Jesus cures a demonized boy.

Mark 9.14-29, Matthew 17.14-21, Luke 9.37-42.

First time I was ever taught this story, it was called “Jesus heals an epileptic.” At the time I didn’t know what epilepsy was; now I do. So I object to that description every time Christians bring it up. This isn’t epilepsy whatsoever. The boy was possessed by an evil spirit.

Matthew and Luke go so far as to identify it as a demon, a “guardian spirit” ancient pagans believed in, much like Christians believe in guardian angels. If you were sick, sometimes pagan “physicians” (really witch doctors) would try to put demons in you, hoping they’d root out the illness. Instead these critters would take you over and make your life miserable. That‘s why there were way more cases of demonization in Jesus’s day than in ours: Our physicians don’t do that. (I don’t know about your favorite “spiritual healers” though.)

Christians have misidentified this boy as epileptic for centuries… making life miserable for epileptics all that time, and even today. People have accused ’em of being demonized, and in some cases hurt them badly, on the grounds they were trying to hurt the demons within. In so doing, they never bothered to treat the very real medical condition. They simply treated ’em like sinners—much like that one blind guy Jesus cured.

Of course now that we know epilepsy isn’t demonization, we’ve often got it wrong in the other direction: Plenty of people now misdiagnose demonized people as mentally ill. There is an actual difference, y’know, and you can usually tell when you treat the patient: Treatment and meds work on the mentally ill. But they won’t work on a demon; only exorcism will.

Here’s the other big problem with the way Christians usually spin this story. Most Christians presume demonization is what happens when people dabble in evil, invite evil spirits into their lives, and the spirits take ’em over. So we tend to figure it’s their own fault for getting possessed; they dabbled in evil, and got what’s coming to them. But this is a story of a little boy. Did this little boy legitimately get what’s coming to him?—was his possession his fault?

Again, no. The boy could’ve been ill, so his dad and mom took him to the local witch doctor, who figured a demon might be helpful. And pagans today regularly make the same errors: They’ve learned some incantations to invite “angels” and “good spirits” to watch over their kids, but they’ve never been taught that some spirits aren’t good and benevolent. They’re kinda horrified to discover otherwise… unless of course the evil spirits can keep ’em deceived. But once found out, the evil spirits can turn mighty nasty—as we regularly see in Jesus’s exorcism stories.

The faith-deficient students.

After Jesus and his students had come down from the hill where he was transfigured, they got an eyeful of this mess:

Mark 9.14-18 KWL

14 Coming to his students, Jesus saw many crowds with them, and scribes arguing with them.

15 Next all the crowds, seeing Jesus, were startled. Running, they greeted him.

16 Jesus asked them, “Why are you arguing with them?”

17 One of the crowd answered Jesus, “Teacher, I bring my son, who has a speechless spirit, to you.

18 Whenever the spirit takes him, it tears at him, and he foams and grinds his teeth and shrivels.

I told your students so they’d throw it out, and they couldn’t.”

 

Matthew 17.14-16 KWL

14 Coming to the crowd, a person came to Jesus, kneeling before him,

15 saying, “Master, have mercy on my son!—he’s ‘moonstruck.’

He has an evil spirit: Often he falls into fire, often into water.

16 I brought him to your students, and they couldn’t cure him.”

 

Luke 9.37-40 KWL

37 This happened the next day, as they were coming down the hill:

Many crowds met Jesus and his students.

38 Look, a man from the crowd cried out, saying, “Teacher,

I beg you to look upon my son, for he’s my only-begotten,

39 and look: A spirit takes him over and cries out suddenly,

and tears him up with foaming, and hardly ever leaves him, crushing him.

40 I begged your students to throw it out, and they couldn’t.”

A man had a demonized boy, and brought him to Jesus to be cured. Not finding Jesus, he went to Jesus’s students, whom Jesus had taught to do exorcisms; he’d had them do it before. So you’d think they’d be up to the task… but it appears they actually weren’t. Mark describes the melée Jesus walked into as having “scribes arguing with them,” Mk 9.14 ’cause more than likely these bible scholars were telling Jesus’s kids, “You’re doing it wrong!” And they weren’t wrong, ’cause the demon didn’t come out.

Since Jesus’s students were so inept, how much faith do you think the boy’s father had in Jesus at this point? Pretty much the same level of faith as pagans have in Jesus whenever his current followers—us Christians—can’t seem to do anything either.

The boy’s father presented his problem to Jesus: He had a boy who was σεληνιάζεται/seliniádzete, literally “moonstruck,” although more often we go with the Latin-based synonym “lunatic,” like the KJV. No, ancient superstitions about the moon have nothing to do with it: The boy acted mad. But the father knew the cause: There was an evil spirit in him. A “speechless spirit,” Mk 9.17 which didn’t let the boy talk, though it did let him scream. Lk 9.39 It may have mimicked the symptoms of epilepsy—the better to be misdiagnosed as disease instead of possession—but the father knew better.

The crowds weren’t expecting Jesus to show up, so they were startled by his appearance. Mk 9.15 No doubt the students were relieved, ’cause now Jesus could sort this out—much as we Christians are hoping Jesus will sort out all our problems once he returns, and this way we won’t have to sort ’em out ourselves, like he wants.

Jesus’s response reveals he fully expected his students to be able to handle this situation without him:

Mark 9.19 KWL

In reply Jesus told them, “You untrustworthy kids!

How long will I be with you? How long will I support you? Bring him to me.”

 

Matthew 17.17 KWL

In reply Jesus said, “You untrustworthy, distorted kids!

How long will I be with you? How long will I support you? Bring him to me here.”

 

Luke 9.41 KWL

In reply Jesus said, “You untrustworthy, distorted kids!

How long will I be with you and support you? Bring your son here to me.”

Jesus’s complaint regularly gets misinterpreted, because Christians assume the “faithless and perverse generation” Lk 9.41 KJV refers to his generation—his Judean and Galilean contemporaries, all the Israelis of his day. It does not. Whenever Jesus refers to the γενεὰ/gheneá, KJV “generation,” he means the generation he taught, not the generation he is. Outside of Sabbath services, rabbis didn’t disciple students their own age; they taught children and teenagers. Jesus was 15 to 20 years older than his students, and in that culture, it made him old enough to be their dad. They were of another generation. They were kids; hence my translation “kids.”

As for being faithless and perverse: Jesus’s kids didn’t lack faith altogether. They did try to cure the boy! But you recall Jesus regularly described them as having little faith, deficient faith. Ἄπιστος/ápistos can mean either “no faith” or “not faithful,” and in this context it makes more sense to recognize Jesus is calling ’em untrustworthy. ’Cause they weren’t trustworthy: They should’ve easily been able to drive out that demon, as easily as Jesus did it.

So “How long will I be with you and support you?” Lk 9.41 is not a cry of frustration towards Israel: “You unbelievers are working my last nerve, and I’m not gonna put up with it much longer.” It’s a warning to his students: “You realize in a very short time, I’m no longer gonna be around to bail you out? I’m teaching you to do this yourselves. It’s the whole point of your discipleship!”

The faith-deficient father.

Mark includes this bit about the boy’s father further explaining the situation to Jesus.

Mark 9.20-24 KWL

20 They brought the son to Jesus, and seeing Jesus,

the spirit next tore at the son, and falling to the ground he rolled, foaming.

21 Jesus asked his father, “How long has it been like this with him?” He said, “From childhood.

22 Often it even throws him into fire and water, so it can destroy him.

But if you can, help us!—have compassion on us!”

23 Jesus told him, “If you can. For believers, everything’s doable!”

24 Crying out, the boy’s father next said, “I believe!—help my unbelief.”

Many a modern translation has Jesus’s discussion with the boy’s father sound more like this:

Mark 9.22-23 NLT

22B “Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.”

23A “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked.

They interpret Jesus throwing the man’s “If you can” right back at him. Some translations even make Jesus sound like he’s mocking the man, or responding with sarcasm. And yeah, Jesus isn’t beyond pushing our buttons when he’s trying to make a point. But that’s not what this is.

The father’s statement is ἀλλ᾿ εἴ τι δύνῃ/all’ ei ti dýni, “but if you might work any power,” and Jesus’s response is τὸ εἰ δύνῃ/to ei dýni, “The [issue is] if you might work any power.” This Greek word to makes a pretty big difference: Jesus didn’t say precisely the same thing back to him, but brought up a new issue. He wasn’t smacking the man down for not trusting him enough, but informing the man God offers him the power—really all believers the power—to kick out such demons ourselves.

Hence the Good News Translation’s much better rendering,

Mark 9.23 GNT

“Yes,” said Jesus, “if you yourself can! Everything is possible for the person who has faith.”

Why do we Christians keep misinterpreting Jesus with such a bad, faultfinding attitude? Projection. We have a bad attitude, and presume Jesus thinks like we do. We figure this poor guy is part of a “faithless generation” Jesus was ranting against. At the same time we’re kinda irritated about our own faithless generation, with its apathetic Christians and unbelieving pagans. We’re tired of them, and assume Jesus was just as frustrated and angry with everyone—and taking it out on this poor suffering father.

We must never interpret Jesus apart from kindness. If God ever looks unkind, he’s deliberately trying to startle people into paying attention to him or their circumstances. But in this story, Jesus isn’t being unkind! He only looks unkind when we make him unkind, and force him into a mould of our own making. But that isn’t his motive at all. He wanted to encourage this father towards greater faith. Which worked, ’cause the guy‘s response was, “I believe!—help my unbelief.”

The Holy Spirit helps us grow faith. We don’t automatically believe the impossible. We might try to psyche ourselves into believing impossible things, but that’s foolishness, and the result is Christians who believe in stuff Jesus never taught, never promised, and won’t do. We must only believe what Jesus legitimately teaches, and try it, and see whether it’s so, and see what he’ll empower us to do. And when we pray for greater faith, our prayer should be precisely what this father prayed: “Help my unbelief.” The Spirit does!

Keep praying and fasting.

Of course Jesus cured the boy. You think he wouldn’t?

Mark 9.25-27 KWL

25 Jesus, seeing the crowd running to him, rebuked the speechless spirit,

telling it, “Speechless, deaf spirit, I order you: Get out of him. You may never enter him again.”

26 Crying out and tearing him some more, it came out.

The boy became like the dead; hence many were saying that he died.

27 Jesus, grasping his hand, lifted him up and raised him.

 

Matthew 17.18 KWL

Jesus rebuked the demon, and threw the demon out of him,

and the child was cured from that hour onward.

 

Luke 9.42 KWL

As the boy was still coming to Jesus, the demon broke him, and he convulsed.

Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and cured the boy, and gave him back to his father.

Later, privately, Jesus’s students came to him to ask him about why they couldn’t cure the boy. Rightly so, it bothered them. Bothered ’em in a way it doesn’t bother a lot of Christians nowadays, because too many of us figure, “Well of course Jesus could cure the boy and the disciples couldn’t; he’s God and they’re not.” True… but the Holy Spirit is God too, and since we have the Holy Spirit in us, shouldn’t he be able to defeat any and every evil spirit? Why on earth should any Spirit-empowered believer be unable to perform an exorcism? Especially since Jesus himself taught his apostles how to do it—and already had them do it.

Jesus’s explanation differs between Mark and Matthew.

Mark 9.28-29 KWL

28 Entering the house, Jesus’s students privately asked him this: “Why couldn’t we throw it out?”

29 Jesus told them, “This kind can’t be thrown out unless you’re praying and fasting.”

 

Matthew 17.19-20 KWL

19 Then the students, coming to Jesus privately, said, “How come we couldn’t throw it out?”

20 Jesus told them, “Because of your insufficient trust in God:

Amen! I promise you when you have faith like a mustard seed, you’ll tell this hill, ‘Move from here to there!

And it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

In Mark it’s because the students should’ve been praying and fasting, and in Matthew it’s because they didn’t trust God enough.

To a number of Christians this looks like a bible difficulty: Two different gospels, two different answers. Which makes ’em nuts, because they don’t want there to be two different answers; either Jesus’s students lacked faith or they lacked discipline. At some point in the third or fourth century, Christians simply started adding Mark 9.29 to the end of Matthew’s version of the story, like the Textus Receptus has it:

Matthew 17.21 KWL

[“But this kind doesn’t come out unless you’re praying and fasting.”]

Which alters the meaning of Matthew: The students shoulda had more faith… but even if they had more faith, this is a tricky sort of demon, so faith itself wouldn’ta been enough.

Which is the right answer? Well, both. (Without altering either gospel to eliminate any “difficulty,” thank you very much.) Jesus’s students regularly had deficient faith, so of course that topic needed to come up: They needed to stop thinking, “This is way too big for me; let’s have Jesus do it instead.” They needed to step up and fight this devil themselves. Like Jesus said, he wasn’t always gonna be around; and now that he’s currently with his Father, we need to fight such beings—and win!—without him doing the exorcisms for us. We can do it. So let’s do it.

And at the same time, fighting evil spirits isn’t a task for irreligious Christians. Yeah, there are plenty of irreligious Christians who suddenly get all “Not today, Satan!” whenever they encounter any difficulty… but you’ve seen how utterly sloppy they are at following Jesus in the rest of their daily lives. If you never resist temptation, you’re no spiritual warrior! If you seldom pray, never fast, and have no self-control to speak of, you’re not gonna throw out a thing. The devils own you. Who are you to tell ’em where to go?

The holistic Christian lifestyle has to include both practices: A deep trust in God, and the regular spiritual discipline of good religion. We shouldn’t just be practicing both things simply so we can defeat evil spirits; we should do it out of love for God. But y’know, if we practice these things… we totally can defeat evil spirits. It’s a nice side effect.

TXAB’s 2020 Presidential Antichrist Watch.

As usual for every presidential election (and for that matter, many a congressional election), we get doomsayers claiming this or that candidate is likely the Beast of Revelation 13, or as popular Christian culture calls it, the Antichrist. Certainly they act mighty Beast-like.

And I guess this is now my usual thing: I’m here to tell you there’s a way we might confirm someone’s the Beast, in case you’re seriously worried. (I’m not.) It comes from Revelation, in which John told us how to identify the Beast in case we’re wondering.

Revelation 13.18 KWL

Here’s some wisdom: Count the Beast’s number, those who have a brain.

It’s a person’s number, and its number is 666.

Only problem is, your average person doesn’t know how to count the Beast’s number, and do it through various illegitimate methods. Just the other day I saw someone assign numbers to our Latin alphabet (i.e. A is one, B is two, C is three) and try to figure out some names thataway. Nope, not how it works. Latin letters don’t have any numerical values… unless you count the letters we use for Roman numerals, and good luck finding someone with the letters DCLXVI mixed into their name somewhere.

Nope, what John was talking about in Revelation was gematria, the Hebrew practice of converting their letters into numbers to get the numerical value. ’Cause before there were Arabic numerals (or even Roman numerals), people used their alphabets as numbers. I explain the details of gematria in my 2016 Presidential Antichrist Watch article, so I needn’t repeat ’em here. The gist is we gotta transliterate someone’s name into Hebrew (which is really easy to do, thanks to Google Translate), then add up the values of the letters.

Which I did, below, with all the candidates on the primary ballots. Some of them have dropped out already, but I included ’em anyway. Hey, they might run again, or get picked as vice-president; you never know.

Yeah, you get different results if you change people’s names around a little: Include their middle names, or not. Use birth names, nicknames, maiden names, etc. Sometimes a transliterated name, like ג'ון for John, is not the same as a translated name, like יוחנן/Yochanan, the original form of the name from the bible. What I did was choose the form of the name which got us closest to 666. So here y’go.

DEMOCRAT	IN HEBREW ALPHABET	NUMBER
Michael Bennet	מייקל פארנד בנט (Michael Farrand Bennet)	586
Joe Biden	יוסף רובינט ביידן (Joseph Robinette Biden)	509
Michael Bloomberg	מיכאל רובנס בלומברג (Michael Rubens Bloomberg)	702
Pete Buttigieg	פיטר פול מונטגומרי באטיגיג (Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg)	817
John Delaney	יוחנן קווין דלייני (Jochanan [John] Kevin Delaney)	410
Tulsi Gabbard	טולסי גברד	324
Amy Klobuchar	איימי ז'אן קלוחאר (Amy Jean Klobuchar)	474
Deval Patrick	דוויל פטריק	455
Bernie Sanders	ברני סנדרס	636
Tom Steyer	טום שטייר	584
Elizabeth Warren	אליזבת וורן	712
Andrew Yang	אנדרו מ יאנג (Andrew M. Yang)	365

 

REPUBLICAN	IN HEBREW ALPHABET	NUMBER
Rocky De La Fuente	רוק דה לה פואנטה (Roque De La Fuente)	501
Donald Trump	דונלד יוחנן טראמפ (Donald Yochanan [John] Trump)	548
Joe Walsh	ויליאם ג'וזף וולש (William Joseph Walsh)	535
Bill Weld	ויליאם פלויד וולד (William Floyd Weld)	273

Now yeah, if you’re dead certain one of these candidates is definitely the Beast, of course you’re gonna utterly disregard gematria, and grab hold of some alternative method for coming up with a number. One which gets you the results you want, of course. And I’m sure you can convince all your partisan friends you’ve really found evidence of devilry in the United States’ election—well, outside of gerrymandering, state legislators trying to discourage voter turnout in the opposition party, political action committees which illegally accept foreign contributions, foreign hackers manipulating Facebook algorithms; and a president who withholds foreign military aid to get that government will do opposition research for his campaign, yet somehow he’s not convicted when impeached. But nope; gematria is precisely what John and his readers had in mind. Not your “new math.”

If you’re still worried some of these characters definitely look like Beast material, I get that. But their numbers say they’re not. If they’re evil, it’s their own personal depravity you need to worry about, not end-of-the-world stuff. So chill out.

Sealing the deal. Or not.

Most of the evangelism seminars, classes, and books I’ve read, insist our every conversation with people about the gospel, has to end with a decision. They’ve heard the gospel, and either they believe it or they don’t; either they wanna follow Jesus or they don’t; so get an answer. Have ’em make a decision now. Right now! DO IT!

Which is why that’s what I’ve experienced whenever I’ve been on evangelism teams: The high-pressure tactics of proselytizers.

And a whole lot of cringing pagans, who don’t wanna make a decision right now. They gotta think about it! They need time to process. Really, they need time for the Holy Spirit to work on ’em—which is exactly what he’s gonna do. Heck, some of them might have already decided, “No thank you,” but of course the Spirit doesn’t like that answer, so he’s gonna get ’em to realize it was the wrong one, and convince ’em to change their minds. And that takes time. And patience.

Patience which the Spirit has in abundance. Evangelists, not so much.

Hence all our demands for an immediate decision: Let today be the day of your salvation! Don’t put it off till tomorrow; you never know what might happen in the meanwhile; you could die later this afternoon, and wind up in hell! You know, deep down, the gospel is true, and Jesus is the right choice, so quit waffling and choose Jesus! Don’t leave him hanging! Don’t be an ingrate; he died for you! Et cetera, ad nauseam.

Because the evangelists tell us it’s not a successful conversation unless it ends in conversion. And we as evangelists aren’t doing our job unless we seal the deal—to borrow a term from sales. They gotta decide right now: Jesus or hell. There’s no “Can I think about it and decide later?”—that’s just a decision for hell disguised as procrastination. It’s really Jesus or hell.

And if they choose Jesus, the angels will rejoice. Lk 15.10 And if hell, they’re doomed.

But because evangelists expect immediate decisions, whenever they actually bother to take statistics, they find their success rate is extremely low. Even anecdotally, they’ll figure maybe one in 20 will choose Jesus. The actual rate is much lower—and of those people who choose Jesus, about 90 percent of ’em don’t bother to start praying regularly, start reading bible, start going to church, start anything. They’ve not changed at all. Really, they have to be led to Jesus all over again.

So what are we doing wrong? Lots of things.

“The deal” doesn’t make anyone Christian.

This focus on getting people make a definite initial decision for Christ Jesus: Way too many of our efforts are placed on this. In some evangelism ministries, all of it is placed on this. They only want decisions for Jesus; they wanna rack up those numbers, and (according to popular Christian culture, ’cause people are thinking of medieval European crowns, not the leafy ones given at sporting events in New Testament times) get more jewels for the crowns Jesus is eventually gonna give us. Rv 2.10

The rate of recidivism—the vast number of “decisions” which decay into nothing—indicates people don’t really believe the sinner’s prayer when they say it. So why’re they saying it?

• Heat of emotion. But once the emotions pass, so does their interest in Jesus.
• False gospel: The evangelist, so desperate to seal the deal, promised ’em outrageous things about Jesus which aren’t so. The would-be convert either comes to realize all these false promises are bunk; or tries them out (“I asked Jesus for a million dollars, but I haven’t seen a dime yet!”), finds them false, and figures the whole of Christianity must be false too.
• Peer pressure: Their family and friends are pushing them to convert, or have all come forward and said the sinner’s prayer, and they don’t wanna be the only one who hasn’t.
• Evangelist pressure: “Hey buddy, I’ll say whatever you want; just leave me alone.”

So obviously the sinner’s prayer isn’t enough. Neither is simply saying “Jesus is Lord” Ro 10.9 when he’s never really gonna become our Lord. Neither is raising a hand or nodding one’s head when the pastor calls for it after a sermon. Momentary affirmations, followed up by nothing, mean nothing.

Conversion is a lifestyle. Really, it’s the Christian lifestyle. We live an entire lifestyle of repentance, of realizing we’re wrong and Jesus is right, of adapting our lives to his teachings. That’s what people have to realize they’re getting into, and if our gospel message doesn’t tell them this, we’re doing it wrong. Because if all they think it takes to become Christian is to say the magic words and hocus pocus we’re Christian, it certainly explains all the pagans who believe they’re Christian.

Evangelism isn’t a quick-’n-dirty 15-minute process. We start by finding people who are actually curious about and interested in the gospel. We share the good news about Jesus and his kingdom, and we see whether people are interested in investigating further. Then we help ’em investigate. We help ’em find a church, get ’em into a newbies class or bible study or anything where they can ask questions and get useful answers. This is, after all, what Jesus instructs us to do: Make disciples. Mt 28.19-20 Not converts. He wants more students. A convert only wants to be Christian—for now—but isn’t Christian yet. A student of Jesus is Christian.

Yep, evangelism’s a longer job than you thought.

Clearly, bringing people to Jesus takes time and work. Not that pressuring people into a decision isn’t work, but this is a whole different kind of work: We’re looking for people who show definite interest in Jesus, instead of finding a bunch of randoms who show no interest and we make ’em interested.

Yeah, it takes time to find such people. We gotta share the gospel with a whole lot of people before the truly curious come out. But in my experience, when we share the actual gospel—not the “you’re going to hell lest you repent” story which dark Christians love so much, nor the “Jesus will make you rich” prosperity gospel, nor the “free salvation, no strings attached” rubbish so popular with fly-by-night evangelists—we’re gonna find a lot of interest. People really haven’t heard the actual gospel; they’re more familiar with the bent versions, and rightly find ’em alienating. The good news actually sounds kinda good!

In sales-pitch evangelism, once the deal is sealed, we’re pretty much done; follow-up is for other suckers, and it’s their fault, not ours, if they drop the ball. In proper evangelism, evangelism and follow-up are not two different things. Our job isn’t done till the newbies are in church, getting their questions answered, developing relationships with fellow Christians, getting committed enough to Jesus to want baptism and to become church members. Sometimes not even then.

And I admit, sometimes the results are disappointing. I’ve had people go to church for a month or two, then lose interest and quit. Life got in the way, they claim; things got “too busy.” Which are just lame excuses. When we’re serious enough about something, we’ll make the time for it. In all honesty, they tried Christianity out a little, and decided it wasn’t for them. Sad. But it happens.

Look, when you came to Jesus, was it the result of a quick and near-instant conversion? Or was it a long process which took months, even years? Surveys tell us three in 10 Christians had those sudden conversions to Jesus—followed of course by several months of follow-up. But four of those 10 gradually came to the conclusion Jesus is Lord and they oughta follow him. And the rest grew up Christian. So that means most of us took the long way to get to Jesus. Yeah, the dramatic conversion story makes for exciting testimonies. But it’s not the typical Christian testimony.

Look, if someone wants Jesus right now, says the sinner’s prayer and means it, and from that point onward is the most enthusiastic new believer ever, don’t stop it from happening! It’s always fun to watch. Just make sure they’re with fellow Christians who steer ’em right. But our usual expectation should be the long process, which begins with curiosity and ends with salvation.

And during this process—not necessarily at the beginning, nor the end—the Holy Spirit seals the deal. Not us; it’s never our deal to seal. It’s his.

So get away from this mindset of sealing a deal, making a sale, forcing results, cornering people who are trying to escape; just don’t. Share Jesus, and if people are interested, bring ’em to church. If they’re not, don’t sweat it; shake off their dust and move along.

It’s just that simple… and complicated. Real life is messy, you know. So is real evangelism.

Self-control: Get ahold of yourself!

As I’ve said, many Christians assume the Spirit’s fruit just happens. Automatically, spontaneously, without any effort on our part. So just sit back and let the Spirit do his thing, and fruit’ll come naturally.

Wrong. And lazy.

One of the obvious proofs fruit doesn’t work that way, is the last thing Paul listed in Galatians 5.22-23—the fruit of ἐγκράτεια/enkráteia, which the KJV renders “temperance,” and most other bibles “self-control.”

Yeah, lazy Christians will claim it doesn’t mean that. Suddenly they bust out their knowledge of ancient Greek… although really they’re just trying to manipulate Greek-English dictionaries to the best of their ability. The word enkráteia comes from κράτος/krátos, “strength,” which the Greeks used to describe various forms of governance—and we still do; our words democracy (“people reign”) and plutocracy (“wealthy reign”) and theocracy (“God reigns”) and idiocracy (“idiots reign”) come from it. The en- prefix comes from ἐν/en, “inside.” Your strength comes from inside.

And no, this isn’t a roundabout reference to the Holy Spirit living within us. It’s applies to what Jesus taught about how evil and good don’t come from without, but within. Either we’re willfully following the Spirit, or we’re apathetically ignoring him and doing as we please, same as ever. Either we’re governing ourselves, or we’re not really, and letting every little external thing appeal to our selfishness.

Paul could’ve made it explicit the Spirit is working us like a hand puppet. He didn’t. He didn’t create a deterministic universe. He isn’t so incapable a creator, he has to micromanage every little thing—like a clockmaker whose clocks suck, so he’s gotta manually move their hands, and the clockwork is only there for show. His sovereignty doesn’t work like that. Instead God told us what he wants of us, and expects us to carry it out. And fruity Christians don’t look for excuses to dismiss him!

If self-control spontaneously arose, as a result of some kind of supernatural reprogramming, why on earth did Paul have some inner war with his self-centered human nature?

Romans 7.14-20 KWL

14 We’ve known the Law is spiritual—and I am fleshly, sold into sin’s slavery.

15 I do things I don’t understand. I don’t want to do them. I hate what I do.

16 Since I don’t want to do them, I agree: The Law is good.

17 Now, it’s no longer I who do these things, but the sin which inhabits me.

18 I know nothing living in me, namely in my flesh, is good.

The will, but not the ability, exists in me to do good.

19 I don’t do the good I want. I do the evil I don’t want.

20 If I don’t want to do them, it’s not so much me doing them, as the sin which inhabits me.

If self-control is nothing more than the Spirit taking us over, there’d be no need whatseover for all God’s commands to quit sinning and behave ourselves. Right? We’d be sinless, automatically. We’d see an easily quantifiable drop in the number of sins we commit. Christians should sin way less than pagans do… instead of just as much, if not more, same as many surveys in the United States reveal. Something’s broken in our system, and it definitely ain’t the Holy Spirit. It’s us. We’re not practicing self-control.

Heck, how many times have you seen Christians beg God for temperance? “God, my life is such a mess! I’m so undisciplined. Please take it over. I surrender my life and my will to you.” We even include this idea in most versions of the sinner’s prayer. It’s the correct attitude; it’s just it’s not how God works. He wants us to take action. To obey. To resist temptation. To choose his path. To seize control of our thoughts and emotions.

God wants a loving relationship with his willing followers. If all he wanted was machines, he’d have stopped creating after he made the single-celled organisms.

Well, enough ranting about how we need to practice self-control. Let’s talk application.

The qualities of self-governance.

Simon Peter wrote a few things about how to develop self-control in his second letter. It bears reading.

2 Peter 1.2-11 KWL

2B I hope you multiply in knowledge of God and our Master Jesus.

3 Like everything granted us by his godly power, we were given it for a religious life,

through knowing the one who called us to his glorious, excellent self.

4 Through this, he gave us precious, great promises.

Through them, you have a relationship with his godly nature:

You escape the corruption of the world, caused by our desire run wild.

5 This being the case, contribute as much as you can to applying the promises.

Start with faith. Add quality. Knowledge. 6 Self-control. Endurance. Godliness.

7 A sense of family. Love.

8 This is how you develop growth. Not by laziness nor fruitlessness.

It makes you knowledgeable about our master, Christ Jesus.

9 Those who don’t participate in this are blind, short-sighted;

they’ve forgotten how they were cleansed of their past sins.

10 Fellow Christians, you therefore have a definite calling: You were chosen to do these things.

Stick to it! You don’t stumble when you do them.

11 You’ll be richly given entry to the age

of the kingdom of our master and savior, Christ Jesus.

The Spirit’s fruit is both a byproduct of our relationship with him, and something we need to work on. Our love for God, our empowerment by God, makes us want to become religious about our relationship with him. And so we do. Best way to do it is like Peter said:

• START WITH FAITH. We trust God, right? Okay. Take him seriously. Do as he told us. Obey his commands.
• ADD QUALITY. Get better at obeying his commands. You’re gonna suck at first; we all do, ’cause we’re not used to this lifestyle. Sometimes we’re gonna slide into the temptations of legalism, doing ’em because we think they make us righteous, and they don’t; or hypocrisy, pretending to do ’em, or using tons of loopholes so we can claim we do them without really. Resist those temptations: Stick to doing ’em for noble, excellent, virtuous, godly reasons.
• ADD KNOWLEDGE. Loads of people insist they need to know why we oughta practice something before we do it. And that’s not faith; that’s judgment. We’re basically saying we won’t do something if we think it’s unnecessary or stupid. Well, nobody died and made us God; we need to obey him first, then learn why. And a lot of the reason why will occur to us as we obey… and the rest will come by studying the scriptures, hearing the insights our fellow Christians have learned, and of course revelation from the Holy Spirit himself.
• ADD SELF-CONTROL. Wait, isn’t all of this self-control? Yes it is. But this is our tip this isn’t a step-by-step list on how to grow self-control: It’s a holistic lifestyle. We continually look back and add these things where we lack ’em. Once you got quality, make it a knowledgeable quality. Once you got knowledge, make it a self-controlled knowledge. And the next one: If you got self-control, make it an enduring self-control.
• ADD ENDURANCE. Patience, or longsuffering, is a big part of self-control. ’Cause we never reach a point where we can now quit self-control, and run amok, and sin like we used to… and maybe still want to. This is a major lifestyle change, and we gotta grow used to it. We gotta endure. Self-control without endurance is simply delayed gratification: “I may not be allowed to murder him now, but I will totally murder him later.” No; don’t murder him ever.
• ADD GODLINESS. Godliness is likewise a big part of self-control. We’re not controlling ourselves for carnal reasons, like a pickpocket practicing so she can get better at lifting wallets. Our self-control must reflect God’s character, and have all the characteristics of his other fruit: Love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, and grace.
• ADD A SENSE OF FAMILY. The KJV went with “brotherly kindness,” but literally it’s φιλαδελφίαν/filadelfían, “familial love,” often translated “brotherly love.” See, a common temptation of self-control is selfishness: Aren’t we trying to improve ourselves, to make us better people? But we mustn’t forget we’re doing it for God, not ourselves. Love, particularly loving others, is part of the equation. The Pharisees frequently made the mistake of pitting love of God against loving their neighbors. Fr’instance they’d observe Sabbath so strictly, they didn’t help the needy on that day, and forbade it to others. Not cool. Godly self-control will help the needy, not alienate them. It’ll love everybody, and treat ’em like family. Same as God does.
• ADD LOVE. ’Cause every fruit of the Spirit must have love at its core. Self-control included.

Sound hard? Well it is. Good thing we have grace, ’cause we’re gonna fail. But God forgives us, so we can pick ourselves back up and try again. And again and again and again.

Self-control, maturity, and responsiblity.

Likely part of the reason Paul listed self-control last, is self-control governs all the other fruit. We choose when and where to love, to embrace joy, to make peace, to exhibit patience, to behave kindly, to do good, to have faith, and to exercise gentleness.

Once we take control of our own choices and behaviors, and take responsibility for the consequences, it’s called maturity. Some Christians call it “spiritual maturity,” but there’s no difference between maturity and spiritual maturity. Christians who try to divorce the two, are trying to get away with being immature.

Too often Christians don’t know what makes us spiritually mature. They think it’s age, or knowledge, or ability: We speak impressively, pray really well, or can do miracles. It’s how I was able to get away with being a giant hypocrite for so long: I knew so much about the bible, people assumed my knowledge was wisdom, and assume wisdom is maturity. But I lacked love, patience, kindness, peace, goodness, and self-control. Still immature.

Likewise Christians will claim someone’s not mature because they lack all these superficial things. They’re too young, too new, lack talents and gifts, get awkward. Even if they’ve got loads of love, joy, generosity—you know, fruit. So they don’t know as much as a seminary graduate: If they’re fruity, they’re mature. (And usually wise enough to consult us seminary grads about the gaps in their knowledge.) I’ve known many pastors who know less than I do—but they’re more qualified to lead, ’cause they’re more fruitful than I am.

As a result of this mixup, Christendom has a lot of know-it-alls who don’t know why no one in their churches trusts them enough to put ’em in charge. Or worse: Churches who do put ’em in leadership, and now everyone in their church is suffering. (Bad enough kids are already plotting to leave Christianity as soon as they’re old enough.) But enough about them; they’re depressing.

Lastly, part of self-control is accountability, the Christianese word for responsibility. To help us better control our own behavior, we gotta submit ourselves to fellow Christians for review and comment. They have every right to tell us we’re doing great… and every right to tell us we’re blowing it.

Problem is, most Christians—especially Americans—wanna answer to no one. Not even God. We claim we do, but our “submission” tends to consist almost entirely of telling God “I surrender all” in our worship songs, copping a sorrowful attitude ’cause we’re dirty sinners, then not changing our lives a whit. Besides, submitting to others sounds too legalistic and cultish, and interferes too much with our “freedom in Christ” to follow our hearts’ desire. Jr 17.9 Hence Christians join churches which don’t hold their members accountable at all. At all. They dare not; they’ll lose ’em otherwise. Leaders may ask, “How’re you doing?” but if we don’t care to confess a thing, and just say “Fine” or something just as vague, we can stay off the hook. And that’s what we do.

If any Christian leader dares pin us down and say, “No, really: How’re you doing? How’s your Christian life? Are you praying? Reading your bible? Trying to follow Jesus?” often they’re accused of being too controlling, manipulative, or interfering where they’re neither welcome nor allowed. I expect some TXAB readers are outraged at the very idea; honestly my knee-jerk reaction to such a thing is to back away. Even though I’m deliberately trying to be transparent!—and feel I should have no trouble nor struggle in giving an honest answer.

But accountability definitely helps us work on the self-control. As any recovering addict in a 12-step program, who speaks with their sponsor on a regular basis, will tell you. If you know about these programs, you’ll know: A sponsor isn’t a boss. They’re an equal. An accountability partner. They’re given the right to hear what the addict’s going through, to tell ’em whether they approve of the addict’s behavior, and to offer advice. Works precisely the same with any accountable Christian.

I’m accountable to my fellow Christians. That includes you. And obviously you’re not my boss: You’re a fellow Christian. You have the right, under Christ, to tell me whether you approve of my behavior. I can either listen to you, or not—and if you’re right, I should listen to you. Doesn’t matter whether you’re my pastor, whether you attend my church, or even how good a Christian you are. Heck, you could be a heretic or nontheist, and know so little about God I’d be stupid to take religious advice from you—but if the Holy Spirit for some reason chooses to use you to point me the right way, and I hear him through all your noise, I’d be just as stupid to say, “Well, consider the source,” and ignore you ’cause I’d rather sin.

There are abusive, control-freak Christians who try to turn accountability into a master/slave relationship. I don’t blame anyone for wanting to avoid that. We’re slaves to no one but Jesus, 1Co 7.22 and he chooses to treat us like equals and friends. Jn 15.15 He’s freed us from every form of slavery. Let’s not enslave ourselves again to some misbegotten Christian drill sergeant. By all means submit to and serve one another. But when anyone sets themselves above you, they’re wrong to.

So if you aren’t responsible to anyone—if you won’t confess everything, including sin, Jm 5.16 to trusted and trustworthy fellow Christians on a regular basis—start. Find someone. Get their permission to share with ’em. Let them encourage you to grow, to work on that self-control.

Be willing to accept constructive criticism. Yeah, that’s gonna be hard for some of us. Especially when we lack humility: We don’t wanna hear we’re wrong. But we are, and shutting our ears isn’t gonna help us grow any. If we can’t listen to fellow Christians, we’re less likely to listen to the Holy Spirit. Don’t fool yourself: It’s not easier to only heed the Spirit, yet ignore fellow Christians. Nor is it healthier, nor mature.

We all have blind spots. All the more reason we need fellow Christians to point ’em out. We all have room for improvement. We all need help. So listen to one another. Submit to one another.

People who love angry prayer.

Θυμοί/thymí, “anger,” is a work of the flesh. Ga 5.19 Period.

I know: For a lot of Christians there is no such period; anger is okay in various circumstances. ’Cause the LORD gets angry, Dt 4.21, 1Ki 11.9, 2Ch 25.15, Ps 60,1, Jr 10.10 and Jesus got angry that one time, Mk 3.5 and if God can get angry, we presume we can indulge our anger.

Forgetting, of course, God is absolutely in control of his emotions. Whereas we suck at it. We get angry, then forget all about loving people, take our revenge, get our satisfaction. We get murdery.

There are a lot of angry people in the world, and as a result there are a lot of angry Christians. And rather than get hold of their anger, fight it, and eliminate it by the time the sun goes down, Ep 4.26 angry Christians wanna embrace that anger, make it part of their character and lifestyle, and justify it as “righteous anger.” Even though there’s nothing at all righteous about how they wanna express their anger. They’re not seeking anyone’s good, nor God’s glory. They just want death and destruction.

So of course they wanna pray angry prayers. Again, they justify it by pointing out angry prayers are in the bible—and they’re right. The imprecatory psalms are a bunch of angry songs and prayers about God smiting David and Israel’s enemies. A lot of prophets prayed some really violent things about their neighbors. So, these angry Christians argue, we oughta be able to do likewise. These angry petitioners wrote Spirit-inspired bible, after all. While angry.

As I said in the angry prayers article, the reason the imprecatory psalms are in the bible is because God wants us to be honest with him. When we’re angry, he wants us to feel entirely free to tell him so, to tell him exactly what we’re feeling, and to hold nothing back. To do otherwise is hypocrisy, and he hates that. The last thing we should get is the idea there are off-topic subjects for God; that he’s too holy to discuss our issues, hangups, sins, problems, anything. So when our family and neighbors, even friends, certainly opponents and rivals, piss us off: Tell God so.

But of course angry Christians don’t really care about sharing themselves with God. Their angry prayers are about indulging the flesh: They wanna rage out, and now they can do it and call it good religion. It’s carnal, it’s harmful… and it’s popular.

Excuses, excuses.

I came across an article by one angry Christian who gave a big ol’ list of all the reasons we should pray imprecatory things against our enemies. Which he made a big point of insisting are God’s enemies, y’know; there’s Satan and its imps, there are antichrists and heretics and liberals, and he wants God to strike ’em all down. By jingo you’d better pray angry things:

• Christians pray the psalms all the time, and how dare we skip the imprecatory psalms? What, are you nullifying scripture or something?
• It’s not just an Old Testament thing either, ’cause Paul cursed people, 1Co 16.22, Ga 1.9 and the saints in Revelation called out for vengeance. Rv 6.10 So if you lean dispensationalist, it should make no difference.
• God is just, and he’s gonna stamp out evil, as the bible says on multiple occasions. So let’s get on board with the bible, and encourage God to stamp ’em out right away!
• In praying for the weak and needy, part of what makes ’em not weak and needy anymore is their oppressors get what’s coming to them. [Not flip ’em, like Jesus did with Paul; not forgive ’em, like he does with us.] So we kinda have to pray for God’s wrath upon those oppressors.
• It’s not really vengefulness, ’cause we’re praying for God to take revenge on our behalf. So that makes everything all good.
• It is being honest about how we feel, after all.

He had way more bullet points than I do, ’cause he got mighty redundant. I like to condense things, so I did. So he had excuse after excuse for why he should be able to pray angry prayers, and why any Christian should be able to pray angry prayers.

And lemme remind you: I don’t have an issue with praying angry prayers. We can pray such prayers. Often we should pray such prayers—’cause we’re angry, and we need God’s help with that!

Likewise we should pray against evil. God’s gonna vanquish evil, and we should totally be in favor of him doing that. The sooner the better.

But ultimately it doesn’t matter how valid the bullet points are, how true the excuses might be. The underlying issue is the motives of an angry Christian. Does he wanna pray an angry prayer to support Jesus and his kingdom, and glorify what God’s doing and going to do? Or does he just wanna rage against his frustrations, and feel self-righteous and justified for doing so?

Does he want to live a carnal lifestyle, and claim it’s really devout Christianity, full of prayer, conforming to God’s will? Does he even believe it’s not really Christianism, wherein he stays the same angry, bitter person he’s always been, but with a veneer of Christian jargon making it seem like something’s changed about him? Where he doesn’t love and forgive his enemies like Jesus taught; he figures his “tough love” is a valid substitute?

It always comes down to motives. What’s inside him? What’s inside us? A person motivated to follow the Holy Spirit wherever he might lead? Or someone who’s still as self-focused and self-pleasing as ever?

Let’s not fool ourselves. We’re certainly not fooling God.