Where there’s no vision. (It’s not your vision.)

Years ago I taught at a Christian junior high. We had a chapel service, and one of my fellow teachers was gonna preach a nice motivational mini-sermon, and came to me for help: He was trying to find this verse in his bible, and couldn’t:

Proverbs 29.18 KJV

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

It’s because the school’s official translation was the New International Version, but he had the verse memorized in the King James Version, and the NIV had updated the vocabulary so much, he couldn’t recognize it anymore. The 1984 edition of the NIV put it thisaway:

Proverbs 29.18 NIV (1984)

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint;

but blessed is he who keeps the law.

The current edition updated it even further. Plus made it gender-inclusive.

Proverbs 29.18 NIV (2011)

Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint;

but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.

“Wisdom’s instruction” isn’t that precise a translation of torah/“Law,” but whatever.

My coworker was confused by the update. Because he already had a specific reason for wanting to use this verse as his proof text: He wanted to talk to the kids about why it’s important for each of us to have a vision for our future in mind.

It’s not about that, I explained to him. It’s about revelation. It’s about God’s vision for our future. Which is why he gave us his Law. It’s not about making our own plans.

He nodded, and I thought he had heard me. But when it came time to speak to the kids, first he quoted the NIV, then said, “But in the King James Version it says, ‘Where there’s no vision, the people perish.’ And that’s what I wanna talk to you about today. You gotta make plans for your future. You gotta have a vision. Otherwise you’ll perish.”

And so on. Context be damned; he had kids to motivate. Stupid translators and their insistence on accuracy were only getting in his way.

So that was disappointing, and I lost a lot of respect for him as a Christian and an educator. But it’s hardly the first time I’ve tried to correct a fellow Christian, only to have it fall on deaf ears. Still happens all the time. Hopefully you haven’t come to this blog, or this article, with this know-it-all mindset.

God’s superabundant riches.

Ephesians 3.13-21.

God’s great mystery, now revealed to the world through Paul, was God’s kingdom now includes gentiles. Previous generations didn’t realize this, despite plenty of hints in the Old Testament; it’s why Pharisees were regularly so dismissive of gentiles. But God now wants his church to make it crystal clear: The good news is for everyone. No exceptions. Jesus is Lord of all.

This was why he was in chains, Paul explained. Ep 3.1 In Acts he proclaimed Jesus had sent him to the gentiles—in temple, of all places. Ac 22.21 The resulting riot got the Romans to arrest him, Ac 22.22-24 originally to flog him and silence him, but Paul’s citizenship meant it quickly turned into protective custody, as the Judean leadership sought to get him killed. At the time he wrote Ephesians, we figure he was awaiting trial in Rome. His legal woes were entirely provoked by the very idea of including gentiles in God’s kingdom. But Paul wasn’t so petty as to blame gentiles for his situation. Wasn’t their fault.

On the contrary: The gentiles drove him to rejoice.

Ephesians 3.13-17 KWL

13 So I request you don’t despair over my suffering for you—which is in your honor.

14 It’s why I bend my knees to the Father, 15 for whom every “fatherland” in heaven and on earth is named.

16 So he could give you power from his glorious riches, make you strong in his Spirit in the person within,

17 and settle Christ in your hearts, planted and established through faith in love.

When Paul wrote of bending his knees to the Father, Ep 3.14 Christians miss the importance of this, ’cause it’s an old Christian custom to kneel to pray. But first-century Judeans (and Christians) didn’t pray like that. They prayed standing up, facing the sky, arms outstretched. Mk 11.25, Lk 18.13 You didn’t kneel unless you were begging God to answer your petition—like when Jesus begged not to suffer, Lk 22.41 or Simon Peter begged God to raise a dead woman. Ac 9.40 Paul was begging God for his prayer requests. Begging the Ephesians would get “power from his glorious riches,” would be “strong in his Spirit,” that God’d “settle Christ in [their] hearts.” He wanted the Ephesians to become solid Christians. (’Cause they were good Christians, Ep 1.15 but could always be better!)

Every “fatherland,” Paul pointed out, is named for the Father. This is a bit of Greek wordplay, so it’s a little tricky to translate. Paul compared patír/“father” and patriá/“homeland.” He correctly pointed out the word patriá comes from patír. Originally patriá meant “family,” and the KJV translated it that way: “Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” Ep 3.15 KJV But a patriá wasn’t just one small little family, but a national family—the ethnic identity of an entire nation. Back then, nations figured a significant part of their national identity was in being descendants of a common ancestor. You know, like Judeans all figured they were descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah: They were “the children of Israel.”

Nowadays we consider that idea racist… ’cause it is. Especially in empires like the Roman Empire, which were multinational; or nations like the United States, which are based on shared ideals and rights instead of culture and ancestry. And God’s kingdom is both of those things: It’s an empire where everyone’s adopted, Ep 1.5 where our common allegiance to Jesus and his teachings mean race should make no difference. And lest anyone forget this, Paul pointed out how every ethnic identity has its origin in God the Father. He put people-groups where he wants ’em, Ac 17.26 and now he wants ’em in his kingdom, the patriá of heaven. A one-world government, under God, indivisible.

Outside and inside of the Bible Belt.

Americans know this already, but I have foreign readers, so I figured I should explain: There’s a section of the United States called “the Bible Belt.” Pagans named it that, but the people who live there are perfectly happy with the term. It’s the American South, in which the population is so overtly Christian—specifically a conservative Evangelical form of Christianity—it’s simply taken for granted you’re Christian.

Those who live in the Bible Belt presume they’re Christian, even when they aren’t. Likewise they presume their neighbors are Christian, and are startled and even horrified to discover otherwise. To them of course the United States is a Christian nation. Certainly everyone they know is Christian.

It’s hypocrisy, of course. The residents of the Bible Belt are about as Christian as the people of my state, California. Seriously; polls and surveys bear this out. The difference is that when Californians aren’t Christian, we don’t pretend we are, and don’t try to disappear into the larger Christian population. We’ll just be pagan. ’Cause it’s allowed. ’Cause freedom of religion.

Hence what we have in California is the opposite assumption: Those who live here presume just about everyone is pagan. (Especially the person doing the assuming originated from the Bible Belt.) I grew up with preachers who had a bit of a bunker mentality: Outside the church walls, everybody else was an unbeliever. They either had some weird hippy religion, or were some kind of cult member, or were atheist. Since I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, the preachers probably weren’t far wrong; a lot of non-Christians moved to the Bay Area specifically so they could be non-Christian, let their freak flags fly, and raise up a new generation of non-Christians who believed in everything, believed in nothing, or believed in weirdness, same as they.

But when I started sharing Jesus with people, I quickly discovered most of the strangers I meet are Christian. Roughly two out of three of them. They aren’t necessarily good Christians; most of us suck. They’re still Christian though: Pray, read their bibles a little, sometimes go to church, believe all the basics, and most importantly trust Jesus to save ’em.

Of course I tell my Bible Belt friends this, and they can’t believe it. Because they’re sure California consists of nothing but pagans.

No longer a mystery: Gentiles inherit God’s kingdom.

Ephesians 3.1-12.

Paul was under house arrest when he wrote Ephesians, either before the first or second time he stood before Nero Caesar. Paul optimistically thought of these circumstances as his opportunity to share Jesus with Roman officials, with himself as Jesus’s official ambassador. Ep 6.20

But y’know, much of the reason he got in so much trouble, was because he insisted on sharing Jesus with gentiles—who were and always had been part of God’s plan, but Pharisees had blinders on about it, so this information was new to them. Because Paul was notorious for hanging out with gentiles, it’s arguably why he was arrested in the first place. Ac 22.21-29 Not that he didn’t totally take advantage of it to meet Agrippa Herod and Nero Ceasar.

This, Paul recognized, was the real reason he was in chains:

Ephesians 3.1-6 KWL

1 Here’s the reason I, Paul, became Christ Jesus’s bondservant for you gentiles—

2 unless you already heard God’s system of grace he gave me for you.

3 He made the mystery known to me through special revelation—as I previously, briefly wrote you.

4 Its readers can see my meaning about “Christ’s mystery.”

5 It wasn’t made known to previous generations of the sons of men.

He now revealed this mystery to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit:

6 Through the gospel, the gentiles are to be

co-inheritors, co-body-parts, co-sharers in Christ Jesus’s promise.

This was outrageous news to bigoted Judeans who were certain God would wipe gentiles off the face of the earth, and populate his kingdom with only them.

Where’d they get such a genocidal idea? A rather sick interpretation of the bible. Taking the book of Joshua global. But it didn’t take into account the rest of the scriptures. Messiah isn’t gonna wipe out the world’s kings; they’re gonna kneel before him. Ps 2.10-12 “King of kings and lord of lords” means other kings and lords are gonna exist in his administration, under him. And not all these kings are gonna be Hebrew! Messiah—we gentiles call him Christ—was always gonna be gentiles’ king of kings. Everybody’s king.

The Pharisees kinda knew this, but like everyone who wears blinders when it comes to the bible, they didn’t wanna know this. They liked their wrath-filled idea way better. Had grudges against gentiles. Some of those grudges were centuries old; some of ’em were still pissed at the Egyptians for enslaving them 1,500 years (now 3,500 years) before. They didn’t care for the Romans at all, nor their Greek, Syrian, Nabatean, and Samaritan neighbors. So they indulged their prejudices, spun the scriptures to imply God’s gonna decimate the gentiles, and though they couldn’t build physical walls like the Israelis today, built all sorts of cultural and mental blocks.

The idea the gentiles would share their inheritance from God, share their Messiah? In synagogue after synagogue, Paul discovered this gospel pissed them off. It’s like telling an Arizonan, “The feds wanna give the Mexicans free healthcare.” If they had guns back then, they’d open fire on Paul, Barnabas, Silas, and any Christian who suggested such a thing. They did try to kill Paul in temple, y’know.

My pacifism. Sorta.

Since I wrote that piece about how Christ Jesus expects us, his followers, to be peacemakers and practice nonviolence, naturally I got some pushback from my conservative friends.

Of course they pitched me all the usual objections. Some with compassion, some with scoffing; it all depends on whether these were knee-jerk reactions, or they were actually trying to understand where I’m coming from. If we reduce people to nothing more than their points of view, of course we’re more likely to fight ’em than love ’em. But that’s another discussion.

You might have some of these objections yourself:

• What, d’you wanna open up all the jails and let the murderers and pedos run free?
• Are you suggesting we abolish the military, and let America’s enemies have at us? [I live in an Air Force town, and have a number of Air Force and Army relatives, so this is a big deal.]
• If some madman is about to harm your family and loved ones, would you just let him?

It’s not like these questions never crossed my mind. They certainly did when I was more political than Christian, and would argue against pacifism.

To be blunt, these arguments are meant to appeal to my, and everyone’s, fleshly nature. Our sense of outrage at wrongs being done to innocent people. Our tendency to demand vengeance. If someone threatens to grievously harm me and mine, shouldn’t I want them stopped by any means possible? And if I don’t—if I resist those natural impulses which every ordinary, “healthy” human being oughta have—what is wrong with me? There is, people worry, something sociopathic about anyone who swims against such a massive tide.

Especially since most folks would totally kill anyone who dared to harm them and theirs. Not only would they kill ’em, they’d sleep quite soundly about it afterwards. Or so they imagine. Perhaps they oughta have a chat with cops and soldiers who actually have killed people in the line of duty, and see how they dealt with it—assuming they have.

But—to continue to be blunt—these vengeance fantasies are as unlike Jesus as they come.

Yeah, it’s pragmatic to want to defend your family and friends and homeland. Actions oughta have consequences. Evil oughta be stopped. But you know Jesus—assuming you do know Jesus: He doesn’t want anybody to die. That’s why he came into the world, remember? Jn 3.16

Of course there are gonna be those who insist the “should not perish” part of John 3.16 has to do with eternal perishing in hell, not death. Usually these’d be the Christians who think the point of the gospel is heaven, not life; and who are trying to find a loophole which permits ’em a little death here and there.

And of course I may understand Jesus’s point of view, and totally agree with it… but when push comes to shove, and I’m faced with someone who’s threatening my family, I have a bad feeling I’m gonna fail Jesus and really mess the perpetrator up.

I’m not perfect, y’know. Working on it though.