Hatred’s a work of the flesh.

Galatians 5.19-21 KJV

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Hatred gets listed in verse 20 as one of the works of the flesh. The original-language word is ἔχθραι/ékhthre, “hostility” or “opposition” or “enmity”: Someone who’s decided in advance they’re not gonna be friendly. In fact, they’re looking for enemies.

In his first letter, John pointed out how those who hate their sisters or brothers are murderers. In their hearts, such people are dead to them. And those who “murder” in this way have nothing to do with eternal life. 1Jn 3.15 They won’t inherit God’s kingdom—same as those who exhibit the fleshly works which Paul listed.

Yeah, you know we’ve got a lot of such people all over Christianity. I follow a few of their blogs. They claim they’re all about Christian holiness and sanctification; about Christians following Jesus instead of the rest of the world, and becoming a pure, sinless, spotless church, ready and eager to greet Jesus at his second coming. But the way they go about doing it is to bring up the latest popular sin (typically one committed by members of the opposition party), then pound away at it like a carpenter trying to put thin nails into thick wood.

Yes, Christians oughta resist temptation and stop sinning. Of course. Duh. But these guys’ fixation on dirty, dirty sins? It’s not healthy. Much as these guys love to quote this memory verse—

Philippians 4.8 KJV

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

—the amount of time they spend digging through the news to find new things to be horrified by, the length of time they spend denouncing these travesties, and the angst and tears and hand-wringing and stress they suffer just thinking about how these evils damage our good Christian nation…

Yep, these guys aren’t actually avoiding sin. They may not be committing it, nor even be tempted to try it, but their minds are nonetheless stewing in it like shrimp in a gumbo. Because what they’re doing instead is hating it. Hating it with every fiber of their being. In so doing their minds are wholly fixated on whatsoever things are false, dishonest, unfair, impure, ugly, disturbing, useless, and wrong.

Hopefully they’re not doing this 24 hours a day, like pundits who are desperately looking for new content with which they can outrage their TV audience. But y’know, some of them are. You can tell whenever you talk with them: The first thing they want to talk about is the latest outrage. And they’re hoping it’ll outrage you too. Bad fruit likes to spread its seeds widely.

The Equal-Pay Vineyard Story.

Matthew 20.1-16.

Jesus tells more than one parable about vineyards, and sometimes Christians mix ’em up. Whenever I refer to “the parable of the vineyard,” people sometimes assume I mean the two sons sent to work in the vineyard, or the tenant farmers who murder the vineyard owner’s son. I’ve tried to call this the Generous Employer Story, but if you don’t put “vineyard” in the title people don’t know what you mean—“Wait, is this a new parable?” No it’s not.

So I call it the Equal-Pay Vineyard Story. Because everybody gets paid a denarius at the end of the story, even though some of ’em didn’t work all that hard. The punchline is about how the landowner does this because he’s generous, so maybe it oughta be called the Generous Equal-Pay Vineyard Story. But instead of making the title longer and longer, till it winds up telling the story for us, Jesus may as well tell the story, right?

Matthew 20.1-16 KWL

1 “For heaven’s kingdom is like a person, a landowner,

who comes out first thing in the morning [6AM] to hire workers for his vineyard.

2 Once the workers agree to a denarius for the day,

he sends them to his vineyard.

3 Going out the third hour, [9AM] he sees others loitering in the square

4 and tells them, ‘You can also go to the vineyard,

and I’ll give you whatever might be fair.’

5 He goes away again, and comes back out at the sixth [12PM] and ninth hour, [3PM]

and does the same thing.

6 Around the 11th hour, [5PM] he comes out to find others standing around,

and tells them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’

7 They tell him this: ‘Nobody has hired us.’

He tells them, ‘You can also go to the vineyard.’

8 When evening comes, [6PM] the vineyard’s master tells his vineyard manager,

‘Call the workers, to give them their pay—

starting with the last, till you get to the first.’

9 Each of those who came at the 11th hour gets a denarius.

10 So the first to come, thought they would get more—

and each of them also gets a denarius.

11 Those who got paid last grumble against the landowner,

12 saying, ‘These last-hired worked one hour, and were paid as much as we?

Those who bore the weight of the day, and the heat?’

13 In reply, the landowner says to one of them,

‘Friend, I’ve not wronged you. Didn’t you agree with me to work for a denarius?

14 Take your denarius and go.

I want to give this last-hired what I also gave you.

15 Or is this not allowed me?—to do as I want with what’s mine?

Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’

16 In this way the last will be first,

and the first, last.”

I translated “is your eye evil” Mt 20.15 literally. But just to remind you, the “evil eye” has nothing to do with cursing anyone, like our culture has it. To ancient Hebrews it was an idiom meaning “greedy person.” And there are a lot of greedy people, both back then and now, whose Mammonism gets triggered every time they see generosity. They rage whenever someone gets a massive paycheck, whether it be a CEO who gets an outrageous bonus, or an entry-level employee who makes way more than minimum wage: “He doesn’t deserve that,” or “Why are you paying your people so much?” or “Any moron could do that job; how dare you overpay morons?” They’re as enraged as if it personally harms them for others to prosper. It’s karmic thinking, and wholly inappropriate behavior for Christians. And Jews. But it’s everywhere, so Jesus includes it in his story.

The explosive power of God?

DYNAMIS 'daɪ.nə.mɪs, 'di.na.mis or DUNAMIS 'du'nə.mɪs noun. The extra-mighty sort of power God possesses.

[Dynamite power 'daɪ.nə.maɪt 'paʊ(.ə)r noun.]

Alexander Pope wrote the saying, “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” in his Essay on Criticism in 1711. It’s frequently misquoted “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” and constantly taken out of context: People assume Pope meant it’s better to have no knowledge at all. Knowledge is power, but power in the wrong hands is dangerous.

Read his whole poem, and you learn what Pope actually meant:

A little learning is a dang’rous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

Yeah, for those who lack a little learning about what a Pierian Spring is, that’d be a fountain in ancient Macedonia (which is not the current country of Macedonia) dedicated to the Muses, the Greek goddesses of wisdom and talent. Drink from the spring, and you’re supposed to gain their wisdom, and be able to understand profound truths. But if you don’t take a big drink from it—if you only take little sips from a 6-ounce Dixie cup—you’re not getting a full dose of wisdom. You’re only getting tiny but partial insights. Only half-truths.

That’s what Pope considered dangerous: A little learning. A partial knowledge. Don’t be satisfied with tricks or trivia. Dig deeper.

One obvious example is what popular Christianity claims about “dynamis power.” I first heard it before I went to seminary and learned Greek. I’ve heard it countless times since.

Pastors are impressed by how similar the word δύναμις/dýnamis is to our English word dynamite. And of course it’s similar. After Alfred Nobel patented “Nobel’s Blasting Powder” in 1867, he decided to give it a more clever name: The Greek word for power, plus -ite. So it’s not a coincidence the two words are similar. Fully deliberate on Nobel’s part.

So these pastors will spend a lot of time on “the dýnamis power of God” (or dúnamis, depending on whether they know an upsilon is pronounced i instead of u, and usually they don’t). They’ll spend a lot of time on how dynamic or dynamite it is. Or as one of my pastors loved to put it, “the dynamite power of God!” ’Cause once the Holy Spirit gets in there and does something, BOOM!

It’s an exciting image. It’s that excitement which indicates someone’s been sipping from the spring of knowledge again. Not drinking deep.

When I first heard this idea, I thought it sounded clever. But what did I know? I hadn’t learned any Greek yet. And even for quite a few years after my Greek classes, I perpetuated the error: God’s power is ’splodey like dynamite. But one Sunday 14 years ago, after yet another sermon on the explosive power of God, I decided to finally double-check the idea against a Greek dictionary. And as you can guess, no that’s not what dýnamis means.

God is love.

No doubt you’ve heard “God is love” before. If we wanna understand it better, it helps to read St John’s context, from his first letter.

1 John 4.7-16 KJV

7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

John wrote his letter to address the problem of gnostics in Ephesus—and really throughout the Roman Empire—who claimed all sorts of things about God and who he is, about Jesus and whether he’s even human, and about how to identify God’s followers through their secret knowledge—whereas the scriptures teach us to identify fellow Christians by our fruit. The most obvious fruit is love, and if we don’t have that, we quite obviously don’t have the Holy Spirit within us, because above all else, God is love.

How do we know God is love? Duh; before we even knew to love him, he sent Jesus to die for our sins. And when we repented and confessed and turned to him, he gave us his Holy Spirit—who is God himself. If a person has the Holy Spirit within them, and is actually following the Spirit like we should, there should be obvious signs of it. Namely God’s love. “Love is of God.” 1Jn 4.7

And if we don’t see love—and sad to say, there are a lot of Christians in whom we really don’t—John doesn’t go so far as to say these people doesn’t really have the Spirit in ’em. He only says “He that loveth not knoweth not God.” 1Jn 4.8 If we knew God, we’d know love’s a big big deal to him. Because it’s who he is. God is love.

John says the words ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν/o Theós ayápi estín, “God is love,” twice in this passage. 1Jn 4.8, 16 There’s no ambiguity in them. God is, present tense, love. And ayápi is the same word the KJV elsewhere translates as “charity,” and St. Paul defines thisaway:

1 Corinthians 13.4-7 KJV

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7 beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

More than one preacher has noted this is a pretty good description of God himself.

The Dragnet Story.

Matthew 13.47-50.

You’d be surprised how many people don’t know what a dragnet is, and think it has to do with cop shows, or police putting up roadblocks in order to catch a suspect. Police have certainly borrowed the term, but properly a dragnet is a fishing net.

There are many kinds of dragnets. The type most commonly used today is a seine (a word descended from the ancient Greek word for dragnet, σαγήνη/sayíni), a fishing net with floats on the top and weights on the bottom, pulled behind a boat, which catches everything swimming in the top part of a body of water. Another is the kind which sinks to the bottom of the lake or sea, and pulls up everything from the floor. And since it catches everything, it might catch garbage… or endangered fish or marine mammals, like dolphins. It’s an efficient way to catch fish, but it’s not popular with environmentalists.

Jesus’s base of operations was Capharnaum (Greek Καφαρναοὺμ/Kafarnaúm, KJV Capernaum), a fishing village on the coast of Lake Tiberius, the Galilee’s freshwater “sea.” No doubt a lot of his followers were fishers. Four of his Twelve definitely were: Andrew and Peter bar John, and James and John bar Zebedee. Mk 1.16-20 Four more might also have been: Thomas, Nathanael, and two unnamed others. Jn 21.2-3 So, two-thirds of the Twelve. And the other four were not unfamiliar with fishing practices… epsecially after several years of hanging out with fishers all day.

Y’notice Jesus tended to tell parables about agriculture and sheep-herding. This is the only one about fishing. He also told a few about building and carpentry too, but the reason he didn’t tell as many about his old vocation, is because he was concentrating on his audience. What’s gonna connect with them most?

Matthew 13.47-50 KWL

47 “Again, heaven’s kingdom is like a dragnet,

thrown in the sea and gathering together every species.

48 When it’s full, it’s dragged to shore and set down.

The fishers gather up the good into containers, and throw out the useless.

49 This is how it is in the end of the age:

The angels will go out and separate evildoers from the middle of the righteous,

50 and they’ll throw them into the fiery furnace;

there will be wailing and grinding teeth.”

Like all parables it’s about God’s kingdom, and specifically the people who will be judged worthy of it in the end. Or not.