs.fə.mi noun.]

As you can see, in the definition I just used (which I also used in my article on the subject), blasphemy is slander or irreverence towards God or holy things. And for some Christians, they insist only God can be blasphemed, and not holy things:

• Don’t speak ill of the LORD.
• Don’t speak ill of the LORD’s name; if someone uses his name for other stuff, like the names of altars and churches, you wanna carefully distinguish between the thing named for the LORD and the LORD himself.
• Don’t say evil things about the trinity.
• Nothing against Jesus.
• Especially nothing against the Holy Spirit, ’cause there’s no coming back from that one.
• For Roman Catholics, who believe the elements of holy communion literally become Jesus during the ritual, blaspheming them counts as blaspheming Jesus, so don’t. (One particular famous Catholic comedian will make Jesus jokes… but weirdly, will never make fun of the Eucharist, ’cause somehow that crosses the line.)

So don’t touch God; but these folks think it’s totally okay to blaspheme holy things, because they’re just things. They’re not God; they’re not divine; saying we can blaspheme them suggests they might be divine, but we worship nothing and no one but God. So you can’t blaspheme the holy bible, because we don’t worship the bible. (Or shouldn’t!)

Thing is… people kinda do have the ability to blaspheme the bible. If “blaspheme” means to slander, or speak irreverently about, of course there are people who slander and speak irreverently about bible. Antichrists do it all the time. When they say the bible’s a bunch of bunk, and claim it was written by delusional prophets, how isn’t that slander and irreverence? In other words, blasphemy?

Thing is, the people who insist only God can be blasphemed, wanna limit the use of the word “blasphemy” to God. When you’re slandering the bible, “slander” is fine. When you’re slandering God, “blasphemy” is the appropriate word. Because slandering God is a much bigger deal than slandering his prophets and apostles. One indicates the damaged relationship we have with God; the other just indicates we lack reverence for holy things and people. And a damaged relationship with God is obviously the bigger deal.

My own personal habit is, like those people, to only use “blasphemy” when we’re talking about slandering God, and not when we’re talking about slandering a church, a book, a preacher, a Ten Commandments monument, and other such things. But I gotta agree that yeah, technically, slander and blasphemy are the same thing.

And that’s a fact we see in the bible, ’cause the authors of scripture use βλασφημέω/vlasfiméo, “blaspheme,” to talk about other things than just God.

Dual citizenship… and picking a side.

Many Christians are fond of saying, “This world isn’t my home. Heaven is.”

To a degree that’s true. We’re part of God’s kingdom, with Christ Jesus as king. We recognize his reign, or try to; and follow him, more or less. Or at least we expect—despite our unloving, unkind, impatient, fruitless behavior, he’ll nonetheless graciously recognize us as his followers when he takes over the world. Maybe he will.

In the meanwhile we’re also citizens of our nations. I’m a citizen of the United States. As are many of TXAB’s readers, which is why I so often get U.S.-centric. Of course I realize this site gets readers from all over: You might be a citizen of Canada, China, France, Indonesia, Israel, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and Singapore… and that’s the top 10, so if I didn’t mention your nation you’re just gonna have to enlist more of your friends to read, and bump up your stats. Anywho as Christians we’re all fellow citizens of God’s kingdom. Yet we simultaneously have allegiances to our respective homelands.

In the U.S., if you’re both a citizen of this country and another one, we call you a “dual citizen.” We have lots of ’em. Officially the U.S. only recognizes one citizenship: Ours. (So pay your taxes. It’s why Americans who don’t even live in the States are still required to pay American taxes.) When people become Americans, our citizenship oath requires ’em to renounce their previous citizenship. But if their original homeland doesn’t care about that, and still counts them a citizen, they’re dual citizens. Most of the dual citizens I know are also Mexican citizens, and take full advantage of their Mexican citizenship whenever they’re in Mexico. One friend’s from the U.K.—and when he visits family in the U.K., he’ll even switch his accent from Californian to Londoner.

But here’s the catch with dual citizenship: The time might come when you gotta pick one nation over the other.

Say you were a citizen of both the U.S. and Russia. And say we went to war. (Hope we never, ever do, but let’s just say.) Well, you have to pick a side. Especially if you work for the government—of either nation. Neither country will let you stay neutral. You’ve gotta be wholly American, or wholly Russian. (Or you’ve gotta flee to Argentina.)

Well, that’s how Christians are when it comes to our national citizenships. I’m a dual citizen of God’s kingdom, and the United States. So what happens when the States does something hostile to the kingdom? Right you are: I gotta pick a side. And I’ll just bluntly tell you now I’m picking Jesus. Like any immigrant, I may have been born American, but I choose citizenship in his kingdom. So Jesus takes priority. Don’t even have to think about it.

Much as I love the United States, I’m fully aware when Jesus returns, he’s overthrowing it. When he raptures his followers to join his invasion, we’re gonna help him overthrow it. I’m gonna help him overthrow it. Willingly. Gladly.

If that sounds like treason against the United States, it totally is. And if it makes you as an American feel uncomfortable, it should. Because as a Christian you need to pick sides. This isn’t a hypothetical situation, y’know. Jesus is returning. Not “could return”: Is returning. Not in some “spiritual sense,” by which most folks think imaginary. He’s literally, physically coming to earth to take it over. Maybe not in our lifetimes… but maybe he will; we don’t know.

So where’s your allegiance? ’Cause when he returns, you’re gonna be on one side or the other. Better not be the wrong one.

“I don’t speak in tongues. Therefore nobody does.”

I have an acquaintance, whom I’ll call Themistocles, who describes himself as a “soft cessationist.” That’s a term which means a lot of different things to the various people who use it.

For some of them it means regular ol’ cessationism—they believe God turned off the miracles in bible times, and he’s not turning ’em back on till the End Times. Why they call it “soft” is because they’re not deists—they don’t believe God created the universe to run (and run down) on its own, without his involvement or presence; that he’s left to pursue other interests. They accept there’s a God in the universe who hears their prayers… and sometimes even answers them. But he doesn’t do miracle-miracles. Doesn’t raise the dead, doesn’t let us Christians feed 5,000 people with only one person’s lunch, doesn’t cure cancer unless it’s through natural processes. He’ll empower “miraculous” fortunate coincidences, like having a ministry sent a check at just the time the bill came due, and for the precise amount of the bill. Or someone will offer us a job just as we’re praying for one, or we’ll bump into a friend whom we can help just as they’re asking God for help. Stuff like that, which you’ll have a difficult time convincing skeptics are literal act-of-God miracles.

For others, they believe sometimes God does actual, just-like-in-the-bible miracles. Yep, even though it’s not the End Times yet. The sick cured, the dead raised, multiplied resources, rain despite a drought, water turned to gasoline, crazy-large crops and crop yields, prophetic dreams, and so forth. They believe this stuff because they recognize it’s foolish to say “God doesn’t and won’t” when the scriptures not only say no such thing, but bluntly instruct us Christians about how to deal with such things when they happen. But what makes ’em still call themselves cessationist instead of continuationist is they believe these legit miracles are rare. Profoundly rare. Almost never happen. And most miracle stories are exaggerations, fraud, or fiction.

In Themistocles’s case, he’s “soft cessationist” because he’s cessationist… but knows cessationism has no valid biblical basis, and doesn’t wanna believe in it. It’s just that cessationism is what he grew up with; it’s what his church still teaches; he’s still surrounded by cessationists; he’s pretty sure he’s never seen a miracle. He’d sure like to see one. Till he does, he’s gonna fall back on the belief he grew up with: Cessationism. It’s “soft” in that it’s the comfortable cushion he’s currently resting on, till a real live miracle brings him to his feet.

Themistocles would likewise like to believe in speaking in tongues. But he’s got his doubts about the people who currently do it. Plus it’s never happened to him. And he’s asked God for the power to do it! But thus far, he’s pretty sure God hasn’t empowered him to do it, and he’s been praying for it for years. So the longer time goes on, the less and less he believes God even empowers it anymore.

Of course the way he first expressed this to me was by saying, “Well I’ve never spoken in tongues. I’m not even sure it’s a gift for today.”

“Speaking in tongues must be in an actual tongue. Bible says so.”

I heard this saying again recently. It’d been a few months. I hear it from time to time, but I haven’t given the subject its own article, so here y’go.

It’s a claim some cessationists make as part of their overall argument that speaking in tongues stopped in bible times, doesn’t happen anymore, and every continuationist church which still does tongues is either wrong, delusional, deceived, or devilish.

(And yes, because the Holy Spirit empowers tongues, claiming it's devilish means they're actually blaspheming the Holy Spirit. I know; some folks claim attributing the Spirit’s works to the devil somehow isn’t blasphemous. Okay then; how would they like it if every time they did a good deed, we said, “No they didn’t do it out of goodness; it’s all part of a satanic scheme to lead people astray; don’t trust them!” You know, kinda like they do with politicians from the other political party. Betcha it’d outrage them, or at the very least annoy them a bunch. Betcha they’d call it slanderous. And since blasphemy means slander, they’re blaspheming the Spirit. Whoops. Better repent! Okay, digression over.)

So in their churches, they forbid tongues. Yeah, I know there’s a bible verse telling us not to do that, 1Co 14.39 but they do it anyway. And how they justify it is with the saying in the title: “Speaking in tongues must be in an actual tongue. Bible says so. You are not speaking an actual tongue. You’re speaking gibberish. That’s not biblical. That’s devilish. And we oughta forbid devilry.”

That’s right: In every place in the bible where we read about tongues, and speaking in tongues, these folks insist the ancient Christians were speaking other human languages. Because weren’t they doing just that on the first Christian Pentecost?

Acts 2.4-11 ESV

4And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

5Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

If the first instance of speaking in tongues consisted of foreign languages, they figure every instance of speaking in tongues must be that. Forget “various kinds of tongues;” 1Co 12.10 ESV they insist there’s only one kind: Foreign languages. Nothing else.

To a cessationist the Spirit doesn’t do tongues anymore anyway; the whole argument is moot. But let’s say he did: Then all tongues would be in foreign languages. And if our tongues aren’t, they’re not really from the Holy Spirit. Whether we’re faking it or the devil’s empowering it, they won’t always say. Sometimes because they’re not absolutely sure they’re right, and don’t wanna unintentionally blaspheme the Spirit. But some of the bolder cessationists have no trouble with saying it’s the devil, and blaspheme away.

Here’s the funny thing: In the United States, a large number of these cessationists who say tongues must be foreign languages, don’t know any foreign languages. Most Americans only speak English! (And not well.) So if they ever overheard me praying in tongues, and the Spirit decided for whatever reason that my prayers would be in Urdu, they wouldn’t know a lick of Urdu, and continue to presume I’m doing it wrong, and am probably demonized. They haven’t the discernment necessary to judge me properly. And I’m not even talking about supernatural discernment… which they wouldn’t practice anyway, ’cause cessationism.

Nope; all they know is they hear “argle-bargle-dirka-dirka” and it makes ’em angry. Same as one of my former bosses, who was a huge racist and didn’t want us employees talking about him behind his back: “This is America! Speak English!” Largely this is just the cessationist variant.