The kairos moment.

KAIROS MOMENT 'kaɪ.rɑs 'moʊ.mənt noun. Propitious time for decision or action.

Every so often there’s a window of time when something profound happens.

You make a life-changing decision. You don’t always realize it’s life-changing at the time; sometimes it occurs to you much later. But sometimes you’re in the moment and recognize this is a major turning point: You pick a university. Pick a job. Pick a spouse. Choose to follow Jesus. Choose to have kids. All sorts of things.

Might’ve been a split-second decision. Might’ve been a long, well-thought-out decision. Or you might’ve agonized over it for weeks, racked with indecision; maybe procrastinating the actual decision; maybe giving up and leaving it in the hands of others. (Or worse, coin flips. Or even worse, your horoscope.) In any event you stopped weighing your options and chose one of ’em.

For Christians, whenever we wanna Christianize the decision-making process—whenever we wanna make it sound like God’s heavily involved, even when he’s not—Christians tend to call this “a kairos moment.”

Yeah, it’s redundant. Καιρός/kerós is ancient Greek for “moment.” Sometimes it’s translated “an opportune moment,” because people are reading that whole kairos-moment mindset back into the bible. But do a word study on it sometime and you’ll find most instances of kerós really just describe ordinary moments. Jesus walking past wheat. Mt 12.1 Jesus noticing a fig tree’s not ready for figs. Mk 11.13 People believing a message for a while. Lk 8.13 Servants getting their groceries. Lk 12.42 Sometimes kerós isn’t even a moment; it’s just a general time-period. Ac 12.1, 19.13, Ro 8.18, 11.5, 13.11, 1Co 7.5, 2Co 8.14

And in one instance, observing those special kerós times gets rebuked:

Galatians 4.9-11 KJV

9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? 10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. 11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.

Still, you’ll find most people don’t understand how words have multiple definitions. Or even care. “No, it always means opportune moment.”

Meh. Greeks today use kerós to talk about weather. Πώς είναι o καιρός;/Pos eine o kerós? “How’s the weather?” Yep, kéros could mean an entire season. A long season.

Basically the ancients used it to refer to time. And just as English-speakers sometimes use “time” to refer to a critical or important time, like “Time’s up” or “It’s time” or “You’re running out of time,” sometimes kerós referred to a critical time. Sometimes not so critical. Remember, the ancients didn’t have our timekeeping methods. No coordinated universal time, no time servers, no phones connected to those servers which tell us—down to the second—what time it is. For the ancients, sunrise to noon was six hours… even though the summer sun rose seven of our hours before noon, and the winter sun rose five hours before. Mighty flexible hours. Our hours? We use atomic clocks to measure ’em to the nanosecond.

Hence our culture is far more fast-paced than the ancients. The times we consider opportune are way shorter. Blink and they’re gone. Hence our attitude about every kairos moment: You don’t wanna miss it!

Again, meh.

“Losing your salvation.”

When the subject of apostasy, of quitting Jesus, comes up, people tend to phrase it thisaway: “So you’re saying you can lose your salvation?”

Well I wouldn’t use the word lose. Because it suggests we can accidentally disconnect from Jesus.

Fr’instance pick any otherwise ordinary day. Let’s say I’m going through the Starbucks drive-thru, picking up another outrageously sugary mixture of coffee, milk, and ice. Let’s say I’m using cash, and the cashier gives me my change, and instead of a dollar bill she unintentionally gives me a hundred-dollar bill. Let’s say, instead of how I’d say, “Whoops, you don’t wanna make that mistake,” I say nothing and pocket the Benjamin and figure Starbucks is a big enough company to take the loss. And as a result of this hypothetical scenario, the Holy Spirit says, “Okay, I’ve had all I can stand of this jerk,” and unseals himself from me—and I haven’t been listening to him anyway, so I never notice his absence. So when a few minutes later I’m distracted by the straw wrapper and T-boned by a Mini Cooper, I die… and find myself burning in torment, and screaming, “Wait! Wait! I gave my life to Jesus 45 years ago! What happened?!”

Well, y’know. Straw. Camel’s back. Whoops.

Are Christian jerks even Christian?

Bouncing back to the question my pagan friend had in my first article on Christian jerks: “So you’re the real Christians, and they aren’t?” My response is “Kinda.”

Other Christians will respond “No.” Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit, and if we’re not producing fruit as Jesus expects, these folks will point out there’s no evidence of the Spirit within us, so he may not even be within us. No fruit, no Spirit, not Christian.

And that’s a valid point.

No seriously: That’s a valid point. If we’re truly following Jesus, fruit’s gonna grow! In part because we’re gonna mimic his compassionate, kind, loving character: We see how Jesus treats people, and we treat ’em the same way. We’re not gonna project our bad attitudes on him so we can justify ourselves; we’re gonna choose to adopt his good attitude. And the other part is when the Holy Spirit pokes us in the conscience—“Hey, quit being a dick”—we’re gonna listen, instead of pretending the devil’s tempting us to stop being so zealous.

If we’re truly following Jesus, our character’s gonna transform into his. If we’re not, particularly if we’ve been self-identifying as Christians for decades, we might not even be Christian. Gotta repent and be saved.

But the reason I don’t just say Christian jerks aren’t real Christians, is because I’ve been one of ’em. And I was legitimately Christian. A sucky Christian, but still Christian. Fruit took a long time to develop, in part because instead of adopting Jesus’s character, I embraced the idea of cheap grace and took my salvation for granted: I did as I pleased, and didn’t bother growing fruit. Some grew, ’cause some always will, ’cause it’s how the Spirit marks his people. But it grew in spite of me, regardless of my poor efforts or lack of effort altogether. (I did grow in my knowledge of bible trivia, which was all the “fruit” my fellow Christian jerks cared about.) When the Spirit corrected me, or sent others to correct me, too often I’d blow him off: Didn’t God save me by his grace? He did? Well then I’m good… right?

Only good enough to be the lowest in God’s kingdom. Mt 5.19 But you realize Jesus expects more of us than that. Which is why the Spirit didn’t stop going after me till I got the point and worked on the fruit. Took me years. Takes others decades.

Some of Jesus’s first students committed some pretty serious dick moves, y’know. James and John wanting to rain fire on Samaritans. Lk 9.54 Simon Peter straight-up denied Jesus. Yet these things didn’t unsave them. I know; you mighta heard sermons which claimed otherwise. There’s a popular misinterpretation going round which claims Jesus had to restore his relationship with Peter by asking him “Do you love me?” thrice, Jn 21.15-19 to make up for Peter's three denials. Almost as if Jesus had to restore Peter’s karmic balance—which is how we know this interpretation is crap. Jesus totally foreknew Peter would fail him, Jn 13.38 and loved him anyway. Likewise he foreknew we’d fail him, as we regularly do. And no, there are no restorative incantations necessary. We won’t have to spend a thousand years in purgatory answering “Do you love me?” to make up for every boneheaded act we’ve committed.

Yes, Jesus saves jerks. Jerks like me. They’re not fake Christians, false Christians, phony Christians, lapsed Christians, heretic Christians. If they are, it’s because other things put ’em into those categories: Jerkish behavior isn’t what does it. You could totally be both a Christian and a jerk.

But please don’t.

White Jesus… and those who insist he stay that way.

This is the only physical description of Jesus in the bible.

Revelation 1.12-16 KWL

12 I turned round to see the voice speaking with me,

and in so doing I saw seven gold lampstands.

13 In the middle of the lampstands: One like the Son of Man,

clad in a full-length robe with a gold belt wrapped round his chest.

14 His head and hair: White, like white wool, like snow. His eyes like fiery flames.

15 His feet the same: White bronze, refined in a furnace. His voice: Like the sound of many waters.

16 He had seven stars in his right hand. From his mouth came a sharp, double-edged saber.

His face: Like the sun, shining in its power.

Since it’s in Revelation, a book which largely consists of apocalyptic visions, people don’t take it literally. I find this to be true of even the nutjobs who take everything literally in that book. A Jesus with bronze skin and white hair? Gotta be a representative vision. ’Cause Jesus, as everybody knows, is white.

Been white since medieval times—’cause that’s how artists painted him.
Warner Sallman’s 1941 painting Head of Christ, the one many an American Protestant church has on the wall somewhere. Wikipedia Arguably been white even longer than that: You know that picture of Jesus I use on the TXAB banner? Comes from Khristós Pantokrátor, one of the oldest ikons of Jesus we have, dating from the sixth century. Painted by Byzantine Greeks… so, no surprise, Jesus looks Greek. ’Cause when people try to produce an image of God, we have the bad habit of rendering him in our own image.

So that’s what we see in every European painting of Christ Jesus: He’s European. Artists wanted to identify with him, or make him more familiar-looking to local audiences, or portray him in church pageants without wearing brownface. Northern European paintings tend to make him look northern European; southern European paintings tend to make him look southern European. Italian artists made him look Italian, French artists made him look French, Dutch artists made him look Dutch, and American artists made him look… well, whatever ethnic background they have. Usually white.

So when I was growing up, just about every picture of Jesus to be found in Protestant and Catholic churches, depicted him as white. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most diverse parts of the country, and even so: White Jesus was everywhere.

Most popular was Werner Sallman’s Head of Christ, which you’ll still see all over the Christian subculture. Even in predominantly nonwhite churches: Black, Latino, Chinese, everywhere. They frame and display it the same way government offices display the President’s portrait. And of course white Jesus was all over our stained-glass windows, paintings, statues, Sunday school materials, Nativity crèches… stands to reason you’d get that idea fixed in your mind.

Plus, all the Jews I knew where white.

Yes, this is an excuse for being ignorant. You see, we were never taught otherwise. No pastor ever gestured at the portraits of white Jesus and pointed out, “Of course, you know he’s not really white.” This was the image of Jesus, and we unthinkingly accepted it.

More or less. Different artists might render the beard a slightly different color. Conservative churches might insist on pictures of Jesus with hair which doesn’t go past the neck. Movies might depict him with a fringed cloak and tunic—you know, like an actual first-century Jew. But for most Americans, that image from the Sallman painting would kick in: The real Jesus had brown hair, a white tunic, and either a red or blue toga. No fringes. Fringes look raggedy.

We’re meant to outgrow this worldview. But not everyone does.

Misadventures with the dictionary.

When I wrote about how to do a word study, I pointed out gotta use the dictionary last, for confirmation. Not first, as people tend to do.

’Cause several mistakes in interpretation are precisely the result of reading the dictionary first. When we were kids, most of us were taught if you wanna know what a word means, look it up in the dictionary! So we came to think of the dictionary as a primary source of information. But when we’re doing word study, the dictionary’s not primary. The bible is.

And for that matter, when a dictionary’s editors put it together, they did word studies. They don’t look up their words in a different dictionary. (The first guys to make dictionaries didn’t have dictionaries to go to.) They looked at literature. How’d previous writers use these words? How did John Milton, William Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, or John Wycliffe use the words? For an American English dictionary, they particularly look at how American writers use these words, ’cause we’re gonna use ’em differently than a British, Indian, Australian, Canadian, or Irish writer would. They look at the general consensus of the population, then put that into their dictionary.

So… what if they deduced the consensus wrong? Or what if you, as the reader, misunderstand what they did, or are trying to do, with their dictionary? Either way, you get errors.

When we go to the dictionary first, we wind up with the following problems. Instead of studying our word, we study…

The translation of the word.

This’d be those folks whose word studies never involve an original-language dictionary. When they look up peace, they never look up the Hebrew שָׁלֹם/šalóm or Greek εἰρήνη/eiríni; they’re using a Webster’s Dictionary, which has no foreign-language words in it. They look at what our culture means by peace. Not what the writers of the bible meant by it.

If your word study never involves the original languages, you’re doing it wrong. Period.

A variation of this is when people do look up the Hebrew, Syriac, or Greek words… then read our current English words into them. I wrote on when people find out the Greek word for “power” is δύναμις/dýnamis, then claim God’s power is an explosive power, ’cause they connected the dots between dýnamis and dynamite. But if you’ve ever truly experienced God’s power, you know it’s not a flash in the pan; it’s a continual source of unending strength. But that “dynamite” interpretation still gets around. ’Cause it’s a flash in the pan.

The word’s history.

Words evolve. The English and French word table comes from the Saxon word tabule, which in turn from the Latin word tabula. Historians, especially word historians, find it interesting to see how words moved from one language to another, and this is why dictionaries frequently include these word histories. But here’s the problem: Our English word table, same as in French, means a piece of furniture with a flat work surface. The Latin word tabula properly means a tablet: It’s a flat board which you write on. (Yep, we got tablet from it.) A table and a tabula aren’t the same thing. They’re similar; they’re both flat work surfaces. Still.

Now we understand this, ’cause we speak English and know what a table is. But when we don’t know ancient Hebrew or first-century Greek—and most of us don’t—when people come across the word-histories in our Hebrew or Greek dictionaries, they think these are insights.

Homer, who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey, wrote in ancient Greek. So did the playwright Aristophanes and the philosopher Aristotle. Sometimes dictionaries will tell us what Homer meant when he used the word ἄγγελος/ángelos, ’cause it’s interesting. But what dictionaries won’t always remind us, is Homer wrote his poems 800 years before the New Testament. He wrote ’em before Isaiah was born.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales about 630 years ago. Ever tried to read Chaucer in the original middle English? You’ll immediately notice English has changed a lot in the past six centuries. Many of the words no longer mean what they did in Chaucer’s day. So… is ancient Greek any different? Nope.

Aristophanes wrote 400 years before the New Testament. (So, closer to Nehemiah’s time.) Aristotle wrote 350 years before. Both these guys wrote in a form of ancient Greek we call Ἀττικός/Attikós, or “Attic” (it really means “Athenian, ’cause these guys are of course from Athens). In contrast the New Testament was written in κοινός/kinós, or “common” ancient Greek—changed by three centuries of interaction with Persians, Syrians, Egyptians, Asians, and Romans. Loanwords were added. Other words changed meaning and form. What it meant to Homer isn’t necessarily what it meant to John, Luke, Matthew, Paul, or Jesus.

Scholars are pretty sure Paul invented a few words. ’Cause we can’t find these words anywhere else in first-century Greek writings before Paul used ’em. Likewise Paul felt free to come up with his own definitions of certain common words: When he wrote on ἀγάπη/aghápi and defined love for the Corinthians, 1Co 13.4-8 he actually went against the popular Corinthian definition of love. For ancient Greeks, aghápi isn’t patient, kind, and selfless: It’s relentless, and stops at nothing till it gets what it pursues. Paul flipped its meaning over entirely—because he was thinking of the Old Testament concept of love, as defined by God’s faithful, merciful, kind חֶסֶד/khecéd.

Paul used aghápi different from everybody else in his culture. Bluntly, he used it wrong. And yet, for us Christians, it’s entirely right. Among us, his “wrong” definition became the right one. After Paul redefined aghápi, you’re never gonna hear a preacher talk about what it originally meant.

Not so true of other Greek words. Fr’instance the word ἁμαρτία/amartía, “sin.” It comes from ἁμαρτάνω/amartáno, “not hit [one’s target],” like when you’re throwing a spear and hit the charioteer instead of the archer. Homer used it to also describe moral failures, so over time it evolved into our concept of sin… but Christians keep insisting “sin” really means missing the mark. You likely know from personal experience: Many sinners aren’t even trying to hit the mark. Some trespassers stumble into the wrong space accidentally, but more of them deliberately ignore those boundaries ’cause they don’t care about ’em at all, and that’s more the nature of sin than trying and failing and “missing the mark.”

The word-roots.

Since I’ve already stumbled upon the issue of word-roots…

The Greek word for patience is μακροθυμία/makrothymía It’s a compound word (made up of two words, like “windbag” or “forklift”) from μακρός/makrós “long” and θυμός/thymós “anger.” But it doesn’t mean “long anger,” any more than blackmail refers to black chainmail or black envelopes. Splitting it apart doesn’t give you a better idea of what it means; it gives you the wrong idea. You’ll assume it means bitterness, not patience.

A more common mistake is the Greek word for church, ἐκκλησία/ekklisía, which literally means a council or congress. But it’s a compound of ἐκ/ek “from” and καλέω/kaléo “call.” Hence many a Christian claims the church consists of “a called-out people.” After all, Jesus calls his followers away from the evil and sin in the world, and calls us unto himself. It still doesn’t make this a proper definition of ekklisía: The ancient Greeks used it to describe groups. Politicians, philosophers, students, convicts, soldiers—any and every group. And the church is Jesus’s group.

Plenty of folks nonetheless go ga-ga for root words, and whenever you hear a preacher start talking about the root words, watch out. More than likely, they did a sloppy job of word study, and you’re about to hear “the real meaning of the word”—which really isn’t.

The other definitions.

You’ll notice dictionaries have multiple definitions of many words. Fr’instance the English word “house”:

1. A building people live in.
2. A family. (Usually a noble family.)
3. A building where people gather for other activities, like a house of prayer or a steakhouse.
4. A legislature.
5. A style of dance music.

But it’s fair to say when people usually say “house,” they mean a building people live in. Definition #1.

And too often a preacher tries to discover something “profound” by using anything but definition #1. Definition #1 is the proper one, but it doesn’t make the lesson unique; doesn’t make people sit up and say, “Wow, I’ve never heard anyone say that before; it really speaks to me.” So they go with definition #2, or #3, or whatever wows the listeners most.

I’ve heard many, many preachers do this. Whenever preachers try to translate the bible themselves, and their translations go way off the beaten path, watch out. It’s the wrong path, with the potential to lead us astray.

Years ago I heard a sermon where the preacher’s entire point hinged on whether οὶκος/íkos means “sphere of influence.” It actually means “house.” (Although you might be more familiar with it as Dannon/Danone’s brand of Greek-style yogurt.) The preacher pointed out how the first Christians met in one another’s houses, Ac 2.46 and since he interpreted íkos as “sphere of influence,” he was trying to get his listeners to consider how we affect our respective spheres of influence. Now, let’s be honest: Christians should think about how we affect the people around us. It’s not a bad idea. It is, however, a bad interpretation. It’s not what Luke meant in Acts 2. If you really wanna preach that idea, I’ll bet you can find better verses in the bible to back it up. You don’t have to twist Acts 2, and force it into the text.

For whenever we find ourselves shoehorning our meaning into the text, no matter how good our idea may be, we’re still dishonestly warping the scriptures. We’re trying to disguise our message as bible, in order to swipe a bit of the bible’s authority. We’re false teachers.

To be fair, preachers don’t always go with definition #2 or #3 or #4 because they’re trying to deceive. Most of the time, it’s because they’ve fallen into the temptation of novelty: They wanna preach something new! They know their audience will appreciate something they’ve never heard before. It’s boring to say the same thing all the time. They’re out of idea on how to say it in new ways. They wanna preach something truly new; our culture loves new things. And what better way to appease other people, and our own bored selves, than to come up with a novel interpretation of the bible?

But we’re not allowed to preach anything new. The gospel hasn’t changed since Jesus first proclaimed it. It’s not gonna change—and that’s kinda awesome, ’cause it’s such good news! There might be nuances about it we’ve missed, or never noticed. We might introduce it, or reintroduce it, in multiple ways, same as Jesus did with his parables. But we have no right to change it simply to shake things up. That’s how people stumble away from Jesus. That’s how cults get started. Don’t try to invent new teachings and new interpretations! Rediscover the right ones.

All the definitions.

Just as often, preachers try to make something profound out of the scriptures by going through every alternate definition in their dictionary.

Fr’instance the Hebrew word יָד/yad. It literally means “hand.” But Hebrew uses idioms, just like English, so a hand might instead refer to something strong and helpful. Like God’s hands. “The hand of God” is mighty and powerful. Being in his hands doesn’t mean he literally picked us up; either he’s helping us out… or he’s gonna give us a spanking. Context should tell you whether it’s good news or bad. Likewise Jesus, who sits at God’s right hand, Ep 1.20 which means he wields God’s power, not that he’s literally next to God’s literal right hand; he is God y’know.

And yad also means five or six other things. Like one’s possession. One’s presence. One’s personal access. A sign. A support. A portion. A side. And yes, Isaiah actually used it as a euphemism for a penis. Is 57.8 (The KJV left it untranslated; the ESV went with “nakedness.”) How do we know which definition to use? Context. If “hand” best fits the verse, yad means hand. If “power” is better, go with that instead. If “portion” then portion. And so on.

Yet some folks will take, fr’instance, “Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand,” Dt 32.39 KJV and claim, “So today I’m gonna speak about how

1. Nobody can take God’s power away from us.
2. Nobody can take God’s support away from us.
3. Nobody can take God’s portion away from us.
4. Nobody can take God’s presence away from us.
5. Nobody can take God’s access away from us.”

And so on. I’d better stop before he gets to God’s penis.

But y’see what he did, and both Christians and Jews have done this sort of thing throughout history. If you need to preach a three-point sermon, look up a word with three possible definitions, and preach the dictionary. Some Christian writers are notorious for it. They compare it to a jeweler looking at a cut gem, and looking at every facet of the gem, and seeing something new in it every time. So that’s what they claim they were doing with the scriptures.

A much better comparison would be a kid looking at anything through a kaleidoscope. A kaleidoscope isn’t a tool; it’s a bit of harmless fun. It shows a bit of something, then reflects it a whole bunch of times and makes it look grander—and pretty, in a way. Does it reveal anything new, or truthful, or hidden? Nah. It’s a fun way to kill time.

That’s what rifling through every definition will do for a word study. You won’t learn anything new or deep. You’ll just feel like you have, because you spent time on it. In the end, only one of these definitions is valid, and matters. And I hope to goodness you remember which one that is, because it’s the only one you can count on. The rest is useless wordplay.