Tradition… and why it’s harder to quit than crack.

Our brains are wired to embrace old, familiar, wrong information.

 

Verses cited:
Mark 7.7.
John 14.6.
2 Corinthians 10.5.
1 Thessalonians 5.21.

Creationism. (Don’t let it distract you!)

When American Christians use the word “creationist,” they’re often thinking of the folks who believe in young-earth creationism (YEC for short). These people seriously believe God created the universe about 6,000 years ago.

This date isn’t deduced by observing the universe around them. If we did that, we’d notice we can see stars in the night sky which are billions of light-years away. We’d come to the natural conclusion our universe must be old enough for the light from these distant stars to make it to Earth. In other words, creation took place billions of years ago.

Why do YEC adherents insist the history of the cosmos is less than a millionth of that? Well, they claim, they’re literalists. When they read the bible, they don’t believe Genesis 1 is using metaphor, nor trying to describe creation using the view of the universe familiar to ancient middle easterners. Every day of creation is a literal 24-hour period. Every genealogical chart elsewhere in the book represents literal years; nobody skips generations like Matthew did, and none of the numbers are metaphors (i.e. “40 years” representing a generation).

So when we start from the dates we know for certain, like when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem (16 March 597BC), then work our way back to dates we sorta know (like the year of the Exodus, estimated to be around 1446BC), then add up all the ages in Genesis’s genealogies, we can roughly pin down creation at the fifth millennium before Christ. As Irish archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656) did in his 1650 book Annales veteris testamenti/“Years of the Testament,” when he concluded God said “Let there be light” Ge 1.3 around 6 p.m. on 22 October 4004BC.

Seriously, dude pinned down the hour. He believed the years properly begin at the autumnal equinox, and in order for it to be evening then morning, Ge 1.5 evening’s around 6, right? I would presume he meant 6 Arabia Standard Time, not Greenwich Mean Time, which’d be more like 3. Still, it makes sense. Kinda.

Since YEC arithmetic regularly comes close to the good archbishop’s date, lots of ’em figure why reinvent the wheel? They use Ussher’s numbers—which makes the cosmos only 6,019 years old as of 2016. Bible says so.

And, insist young-earthers, if you don’t believe the cosmos is only 6 millennia old, you don’t really believe the bible. You believe scientists who tell you the universe is older, or your eyes, which show you billion-year-old galaxies through the telescope. But you’re not supposed to believe your eyes, nor any of those godless scientists: You’re supposed to only believe the scriptures. Placing anything above the bible means you’ve foolishly undermined your faith, and real Christians believe the bible first and foremost. Heretics believe in the sciences.

So this is why a lot of Christians don’t believe in science: They’ve been convinced science contradicts the bible, and they really don’t wanna go to hell for believing in science.

And this is why there’s a whole branch of Christian apologetics which fights specifically on behalf of YEC theories. Entire organizations, like Answers in Genesis and the Creation Research Institute, exist to provide Christians with solid reasons to embrace YEC beliefs… which they equate with believing in God and the scriptures.

So if you’re an old-earth creationist like me, you’re heretic. Even though most Christians fall straight into the old-earth creationist camp. And have no problem with science.

The lenses we use to do theology.

We don’t just use the bible to develop our theology. Don’t kind yourself.

 

Verses cited:
Matthew 23.8, 10.
John 1.18.
John 14.9.
John 14.26.

The prophet Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus the Nazarene is a lot of things. Christ/Messiah/King of Israel, and King of Kings; rabbi/teacher and wise man; savior and healer; God incarnate, and second person of the trinity; and rumor has it he’s particularly good at woodcarving. But listed among these job titles and abilities is prophet. He shares what God told him. Arguably, he never taught anything else. Jn 12.49 That makes him a prophet.

Problem is, every single time I teach Jesus is a prophet—but I fail to refer to him by the usual job titles, “prophet, priest, and king,”—I get blowback. Lots of Christians feel the need to point out he’s not just a prophet. Well duh. He’s all those things I mentioned in the first paragraph. And he’s a prophet.

And the funny thing is, I don’t get this reaction when I teach Jesus is our head priest. Or Jesus is our king. Or Jesus is our teacher. It’s only when I state Jesus is a prophet. What’s up with that?

It’s about despising prophecy. 1Th 5.20-21 The average Christian doesn’t think very highly of prophets.

Some of it’s because they’ve met too many cranks who claim to be prophets, but they’re fake, or they’re sloppy and get it wrong. Or they’ve seen too many nutjobs on TV talking about the End Times, making wild predictions which will never happen, and making the rest of Christian biblical interpretation look foolish and stupid.

Some of it’s because there’s a large number of Christians who believe in cessationism: God turned off the miracles back in bible times, and that includes prophecy. So all present-day prophetic ministries are no different from fortune-tellers and psychics. Calling Jesus a “prophet” invokes ideas of those phonies, so it’s not a compliment.

And to be fair, some of it’s because pagans have no problem saying Jesus is a prophet—but won’t call him Lord. So they wanna make sure I’m not going that route myself.

In the end it’s usually, “Okay, Jesus is a prophet. But he’s more than that. He’s better. Call him something better.”

Remember: Just as Jesus’s behavior is high above the behavior of any of us would-be followers; just as Jesus’s fruit is far more abundant than that of the people who claim allegiance to him; just as Jesus’s character is way more consistent than people who claim to be Christlike; so he’s a better prophet than any and every Christian prophet. Even the good ones.

Profanity, and why Christians get freaked out by it.

People mean three things by “swearing”: Oaths, curses, and profanity. Today I’m writing about profanity, meaning stuff that’s obscene, or stuff people consider irreverent towards God. Either various words or practices which are considered forbidden in polite company, or forms of “taking the Lord’s name in vain,” as popularly (and incorrectly) defined.

Since the beginning of human history, different cultures have had certain taboos. Stuff that’s forbidden. Or forbidden to children. Or forbidden to one gender and not the other: Men can go shirtless in public and women can’t; women can wear dresses in public but men can’t; that sort of thing.

Some of these taboos are for very good reason. Forbidding sex with children: Obviously it discourages people from exploiting children. Forbidding people to poop just anywhere: If it weren’t taboo, people would poop just anywhere, and this keeps their elimination practices in private. Where we prefer it. ’Cause ewww.

Because of the taboos against the practices, it even extends to the words. There are people who get offended by my bringing up the idea of poop. And of course, using the word—even though I used “poop” instead of the popular Anglo-Saxon word which you can say on basic cable, but not American broadcast television. Starts with S. You’ve heard of it.

In English, a lot of the “profane” words are the Anglo-Saxon words. The “proper” terms (like defecation) came from Anglo-Norman. Those two languages (and a ton of loan words) came together to form the English we speak today—but again, even if I use the word “defecation,” certain people will flinch like I poked their funny bone. The taboo is just that strong with ’em.

Five main taboos you’re gonna find in the English language:

• Sex talk. Particular acts, the body parts used to perform ’em, and paraphernalia.
• Bathroom talk. What comes out of you, how, and cleaning up after.
• “Blasphemy.” Whatever treats God lightly.
• Hell talk. Anything about evil in general, the devil, its tempters, and eternal punishment.
• Prejudice. A relatively new category: Slurs against gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual preference.

Most of us recognize that, under certain circumstances, we have to discuss these topics. Fr’instance children need to be educated about sex; otherwise they’ll do it wrong.

“Why do you write all that Catholic stuff?”

In some of my posts about the stations of the cross, which I was writing about as Easter 2016 approached, I got trolled. Certain commenters (whom I’ve deleted and blacklisted, obviously) objected, profanely, to my writing about “Catholic stuff.”

I get this kind of pushback every so often. Because I write about Christianity, every so often I’m gonna write about medieval and ancient Christianity. The medieval stuff would be the Christianity which took place before Protestantism was invented in 1517. And the ancient stuff would be the Christianity which took place before Catholicism was invented—back when there was only one universal church, back before the Christians split into Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics by holding separate Fourth Councils of Constantinople in the 870s (and finalized in the Great Schism of 1054).

But your average person nowadays doesn’t know jack squat about history, much less Christian history. So as soon as I start writing about any Christian practices outside of their own particular denomination, some of ’em immediately assume I’m trying to push the denomination where those events took place. If it happened among Lutherans, they assume I’ve gone Lutheran; if it happened in the Church of England, they leap to the conclusion I’m a secret Episcopalian; and if among Catholics, I must be some kind of crypto-Catholic.

And they absolutely aren’t Catholic. On the contrary: They’re very, very anti-Catholic.

Usually they were raised to be. As was I. ’Member I mentioned I grew up Fundamentalist? I’d been baptized Catholic, but Mom left Catholicism for Protestantism when I was a preschooler. Well, we very quickly wound up in the sort of Fundie churches which were quick to warn us against the “dangers” and “evils” of the Roman church.

How their many customs were simply repurposed pagan rituals. How they did holy communion and baptism wrong. How they prayed rote prayers instead of real prayers. How they prayed to Mary and saints instead of Jesus and the Father. How they followed the pope instead of Jesus—and sometimes how the pope was destined to become the beast of Revelation 13. (Assuming the opposition party’s candidate for President didn’t turn out to be the beast instead.)

When God turns off the warm fuzzy feelings.

As I wrote in my article about confusing our emotions with the Holy Spirit, there are a number of Christians who aren’t pursuing God so much as they’re pursuing endorphins. They want the emotional high. That rush is their primary motivation for pursuing God.

Now, God’s got two typical responses for that sort of behavior:

• He puts up with it. It’s not really harming us right now, and he can use it to redirect us towards proper, healthy ways of following him. So he’s gonna work with it.
• He shuts it down. ’Cause it is harming us, or others; or it’s about to. ’Cause he’s trying to redirect us, but we’re either not listening, or we’re too easily distracted.

For endorphin junkies, when God makes ’em go cold turkey, it’s devastating. They feel nothing. In comparison with before, they feel like God went away; that he’s no longer there; that his presence is gone; that “the heavens are brass” (an out-of-context reference to Deuteronomy 28.23). Sometimes it’s called spiritual dryness, spiritual desolation, or as St. John of the Cross titled his book, a Dark Night of the Soul. Yep, if you’ve experienced it, you’re hardly the only one. At one time or another, every Christian will.

No, it doesn’t mean God left you. He didn’t. Unless you left him, he remains faithful: He won’t leave. He 13.5 But because we’ve confused our emotions with the Spirit, we feel like he’s left us. The warm fuzzy feelings we’ve incorrectly associated with him: Gone. Absent. Missed—’cause they’re pleasant, enjoyable feelings. But God determined they were getting in the way of true spiritual growth. So they had to go.

And y’know, since they’re the very same brain-chemicals we produce when we’re addicted to a narcotic, going without our spiritual high feels just as awful as when an addict quits their narcotics. Some of us plummet into depression. Some of us even quit Christianity: If God won’t give us a buzz anymore, maybe this was the wrong religion, and we oughta try one which does produce such feelings. (As if any clever con artist—or we ourselves—can’t psyche us into feeling whatever emotions we desire.)

The cycle: The good old days, and the dark times.

CYCLE. 'saɪ.kəl noun. Series of events, regularly repeated in the same order.

2. [biblical] The repeating history of apostasy, oppression, revival, and salvation.

[Cyclical 'sɪ.klə.kəl adjective.]

History repeats itself.

Most people figure it’s for the reason philosopher George Santayana famously stated: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” More accurately it’s that people didn’t learn from the past. They remember it just fine. But they think this time, they’ll get it right. The disasters of the past? People were naïve back then. We’re more intelligent, more evolved now. They failed, but we’ll succeed.

Then we don’t. ’Cause history repeats itself.

The usual form of this repetition is an up-and-down cycle. Historians call it all sorts of different things. An economic boom, followed by a period of downturn. An era of good feelings, followed by serious partisanship. A gilded age, followed by a panic. Good times, bad times, you know we’ve had our share.

We see the cycle in the bible as well. Different Christians call it different things. Often it’s the “cycle of sin” or “cycle of judgment” or “cycle of discipline”—something pessimistic. Since it’s an up-and-down cycle, some of us throw in the up side as well as the down: The “cycle of sin and repentance.” Regardless most Christians include the word cycle.

Looks like yea:

Round and round and round ya go.

Again, the steps and titles change depending on who’s making the chart. Sometimes all the phases cleverly start with the same letter, or spell out a word. (I don’t bother.) I list seven.

1. PROSPERITY. Peace, comfort, and relative success—which the scriptures attribute to God, and we humans often attribute to ourselves and forget God and the last time the Cycle went round. And so it begins again.
2. APOSTASY. With few needs, God isn’t petitioned, isn’t followed. Religion gets sloppy, abandoned for other pursuits, or replaced with something new. Irreligion or apathy is passed down to children who look elsewhere.
3. UNBLESSING. Up to this point,
God’s protected us from natural and artificial disasters. That ends.
4. OPPRESSION. Prosperity ends, disaster strikes, famine, recession. The economy collapses. Enemies and those who hold our debts take advantage of a government ill-equipped to defend the weak.
5. REPENTANCE. Finally we stop blaming others for our misfortune, and ask ourselves how we can get right with God.
6. REVIVAL. A return to authentic religion, as people go back to wholeheartedly following God and calling upon him for help.
7. DELIVERANCE. God raises up anointed leaders (in the scriptures, judges) to defend his people from their foes. Sometimes with war, sometimes prophecy, sometimes other reform.

…And then back to prosperity. And after a time, apostasy. And so on round the Cycle.

Denominations: When churches network.

DENOMINATION di.nɑm.ə'neɪ.ʃən noun. Organized network of affiliated churches.

2. Autonomous branch of a religion.

[Denominational də.nɑm.ə'neɪ.ʃən.əl adjective.]

When Jesus began his church, it had a really basic organization: The Twelve, the apostles whom he hand-picked to lead his followers… and his followers.

Over time this evolved. As it kinda had to, ’cause the church spread. The Twelve didn’t stay in Jerusalem: Simon Peter went to Rome, Andrew to Greece, John to Ephesus, Jude and Simon to Syria, Bartholemew to Armenia, Thomas to India, and so forth. The followers spread out to different cities in the Roman Empire, and to the barbarians outside the Empire. They founded new church groups.

All sorts of questions began to crop up about how connected these groups were with one another. Of course since power is always a stumbling-block for us humans, there was also concern about what authority various apostles and bishops in other groups had over the new congregations and their leadership.

The short version: The church remained one universal group for roughly a thousand years. I say “roughly” because it got mighty rough there near the end. Too many power struggles between bishops. Too many cultural and theological differences between Greek- and Latin- and Coptic- and barbarian-speaking churches. Too many hurt feelings. It all culminated in the Great Schism in 1054: The bishops of Rome and Constantinople declared each another heretic. From that point on there were two formal networks: The Orthodox Churches in eastern Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa, all of whom recognized one another as Christian; and the Roman Catholic Church in western Europe and the Americas, which only recognized itself as Christian.

The Orthodox and Catholics insist on calling themselves churches, not denominations. ’Cause their original attitude was they’re the real church, and any other “chuches” were heretic. (That’s largely still their attitude, though they’re a lot nicer nowadays towards the rest of us: They still figure they’re the real church, but the others are wayward. Not necessarily heretic. Though certainly some denominations are very much heretic.)

They’re not alone in shunning the word “denomination.” Two churches in my city insist on calling themselves “nondenominational”—yet both are heavily plugged into the “nondenominational” Bethel Church in Redding, Calif. Bethel hasn’t yet created a formal denomination, so the many churches affiliated with it, and no other group, figure they’re nondenominational. But they’re far from independent of all other churches. (Which is good. Go-it-alone churches are like go-it-alone Christians: They tend to get all weird and cultlike and heretic.)

Sometimes churches prefer another word, like fellowship or alliance or assembly or network. My denomination, the Assemblies of God, is kinda partial to “movement.” And—as is the case with episcopal groups like the Orthodox and Catholics—some consider themselves the one same single church with many, many campuses, no matter how big they are.

But despite what they call themselves, whenever we got a network of churches—loose or tight, doesn’t matter—I’m gonna refer to them as denominations. Sometimes “denom” for short. (Not to be confused with “demon.” I’ll leave that for the anti-denominational folks.)

The baptism of Jesus. And adoption. And anointing.

Mark 1.9-11, Matthew 3.13-17, Luke 3.21-22.

Baptism, i.e. ritual washing, was usually for Jews who were ritually unclean: They’d touched an animal they weren’t allowed to eat, anything they found dead, an open wound; they’d expelled bodily fluids of one sort or another; in general they needed to wash themselves and their clothes before they went to temple. Pharisees co-opted the ritual and said you gotta do this before going to synagogue as well.

And John the baptist co-opted the ritual too, and used it on sinners who wanted to repent and get morally clean. Same practice, new idea.

Mark 1.9 KWL

It happens in these days Jesus comes from Nazareth of the Galilee,

and is baptized by John in the Jordan.

Matthew 3.13-15 KWL

13Then Jesus comes from the Galilee to the Jordan,

to John, to be baptized by him.

14John is preventing him, saying,

“I need to be baptized by you¹!

And you¹ come to me?”

15In reply Jesus told him, “Just permit it.

It’s appropriate for us to fulfill everything that’s right.”

So John permitted him.

As you see, when Jesus came south from the Galilee, went to the Jordan, and wanted baptism, John rightly objected. I’ll write it again: Rightly objected. John’s baptism was for sinners. Was Jesus a sinner? Nope. Did Jesus need to repent? Nope; never sinned, so nothing to repent of. He 4.15 So what’d he think he was doing? If a man goes through a baptism of repentance, yet he isn’t repentant at all and feels there’s nothing for him to repent of… wouldn’t we call this hypocrisy?

Well we would, but we’d never call Jesus a hypocrite. So we usually look the other way at this, and give Jesus a free pass.

Yet at the same time, continue to teach that Jesus didn’t need repentance, and underwent baptism so he could be a good example for Christians who actually need to repent. In other words, we teach he was totally behaving like something he’s not—that he was acting like a hypocrite.

Should we be teaching such a thing in the first place? If Jesus is no hypocrite, should we be teaching anything at all which could, on closer inspection, easily make Jesus out to be a hypocrite?

I would say no; and also Jesus has a legitimate, non-hypocritical reason for wanting baptism. Let’s get to that.

Love and romance.

I’m posting this article on St. Valentine’s Day, a feast day named for several ancient Christian martyrs named Valentine: Bishop Valentinus of Terni, Presbyter Valentinus of Rome, Valentinus of Raetia, Valentinus of Genoa, Valentinus the hermit, and Valentinus of North Africa. All their stories and myths got frapped together… and nobody cares about ’em anyway, ’cause Valentine’s Day is a commercial holiday. It’s meant to get people to buy stuff, or make various other expensive materialistic declarations of love, for the person they’re currently boning.

By “love” I mean one of the eight definitions of love. On Valentine’s Day, among Christians who know charity is the sort of love God is, the sort of love the scriptures point to… there might be some expressions of that: They love their partners with godly love. They want the best for their loved ones, even if that means sacrificing themselves. They expect nothing in return; it’s not a love which expects, even demands, reciprocity. They really do love like God does. Or strive to.

But Valentine’s Day isn’t at all about that sort of love. It’s about the romantic sort. It’s what the ancient Greeks meant by ἔρος/éros, the desire one has for the objects of their affection or infatuation, the desire lovers have for one another. (Éros is where we get our English word erotic.)

C.S. Lewis spent a quarter of his 1960 book The Four Loves on éros, and when Christians speak on love, a lot of times we likewise spend a chunk of time discussing éros. Although what we tend to do, incorrectly, is bash it.

1. First we define it as romantic love, erotic love, or lust.
2. Then we point out éros isn’t in the bible. (’Cause it’s not. Neither in the New Testament, nor the Septuagint.) It’s just a different Greek word for a concept we translate as “love”—which is all Lewis was writing about anyway. He was a classics scholar, after all; not a bible scholar.
3. Then spend the rest of our sermon railing against éros for not being godly love, the ἀγάπη/agápi Paul defined in 1 Corinthians 13.

Expect all that to be part of nearly every Valentine’s Day sermon. Oh wait; let me throw in an extra bonus point:

4. Some preachers will insist éros and romance aren’t any sort of “love.” Therefore we should only use the word “love” to mean agápi, to mean having patience and kindness and self-control and gentleness and all that other stuff Paul wrote. Romance isn’t love. Lust certainly isn’t love. So when people incorrectly use the word “love” to describe such things, correct ’em. “That’s romance. That’s lust. Not love. Real love is agápi.”

Sound about right?

But if you actually read The Four Loves you’ll notice Lewis didn’t define éros as romance or lust.

The bible in “the original Greek”: The Septuagint.

SEPTUAGINT sɛp'tu.ə.dʒɪnt noun. An ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament.

[Septuagintal sɛp.tu.ə'dʒɪnt.əl adjective.]

When you read the New Testament, and one of the apostles quotes the Old Testament, most of the time they’re not translating it from the original Hebrew. They’re quoting a Greek translation.

There wasn’t just one translation. Same as English versions of the bible nowadays, different translators had taken different shots at putting the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. Some Greek-speaking Jew in Jerusalem might put together something like a “King Jonathan’s Version,” or KJV; some Greek-speaking Jew in Egypt might’ve cobbled together an “Egyptian Standard Version,” or ESV; some curious gentile in Laodicea might’ve put together a “New Laodicean Translation,” or NLT… I could come up with more hypothetical reasons for these familiar initials, but you get the gist. But over time, copyists smooshed all these different Greek bibles together into one sorta-kinda-the-standard copy, and we call it the Septuagint.

Why’s it called the Septuagint? Funny story. According to a Pharisee legend, told in the Letter of Aristeas, King Ptolemy Philadelphius of Egypt wanted a copy of the bible for his famous Library of Alexandria. So he asked Jerusalem for translators; they sent him either 70 or 72 scribes, who cleverly answered Ptolemy’s test questions and got the job. Each were given their own room, got to translating, and when done all their translations miraculously matched, word-for-word. Therefore this is an inspired, inerrant translation of the bible. (Oh, and septuaginta is Latin for 70. It’s why people tend to use the abbreviation LXX, the Roman 70, for the Septuagint.)

Yeah, it’s as bogus as the myth KJV-only adherents have for their favorite translation. Because if it really were an infallible version of the bible, the New Testament authors would’ve quoted it, and only it, for their scriptures. Instead some apostles quoted it. And others translated the Hebrew for themselves. Paul went back and forth. Seems sometimes he just didn’t care for the way the Septuagint put it, and decided to phrase the original Hebrew in his own way.

Jesus of Nazareth, child prodigy.

Luke 2.41-52

Growing up, I’ve usually heard this story taught this way: Jesus, now that he’s old enough to go to temple, went there with the folks for Passover. Afterwards, he stuck around and got into an interesting chat with the rabbis, and lost utter track of time. Extending into days, if you can believe he never noticed the need to sleep, eat, pee, etc.

Meanwhile his unwitting parents got halfway back to Nazareth before finally noticing their son was absent. They turned back, finally found him talking shop in temple, and Mary rebuked him: “Your father and I were worried!” But Jesus came back with, “I was doing the work of my real Father.”

But, in order to maintain appearances—in order to look like an ordinary human boy, instead of exposing the fact he was secretly a God-boy—Jesus went back to Nazareth with them. Back to their confining, non-intellectual existence. Behaving himself, quietly waiting for another 18 years for his time to come.

Yeah, that interpretation’s got problems.

First let’s look at the actual story.

Luke 2.41-42 KWL

41Jesus’s parents went to temple every year to the Passover festival.

42When Jesus was 12 years old

they took him to the festival as customary.

As devout Jews, Joseph and Mary would’ve gone to temple three times a year, as the Law commanded. Ex 23.17, 34.23, Dt 16.16 It wasn’t an option; it’s what they did. It was katá to éthos/“by the custom,” or customary. They, and everyone in Nazareth who also followed the Law, would caravan to Jerusalem for Passover, Pentecost, and Sukkot. Probably stayed with family in Bethlehem, and went to Jerusalem during the day.

And of course Jesus went with them. Passover was a family thing. This wasn’t Jesus’s first Passover in Jerusalem. It was his 11th or 12th. (’Cause y’know, he missed that one when Herod Archelaus had gone nuts and killed a bunch of people.) The whole point of this feast, and every feast, was to celebrate what the LORD had done in the past, and pass the history down to your kids.

Deuteronomy 6.21-25 KWL

21Tell your child, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt,

and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

22The LORD gave prophetic signs and miracles, mighty—and bad—

to Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his house, right before our eyes.

23He brought us out of there, because he came to us

to give us the land he promised our ancestors.

24The LORD ordered us to do these duties, to live like today,

to fear our LORD God, who’s good to us every day.

25It’s only right of us that we keep doing this command

before our LORD God, like he charged us to.”

How Jesus became “Jesus the Nazarene.”

Imagine calling him “Jesus the Bethlehemite.” Hmm. Well, we’d have got used to it.

Matthew 2.19-23.

As we know from Luke, both Mary and Joseph were originally from Nazareth, but had to go to Bethlehem for survey reasons, and Jesus was born while they were there. But Matthew never told that part of the story; only that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Mt 2.1 If all you had was that gospel, you’d think that’s where they lived already. And maybe that’s what the author of Matthew believed.

’Cause what happened was after Joseph took the family to Egypt to escape Herod’s mad little bout of infanticide, God finally lets him know it’s safe to return… and in returning Joseph “came to settle in a city called Nazareth,” Mt 2.23 KWL which implies he hadn’t already settled in Nazareth, and just hadn’t been home in a while.

Well. Assuming, as most of us do, that Jesus was born around the year 7BC; that he was about two-ish when Herod came a-killing (round 5BC), and that the reason they needed to hightail it to Egypt was because Herod wasn’t gonna die for a while (which he did in late March 4BC), that’s roughly the time we’re talking about.

Matthew 2.19-22 KWL

19 On Herod’s passing, look: The Lord’s angel appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,

20 saying, “Get up. Take the child and his mother.

Go to Israel’s land: Those who sought the child’s life are dead.”

21 Getting up, Joseph took the child and his mother and went to Israel’s land.

22 Hearing Archelaus Herod was made Judea’s king after his father Antipater Herod, Joseph feared to go there.

After negotiating in a dream, he went back to a part of the Galilee.

But as you can see, once Joseph got back to Israel, he realized Judea was in no way a safe place to raise Jesus. ’Cause the Herod family was still in charge, and the crazy side of the Herod family was still in power.

Getting drenched in the Holy Spirit.

Spirit baptism is a controversial topic. ’Cause it involves power, and people either covet power, or fear it.

Luke 3.16-17 KWL

16 In reply John told everyone, “Indeed I baptize you in water.

And one stronger than me comes. I’m not able to loose his sandal strap.

He’ll baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire.

17 The winnowing-shovel is in his hand to thoroughly clean his threshing-floor.

He’ll gather together the grain in his silo.

He’ll burn up the straw with endless fire.”

Getting baptized, ritually washed, in water was not a new idea for John the Baptist’s listeners. Any time they wanted to be clean for worship, they baptized themselves and waited till sundown. John’s baptism, for those who were repentant of their sins, was a little different. But Jesus’s baptism would be way different. It involved the Holy Spirit. And fire.

Before Jesus ascended to heaven, he told his students to wait in Jerusalem for that baptism, Ac 1.4-5 and 10 days later this happened:

Acts 2.1-4 KWL

1 When the 50th day after Passover drew near, all were together in one place.

2 Suddenly a roar came from heaven, like a mighty wind sounds,

and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

3 Tongues, like fire, were seen distributed to them,

and sat on each one of them, 4 and all were filled with the Holy Spirit.

They began to speak in other tongues,

in whatever way the Spirit gave them the ability.

This, we recognize, is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire which both John and Jesus spoke of.

A number of Christians believe this was a one-time deal. The brand-new church, needing a kick in the pants from God to go out and do everything Jesus commanded them to, had God the Holy Spirit specially appear to them, prove he was among them, empower them, and from there they could go out and do the work of mighty Christians. Wouldn’t need to do it twice.

A larger number of Christians believe this so wasn’t a one-time deal. ’Cause it happened again. And again. And again and again and again. Happened to us. Still happens.

Yep, Christians have our own definition of “season.”

SEASON 'si.zən noun. An indeterminate period of time during which something happens.

Properly a season is a well-defined period of time. But people like to play fast and loose with how well-defined it actually is.

As soon as the weather switches to cold, whether that’s in November as usual, or freakishly earlier like September, people (Game of Thrones nerds included) start talking about winter: Winter’s coming. Some will go so far as to say winter’s here.

Winter’s not here till the winter solstice, which in the northern hemisphere is 21 December. Winter is defined by the time between the day of the year with the least daylight, and the next time we have equal day and night. Ends at the vernal equinox, 20 March. But that’s considered the scientific definition of winter, the too-literal definition. Winter means “the cold season,” however long that season lasts.

This sort of fudgery also happens with Christmastime. Again, Christmastime has a defined time: Starts on Advent, which begins the fourth Sunday before Christmas; ends at Epiphany, 6 January. And again, people figure “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” as soon as the stores start selling Christmas things—right after Halloween. Half of them object in rage: The Christmas season starts on Black Friday! Period! The rest of us actually like Christmas, and don’t mind it stretching back a little further. But it ends, as we all know, at midnight 26 December, when it’s time to take down the tree… then start debating whether Kwanzaa is a real holiday.

But as you notice, the human tendency is to take something which has limits and boundaries… then sand away at those edges till they’re nice and soft. Or till they break, and the contents spill over into whatever form we’ve invented.

So, “season.” As defined as ordinary seasons actually are, whenever we Christians start to talk about seasons, we don’t always talk about their boundaries. We don’t usually know them. We might know when a season began—we know it after the fact. But we don’t know when theyll end. We don’t know when the next one is coming. We don’t even know what the next one will consist of. We know what we hope it’ll consist of: We want it to be a season of prosperity, of joy, of blessing, of hope, of grace, of miracles, of anything positive. We’d like the next season to be better than our current one. Especially when the current one sucks, ’cause it could be a season of depression, of sorrow, of suffering, of hardship, of poverty—and we want it to end, and be replaced by something much better.

The prophets who recognized Jesus.

Luke 2.21-40.

Luke 2.21-24 KWL

21 Once eight days were fulfilled, Joseph circumcised him and declared his name Jesus,

which the angel called him before he was formed in the womb.

22 Once the days were fulfilled for Mary’s purification, according to Moses’s Law,

they took Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord,

23 just as it’s written in the Lord’s Law:

“Every male who opens a womb will be called holy to the Lord.” Ex 13.2, 12

24 And giving a sacrifice, according to the saying in the Lord’s Law:

“A pair of doves, or two young pigeons.” Lv 12.8

Jesus followed the Law. If he didn’t, he couldn’t be described as without sin, He 4.15 because sin is defined by the Law. Ro 3.20 And though, as an infant, he couldn’t yet do anything on his own to actively follow the Law, he had Law-abiding parents who took care of it for him. As instructed in the Law, eight days after birth Ge 17.12 (meaning he wasn’t born on Sabbath, contrary to some theories), Joseph circumcised his adoptive son, and as the angels instructed, named him Jesus. Mt 1.21, Lk 1.31

As for Mary, she was ritually unclean for 7 days, and unable to go to temple for 33 days. Lv 12.2, 4 But once her 33 days were up, she had to have a sheep sacrificed to represent her atonement, and a dove sacrificed for her sins. Lk 12.6-7 I know; Roman Catholics claim Mary never sinned. Well, she was ordered to sacrifice the dove anyway, and not sacrificing it would’ve been a sin. In fact, I guarantee you plenty of animals were sacrificed on Jesus’s behalf over his lifetime, even though he didn’t need a single one of them to die for any sins—but sacrificing them was part of the Law, so he offered ’em anyway. Really, not a one of them had ever taken away sin, He 10.4 for they were merely representative of Jesus’s later self-sacrifice. He 10.1 I’m getting way ahead of the story though.

Since Luke quotes the verse about how the poor can swap another dove for the sheep, Lv 12.8 it implies Joseph and Mary were poor. Which they likely were—by now, between baby expenses and the Romans’ taxes as part of their survey. Cash-poor meant doves or pigeons were a much more affordable option. You could catch birds for free, y’know.

On the way into the temple, Jesus’s parents were accosted by a prophet. Yes, there were still prophets back then. God never stopped having prophets, nor stopped speaking through them.

The sheep-herders’ vision of the angels.

Luke 2.8-20.

The same night Jesus was born, a bunch of angels appeared to some nearby herdsmen, scared the bejesus out of them, told them Christ had just been born, then let ’em watch the angels rejoice at what their Lord had done. Nice.

As usual I’m gonna pick apart that story in some detail, ’cause our average Christmas stories tend not to know the background (or care) and therefore miss significant things.

Luke 2.8 KWL

Sheep-herders were in that area, keeping watch over their flocks that night.

Starting with the poiménes/“pastors,” the shepherds, or sheep-herders. Most preachers like to point out these were rough, dirty, low-class people. These weren’t like your refined upper-class Pharisees, the sort of people who thought they should be the ones to receive God’s birth announcement when their foretold Christ (or Messiah, or anointed king) had come. Nope; God hadn’t sent angels to those jerks. He sent ’em to ordinary people. Commoners. Scum of the earth. Because God came to save regular joes, not know-it-alls.

Maybe I’m biased ’cause I tend to be one of the know-it-alls. But there’s just a bit of class warfare involved in that interpretation. Bashing snobbery is its own kind of snobbery, y’know; it’s not any better. And not appropriate when we’re talking about Jesus. He came to save everybody. Commoners and the upper class, tradesmen and herdsmen, laborers and scholars, Pharisees and pagans, Jews and gentiles, jerks and humble people. This good news, as the angel later said in verse 10, is for all people. Jerks included. Really, they need God’s forgiveness more.

Preachers also tend to describe these herdsmen as societal outcasts—for no good reason. Bethlehem was sheep-herding country for thousands of years, since the time of King David—himself a shepherd from that city. Most of the Bethlehemites were either in that business, or connected with it. Ain’t no shame in that business. It’s only our culture which tends to look down on ranchers or herdsmen or cowboys, and again for no good reason. It’s a class warfare thing; it’s the assumption that if you work with your hands, you don’t often work with your brain. President Harry Truman liked to point out how back when he was a farmer, he did a whole lot of thinking while he was behind the plow. Never underestimate laborers.

Once we look at the angel’s message to these herdsmen, we’ll see the angel obviously didn’t figure these guys to be dumb. Or second-class subjects. They’re some of the people Jesus came to save, who’d appreciate hearing their King was born. Plus it was late, and they were already awake, so why not them?

Christ the Savior is born.

Luke 2.1-7.

Luke 2.1-3 KWL

1 This happened in those days:

A ruling went out from Caesar Augustus

to survey the whole Empire.

2 This first survey happened

during Quirinius’s leadership of Syria,

3 and each and every one was traveling

to their hometowns to be surveyed.

Some bibles refer to this apo-gráfesthai/“write-up,” as a census. But it wasn’t just a head count. The United States takes censuses every decade to figure out how many representatives each state should get, but the Romans and other empires took censuses to figure out exactly how much tax money they should expect from their territories.

Historians were a little confused because for a long time they couldn’t find records of a specific Roman survey round the time of Jesus’s birth (roughly 7BC or so). They assumed surveys were rare, so something which’d have a lot of documentation around it. But surveys were regular. The Romans held one every few years. ’Cause they weren’t like the U.S. Census Bureau: They didn’t know how to estimate population growth inbetween surveys. The Roman army might’ve just put down a rebellion, crucified a slew of people, and so much for their calculations. Or conquered a new territory. Or there might’ve been an unexpected growth spurt somewhere, or a plague elsewhere. Best to just survey everybody all over again. Plus you could throw in a poll tax, where everybody who shows up for survey has to pay a denarius for their pains.

Now for the date. Luke tries to pin it down by mentioning the Roman emperor, Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus (Gaius Octavius’s official name by that point); and a certain Syrian leader, Publius Sulpicius Quirinius. Here’s the problem: In 7BC, the year we’re figuring for this survey, the praetores/“leaders” of Syria were Gaius Sentius Saturninus, whose term was up; and Publius Quinctilius Varus, whose term began. Quirinius didn’t became praetor till year 6 of the Christian Era. But Jesus was born before the death of Herod of Jerusalem in 4BC—’cause Herod ordered Jesus killed. Mt 2.16 So we have a continuity problem.

Here are the popular solutions to the problem. Pick your favorite.

• SKEPTICS: Doesn’t matter. It’s all mythology anyway.
• INERRANTISTS: The Roman and Jewish historians, and every historian since, have the dates wrong. Luke doesn’t. Quirinius was totally governor at the time. The bible rules.
• THOSE WITH REALLY OUT-OF-DATE REFERENCE BOOKS (’cause they don’t trust present-day scholars): Maybe Quirinius served two terms, with a first term before Saturninus? [A theory pitched back when there were a few gaps in Roman Syrian history. Archaeologists have filled them since.]
• THOSE SEEKING GRAMMATICAL LOOPHOLES: Granted, Quirinius wasn’t praetor till 6CE. But back in 7BC he was a legatus/“officer”—a military leader in charge of Syria’s defense and foreign policy, if not the proper governor. He held a position of igemonéfontos/“leadership,” Lk 2.2 right? He could’ve supervised the Roman survey, right? Close enough, right?
• INERRANTISTS (who by “inerrancy” only mean the original texts were inerrant, not our current copies): The original text of Luke must have “Saturninus,” or “before Quirinius’s leadership of Syria.” Either way, some copyist slipped up and wrote “Quirinius,” so now we have a boo-boo in the bible.
• NON-INERRANTISTS: Luke mixed up the governors.

Got one chosen? Goody. Now on with the commentary.

True compassion: Offer help, not just advice.

Hebrews 4.14-16 KWL

14 Since we have a great head priest who passed through the heavens—Jesus, God’s son—

we should hold sway by agreeing with him:

15 We don’t have a head priest who can’t sympathize with our weaknesses.

He was tested by everything just the same—and passed the test sinlessly.

16 So we should come to his gracious throne boldly:

We should receive mercy. We should find the grace to help us in time.

The fruit of the Holy Spirit reflects the thinking and attitude of the Spirit, those traits of his which oughta come pouring out of the people he lives within. And which are invisible, or nearly so, in the people he’s not within—or they’ve figured out a way to fake ’em.

Compassion, the ability to feel for other people, to sympathize with what they’re going through, to want to be gracious and helpful to them, is definitely a Christlike trait. Conversely its lack is definitely an antichristlike trait. Christians will care; antichrists won’t. Christians will reach out when people have need; antichrists will figure those people aren’t their problem… till they start affecting property values or taxes. Or if people who lack compassion wanna look good to the public, or get tax breaks, they figure maybe they should help those people; maybe not exactly the way those people want, but what do they know? If they knew better they wouldn’t be needy. Beggars shouldn’t be choosers anyway.

I’ve worked in a few different charities, and saw firsthand the differing attitudes of the religious and irreligious folks who worked there. In the Christians you’d see the other fruit of the Spirit come out: Patience, kindness, joy, love. In the irreligious Christians and the pagans, frustration, harshness, sarcasm, coldness. “These people. God. They’re so pathetic. Why should we have to help them? Why can’t they pull themselves up by their own bootstraps? Best thing for them. Makes ’em independent. Makes ’em tough and hard. Like me.”

Yeah, I’ve met a lot of not-so-compassionate people in the church, offering their frigid sort of “comfort” to the suffering. I’ve been the recipient of some of it.

Taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Deuteronomy 5.11.

Deuteronomy 5.11 KJV

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Christians often teach, and pagans often assume, “taking the Lord’s name in vain” refers to swearing with God’s name. Might be when we blurt out “God!” in surprise, or “Christ!” in pain, or “Oh Lord!” in exasperation, or “God damn it!” in anger.

Scandalized yet? Most Christians are. “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain!” There’s a whole commandment against it. It’s one of the top ten. “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain” forbids us from using “God” as any part, or as the whole, of a swear word.

Well, that’s partly correct. The command is about God’s name and swearing. But it’s not about swearing “God!” It’s not about profanities.

• It’s about swearing to God, yet we’re totally lying.
• It’s about promising, “as God is my witness,” but we’re not gonna.
• It’s about declaring things in Christ’s name, yet we don’t really believe we’re gonna get what we’ve declared.
• It’s about name-dropping God as our guide, aid, judge, support, and copilot… but we’re hypocrites.

Vain means useless, and taking the Lord’s name in vain means we’re using his name in a useless cause. And yeah, swearing with his name is pretty useless too, but that wasn’t what God was trying to crack down on with his command. He was ordering the Hebrews to stop using his name casually. Y’see, when we invoke God, he takes those statements seriously. He is not a God to be trifled with.

For the LORD won’t hold us guiltless—in today’s English, “won’t let you go unpunished” (NLT) —if we swear by his name, and don’t follow through.

The birth of John the baptist.

John’s birth both fulfilled and inspired prophecy.

Luke 1.57-80

When Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and announced he’d have a son, the confirmation of its prophecy was Zechariah would be mute áhri is iméras géniti távta/“until the day this one is born.” Lk 1.19

Problem is, if you’re a biblical literalist—you insist the bible be interpreted as literally as possible—it’s not literally what happened. Zechariah was mute for more than a week after John’s birth, and didn’t speak till his circumcision. Doesn’t matter what logical gymnastics you use to prove Gabriel didn’t really mean John’s birthday, or that “the day this one is born” can be fudged to mean a week or so (an exactitude such people won’t apply to the six days of creation). Gabriel’s prophecy was fulfilled, but not with the precision any literalist demands. As is true of every prophecy—and all of scripture.

But let’s not poke that bear any further. On to the bible!

Luke 1.57-61 KWL

57 Time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she had a son.

58 Her neighbors and relatives heard God had shown her great mercy, and rejoiced with her.

59 On the eighth day it happened that the family came to circumcise the baby.

They were calling him by Zechariah, his father’s name.

60 In reply his mother said, “No; he’ll be called John.”

61 They told her, “None of your relatives are called by that name.”

My irritating politics.

My politics annoy people.

I’m not as conservative as my friends assume I should be. To their minds, all Christians should be as conservative as they. If we’re not, they wonder just how Christian we really are. ’Cause in their minds, Christianity is conservatism; conservatism is Christianity; if you follow Jesus you’re naturally gonna think like they do. Thanks to the human self-preservation instinct, they assume because I don’t think like they do, I’m the one at fault. I’m wrong. (Doesn’t help that I’ll totally admit that.)

I’m not as progressive as my other friends assume I should be. To their minds, all Christians should buck the knee-jerk conservatism of popular Christian culture, ’cause it’s hypocrisy, corrupted by social Darwinists who’ve manipulated gullible social conservatives into adopting their worldview and voting their way. Because I still side with conservatives on many issues, they reckon I’m still stuck in my old knee-jerk ways; I’m not as “enlightened” as they. Not yet. I’ve come this far, so they’ve not given up hope. But they do wish I’d hurry up.

So whenever I express a view, I’m gonna annoy one camp or the other.

That’s the trouble with being a political moderate. Contrary to what Rush Limbaugh’s always taught, a moderate isn’t someone who wants to please everybody and can’t pick a side. Such people do exist, but they’re not moderates. They’re apolitical: They don’t have a side—and don’t care enough to choose one. A true moderate has totally chosen sides: We ally with conservatives on certain issues, progressives on others. Not for the same reasons—because our worldviews don’t match.

See, I’m trying to follow Jesus. No, I’m not saying my conservative and progressive friends aren’t trying to follow Jesus. Some of ’em are, and some not. Some of them think they are, and some aren’t even trying. It’s just that in my quest for Jesus, he points me in directions different Americans consider leftward or rightward. I’m trying to be consistent with his standard, not any one party’s.

I know; some of you totally understand Jesus transcends politics, so you can respect that. But plenty of people don’t believe any such thing: If Jesus could vote, he’d absolutely be in their party. No question. Have you seen the pagans in the opposition party? Great googly moogly.

“Lay down your life” means what now?

John 15.13.

John 15.13 NIV

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

I know; George Benson’s popular 1977 song “Greatest Love of All” (which Whitney Houston remade in 1985) said learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all. Obviously the lyricist didn’t read her bible, and figured the way to feel best about herself was to value herself way above her friends. (Didn’t I just write about how people are inherently selfish?) No surprise, popular culture gets it wrong again.

Translators are awfully fond of phrasing this verse Yoda-style: Object-verb-subject “Greater love has no one,” rather than the usual subject-verb-object “No one has greater love” of today’s English. (The NRSV phrases it normally.) It’s ’cause the King James Version is the most familiar form of the verse, and if translators make it too different for no good reason, people balk. I think clear, readable English is a darned good reason. But that’s me.

Anyway. Right after the average preacher quotes this verse, it’s immediately pointed out, “Jesus demonstrated this very truth himself: He laid down his life for his friends. He died for their sins on the cross. He died for all of us, because he considers all of us his friends. There’s no greater love than Jesus’s love.”

There is no greater love than Jesus’s, but when Jesus made this statement, he wasn’t talking about his soon-coming death on the cross. He was talking about submitting to one another, Ep 5.21 instead of looking out for ourselves. It’s about living for one another. Not dying for one another.

How CCLI shakes down your church.

One of my responsibilities at my church is multimedia. Yep, I’m the guy who makes sure the words to the worship songs are on the screen, so you can sing along to them.

When I was a kid we still had hymnals. Then we upgraded to overhead projectors; then PowerPoint; then specialized multimedia presentation software which was pretty much PowerPoint with a huge database of songs. Currently I’m using this app called ProPresenter. It’s not bad.

Whether you’re using one app or another, it pretty much works the same way: Our worship leader tells me which songs she intends to inflict on us Sunday morning. If I don’t already have slides for that song, I hop onto the CCLI database and get the lyrics. Then make slides for the verses, the chorus, the bridge, the “extemporaneous riffs” which are really just imitations of what the original musicians did on their YouTube video, and there y’go. Ready for Sunday.

What’s CCLI? It’s Christian Copyright Licensing International, a royalty collection agency. They charge each church an annual fee (anywhere from $49 to $4,260, depending on size), which grants permission to collect sheet music from their site. Chord, lead, or vocal sheets, and their site can transpose it into other keys for you. (That feature’s actually quite handy.) Once you inform them which songs you’ve used, they’ll send royalties to the artists.

And, they claim, you need them. If you do all sorts of things in your church—display or photocopy lyrics, distribute chord sheets, sing popular songs—you need CCLI. What’s implied is you need them lest you violate copyright laws. Point of fact, what you only get from them are sheet music and lyrics.

That’s not nothing. Other lyric websites might misspell words, mix up lyrics, forget to capitalize God’s pronouns, and get the chords wrong. Although years ago I heard Phil Keaggy complain CCLI didn’t get his chords right either, which is why his fans were having such trouble duplicating one of his songs. (To be fair, CCLI probably got the bad info from Keaggy’s publisher, who transcribed the song without any input from Keaggy.)

But copyright protection? Actually, CCLI doesn’t give you that. ’Cause your church doesn’t need it.

You read me right. Your church doesn’t need copyright protection. American copyright laws specifically exempt churches. I’ll quote you the law ’n everything.

Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 [the copyright holder’s rights], the following are not infringements of copyright: […]

(3) performance of a nondramatic literary or musical work or of a dramatico-musical work of a religious nature, or display of a work, in the course of services at a place of worship or other religious assembly[.] 17 USC §110

Meaning, in other words, singing a song in church, whether as worship, or as “special music.” Meaning when you play a song over the loudspeakers.

If you do this in church, you’re fine. You’re legal. The music publishing companies won’t send a jackbooted tach team to interrupt your services and haul the pastors off to music jail. No matter how much the more paranoid folks in your church would love to see that scenario, as proof the world is out to get ’em.

Back to the Book Pile.

I know; books aren’t everyone’s thing. That’s why, according to Christ Almighty’s stats, last month’s Book Pile article was the least-read thing last month. The public has spoken, and it’s a resounding, “Good Lord, Leslie, you write 1,000-word essays and you expect me to throw books on that? What’re you trying to do, kill me?” Followed by a quick Netflix binge, just to get the foul taste out of their system. (Shudder.) Reading. Ugh.

But for the tiny minority who wants to know what literature I’m plowing through, ’cause they figure it’ll give them some insight into my odd little mind, here y’go. Glean what you can from it. This month:

• The Last Days According to Jesus by R.C. Sproul.
• Did God Kill Jesus? by Tony Jones.
• Imagine Heaven by John Burke.
• If I Had Lunch with C.S. Lewis by Alister McGrath.

Next month, more books. ’Cause I’m gonna keep reading… and gonna keep ranting about the stuff I read, whether it’s the obligatory book-review stuff, or the things I read for fun. Yeah, I read theology books for fun. It’s how I roll.

Sealed—not yet baptized—with the Holy Spirit.

’Cause there’s a difference between the two, despite what non-charismatics claim.

Ephesians 1.13-14 KWL

13 In Christ you heard the truthful word—the good news of your salvation!

In Christ you believed; you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit!

14 He’s the down payment of our inheritance—

releasing our trust fund—praising God’s glory.

’Member when you got saved? Maybe not; maybe it was a gradual process. Doesn’t matter. At some point in that process God decided to take up residence in your life. We call it indwelling. You got “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,” as Paul put it. He’s in you. Right now. Whispering God’s will into you. Hope you’re listening.

Now, non-charismatics claim when the Spirit gets into us like that, yeah it’s called indwelling, but it’s also called “the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” Lk 3.16, Ac 1.4-5 Those two events, they insist, are one and the same. ’Cause the Holy Spirit gets in you and on you, kinda like the water does in the baptismal when you don’t hold your nose.

Why do they claim this? ’Cause they’re non-charismatics. A charismatic believes God absolutely does miracles in the present day. A non-charismatic really doesn’t think so. Some of ’em will be full-on cessationist and claim the miracles stopped back in bible times. Others know better—why even pray, why even ask God for stuff, if he’s tied his own hands and won’t intervene? But they either insist miracles are rare, ’cause for some reason God doesn’t want to overplay his hand; or they insist God only works through natural means, not supernatural.

And if God doesn’t do supernatural stuff, the Holy Spirit’s baptism doesn’t look like it does in Acts 2. Instead it’s invisible. Unnoticeable. Can’t tell the difference between Spirit baptism and when your phone starts to vibrate in your pants pocket. Plus it happens when you got saved: When you were sealed to the Spirit, you were simultaneously baptized by him. Didn’t you feel great when you came to Jesus? Well that’s Spirit baptism. You’re welcome.

Charismatics, by comparison, believe Spirit baptism is gonna resemble its description in the bible. Maybe not with rushing wind and tongues of fire. Then again, maybe so. But if that doesn’t happen, there will at least be speaking in tongues—a topic I’ll discuss elsewhere.

But not today. Today I just wanna make clear: Getting sealed with the Spirit is not the same as getting baptized in the Spirit. One happens when you come to Jesus. The other happens when the Spirit decides you’re ready to use his power.

Jesus’s two genealogies.

Matthew 1.1-17, Luke 3.23-38.

Most Christians are aware Jesus has two genealogies.

These aren’t genealogies the way we do ’em. We do family trees: We include ancestors from all sides of the family, fathers and mothers both. Often we include aunts, uncles, and cousins; if we’re not particular about blood relations we’ll even include step-parents. Our family trees can get big and complicated.

Hebrew genealogies don’t. They turn into trees downward, when they’re listing one person’s descendants, as you can see from the first chapters of 1 Chronicles. But when they’re listing ancestors, they’re straight lines: You, your father, your father’s father, that grandfather’s father, that great-grandfather’s father, and so on back.

Thing is, Jesus has two of these lists. In Matthew 1, it’s a list of ancestors from Abraham to Joseph. And in Luke 4, it’s a list of male ancestors backwards, from Joseph to Adam to God. And they don’t match.

Parts do. But a whole lot of it doesn’t. I’ll let you read it.

Matthew 1.1-17 KJV 1The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; 3and Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; 4and Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon; 5and Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; 6and Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias; 7and Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa; 8and Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias; 9and Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias; 10and Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias; 11and Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon: 12and after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel; 13and Zorobabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim begat Azor; 14and Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud; 15and Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob; 16and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. 17So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.

Luke 3.23-38 KJV 23And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli, 24which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Janna, which was the son of Joseph, 25which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Amos, which was the son of Naum, which was the son of Esli, which was the son of Nagge, 26which was the son of Maath, which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Semei, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Juda, 27which was the son of Joanna, which was the son of Rhesa, which was the son of Zorobabel, which was the son of Salathiel, which was the son of Neri, 28which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Addi, which was the son of Cosam, which was the son of Elmodam, which was the son of Er, 29which was the son of Jose, which was the son of Eliezer, which was the son of Jorim, which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, 30which was the son of Simeon, which was the son of Juda, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Jonan, which was the son of Eliakim, 31which was the son of Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David, 32which was the son of Jesse, which was the son of Obed, which was the son of Booz, which was the son of Salmon, which was the son of Naasson, 33which was the son of Aminadab, which was the son of Aram, which was the son of Esrom, which was the son of Phares, which was the son of Juda, 34which was the son of Jacob, which was the son of Isaac, which was the son of Abraham, which was the son of Thara, which was the son of Nachor, 35which was the son of Saruch, which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec, which was the son of Heber, which was the son of Sala, 36which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which was the son of Noe, which was the son of Lamech, 37which was the son of Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Cainan, 38which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

Positive. Encouraging. White. K-LOVE.

’Cause without that space, they’ve simply misspelled “clove.”

I stopped listening to radio in the early ’00s, ’cause I got an MP3 player. It wasn’t the iPod I wanted; I finally got one of those in ’04. It was a pocket computer, a Windows PocketPC; imagine a smartphone which wasn’t a phone, or a tablet which was more phone-sized. Among other things, it included a mobile version of Windows Media Player. I also discovered podcasts around that time, and even though I still had dial-up internet at home, I set up my good ol’ Gateway to download a bunch of shows overnight, and I started ripping every CD I owned into Media Player files. Loaded up the SD card and never looked back.

(The pocket computer still works, by the way. I used it till I finally bought an Android tablet. I like to use my technology till it completely dies, or is so obsolete I can’t really use it anymore. Still got my clamshell iBook too. But I digress.)

The last radio stations I regularly listened to was a “nineties and now” station at home, and a Christian pop station at work. ’Cause I was teaching at a Christian school, and some of the bluenoses frowned on the secular stuff. I could only get away with jazz, ’cause they had no clue Louis Armstrong was sky-high on “gage,” as he called it, whenever he sang; or that Miles Davis was half out of his mind on heroin. For that matter, we have no idea how many tabs of Vicodin our favorite Christian artists might’ve been prescribed when they recorded… but again, I digress. Point is, don’t judge.

On my way to work, if I ran out of podcasts, I’d sometimes tune in to preacher radio. And get annoyed when the station was full of cessationists, all of whom preach the impotent gospel of “Christianity isn’t what we do; it’s what we believe. So get your theology straight.” ’Cause when Jesus separates the sheep from the goats, Mt 25.31-46 he’s gonna quiz us on the catechism, right? Feh.

Christian pop stations were annoying too. All happy, peppy, but not-at-all-challenging music. Plus that particular station kept promoting itself with the slogan, “Safe for the whole family.” I grew up on Narnia books, so my attitude about Christ is more like that of the Beavers on Aslan in the first one: “Safe? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he’s not safe. But he’s good.”

No, the station wasn’t K-LOVE. Which did exist at the time: It broadcast out of Santa Rosa since 1982, changed its name to K-LOVE in ’88, moved to Sacramento in ’93, then to Rocklin in ’02. All this time it was buying translators and piping its signal to other cities, building its network. Northern California, where I live, is its home turf.

The more MP3s I accumulated, the more my interest in broadcast radio shrunk to nothing. By 2006 I didn’t even have a radio. Mom had my boombox—still does, and is welcome to it—and maybe there’s an old FM radio or two in a bin in the garage somewhere. The rare times I bother with radio, it’s an internet station. That’s it. If someone needs to broadcast something over the Emergency Alert System, I’m not gonna hear it. Oh well, so much for the tornado warnings.

But sometimes radio is inflicted upon me. Not just in stores which pipe it over the public address. Way too many of my fellow Christians are listening to K-LOVE. So when I’m at their houses, in their cars, or it’s a church work day and someone other than me is in charge of the music (and thank God, that’s not always the case), guess which radio network we’re tuned into? It’s that, or K-LOVE’s “edgier” sister network Air 1.

TXAB’s 2016 Presidential Antichrist Watch.

Every presidential election year in the United States, we get doomsayers who claim this or that candidate is probably the Beast of Revelation 13, or as popular Christian culture calls it, the Antichrist. Or wannabe prophets claim one of the candidates is Jesus’s personal choice; if he held American citizenship (and I’m surprised one of the parties hasn’t voted him an honorary one by now) he’d totally pick that guy.

Of course none of these folks have any insight, supernatural or not. They’re proclaiming their own personal politics. Some of ’em do it every election. In the process, any such “prophets” unwittingly expose themselves as false ones, even when their favored candidates win. Because God’s will is for Jesus to reign, not some party, nor some politician. Lucky for them, we no longer stone false prophets to death. Man would that be satisfying.

I will point out it’s totally possible to determine which of these contenders might actually be the Beast. Seriously. Because at the end of chapter 13, John stated the Beast’s number is that of a human, and it’s 666. Rv 13.18 Meaning if we know what John meant by “its number”—and we do—we can calculate it.

Ready to find out which of the candidates are devil-spawn? Wait, lemme rephrase that: Ready to find out which of these folks are the ultimate devil-spawn? Well then you’re ready for TXAB’s 2016 Presidential Antichrist Watch.

The 2016 list.

The tricky part was trying all the variants of each candidate’s names. ’Cause Revelation doesn’t offer instructions: It’s not necessarily one’s full name, first ’n last ’n middle ’n maiden. It’s one’s name… which, I figure, could mean any reasonable configuration which adds up to 666. So I tried all the possibilities: Full names, nicknames, Hebrew-equivalent names, initials. Whatever jiggery-pokery got us closest to 666. Because if I didn’t, some conspiracy-theorist would, so I figured I’d beat ’em to the punch. Hey, if any reasonable-enough variant hits 666, maybe we do have something. And maybe not. I’m just the messenger.

Below are the closest results: It’s no coincidence they’re in the 500-700 range, ’cause that’s the range I was aiming for. I included candidates, potential candidates, and drop-outs, just in case. Nope, didn’t include third parties; they don’t win.

REPUBLICAN	IN HEBREW ALPHABET	NUMBER
Jeb Bush	יוחנן אליס בוש (Yochanan [John] Ellis Bush)	533
Ben Carson	בנימין ס קרסון (Benjamin S. Carson)	638
Chris Christie	כריס כריסטי	599
Ted Cruz	רפאל א קרוז (Rafael E. Cruz)	625
Mark Everson	מארק אוורסון	670
Jack Fellure	לואל ג'קסון פאללור (Lowell Jackson Fellure)	633
Carly Fiorina	קארלי פיורינה	702
Jim Gilmore	ג'יימס סטיוארט גילמור (James Stewart Gilmore)	707
Lindsey Graham	לינדסי אולין גרהם (Lindsey Olin Graham)	509
Mike Huckabee	מיכאל דייל האקבי (Michael Dale Huckabee)	273
Bobby Jindal	פיוש "בובי" ג'ינדאל (Piyush “Bobby” Jindal)	514
John Kasich	יוחנן ר קייסיק (Yochanan [John] R. Kasich)	614
George Pataki	ג'ורג' אלמר פטאקי (George Elmer Pataki)	683
Rand Paul	רנדל הווארד פול (Randal Howard Paul)	622
Rick Perry	יעקב ר פרי (Yaqov [James] R. Perry)	672
Marco Rubio	מרקו רוביו	570
Rick Santorum	ריק סנטורום	681
Donald Trump	דונלד יוחנן טראמפ (Donald Yochanan [John] Trump)	548
Scott Walker	סקוט קווין ווקר (Scott Kevin Walker)	659

 

DEMOCRAT	IN HEBREW ALPHABET	NUMBER
Joe Biden	יוסף רובינט ביידן (Joseph Robinette Biden)	509
Jeff Boss	ג'ף בוס	151
Lincoln Chafee	לינקולן ד צאפי (Lincoln D. Chafee)	461
Hillary Clinton	הילארי ר קלינטון (Hillary R. Clinton)	711
Lawrence Lessig	לורנס לסיג	449
Martin O’Malley	מרטין יוסף אומאלי (Martin Joseph O’Malley)	553
Bernie Sanders	ברני סנדרס	636
Jim Webb	יעקב הנרי ווב (Yaqov [James] Henry Webb)	461
Robby Wells	רוברט ולס (Robert Wells)	513
Willie Wilson	וילי וילסון	218

So there we are: None of the candidates appear to hit the relevant number. Now, whether their behavior or policies are Beast-like is a whole other ball of wax.

Back in 2012…

Some years ago I got into a political discussion (seldom a wise idea) with a fan of Pat Robertson. So for fun—hey, maybe I’d hit the magic number and horrify him!—I calculated Robertson’s name. No dice. Oh well.

Out of curiosity I tried a few of the front-runners’ names. Then I plugged in Mitt Romney’s name… and stuff got serious. Well, semi-serious. ’Cause Romney’s full name (Willard Mitt Romney, וילארד מיט רומני in Hebrew) came up 616. And I just so happen to know that in a few ancient copies of Revelation, the Beast’s number isn’t 666. It’s that number: 616.

Now, 616 is a textual variant, which means it’s not what the best ancient copies of Revelation have. And since Romney didn’t win the 2012 election, any worries people might’ve had, have (thus far) gone unfounded. Still…

Really, that’s the whole point behind calculating people’s numbers. It’s so Christians can watch out for them. That’s all. It’s not divine determinism: Anyone whose name adds up to 666 is foreordained to be the Beast. Just because your parents didn’t stop by the local Kabbalist to make sure they named you something benign, doesn’t make you the Beast. Being the Beast makes you the Beast.

In other words: Pursuing power instead of surrendering it, lying instead of seeking the truth, being a hypocrite instead of being transparent… basically if you’re in politics at all, you’re a much better match for the Beast than the average citizen who covets none of those things. (Or, better, who follows Jesus.)

I was a little surprised some news outlet didn’t pick up on Romney’s number and have a little fun with it. Then again, maybe they knew all along and squelched it… or maybe that’s just paranoia talking. ’Cause paranoia will come out with all this Beast-talk. Gotta keep our heads, folks.