The Holy Spirit sent Jesus to be tempted.

Matthew 4.1, Luke 4.1-2A.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells us to pray that God not lead us to temptation. Mt 6.13, Lk 11.4 I don’t know whether he included that because God led him to temptation—and he didn’t wanna repeat the experience, and he didn’t wish that on his followers either. But you do realize that particular part of the Lord’s Prayer was answered with “No” in this particular instance: The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by Satan. God—’cause the Holy Spirit is God, remember—led him into temptation.

Matthew 4.1 KWL

Then Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit,

to be tested by the devil.

Luke 4.1-2 KWL

1Full of the Holy Spirit,

Jesus comes back from the Jordan.

He’s being led by the Spirit into the wilderness

2Ato be tested by the devil 40 days.

When we pray this particular part of the Lord’s Prayer, we need to keep Jesus’s temptation in mind. Because sometimes God will put us into circumstances where the devil’s gonna try to derail us. If we’re seriously following Jesus, and in so doing seriously mucking up the devil’s plans, of course Satan’s gonna try to put a stop to us. And the fastest way is to get us to stop following the Spirit and start following our selfish human nature.

Happens all the time. Christians create million-dollar ministries, then start thinking, “I’m a CEO; shouldn’t I get paid like a CEO; shouldn’t I get to live like a CEO?” and start feathering their nests and living luxuriously, instead of putting all that money into God’s kingdom and living reasonably. And plenty of mammonists, plenty of Christians who covet wealth and the things of this world, will come up with plenty of godless reasons why they not only can live like that, but should. Nevermind the fact it’s undermining their character, their witness, their ministry, their ability to hear the Spirit, their relationship with Jesus; that this money could help needy people, and these “CEOs” are nowhere close to needy. Nevermind that they’re robbing the poor, and in so doing, they’re robbing God. But I digress.

Appealing to our selfish human nature is Satan’s favorite tactic. Heck, it’s not just Satan who uses it; everybody tries it. Everybody wants to know what we covet, so they can sell it to us, or manipulate us by it. Why do you think social media companies are trying so hard to keep us on their sites—and when we’re off their sites, track our every movement on the internet? They wanna sell us stuff. Their plans are more benign than malevolent, although the more guardrails they remove, the more malevolence is gonna happen. But that’s what we see throughout Jesus’s temptations: The devil tries three times to appeal to Jesus’s selfish human nature.

And Jesus resisted. Kinda easily. Because he doesn’t have a selfish human nature. He’s got the original human nature; the one Adam and Eve had before they sinned. Plus he has something Adam and Eve coulda gained, but never did, because they sinned long before they could develop it: He’s got God’s nature. And God’s not selfish. Thanks to that divine nature, Jesus immediately identifies those appeals to his flesh, dismisses them as stupid and wrong—and punctuates his dismissals with Deuteronomy quotes. Jesus knows the Law, and never ever broke it.

When the Spirit led Jesus into temptation, Jesus was totally ready for it. Arguably he’s always been ready for it. Yes, he fasted for 40 days once he got there, to try to steel himself against temptation even further. I’ll write about that another time. But there’s nothing at all wrong with over-preparing yourself for spiritual battle. You don’t just wanna win by the skin of your teeth; you wanna win decisively. You want that devil reluctant to challenge you again, ’cause losing so bad to a lowly human embarrasses it in front of all the other devils on the playground.

Universalism: Isn’t God gonna save everybody?

UNIVERSALIST ju.nə'vər.səl.əst adjective. Believing all humanity will (eventually) be saved.

Generally, pagans believe good people go to heaven, and bad people to hell. There’s a minority among them who believe there is no hell—not even for genocidal maniacs; everybody goes to the same afterlife, and if you’re a westerner that’d be heaven. There might be some karmic consequences to the afterlife, like you might find yourself in the suckier part of heaven; but it’s all heaven, so it’s not that bad.

The reason many pagans believe this, is because they believe the universe is benevolent, or believe God is love. Which he is! 1Jn 4.8 And he does love everyone; “for God so loved the world” Jn 3.16 and all that. So they figure a loving God would never throw people into hell, especially for something so minor as not believing in him—which is an honest mistake, most of the time. Hardly sound loving of God to toss someone into hell simply because they were born in a part of the world where they were never taught God properly, be it North Korea, Nepal, Mali, or Mississippi.

Now I agree God’s unlikely to smite people for honest mistakes. But I also seriously doubt the bulk of humanity’s mistakes are honest ones. Face it: Lots of us embrace our God-beliefs purely out of convenience, pragmatism, or selfishness. That Iranian who’s never gonna hear the gospel: He already wouldn’t listen to it if offered. If he honestly wanted to hear the gospel, it doesn’t matter what filters his nation puts on the internet; he’d track down Christians (there actually are some in Iran) and ask questions. Or Jesus might personally appear to him, as he does throughout Christian history, beginning with Paul. (No, that wasn’t just a one-time deal.)

Or that American whose parents raised her a militant atheist: No matter how skeptical and free-thinking she claims to be, she honestly doesn’t wanna challenge her parents’ claims, and examine whether there’s anything to this God stuff. If she did, the first miracle she experienced would shatter her atheism like a cinderblock through safety glass.

Honest mistakes are like Calvinism: People try to defend God’s sovereignty, go overboard, and wind up teaching God’s secretly evil. But if they’re honest mistakes, these people are nonetheless pursuing God despite their errors. And the Holy Spirit’s still producing love and patience and kindness in them, and still letting ’em into his kingdom. (Unless they’re only pursuing clever arguments, producing no fruit, and wind up some of those poor souls who’re mighty shocked Jesus doesn’t recognize ’em. Mt 7.23) The whole “honest mistakes” cop-out is a convenient excuse to ignore God, avoid obeying him, and dodge religion, church, and Christians.

It’s a risky little game they’re playing, for Christ Jesus says not everyone’s getting saved.

Matthew 7.21-23 GNT

21“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. 22On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ 23But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’”

That’s the people who really thought they were Christian. How much chance does the “honestly mistaken” nontheist have? Well, God is gracious, so we’ll see.

Though God absolutely does wants everyone saved, 1Ti 2.4 he knows full well many people want nothing to do with him. Nor his kingdom. They don’t want saving. Since God did create ’em with free will, he permits them to tell him no. He won’t force ’em into his kingdom. They don’t have to enter. But man alive are they gonna hate the alternative.

Trying to tempt Christ Jesus.

Mark 1.12-13.

I’ve lost count of the sermons and articles I’ve read about Jesus’s temptations by Satan in the wilderness… and how this was supposedly a cosmic struggle for the ages. And I find every single one of ’em ridiculous. Because seriously: Do any of you—does anyone—imagine there was any chance whatsoever of Jesus giving in to the devil’s temptations? Does anyone think Satan had a chance? Had the smallest of chances?

Okay granted, if you don’t know Jesus, or if you’ve never read about him in the gospels and Revelation, I could understand thinking his temptations might’ve been a threat. Popular culture has this idea in its collective head that Satan is a mighty demon, big as a kaiju, capable of all sorts of elder-god world-destroying activities. It’s all rubbish; Satan’s been padding its resume ever since humanity found out it exists. Unwitting Christians have been helping it along, ’cause if Satan’s a big deal, but Jesus can effortlessly defeat it, doesn’t that make Jesus an even bigger deal? As if our Lord creating the universe Jn 1.3 isn’t impressive enough.

Look, Jesus has the sort of iron willpower it took to suffer torture and crucifixion—even though at any instant he could’ve called upon more than 60,000 angels, Mt 26.53 put a stop to everything, and skipped forward to his second coming. He’s got a divine nature, and an unfallen human nature. Meaning it’s not in his nature, at all, to sin. When presented with a tricky situation, humans get tempted to sin, and no doubt Jesus did too—but Jesus immediately dismisses any such sins as ridiculous. Sin is simply not him. He doesn’t do sin. Has no hold on him. Never gonna happen.

So were Jesus’s temptations in the wilderness anything remotely like a cosmic battle? Nah. Satan pitched some ideas, and Jesus easily dismissed them. Like spitballs bouncing off the hull of a battleship.

Some preachers get annoyed when I say this. Partly because they’re big fans of the cosmic battle idea. Partly because we get tempted, and it’s kind of a cosmic battle to us!—and how in the world can we claim that Jesus understands what we’re going through, because he was tempted too, He 2.18 if those temptations barely tempted him at all?

Simple: If Jesus can easily dismiss the devil’s temptations as silly and irrelevant, so can we. We can learn to resist temptation like he did. He’s given us the ability—if we take advantage of it.

The idea Jesus’s temptations were a cosmic battle, gives us the false idea that resisting temptation is impossible, and the only reason Jesus could dismiss Satan so easily is because Jesus is almighty. Certainly we’re not almighty, so when Satan tempts us, we’re boned. But like I said, that’s a false idea. We don’t have to be almighty to resist the devil. We only have to follow the Holy Spirit. And resist the temptation to blame our weak wills on everything but our unwillingness to resist.

So let’s look at how Jesus resisted the devil, and then let us resist.

The body, soul, and spirit.

When I was a kid, my church taught me that God’s a trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; three persons, yet one God.

And they taught me we humans are kind of a trinity. That is, humans have a body, a soul, and a spirit. God made us in his image; Ge 1.27 therefore just as he is a trinity, so we are trinities.

Except… well that’s entirely wrong, isn’t it? God is three persons, but we humans aren’t three persons. Even those of us with dissociative identity disorder aren’t three persons. I have a body; that’s not a different person than my soul nor my spirit. I’m one person, not three.

If anything, my body, soul, and spirit are three parts of me. For now, anyway; when I die, my body will be dead, and either decay, or (I hope) be immolated in an awesome Viking funeral. My spirit will go to paradise. And my soul, my lifeforce, will cease to exist until God resurrects me… in a new immortal body.

One can say, and many Christians have, that my spirit is the core of who I am. ’Cause unless Jesus returns before I die, at some point my body and soul will be gone. Dead. Will cease to be. But my spirit will continue to exist; there will still be a me in the universe.

I digress though; this article isn’t really about the afterlife. It’s about the three bodyparts I have—which all humans have—which lead Christians to claim we’re all mini-trinities, all inferior trinities (inferior because we’re not actually trinities), all trichotomies—or as my pastor likes to put it, “tripartite beings.” One being, one person, three parts.

Trichotomy is a really popular Christian view, largely because God is a trinity, and Christians love to imagine we have three parts because God has three “parts.” Even though God’s three parts are three whole persons… and since Jesus is human, that’d make him a trichotomy too, with his own body, soul, and spirit. (The other persons don’t have bodies. Mormons claim the Father does so have a body, but let’s ignore them. But this’d mean the Father and Spirit are bipartite, with souls and spirits, right? Complicated.)

Now, if you’ve never been taught this trichotomy idea, you’ll likely fall into a view that’s more of bichotomy, to coin a word: We humans are both physical and spiritual. We have bodies and spirits. Yes we have souls, and depending on which Christian you’re speaking to, a soul is either part of our body (’cause it is our lifeforce), or part of our spirit. Various Christians claim “soul” and “spirit” are interchangeable, and don’t see any difference between them.

Me, I do recognize there’s a difference between soul and spirit… yet I lean towards bichotomy. The soul’s what makes us a living being, Ge 2.7 and without it we’re a dead being; a dead body. So it’s a part of my body. Same as my nose, my arm, my liver, my brain. It’s as mortal as my body, which decays to dust, or is burnt to ashes. Whereas the spirit returns to God who created it, Ec 12.7 who determines what’ll happen next to me. Jesus said resurrection, Jn 11.25-26 so I’m going with that.

Prayer for spiritual maturity.

The fastest way to grow in spiritual fruit and spiritual maturity, is prayer.

I know; there are a number of works on fruit and maturity, and all of ’em recommend we grow that stuff by practicing it. You wanna be more loving, love people. You wanna be more gracious, work on your kindness. You wanna develop more self-control, practice self-control; start with small things and work your way up. Learn by doing. And that’s not bad advice, but it only gets us so far. If we wanna get farther, we gotta talk to the Holy Spirit who grants us the power to grow fruit. We gotta pray.

What do we tell the Spirit? The obvious: Grant me good fruit. Remind me to practice good fruit instead of my usual knee-jerk reactions. Show me where the opportunities lie to practice it. Show me where I’m missing those opportunities—places in my life where I should obviously recognize I can be more loving, gentle, peaceful, but for whatever reason I’m overlooking those things. Rebuke me if you gotta; snap me out of it.

Yep, we gotta pray for our own spiritual growth. Because we’re showing the Spirit we’re onboard. We want to grow. (And if we kinda don’t wanna grow—because we’re immature, of course—we need to ask him to change our attitudes about that.)

We can’t just presume the fruit will grow on its own, just because we’re Christian, just because we have the Holy Spirit. It can, but if we never take the initiative, it’ll either grow slowly… or, if we’re resistant to what the Spirit’s trying to do, we’ll stifle it from even growing at all. We gotta do more than simply permit the Spirit to do his thing, or generically tell him, “Lord, have your way in me,” like we sing in popular worship songs. He doesn’t want passive followers anyway. He wants us to tell him, “Lord, let’s do this! Make me more like you.”

And telling him is, of course, prayer. Telling him often, is a good basis for a prayer life. Asking for his help regularly, is a good basis for a life dependent on the Spirit’s leading. If you were ever wondering how certain Christians always seem to have something to pray about, this is how: They’re actually doing the work, and they’re naturally asking for help. Join them!

Awful people who are privately Christian.

I originally wrote this piece in 2017, and titled it “Christians in private, but reprobate in public.” I had to update it a bunch ’cause I have some new thoughts on the matter.

Back when I first wrote on the topic, a few correspondents were surprised by the very idea of people who were publicly jerks, but nonetheless identify as Christian. Since then, they’ve finally recognized plenty of examples of the phenomenon. Celebrities who act like divas and brats and unholy rage monsters, but if anyone dares to say anything they consider blasphemous, they instantly object ’cause they’re Christian all of a sudden. Or if you ask them about religion, they’ll claim they love Jesus. Or when they’re accepting Grammy awards for singing about promiscuous nooky, first they wanna give a shout-out to their “Lord and savior Jesus Christ,” whom you’d never imagine they follow, considering their lifestyles. They don’t publicly follow him any, but they’re huge fans. Huge.

Particular stand-outs are those politicians who love to argue, and slander their counterparts in the opposition party, and say vicious things to anyone who gives them pushback. And sometimes they have vile things to say about immigrants, minorities, people of other states, fans of other football teams, or anyone who just rubs ’em the wrong way. And considering how often you see ’em on the Sunday morning chat shows, it’s unlikely they’re ever at church. But whenever they gotta claim Jesus to score some political points, and maybe get some Christian votes, they’ll loudly and proudly claim they’re Christian. Still, you’d never have guessed so by their fleshly behavior.

I have coworkers who are this way. They’ll talk about all the drinking and smoking and fornicating they plan to do over the weekend. They’re unethical. They’re filled with fear, hatred, and anger. They get envious, jealous, and partisan. Try to pick fights; try to cause division; try to create enemies. Y’know, stuff which indicates they’re not gonna inherit God’s kingdom. Ga 5.19-21 But if one of our athiest coworkers dares to condemn Christianity, suddenly they wanna fight ’em on behalf of the Jesus they never actually follow.

That, I will regularly point out to people, is the world we live in today. People who clearly don’t know and don’t follow Jesus, yet think they’re one of his.

I could blame it on decades of Evangelicals insisting they’re not religious, ’cause Christianity is a relationship not a religion. They’re entirely right about not being religious, but entirely wrong about Christianity not being a religion. As I’ve often said, if we don’t get religious about our relationships with Jesus, that relationship’s gonna suck.

I could blame it on the fact that, because they’re not religious, they rarely pray, they never go to church, never read their bibles, and have no idea what Jesus teaches. Or that they even need to follow him. They figure they said the sinner’s prayer as children, and once saved always saved, so actually obeying God might imply they don’t trust their faith to save them. Hence their utter lack of good works and good fruit.

If we call them on this, half the time they’ll object to us even judging them; the one bit of bible they do know is “Judge not,” even though they don’t truly know what Jesus means by it. The rest of the time they’ll shrug: Why are we so worried about their sins? They said the sinner’s prayer; they go to confession; they’re forgiven, so they’re good! Piss off.

They think they belong to Jesus. Do they? Maybe; maybe not. God is way more gracious than I am, and he might let ’em into his kingdom regardless. But the apostles do say those who produce fleshly works like they do are not getting into God’s kingdom, and Jesus himself says plenty will claim to be his at the End, but he doesn’t know ’em. Seems we’ve met these people.

Taking God’s amazing grace for granted.

CHEAP GRACE tʃip greɪs noun. Treatment of God’s forgiveness, generosity, and loving attitude, as if it’s nothing special; as if it cost him little; taking it and God for granted.

Whenever I bring up the subject of cheap grace, some ignorant Christian invariably objects: “Grace is not cheap.” Even if I’ve fully explained in advance what I mean by “cheap grace”; even if I’ve written an entire essay like this one, defining the idea.

Every. Single. Time.

It’s a knee-jerk response. They were taught all their lives how grace isn’t cheap at all; how it cost Jesus his life. So whenever someone brings up the subject of cheap grace, they’re offended, therefore emotional, therefore irrational, about it: “Grace isn’t cheap!” Someone tweets a comment about cheap grace, and they tweet right back, “Grace isn’t cheap!” Someone uses “cheap grace” in a sentence, and they wait for the very first chance to interrupt: “Grace isn’t cheap!”

YES. I KNOW. I’M TRYING TO MAKE THAT POINT. I WOULD IF YOU’D LISTEN. So can you please practice some self-control just this once, and give me a minute? Okay? (Betcha I’m still gonna get these comments regardless. You just watch. Ugh.)

Adam Clayton Powell Sr. gets credited with coining this term, and if you think it came from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it’s only because Bonhoeffer went to Powell’s church and got it from him, then popularized the heck out of it in his The Cost of Discipleship. It’s used to describe “grace” whenever this grace is misdefined and malpracticed by irreligious Christians. As Bonhoeffer put it,

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. “All for sin could not atone.” The world goes on in the same old way, and we are still sinners “even in the best life” as Luther said. Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin. […] Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Bonhoeffer 44-45

That’s cheap grace: Taking expensive, valuable, amazing grace, and demeaning it by using it as a free pass to sin. Taking God’s safety net, and bouncing on it for fun like a trampoline.

Part of the reason people object to the term “cheap grace” is they don’t like to see God’s generosity taken so casually like that. Well, me neither.

Part of it’s ’cause they don’t believe God’s grace actually can be cheapened. No matter what we do with grace, it’s still awesome, still worthy, still priceless. It’s like when you accidentally drop your phone down a porta-potty: Doesn’t matter how foul that commode is; they’re making some really expensive payments on that phone, so they’re going in up to their armpits to fish it out. (Although yeah, some people would never. Because they’re rich, and buy $1000 phones as stocking stuffers, and would casually pay $1000 to avoid touching poo-poo. The rest of us have real jobs. But I digress.) Grace is far more valuable than any phone, and has inherent worth, so nothing could cheapen it.

If that’s the way you imagine grace, I get why you’d balk at the concept of “cheap grace.” But I’m not describing the grace itself, nor devaluing it. I’m describing the crappy attitude people have towards it. When they treat it like it has no value, that’s cheap grace. If you wanna call it something different, go right ahead. “Cheap grace” has already caught on, which is why I’m using that term.

An irreligious religion.

RELIGION ri'lɪ.dʒən noun. Worship of a superhuman controlling power, whether a personal God or impersonal universe.

2. Particular system of belief and worship, as demonstrated through actions and declarations.

3. A supremely important pursuit or interest, followed as if worship.

[Religious ri'lɪ.dʒəs adjective.]

A significant part of authentic Christianity is religion, the actions we do as part of our worship of God.

Christianity isn’t just an internal belief system. Or at least it’s not meant to be. I’m entirely aware plenty of Christians believe all sorts of things about Jesus, and claim to have a close personal relationship with him… but these folks have a certain disconnect in their lives where you can’t tell they have any personal relationship with Jesus by their actions. Or their words. (Particularly not their words on social media.) Or their attitudes. Or their finances. Or anything; they may as well be pagan for all we can tell.

If you’ve read James, you’re aware when our faith in God doesn’t transform us one iota, what good is it? Such a “faith” is what James called dead. Jm 2.26 It’s surely not alive.

Yet for a lot of Evangelicals in the United States, religion has been a bad word for as long as they can remember. It’s because to Evangelicals, “religous” doesn’t mean any of the things in the definition I gave at the top. It means, instead, traditional. Namely the old-timey church traditions which they consider meaningless, which Christians do to look devout, but it doesn’t bring ’em any closer to God. Like songs and rote prayers they’ll sing or recite, but they never think about the words in ’em, and don’t mean ’em anyway. Like giving charity and tithes and doing good deeds, but they do that stuff because they’ve always done that stuff, and they never even think about God when they do ’em; it’s just habit. It’s “just what we do.”

The proper term for religious activity on autopilot, is dead religion: Actions we don’t actually do in faith or obedience, don’t actually do as worship, and therefore don’t do anything to bring us closer to God. Works without faith.

Now, if we explained what this religous activity is about, and why we do it, might it become living religion? Sometimes! I’ve known people who grew up Catholic, or Lutheran, or Baptist, who just go through the motions and never think about why they do as they do. I’ve also known people who became Catholic, or Lutheran, or Baptist, and they wanted to know why these churches do as they do, and they love that their churches do that. Sometimes they even revive their fellow church members. Sometimes not, ’cause their fellow church members have zero interest in coming to life. But for the newbies, and for any revived fellow Christians, their activities are living religion.

Problem is, Evangelicals assume everything they call “religion” or “religious” is the dead stuff. Dead religion is religion. So they avoid religous practices and rituals and customs and traditions. They don’t do anything. Except maybe attend church, read the bible, and pray. Little more.

And if they do anything more, they might help out their church. Go to bible studies and their church’s small groups. Learn some bible trivia. Learn Christian apologetics so they can argue about Christ with their pagan coworkers. Learn some theology so they can understand God a little bit better (and leap to the false conclusion they now understand God perfectly, but that’s another rant). Read some End Times books so they can understand that a bit better (and again, leap to the false conclusion they totally know what’s coming; again another rant). Memorize bible. Learn some Christian history, but not too much. Learn some ancient Hebrew and Greek words, but not enough to translate anything (and leap to the false conclusion every popular bible translation is wrong, but they’re not; yep, that’s another rant too).

They’ll do all that stuff—some of which would actually, accurately be called religion. Studying bible and learning more about God is legitimate religous activity. So’s pitching in at your church. So’s interacting with fellow Christians. So are good deeds.

But of course these Evangelicals would never call any of this stuff religion… ’cause to them, “religion” only refers to the dead stuff.

That’s what Evangelicals mean whenever they sing Darrell Evans’ 2002 song “Fields of Grace.” Third verse:

🎵 There’s a place where religion finally dies

🎵 There’s a place where I lose my selfish pride

🎵 Dancing with my Father God in fields of grace

🎵 Dancing with my Father God in fields of grace

One of my previous churches used to sing this, and a number of folks would give a big whoop right after we sang, “religion finally dies.” Not because they’re disobedient, uncharitable, irreligious people; again it’s because “religion” to them was dead religion, and they’re so happy to be done with the wasteful hypocrisy. As does Evans, I expect, when he sings this.

Again, nevermind the letter of James.

James 1.26-27 NASB

26If anyone thinks himself to be religious, yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

The word the NASB translates “religious” and “religion,” θρησκὸς/thriskós, is so obviously translated “religion” that it’s rare you’ll find a bible translation which doesn’t go with “religion.” (I’m also pretty sure bible translators, who usually know the proper definition of “religion” anyway, make a point to use the word so we can point to James and say, “Look, there’s good religion and bad; let’s not dismiss all religion as bad.”)

Curses: “You take that back!”

CURSE kərs noun. A solemn utterance, meant to invoke supernatural evil, punishment, or harm.

2. verb. Invoke supernatural evil, punishment, or harm.

3. noun. Cause of evil or suffering.

[Curser 'kərs.ər noun.]

Years ago, when I taught at a Christian school, I had a mom ask for a meeting to object to something I wrote on her son’s report card. The boy wanted to grow up to have a highly technical job… but he didn’t do his homework. In any of his classes. I’d told him more than once, “If you don’t do your homework, you’re not gonna get the future you want.” And that’s what I wrote on his report card… and his mom was offended. She claimed I’d “word-cursed” him.

What on earth is a “word curse”? It’s a curse. In some churches they claim every negative thing we say, whether we intend them to be acutal binding curses or not, are actual binding curses. And true, sometimes the things we say will get into someone’s head and affect them for years. I’ve met people who were seriously hindered by the awful things their parents, teachers, pastors, bosses, or coaches told them. They believed that junk, and it still messes with them. It surely worked like a curse! So that’s what these Christians claim they are. It’s an unpleasant word… which is functionally a curse.

Okay, those who teach about “word curses” kinda have a valid point. But by their definition of “word curses,” I actually didn’t curse the boy. My comment is an if-then statement. If you don’t do X, then Y. It’s conditional. And a whole bunch of God’s messages are conditional: If you obey him, then you get blessed. If you don’t, then you don’t. That’s not a curse; that’s a warning. Fulfill the conditions!

Ultimately she agreed with me… but I can’t fault her at all for being sensitive about curses. I certainly didn’t wanna hinder my student by making him believe he wasn’t capable. Quite the contrary!

But you’ll find certain Christians are extremely sensitive about “word curses.” And of course regular curses. And “cursing,” by which we mean profanity, which is a whole other discussion.

Among certain dark Christians, every negative statement—more accurately, anything they can interpret as a negative statement, and they pessimistically interpret a whole lot of things as negative statements!—counts as a curse. Fr’instance I could say, “Hmm, looks like rain,” and to their minds I just cursed the sky. Seriously. “You take that back! Don’t you call rain down on us!” As if my casual observation has the power to call down rain—and y’know, if it could, I’d make a fortune.

See, according to these fearful folks, all our words—including idle ones—spoken into the atmosphere, have the power to create and destroy. They figure we humans are made in God’s image, Ge 1.27 and since he has the power to call things into existence with a word, they claim we have the very same power. Way lesser; I can’t state like God can, “Let the waters separate from the dry ground,” and instantly my swimming pool has been drained. But somehow, to some degree, I have the semi-divine power to make stuff out of nothing. My uneducated weather forecast can actually make weather.

Which is rubbish; it’s based on pagan “mind science,” the 19th-century belief that reality is in fact a mental illusion, and we have the power to affect and change the illusion if we believe hard enough. It’s what the Christian Science church teaches. It’s not consistent with the scriptures; God created a real, external, objective universe. I could believe really hard that my words (without any Holy Spirit to empower ’em, of course) can stop tornadoes… but I’d be a moron to bet on it.

Don’t get me wrong. The spoken word isn’t a powerless thing. Words can build up; words can tear down. I can make someone’s day by giving ’em a compliment. I can ruin their life by criticizing ’em at the wrong time. That’s what Solomon meant when he wrote death and life are in the tongue. Pr 18.21 For this reason, Christians need to watch what we say. We never know the direction we’re influencing people.

But the idea my words have magical power that might trigger a reaction in nature around us, and create all sorts of unintended horrors: Not biblical. Ridiculous.

And illogical too. You’ll notice all the Christians who fear accidentally destroying stuff through their “word curses,” somehow never worry about accidentally blessing stuff. “Gee, it looks like the weather today will be really nice!” never seems to force the clouds to dissipate. Nope. Blessings have always gotta be intentional, but curses can be accidental.

Mary’s visit to Elizabeth.

Luke 1.39-45.

Jesus comes from a family of prophets. Mary and Joseph heard from angels, same as Daniel. Mary’s relatives Elizabeth and Zechariah heard directly from the Holy Spirit, same as all the other prophets of the Old Testament. As did Elizabeth and Zechariah’s son, the prophet John the baptist.

And of course this is no coincidence. God wanted his Son raised by and among people who sought his will and listened to him. Imagine how much friction the boy Jesus would have to grow up with if this weren’t the case. There was already plenty, even with the Spirit’s activity in his family! Remember when they lost him in Jerusalem? Or when they saw him overworking himself, and thought he’d lost his marbles?

Thing is, whenever I point out this fact, Christians are regularly surprised. And either respond, “Oh… obviously God surrounded his Son with prophets!” or “Oh they’re not prophets; they just happened to have a one-time angelic appearance.” Or have three prophetic dreams, yet somehow that doesn’t qualify Joseph of Nazareth to be a prophet. even though one such dream qualified Daniel when he interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Da 2

The problem is cessationism. Too many Christians think God completely stopped speaking through prophets between Malachi and John, and these “silent years” weren’t over till Gabriel started appearing to people. If you wanna get right down to it, they figure God stopped speaking when the Old Testament was complete, then started up again once he decided a New Testament needed to be written. It’s Darbyist dispensationalist rubbish. But it’s popular rubbish, and it warps popular bible interpretation.

As a result of cessationists’ false, faithless belief, popular Christian culture isn’t familiar with how prophecy works, and can’t recognize a prophet when they see ’em. So when Jesus’s family members do something prophetic, it goes right over their heads. It’s a miracle; they’ll admit to that at least. But prophecy has become a giant blind spot.

Fr’instance today’s passage: When Mary visits Elizabeth. Why’d she visit her? I kid you not: I’ve heard it preached, multiple times, Mary went to Elizabeth because she wanted to hide her pregnancy from the gossipy Nazareth women. ’Cause that’s what women used to do in our country when they got pregnant outside of wedlock: They were sent away to “visit relatives.” Then they came back with a new “baby sister” or “cousin.” (Or, if they aborted the baby, or let someone else adopt it, nothing.) This, they figure, is what Mary was doing: Hiding.

Was that how first-century Israeli culture worked? Nope! If people found out an unmarried couple were having sex (and pregnancy would definitely be one way they found it out), they had to marry, and they were forbidden to divorce. Dt 22.29 The man had to pay her dad a dowry; Ex 22.16-17 that made ’em married. It’s in the Law. Nobody has to visit relatives, or hide anything.

So why’d Mary visit Elizabeth? Because Gabriel gave her Elizabeth as confirmation of his prophecy.

Luke 1.36 KWL

“And look: Your relative Elizabeth

has conceived a son in her old age.

This is actually her sixth month—

and she was called sterile.”

Mary didn’t know this. Nobody knew this. Elizabeth secluded herself as soon as she found she was pregnant. Lk 1.24 But Elizabeth was the proof Mary’s pregnancy came from God.

I know; people claim Mary never doubted Gabriel, and totally believed him. But that’s not consistent with the scriptures. Why would Mary then rush to visit Elizabeth? Lk 1.39 Why wouldn’t she simply sit back at home, wait for the news that Elizabeth had—beyond all expectations—given birth, and bask in the knowledge she was gonna be the mother of Messiah?

Because of course Mary doubted. It’s a reasonable doubt! God hadn’t done anything like this before, and you know how often people insist God doesn’t do new things—even though he totally does. Mary needed certainty, and Elizabeth could give it to her. So off she went.

Prayer and posture.

I neither close my eyes nor bow my head when I pray.

Yep, that’s right. My eyes are wide open. Sometimes I’m looking forward, sometimes upward, and sometimes downward.

• Sometimes I’m reading the prayer I’ve written out. (You can do that, y’know!))
• Sometimes I’m reading a rote prayer.
• Sometimes I’m looking at a list of prayer requests so I can make sure I include them; or I’m journaling the prayer requests as the prayer leader lists them.
• Sometimes I’m looking up relevant scriptures in my bible.
• If I’m praying for someone who’s standing right in front of me, usually I’m looking at them.
• If I’m praying as part of a street-evangelism ministry, or any other kind of ministry on a busy street, I’m watching out for my fellow ministers. You realize how often people get pickpocketed when their eyes are closed for prayer? The pickpockets consider us suckers. We kinda are.
• If I’m working with kids, you know some of ’em take advantage of the times no one’s looking. I sure did! So they catch me looking.

As for that last thing I listed: Sometimes the kids come ask me later, “Why were your eyes open? You know you’re s’posed to close your eyes.”

Says who? Well, some pastors: “Bow your heads with me. Now with every eye closed…” Usually ’cause they want to ask if anyone wants to confess, or come to Jesus, and they wanna give people some privacy… and if that’s the case, I’ll look down so I don’t see anything. When I don’t need to know, I don’t pry. But nope, even then I don’t close my eyes. Don’t need to.

And closing our eyes doesn’t come from the bible anyway. It’s western custom.

How Mary became Jesus’s mother.

Luke 1.26-38.

The Gospel of Luke begins with John the baptist’s annunciation, which Luke found kinda important because he wanted to tie John and Jesus’s ministries together. Not that they worked together, but they did both work for God, and John himself said his purpose was to point to Messiah, Jn 3.28 whom Jesus is.

Anyway right after John’s annunciation comes Jesus’s annunciation. And for that, we leave Judea and go to the Galilee, to a little town settled by Bethlehemites called Nazareth, to a young woman—likely in her teens, ’cause they married ’em off young in those days—named Miryam, in Latin “Maria,” in English “Mary.”

Luke 1.26-38 KWL

26In Elizabeth’s sixth month,

the angel Gabriel is sent by God

to a Galilean city called Nazareth,

27to a maiden betrothed

to a man of David’s house named Joseph;

the maiden’s name is Mary.

28Coming to her, Gabriel says, “Hello, your honor!

The Lord’s with you.

{You’re blessed above all women.}”

29Mary is alarmed by this message,

and speculates about what sort of greeting this is.

30The angel tells her, “Don’t fear, Mary:

You’ve found grace with God.

31Look, you’ll conceive in your womb.

You’ll give birth to a son. You’ll name him Jesus.

32He’ll be great. He’ll be called the Most High’s son.

The Lord will give him his ancestor David’s throne.

33He’ll be king over Jacob’s house in the age to come.

His kingdom will never end.”

34Mary tells the angel, “How will this happen?—

since I’ve not been with a man.”

35In reply the angel tells her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you.

The Most High’s power will envelop you

and the holy one produced will be called God’s son.

36And look: Your relative Elizabeth

has conceived a son in her old age.

This is actually her sixth month—

and she was called sterile.

37 No word of God is impossible.”

38Mary says, “Look: I’m the Lord’s slave.

I hope it happens according to your word.”

The angel leaves her.

In Orthodox tradition, Mary was at the Nazareth well, so most Christian art depicts her there, with Gabriel either greeting her, or saying something profound as she looks downward in humility. Something pious, and posed—you know, like artist’s models will do.

Today, the well, and the cave it’s in, is underneath St. Gabriel’s Church in Nazareth. As our tour guide rightly pointed out, if it wasn’t the very place Gabriel appeared to Mary, it doesn’t entirely matter; Mary did go to this well to get water, since it’s Nazareth’s only natural water source. (As a city of 74,000 today, it’s had to tap a number of additional water sources.)

When the art doesn’t depict Mary at a well, it’s often of her at home. Sounds reasonable, ’cause Luke says Gabriel entered, and we usually figure that’d be a building. The Roman Catholics built a chapel, the Basilica of the Annunciation, over the cave where they think Mary’s family lived. Yep, another cave. Caves are all over Israel, and I remind you Jesus was both born in, and buried in, caves. Once again, western art gets it wrong: Mary’s family could hardly have afforded the Roman villas the art regularly depict her in. Nazareth wasn’t in Italy!

Joseph, father of Jesus, prophet.

Matthew 1.18-21.

The idea of Jesus’s mother Mary being a virgin when she gave birth him, doesn’t work for a lot of people nowadays. “She was a virgin? Yeah right. She totally had sex with somebody. And then lied about it, and said God did it, and that sucker Joseph believed her.”

Clearly they’ve not read the gospels, because Joseph absolutely didn’t believe her.

Matthew 1.18-19 KWL

18The genesis of King Jesus is like this:

His mother Mary, betrothed to Joseph,

before coming to live together,

is found to be pregnant

through the Holy Spirit.

19 Her man Joseph, a right-minded man,

not wanting to make a show of her,

intends to privately release her.

Joseph knew you can’t just “be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.” He knew how babies are made. He lived in a farming community. Livestock everywhere… some of ’em making babies right in front of everyone. Who didn’t know how babies were made?

Greek myths abound of stories in which Zeus disguised himself so he could have sex with Greek women, and thereby produce ἡμίθεοι/imítheï, “demigods”—half-human, half-god spawn. Myths used Zeus’s out-of-control sex addiction to explain the origin of the more famous Greek heroes, like Herakles, Theseus, Achilles, Perseus, Orpheus… and in the present day, Wonder Woman. But it’s more than likely all the women who contributed to the story of a horny god assaulting various noblewomen in the Greek Empire, had simply had sex with somebody, and blamed Zeus rather than suffer the usual consequences of unchastity.

Thing is, once you read the myths, you’ll notice whenever women claimed Zeus impregnated them, typically the Greeks didn’t believe ’em either. They punished their wives and daughters as if Zeus—the mightiest being they could imagine, a terrifying person to get on the wrong side of—had nothing to do with their pregnancies. Banished ’em, imprisoned ’em, sealed ’em in a coffin and threw them into the sea. (Then, say the myths, Zeus smote them for their unbelief.) The ancients knew exactly how babies are made. The “Zeus did it!” story didn’t work. Nor should it!

And the “God did it” story didn’t work on Joseph either. To his mind, Mary clearly had sex—and not with him. And she was trying to blame the Holy Spirit, of all people. The Spirit doesn’t do that; he’s not Zeus! He’s not gonna transform himself into bulls and geese so he can rape silly teenage girls. The very idea is the most ridiculous, offensive sort of blasphemy.

Mary’s apparent infidelity and outrageous excuse aside, Joseph was what Matthew calls δίκαιος/díkeos, which the KJV translates “just” and the NIV “was faithful to the law.” It means as I translated it: Right-minded. Joseph was the type of person who always sought to do the moral thing. He didn’t wanna be vengeful, and expose Mary to public ridicule. He simply wanted their relationship to be done, so he could move on and marry someone who’d stay true to him.

Betrothals among first-century Israelis were a contractual agreement between the husband and wife’s families. (The husband would provide this, the wife that.) But all it took to end these agreements, was simply for the husband to declare, “I divorce you” three times, and bam, the contract was null. The husband would forfeit his dowry (unless there was fraud involved in the marriage), the wife would go back to her parents’ house, and that was that. So Joseph figured he’d do that. Not in the town square, to publicly embarrass her. Just in front of their parents. That’s what Matthew means by “privately.”

So yeah, let’s put aside this idea the ancients were naïve idiots who’d believe ridiculous stories. Not even the pagans did. Devout Israelis knew God isn’t at all like that, and Joseph didn’t believe the virgin-conception story any more than any of today’s skeptics would.

But something flipped Joseph 180 degrees—so much so that he legally adopted Mary’s kid and raised him as his own. This something was a prophetic dream. And from what we know about prophetic dreams, it wouldn’t have worked on Joseph unless

1. he was stupid, or
2. he had multiple experiences with prophetic dreams, and his experiences showed him they were reliable.

Me, I’m pretty sure it’s that second thing.

Jesus’s genealogy, in 𝘓𝘶𝘬𝘦.

Luke 3.23-38.

The second of Christ Jesus’s two different, contradictory-looking genealogies in the New Testament, is found in the gospel of Luke, right after Jesus’s baptism, right before Jesus’s temptation.

It’s an odd place to squeeze the genealogy in. Y’might notice 1 Chronicles begins with genealogy, and goes through it for whole chapters till it finally gets to Israeli history. Likewise Matthew begins with genealogy. But Luke likely tucked it here because Jesus had just been adopted—in the Roman sense of the Father formally declaring him his Son—so now Jesus’s ancestry comes into play.

And the Luke list goes back farther than Matthew. The other gospel only wanted to establish Jesus is King David ben Jesse’s heir, plus the spiritual heir (as well as literal descendant) of Abraham ben Terah. Those things would be important to Matthew’s readers, and because Matthew includes lots of biblical proof texts which Jesus fulfilled, most Christians assume Matthew was writing his gospel to Jews, who’d care about that stuff. Thing is, everybody cares about that stuff—if we care about the continuity between Old and New Testaments; if we care that Jesus is the legitimately prophesied Messiah. Yep, even gentiles care about the proof texts.

But Luke was likely writing to Romans like himself, and in ancient Roman culture, they didn’t care about whether you were descended from kings; Romans took pride in the fact they regularly overthrew kings. They cared about whether you were descended from gods.

And that is why Jesus’s genealogy in Luke goes all the way back. Luke is showing his readers Jesus wasn’t simply declared the Son of God by God himself; he’s a descendant of God. He has godhood in his bloodline.

Says so in his genealogy:

Luke 3.23-38 KWL

23Jesus himself is starting round his 30th year.

He’s legally the son of Joseph bar Ili—

24bar Maddát, bar Leví,

bar Malkhí, bar Yannaí, bar Joseph,

25bar Mattityáhu, bar Amos,

bar Nahum, bar Heslí, bar Naggaí,

26bar Mákhat, bar Mattityáhu,

bar Shimí, bar Yoshí, bar Yodáh,

27bar Yochanán, bar Reishá,

bar Zerubbabel, bar Shaltiél, bar Nerí,

28bar Malkhí, bar Adí,

bar Kosám, bar Elmadán, bar Er,

29bar Yeshúa, bar Eleázar,

bar Yorím, bar Mattát, bar Leví,

30bar Shimón, bar Judah,

bar Joseph, bar Jonám, bar Elyakím,

31bar Maláh, bar Manáh,

bar Mattatáh, bar Nathan, bar David,

32bar Jesse, bar Obed,

bar Boaz, bar Sheláh, bar Nakhshón,

33bar Amminadáv, bar Admín, bar Arní,

bar Hechrón, bar Pérech, bar Judah,

34bar Jacob, bar Isaac,

bar Abraham, bar Térakh, bar Nakhór,

35bar Serúg, bar Reú,

bar Péleg, bar Éver, bar Sheláh,

36bar Keïnán, bar Arfakhšád,

bar Shem, bar Noah, bar Lémekh,

37bar Metušelákh, bar Enoch,

bar Yéred, bar Mahalalél, bar Keïnán,

38bar Enósh, bar Šet,

bar Adam, bar God.

Maranatha: Come Lord Jesus!

There’s a Syriac word in the New Testament which only appears once, in 1 Corinthians 16.22, and is probably better known as the name of a music label or a brand of peanut butter: Maranatha. Some bibles don’t bother to translate it…

1 Corinthians 16.22 NASB

If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha.

…and some bibles do.

1 Corinthians 16.22 ESV

If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!

Properly maranatha is two words, which in Greek are μαρὰν ἀθά, and in Syriac are ܡܳܪܰܢ ܐܶܬ݂ܳܐ (still transliterated marán athá). And properly it’s not a command for our Master to come; it’s in the perfect tense, so it means “our Master has come.” Or more like the Christmas carol, “The Lord is come.”

But Christians still prefer to interpret it with the same idea we see in Revelation 22.20:

Revelation 22.20 ESV

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

In this verse, the Peshitta has ܬ݁ܳܐ ܡܳܪܝܳܐ ܝܶܫܽܘܥ/thá mará Yešúa, and that’s the imperative—the command or request—for Jesus to come. But Christian custom, since the very beginning, is to say maranatha—to mean as the ESV puts it: Our Lord, come! The ancient Christians prayed maranatha, and we see it in the Didache and the very oldest prayer books. Christians still pray it.

Most of the time when we pray maranatha, it’s for our Lord Jesus to come back. Either we want his presence to be among us during our worship services or church business… or we want him to stop delaying his second coming and just take over the world already!

But more often when we ask for Jesus to be here, we pray it in our native languages. “Come Lord Jesus!” works just fine. The word maranatha is more of a liturgical word; it’s something we might pray formally, but it doesn’t feel as personal as when we use the words of our native languages. I get that. And it’s fine: Using foreign-language words when English words will do, is frequently showing off how we happen to know foreign languages—and showing off is hypocrisy. We don’t want any hypocrisy in our prayer life.

But then again: If you use the word maranatha in your private prayers, whom are you showing off to? So don’t worry about telling God maranatha in private. Jesus did tell us to pray “Thy kingdom come” after all, so by all means pray that Jesus return. The sooner the better!

Jesus’s genealogy, in 𝘔𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘸.

Matthew 1.1-17.

In the New Testament, Christ Jesus has two genealogies.

Two different genealogies. And they don’t line up. If that contradiction (or “bible difficulty,” as many Christians prefer to call it) makes you anxious, relax; I wrote about it elsewhere, so go read that piece. Today I just wanna look at the genealogy in Matthew. The author of that gospel decided to begin with it, ’cause he considered it important. And away we go.

Matthew 1.1 KWL

The book of the genesis of King Jesus,

son of David, son of Abraham.

Other translations have “Christ Jesus” or “Messiah Jesus.” Mostly because they’re going for literalness; the Greek word is Χριστοῦ/Hristú, “Christ,” which itself is a translation of מָשׁיִחַ/Mašíakh, “Messiah.” It literally meant “anointed [person],” so if you really wanna be literal, it should be “Jesus the Anointed One” every single time it says “Christ Jesus.”

But a literal translation isn’t always the best translation. Culturally, to first-century Israelis, Hristós and Mašíakh didn’t mean “anointed one”—it means king. It’s a royal title for Israeli kings. Unlike the pagan kings of countries round about, their king was anointed by the LORD, their real king, to be his vice-regent. Same as Samuel ben Elkanah anointed Saul ben Kish and David ben Jesse.

We Christians claim Jesus was anointed by the LORD, same as those guys, to rule Israel. And the world. He’s the king of Israel, but not just the king of Israel. So “Christ” means king. It’s not Jesus’s last name; he’s not the son of Joseph and Mary Christ. Nor is it a religious title; it doesn’t mean he’s a religious guru. It means he’s our king. Our only king. Human kings are usurpers and false Christs, and every last one of them has got to go. Even the nice ones. Especially the ones who claim they come in Jesus’s name.

Ancient Romans didn’t realize what Christ means, which is why ancient Christians used the title “Christ Jesus” instead of βασιλεύς Ἰησοῦς/vasileýs Yisús, “King Jesus.” Made it way less obvious they were talking about the One who’d overthrow the Roman Empire. Makes it way less obvious we are talking about the One who’ll one day overthrow the kingdoms of the world—including our own. So much less obvious, there are too many Christian nationalists who think Jesus would never overthrow the United States; that’s just treason-talk. But he will. The kingdoms of this world are gonna become the kingdoms of our God and his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Rv 11.15

Pharisees had taught first-century Israelis that Messiah would rule the world. Unfortunately, Jewish nationalists had taken this idea and thought Messiah would conquer their hated Roman occupiers, establish Israel’s independence, then go forth to conquer a ton of territory like Alexander of Macedon, and establish a new Israeli Empire. One even better than the Roman Empire, ’cause now it wouldn’t be run by dirty gentiles. Now gentiles would be the second-class citizens in their new Empire. Semite supremacy!

Yeah, there was a lot of racism wrapped up in Pharisee ideas about Messiah. Unfortunately that’s still true in popular interpretations about Jesus’s second coming. But I digress. Distorted perspectives aside, “King” is still the best interpretation of Hristú.

And though Jesus is a literal descendant of both David, the third king of Israel, and Abraham ben Terah, the ancestor of the Israelis, Edomites, and Arabs, the more important thing is Jesus is the fulfillment of their relationships with the LORD. Without Abraham’s faith in the LORD these people-groups wouldn’t even exist, much less be monotheists who pursued a living God instead of ridiculous pagan myths. Without David’s loyalty to God, the LORD wouldn’t have responded with any promise to make one of his descendants the greatest king ever.

Yep, all of that in the very first verse of the New Testament! But wait; there’s more.

The Christian’s marital duties.

1 Corinthians 7.1-9.

Right after the apostles write about unchastity, they get to a question one of them (probably Paul) was asked in a letter—a question Paul quotes in verse 1—“[Is it] good for a person to not be bound to a woman?” By “person” the writer no doubt meant “man,” or himself.

And the reason he asked was because of the second coming. Y’know how some Christians constantly say, “Jesus could return at any time!” or “The rapture could take place at any time!” Well, Christians were also saying that back then. Yep, even before Revelation was written. Yep, even before Darbyists claim certain End Times events which have to take place first (in their timelines, anyway) took place first. Christians have always expected Jesus to return in their lifetimes; ever since he was raptured and an angel told the first apostles, “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Ac 1.11 KJV

Okay, so if Jesus is coming back at any minute… should we get married and have children? Should we plan for the future if we might not even have a future?

Paul might’ve been astounded to learn Jesus delayed his return for centuries. (It’s gonna be 20 entire centuries in 2033!) But even so, he knew we can’t just sit on our hands and do nothing while we wait. We gotta be busy doing good. So if we’re married, be a good spouse. And if we’re not married… you don’t have to get married, but if you wanna, it’s okay. Jesus hasn’t done away with marriage. He will after the resurrection, Lk 20.34-36 because immortal people don’t need to reproduce; no generation is gonna pass away and need replacing! But right now, Christians die, and do need replacing, and we either need to make new disciples by conversion, or literally make ’em via childbirth.

So here’s where the apostles say all this.

1 Corinthians 7.1-9 KWL

1You write me about whether it’s good

for for a person to not be bound to a woman.

2Because of unchastity,

each man, have your own woman,

and each woman, have your own man!

3Man, do your duty to your woman!

Likewise, woman to your man!

4The woman doesn’t have authority over her own body,

but her man does—

likewise the man doesn’t have authority over his own body,

but his woman does.

5Don’t cheat one another!

Unless it’s out of consent, for a time,

so you might have time to pray—

and then you can be together again,

so Satan can’t tempt you for your lack of self-control.

6I say this as permission, not a command.

7I want every person to be like me.

But each person has their own gift from God,

one like this, one like that.

8I tell the unmarried and widows:

If they can live like I do, good for them!

9And if they can’t control themselves, marry!

—for it’s better to marry than burn.

The prayers of a righteous person.

James 5.16-18.

When Christians teach on prayer (like I’m doing right now), many of us like to quote this passage:

James 5.16-18 KWL

16So confess your* sins to one another

and pray for one another so you* can be cured.

The petition of one who works rightly is very strong.

17Elijah was the very same sort of human as we are.

He prayed a prayer for it to not rain,

and it didn’t rain upon the land for 3 years, 6 months.

18He prayed again and the sky gave rain,

and the land produced its fruit.

The two points we zero in on are, as the KJV puts it, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” Jm 5.16 KJV and “Elijah was a human like us.” Jm 5.17 NRSVue And usually what we teach about this, is how we oughta be a good man like Elijah—and you see what Elijah’s prayers actually achieve. Dude stopped the weather. Just like Jesus! But for years—he triggered a drought, and wrecked the economy of his country for half a great tribulation.

The rather obvious problem with this interpretation of this passage, though: It ties whether we get what we pray for, to our goodness. To our good karma. To whether we deserve to get our prayers answered, ’cause we’ve been good boys and girls, and we’re not on the naughty list. Conversely, the reason we don’t get what we ask for, is ’cause we are on the naughty list, and God is withdrawing any blessings till we shape up. Stop sinning or you might never get cured of cancer.

Yeah, that’s the wrong interpretation. Everybody remember what it is that makes us Christians righteous? Faith. Righteousness comes by faith. We trust Jesus, so we’re considered righteous. Exactly the same as when Abraham believed God, and God considered him righteous. Ro 4.3, Ga 3.6, Jm 2.23

So what does δικαίου ἐνεργουμένη/dikéu energuméni, “one who works rightly,” describe? One who does faith-works. The sort of person James writes about in chapter 2—those Christians whose faith actually changes their behavior, gets ’em to do stuff, because they trust Jesus just that much.

And no, I’m not talking about “the Christian faith” changing our behavior. I don’t mean orthodox Christian theology; I don’t mean religion. Neither does James. I mean we obey Jesus’s teachings. We follow the Holy Spirit’s leading. We hear from him in prayer and act accordingly. We behave like we actually believe what Jesus tells us.

The prayers of an active Jesus-follower is very strong.

Flee unchastity!

CHASTITY 'tʃæs.tə.di noun. The state or practice of abstaining from nonmarital or illicit sexual intercourse.

2. The state or practice of abstaining from all sexual intercourse.

[Chaste tʃeɪst adjective, unchaste ən'tʃeɪst adjective, unchastity ən'tʃæs.tə.di noun.]

1 Corinthians 6.15-20.

Yep, today’s bible passage has to do with sex, and if the subject offends you, stop reading. But bear in mind I write these articles to explain what the apostles would’ve thought, given they lived in the first-century Roman Empire. If you’d much rather hear preachers guess what they thought, based on their own beliefs, prejudices, and hangups—conservative or liberal—okay, go find a church where the pastor never, ever challenges your beliefs, or a bible commentary which does likewise, and enjoy your blissful ignorance. Me, I’d rather grow.

So, chastity. Most English-speakers are more familiar with the second definition I listed above, and assume chastity is the very same thing as celibacy. It’s not. One can be chaste and sexually active. Chastity has to do with proper sexual activity, and by “proper” I certainly don’t mean what society thinks is proper; I mean within the very few limitations God has put on human sexual activity. And contrary to certain repressed Christians, he hasn’t put many! They have, because their parents have, because their grandparents have, and so on back till they’re entirely sure their tradition originates with God, not men.

True, when the apostles object to πορνεία/porneía, “unchastity” (KJV “fornication,” NIV “sexual immorality”), yes they largely are reflecting Pharisee custom. (Paul grew up Pharisee; Ac 23.6 Sosthenes, if he’s the same Sosthenes who was Corinth’s synagogue president, Ac 18.17 was definitely Pharisee.) And Pharisees actually didn’t define chastity as the Law of Moses prescribed it… because the Law accommodated the polygamous culture of ancient western Asia, which included multiple wives and concubines. Yep, in the Old Testament, men could have multiple wives and multiple girlfriends, and it wasn’t considered adultery. This fact still regularly blows Christians’ minds. Totally true though.

So why did Pharisee custom differ? The Greeks. Alexander of Macedon had conquered the Persian Empire by 330BC, making Judea now part of his empire. Judea was ruled by Greek-speaking empires and Greek-speaking kings ever after—some of whom had heavily adopted Greek culture. And a big part of Greek culture was monogamy. True, often it was serial monogamy, with divorce after divorce; but polygamy quickly became a no-no among Judeans who feared offending their Greek-speaking overlords. By the time Pharisees showed up after the Maccabean revolt (165–60BC), Judeans had been largely monogamous for more than a century. So monogamy (and, unfortunately, frequent divorce) was now part of Pharisee culture too. Adultery and chastity was now defined by that standard. Not—yeah, this is still mindblowing—the bible.

Although since the apostles wrote the New Testament, now monogamy is biblical; now adultery and chastity are based on monogamy. If you wanna be in Christian leadership, you gotta be “a one-woman man,” Tt 1.6 or one-man woman; you can’t be unchaste; you can’t be promiscuous. And if every Christian’s gonna strive for spiritual maturity, that’s the standard we have to strive for. That’s the standard the apostles expected Corinth to strive for. But, to their irritation, Corinth was still full of spiritual infants, and they were still—as we know from today’s passage—merrily fornicating away with temple prostitutes. Among other things.

Really don’t wanna go to church.

There’s a guy whose blog I’ve been following for years. For the past five years he’s really amped up his message to everybody to quit their churches. Stop going, he says. Just stop; stay home. You’ll be a lot happier.

And I get it. There’ve been times in my life where I didn’t wanna go to church either. I didn’t try to drag people away from church along with me, like this guy; I figured if you like church, you do you. But for me, nah.

For the usual excuses.

I HAVE ANOTHER CHURCH. Back in college I used the excuse, “I already have a church.” It was 100 miles away, and impractical to visit every Sunday, and that was my excuse for ditching all the nearby churches—none of which I cared for. I did go to church whenever I went home for the usual college breaks. But when I was at school, I figured it was okay if I missed 10 weeks of church services.

CHAPEL COUNTS. Plus my school had daily chapel services. So they became my other excuse that semester. Me and a lot of other students.

DON’T GOTTA GO EVERY WEEK. Which… is actually true. If you’re in leadership (as I often am), you’re obligated to be there weekly. But if not, you can miss a Sunday morning from time to time. Of course when I was in my don’t-wanna-go phase, it wasn’t just time to time; it was a lot of Sundays. I know a number of Christians who only attend once a month, and of course there are those twice-a-year Christians who only attend Easter and Christmas. (If that; nowadays they can watch these services on YouTube.)

“I have freedom in Christ, y’know,” was my usual excuse for inconsistent attendance. And I do… but in context that passage is about freedom of conscience, Ro 14 not the freedom to be irresponsible.

I CAN DO THIS ON MY OWN. Years before, when I was really annoyed with the people of my church, this was my excuse for a few weeks. ’Cause I totally can do all this stuff on my own:

• Pray?—no problem.
• Sing worship songs?—easily done.
• Learn from fellow Christians?—I have their books; nowadays I have the internet; I got content.
• Study the bible?—sure.
• Tithing? Well kinda. I could donate money to myself for “religious” expenses. Or I could give that money to charity. Or I could spend all of it at a Peets one afternoon while I sit there reading some Christian book; wouldn’t that totally count?
• Take holy communion? I could eat saltines and grape juice on my own, and call it communion. But the vital element in communion is, y’know, actual communion—with fellow Christians. So that makes it tricky.

As are all our other rituals which require the participation of fellow Christians. Plus evangelism: Once you share Jesus with someone, where do you take ’em so they can be taught Christianity and mentored? Well I could do it by myself… but that’d mean I’m starting a church, right?

There are plenty more excuses. Some of them get pretty complex, and as a result they kinda merit whole articles, because it takes a little time to take these excuses apart. But for many a Christian, any excuse will do.

Prophets and potentates.

Yeah, I wanted an alliterative title, and “prince” kinda gives people the wrong idea, so I went with the less-familiar word “potentate.” It just means “power.” Potentatus was the Latin word St. Ambrose of Milan used for the biblical Greek word ἐξουσίας/exusías, “power,” in Ephesians 1.21. Ambrose was thinking of spiritual beings, but I just mean any person with power.

• Might be political power, like a king, dictator, president, or backroom dealmaking party member.
• Might be economic power, like a billionaire or CEO.
• Might be cultural power, like a popular entertainer or internet influencer.
• Might be spiritual power, like a pastor or guru. (Sometimes this overlaps with cultural power, like with activist pastors; sometimes not.)

Whatever kind of power we’re talking about, they got it, and people are swayed by it—voluntarily or not.

Sometimes prophets have this kind of power. I’ve known more than one Christian who considered the prophets at their churches to be their spiritual guides or spiritual mentors. After all, prophets listen to God; when you pick a Christian mentor, they’d better be listening to God. And certainly various prophets in the bible had people they were mentoring; Elijah, Elisha, and John the baptist certainly did.

But usually when we see prophets in the bible, they’re not the ones in power. In fact one of their regular duties is to serve as a check on the ones in power. The potentate—whether a king, judge, governor, or emperor—oughta be listening to God way better than he is. So the prophet’s job is to either remind the potentate, “Thus says the LORD”—or just plain tell him, because the potentate doesn’t follow God any, and has no clue what the LORD says.

Yeah, there are obvious biblical exceptions like Moses ben Amram, who was both prophet and potentate. Or Joshua ben Nun. Or Deborah eshet Lappidot. Or Samuel ben Elkanah. Although you might be aware at some point Samuel had to give up judging Israel and hand the civic authority over to the new king, Saul ben Kish… and then spend the rest of his life reminding Saul that no, the LORD didn’t want him to do as he was doing; stop that.

Thereafter, even though there were various kings who could hear God the same as any prophet, and are even rightly considered prophets themselves, they still occasionally needed a corrective from one of God’s other prophets. King David ben Jesse still needed to hear from the prophet Nathan when he stopped listening to God and got a bit murdery. King Solomon ben David still needed to hear from the prophet Ahijah when he stopped listening to God and got a bit idolatrous.

Because power corrupts. Even good men can fall victim to the corrupting influence of the power they wield. That’s why they need prophets to pull ’em back onto the right path when they go wrong. They can’t just presume, “Oh I hear God just fine”; history has shown time and again no, they really don’t.

“Biblical principles” and extrapolating new commands.

In my early 20s I went to a conference presented by youth pastor turned lifestyle guru Bill Gothard. (He didn’t present ’em in person; we watched videos.)
Bill Gothard. [Wikipedia] His organization, the Institute in Basic Life Principles (formerly Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts, formerly Campus Teams) goes round the United States to teach young people “basic biblical principles” which would keep them on the straight and narrow. Gothard ran it till 2014, when he stepped down ’cause of molestation accusations. Since the statute of limitations means he’s not getting prosecuted, it looks like he’s quietly slipping back into ministry as the scandal fades from everyone’s memory.

Gothard is hugely popular among Fundamentalists, who promoted him ’cause his teachings are right in line with conservative Christian culture. He doesn’t just teach people to memorize bible verses, pray, and go to church. He claims the bible says we should obey our parents no matter what, women should obey their husbands no matter what, and everyone should respect authority. Plus rock music is of the devil, public schools are hopelessly corrupt (so homeschool your kids), Christians need to dress conservatively, Christians should have loads of kids, and Christians should never borrow money.

I’m picking on Gothard a lot in this article, but he’s far from the only guru who does this. Financial gurus like Dave Ramsey claim they also get their ideas from the bible. Leadership gurus like John Maxwell say much the same thing. Political activists on both the Christian Right and Left claim the basis of all their thinking comes from bible. Hey, if you’re an Evangelical, our ideas should be grounded in bible, right? (And even if we’re not Evangelical.)

Because of Gothard’s never-borrowing teachings, I actually wound up leaving my Fundamentalist church. ’Cause the church wanted to take out a loan so they could hire two pastors. It was a bad idea for lots of reasons, but Gothard had convinced me borrowing was a sin, so I was outraged when the congregation voted for the idea. “Well they’re not following God,” I concluded, shook the dust off my feet, and started going to my sister’s church.

Where in the bible are we commanded to never borrow? Well we’re not. In fact we’re commanded to treat people fairly and graciously when they borrow from us, Ex 22.25, Lv 25.37, Dt 15.8, 24.10, Lk 6.35 which implies God considers borrowing to be acceptable behavior, under most circumstances.

So how’d Gothard convince me it’s not acceptable? He claims it’s a biblical principle, an idea which isn’t explicitly stated in the bible—there’s no command which says “Thou shalt not borrow”—yet the bible teaches it anyway. If we read between the lines.

Not one of the “biblical principles” of Christian gurus are actual biblical commands. ’Cause if they were, the gurus could quote them! “Thus saith the LORD”—same as they do when they point out the LORD forbids murder, theft, and adultery. So no, there’s no one bible verse to back ’em up… but the gurus claim there are tons of proof texts which suggest the authors of the bible, even though they never explicitly state these ideas, believed these principles. And maybe we should believe these principles.

There’s only one major problem here: These gurus aren’t historical scholars. They have no idea what the underlying principles of ancient peoples were. I know, ’cause I do, ’cause I’m an historian. Historians learn and teach this stuff! Crack open a history book sometime. You’ll learn tons.

In comparison, all gurus know—all they care to know—is they have a principle they wanna teach, and think they can prove it with a bunch of biblical proof texts. Some of these texts are quoted in their proper historical context, but far more often, not. They’re interpreted as if they weren’t written by ancient Hebrews and Christians, but by 19th-century Americans. Yes I know it’s the 21st century. The gurus are still stuck in the 19th. Hence all the patriarchy and sexism. And to be fair, patriarchy and sexism are part of ancient Hebrew and Judean culture—but these gurus never ask whether God intends to do away with these attitudes. Because they surely don’t.

That’s the thing about biblical principles: Some of them deliberately aren’t biblical commands, because God was trying to mitigate them in ancient culture. They weren’t God-ideas; they’re fleshly. Like polygamy, polytheism, racism, and slavery. They’re part of the worldview of ancient western Asia. It stands to reason they’re in the bible. But just because they’re in the bible, it does not mean the Holy Spirit endorses them. Like the bad advice of Job’s friends, it’s okay that we’re aware of it—but we’re meant to use our heads, and reject these principles as ungodly.