Self-control: Get ahold of yourself!

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

Wrong. And lazy.

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

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

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

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

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

Romans 7.14-20 NASB

14For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold into bondage to sin. 15For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate. 16However, if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, that the Law is good. 17But now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me. 18For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 19For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20But if I do the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.

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

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

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

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

Strive for greater supernatural gifts!

1 Corinthians 12.28-31.

Part of the reason Paul and Sosthenes raised the subject of supernatural gifts was so we Christians wouldn’t be ignorant of ’em. 1Co 12.1 Too many are—both those who recognize God still empowers them, and those who insist he doesn’t. I, like the apostles, am only addressing that first group. That second group can just ignore me, same as they do the apostles.

There are all sorts of gifts, empowered by one and the same Holy Spirit, 1Co 12.4 distributed among Christians so they can contribute to Christianity’s unity. But do we see all Christians using these gifts to energize their various ministries? Do we see all Christians seeking and practicing these supernatural gifts? Miracles breaking out everywhere, mighty acts of power convincing the world God is really among us, the weak and sick flocking to churches because they know God has the cure, the lost and confused seeking out Christians because they know God has answers?

I wish. And I’m pretty sure Jesus, and plenty of my fellow Christians, wish so too.

What we see instead, for the most part, are people who are far more interested in using the power of politics than the power of the Holy Spirit. Who look to what money can do, rather than what the Spirit can do. Whose vision is based on developing and capitalizing on their own natural talents, rather than trusting the Spirit to do the heavy lifting. And yeah, there are cessationists who think God turned off the miracles, but they aren’t the real problem; they’re just a loud but tiny minority. It’s Christians who do believe in miracles, but don’t act on this belief any.

Same as the cessationists, they read this passage and reduce it to job titles. And sometimes adopt these titles, and remind everyone within earshot they hold these titles, so give respect where respect is due. Meanwhile they’re not growing God’s kingdom much. Mostly it’s just their own little fiefdoms. It’s a far cry from the Spirit’s intent.

1 Corinthians 12.28-31 KWL

28This is who God put in the church:

First apostles. Second prophets.

Third teachers. Then powers.

Then supernatural healing. Support.

Leadership. Different kinds of tongues.

29Not everyone’s an apostle.

Not everyone’s a prophet.

Not everyone’s a teacher.

Not everyone works acts of power.

30Not everyone has supernatural healing.

Not everyone speaks in tongues.

Not everyone interprets tongues. Right?

31Strive for greater supernatural gifts!

And I’ll show you how—by an outstanding way.

This is what we oughta see in our churches: Apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, the sick getting cured, the needy getting helped, the lost getting led, and loads of prayer. And if we don’t, we need to strive to see more: They need to become a greater part of our churches and Christian life.

Postmodernism: Don’t take “truths” for granted.

POSTMODERN poʊs(t)'mɑd.ərn adjective. Coming later than modern.

2. A 20th century concept and style in arts and criticism, representing a departure from modernism, typified by a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies.

3. Anti-modern.

[Pomo 'poʊ.moʊ abbreviation, postmodernism poʊs(t)'mɑd.ərn.iz.əm noun, postmodernist poʊs(t)'mɑd.ərn.ist adjective, postmodernity poʊs(t).moʊd'ər.nə.di noun.]

Seems I grew up postmodern. I just didn’t know it had a name. I also didn’t realize, at the time, how badly it scared the heebie-jeebies out of many a Christian apologist.

The label’s not new. It first cropped up in the 1950s. Artists and architects started using it to describe the hip, exciting things they were doing. The current scene was “modern,” so they claimed they were beyond modern, post modern; whatever modern was, they weren’t. Pomo is a common abbreviation, although some pomos really hate it. I don’t, and use it.

Gradually people began to claim postmodernism is more than just their artistic style; it’s their worldview, the way they interpret the world around them, particularly the society we live in. Like the artists, they didn’t begin with any precise definition: Other people were modern, and they were somehow beyond that.

But postmodern grew to become defined as “very, very skeptical of modern.”

If you’ve not heard this definition before, I don’t blame you. When I first heard the term “postmodernism” in seminary, Christian apologists were describing it as “rejecting reality, in favor of one’s own invented reality.” Which is hardly a new philosophy; everybody does that. Little kids do it: “No! I don’t believe you! It’s not true!” [covers ears with hands] “La la la I can’t hear you.” And no doubt you’ve noticed loads of people in politics do it too. Always have.

But believing in your own fictions instead of the real world, isn’t postmodernism. You want a proper definition of postmodernism, you gotta set aside your own knee-jerk prejudices and ask a postmodern. Or read some of their books. I was trained in journalism long before I was trained in theology, so I tracked down and read a bunch of original sources… and realized that’s me. That’s totally me. I’m postmodern. Surprise!

Postmodernism is in many ways a backlash to the philosophy of modernism, which is the way people have been looking at the world since the French Enlightenment in the 1700s. It’s this presumption humanity’s grand destiny is to achieve greatness by mastering (or conquering) our environment through the use of reason, logic, math, and science. With effort we can learn the universal truths behind everything, harness the great natural forces, and solve every problem. We can figure out the best way for everyone to live, and achieve peace and harmony and prosperity. You know, like Star Trek, or Donald Fagen’s song “I.G.Y.”

Whereas we postmoderns are entirely sure that’s all a pipe dream.

Bad candidates, Big Pictures, and false prophets.

California, the state where I live, is two-thirds Democratic. Only liberal Republicans get elected to statewide offices anymore. Otherwise we elect Democrats, same as we have in the last six presidential contests. Barring some freak occurrence, we’re electing a Democrat to the Senate this year, and all our 55 electoral votes are going to the Democratic nominee for president.

So it’s out of my hands. Doesn’t matter whether I vote with the Democratic supermajority or against it.

I suppose I can concentrate on the other elections—which stand more of a chance of affecting my daily life. Got a city council race. A congressional race. State propositions.

But I keep coming back to the presidential race. Mainly because the candidates are so galling. The “third party” candidates are barely worth mentioning: One is greatly uninformed (and probably useless every day after 4:20 p.m.; you know why). One has demonstrated she’s more interested in being right than in making deals and bringing people to consensus, which is half the president’s job.

As for the institutional parties: The Democrat is largely competent, though I disagree with her in many areas. But she has a significant character defect: She’s willing to make serious ethical lapses, and justify them to herself because her intentions or goals were good. Let’s also not forget the level of grace ambitious people will automatically grant themselves—even though they’ll seldom grant it to others.

In any other election year, I’d easily lean towards her opponent. But it’s not just any other election year. She has great flaws, but her Republican opponent is vastly worse.

I likewise disagree with him in many areas. Particularly his xenophobia, his lack of knowledge of international issues, his tactless forms of diplomacy (and how he dropped his bluster during a trip to Mexico, demonstrating how he can’t be consistent in that either), his opportunistic switch to the prolife movement so as to appease Evangelicals, and his unproven economic and military beliefs. That’s in the areas where he’s expressed a coherent opinion. In most other situations his opinion is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

I mentioned the Democratic candidate’s ethical lapses. The Republican candidate has the very same problem. But there’s more. Time and again he expresses little to no respect for the value of others; women in particular. Disagree with him, or challenge him in any way, and he responds with ridiculous insults, holds the grudge far longer than reasonable, and fires you if he can. If he doesn’t know, he lies; if he does know, he exaggerates; if he has to admit he’s wrong, he pretends he was never wrong to begin with. He makes foolish statements on a whim, holds no counsel with anyone but toadies, takes no thought nor care to the international fallout.

He’s a manchild. His immature character renders him wholly unfit for any leadership position.

Oaths, honesty, and multiple levels of truth.

Matthew 5.33-37.

Switching topics from divorce, Jesus next moves on in his Sermon on the Mount, to oaths. (Which isn’t entirely unrelated to oaths, ’cause y’know, marriage oaths.) This passage doesn’t have a parallel in the other gospels; it’s unique to Matthew.

Matthew 5.33-37 KWL

33“Again, you² hear the oldtimers say this:

‘You¹ will not perjure,’ Lv 19.2

and you¹ will give your¹ oaths to the Lord’?

34I tell you:²

Don’t swear altogether.

And not by heaven,

because it’s ‘God’s throne.’ Ps 11.4

35Nor by earth,

because it’s ‘the footstool of his feet.’ Is 66.1

Nor by Jerusalem,

because it’s ‘the mighty king’s city.’ Ps 48.2

36Nor ought you¹ swear by your¹ head,

because you’re¹ not able to make one hair

white or black.

37Make your² words ‘Yes yes, no no.’

Anything more than this is evil.”

Verse 33 is a little tricky, because the two things Jesus quotes “the oldtimers” as saying, consist of a bible quote, and a non-bible quote. And the bible quote isn’t a precise bible quote. Doesn’t bluntly, briefly say “Thou shalt not perjure,” in the scriptures. It’s a bit longer:

Leviticus 19.11-12 Schocken Bible

11You are not to steal,

you are not to lie,

you are not to deal-falsely, each-man with his fellow!

12You are not to swear by my name falsely,

thus profaning the name of your God—

I am YHWH!

Likewise verses which back up this idea:

Numbers 30.3 Schocken Bible

[Any] man who vows a vow to YHWH

or swears a sworn-oath, to bind himself by a binding-obligation:

he is not to desecrate his word;

exactly as what goes out of his mouth, he is to do.

Deuteronomy 23.22-24 Schocken Bible

22When you vow a vow to YHWH your God,

you are not to delay paying it,

for YHWH your God will require, yes, require it of you,

and it shall be [considered] a sin in you.

23But if you hold back from vowing,

it shall not be [considered] a sin in you.

24What issues from your lips, you are to keep,

and you are to do

as you vowed to YHWH your God, willingly,

as you promised with your mouth.

Swearing to God was a big deal. Still is a big deal. It’s why judges and courtrooms, despite separation of church and state, still tack “So help me God” to the end of oaths—it’s optional, but it’s gonna get religious people to take it seriously, and hypocrites to pretend to take it seriously. When we take the LORD’s name in vain, and break our oaths, or never meant to follow ’em to begin with, it’s sin.

But Jesus takes it one step further: Don’t swear, because you shouldn’t have to swear: Aren’t you always honest? Don’t you always tell the truth? Or are you—like a politician who lies the rest of the time, but never wants to suffer the consequences of perjury—only truthful when you’re under oath? How does that sort of behavior make you a God-follower?

Plus Jesus punctures all the other things people of his day swore by. I’ll get to those.

Fruit doesn’t grow spontaneously.

The fruit of the Spirit is the product of cultivation. If we actively follow the Holy Spirit, if we seek his direction and adopt his attitudes, in short order we’re gonna share his attitudes.

And if we passively just figure, “I’m Christian, so I’m going to heaven, so I’m good,” we’re not cultivating a thing. We’re not producing fruit. We’re the same selfish people we’ve always been. Maybe with a few Christianese labels slapped onto our bad behavior in order to justify it to ourselves, but ’tain’t fooling God any.

Sadly that’s the default in Christianity. Lot of fruitless Christians out there. We figure since we don’t earn our salvation, we don’t need to work for anything. We can just sit on our widening western rear ends, do no heavy lifting whatsoever, and God will do all the work.

• Instead of resisting temptation and obeying God’s commands, we do cheap grace.
• Instead of demonstrating we’re Christians by our love, Jn 13.35 we demonstrate it by rattling off our statements of faith.
• Instead of pursuing a continual, growing relationship with God, we say the sinner’s prayer, and figure that’ll do us till kingdom come.
• Instead of testimonies about what God’s currently doing in our lives, we tell the same old 30-year-old come-to-Jesus story, and figure that’s the only testimony we’ll ever need.
• Instead of going to church, and becoming an integral part of that support system, we find a church where the services are only 60 minutes long—if we ever physically go, ’cause they live-stream it on their website!—and that’ll do us for the month.
• Instead of sharing Jesus, we share Facebook memes.
• Instead of financially supporting our church, we offer lots of moral support. And hey, there’s more where that came from.
• Instead of reading our bibles… nah, we don’t offer any substitute. We just don’t read it. We did watch that The Bible miniseries when it was on Netflix, though.

Thanks to these practices, we presume the Spirit’s fruit works the very same way. We have the Spirit within us, and he’s gotta be doing something in there, right? So we figure he’s growing fruit. It’s developing all on its own, with no input nor effort from us. We’ll just magically grow fruity.

Yep, I’ve even heard testimonies about it. “So one day, after I became a Christian, I got into an argument with a co-worker, and he just made me so angry! I was gonna take him out back and punch his lights out. I usedta do that sort of thing all the time before I became Christian; just wailed on people. But for some reason—I really can’t explain it!—I didn’t wanna beat the tar out of him. I just felt this weird, peaceful feeling. I felt love for that guy. I can only think it came from God.”

Now, a lot of fruitless Christians lie about what constitutes “fruit” in their lives, so I won’t put it past ’em to likewise lie about their testimonies. More likely they weren’t angry enough to go curb-stomp their antagonists, and since it wasn’t blind rage, maybe it’s love?—maybe it’s a God-thing? But no, the Spirit’s fruit of love isn’t typified by the fact he keeps us from our rage-induced acts of felony battery. Yes he can do such things if he wants, but there’s a far greater chance we accidentally drank a roofie.

There are red flags aplenty in the testimonies of fruitless Christians. We get love which doesn’t look like love, kindness which isn’t all that kind, joy with just a bit of evil mixed in, and I’ve met pagans with way more patience than many a Christian. Fact is, these “testimonies” describe the one moral victory they experienced within a lifetime of compromise, capitulation, and doing as comes naturally. This isn’t in any way a habitual fruit of the Spirit. They have no such things. That’s why they constructed entire stories about these rare exceptions.

Real fruit isn’t the rare exception. And it doesn’t come naturally. We don’t “just change.” We obey God. That’s the soil the Spirit’s fruit grows in. No soil? No fruit.

Our lusts might create big, big trouble.

Matthew 5.27-28.

There are a lot of similarities between the first and second of Jesus’s “Ye have heard… but I say unto you” teachings in his Sermon on the Mount. That, and both are largely misinterpreted because our culture and Jesus’s are so different.

The first is Jesus warning us about anger; this one about lust. And just like we gotta get ahold of our anger, lest it lead to sins like murder, we’ve gotta get ahold of our lusts, lest it lead us to sins like adultery.

And again, I should point out: Anger’s not a sin, but it clearly leads to sin when we don’t control ourselves, and let our anger control us instead. Lust works the very same way: It’s not in itself a sin. (No it’s not. Feel free to lust for your spouse!) But out-of-control lust can absolutely lead to sin, and again, that’s what Jesus is warning his audience, and us, about.

Matthew 5.27-28 KWL

27“You² hear {the oldtimers} say,

‘You¹ will not adulter’? Ex 20.14, Dt 5.18

28I tell you:²

Every man who looks at a woman to covet her,

adulters with her already, in his heart.”

I have “the oldtimers” in brackets because the Textus Receptus, and therefore the King James Version, includes the words τοῖς ἀρχαίοις/tis arhéis, “to the ancients”—borrowing the words from Jesus’s previous instruction Mt 5.21 to make it line up better. But it’s not found in bibles till the 700s. Eusebius of Cæsarea misquoted verse 27 that way in his Church History, so people were already misquoting verse 27 by the year 340, but tis arhéis is not in this verse in the oldest copies of Matthew.

Okay. Since Jesus talks about adulteration, I gotta remind you adultery in bible times is not what our culture means. Generally pagans define adultery very narrowly: It’s extramarital intercourse when committed without permission. If you’re not married, it’s just “cheating,” it’s not adultery; if your spouse actually grants you permission to have sex with others, it’s not adultery. Conservative Christians of course have their own definition: It’s every form of nonmarital unchastity. Premarital sex, extramarital sex, self-gratification, everything. Don’t have a spouse?—then you’re cheating on your potential spouse, and that’s adultery too.

None of this is what the ancients who wrote the bible meant by it. Not in the 15th century BC, when the the Ten Commandments were declared; nor the first century when Jesus taught. Adultery meant sex with anyone who’s not yours. In their largely patriarchal culture, women weren’t equals; they were subjects whom men ruled over as their lords. Fathers, husbands, boyfriends, slaveowners—they were held responsible for the women under them, and these women were obligated to obey.

Today’s sexists love the idea, and point out hey, it’s described in the bible, and described as the way things were oughta be, ’cause it’s must be a biblical principle! They wanna go back to those “good ol’ days”—and nevermind the proper biblical principle of women and men being equal under God. But I digress.

Here’s the deal. When Jesus is talking about a man coveting a woman, the man isn’t properly thinking, “I could see us raising a family and running the family business together”; he was thinking, “I wanna do sexy, sexy things to her”—regardless of any ideas she might have. Hormones, y’know.

And same as anger could easily escalate to murder, lust could just as easily escalate to rape. Yes, rape. People keep presuming “adultery” in the bible was consensual. In some cases it might have been. But that just makes it statutory rape, like when someone in our culture has sex with a minor: An ancient woman was under a lord, which means her “consent” wasn’t lawful.

In our day it’s not rape, because God and our current laws did away with patriarchy and slavery. Married women voluntarily belong to their spouses. Underage girls belong to their parents till they reach an age where (supposedly) they’ll be responsible. Every other woman is free: She belongs to no one but herself. And if she doesn’t agree to be yours, once again, sex with her is rape.

Yep. That’s what Jesus’s teaching now means in today’s culture.

If you thought doing away with patriarchy made things lighter, or gave us a bunch of loopholes, it really didn’t. Everybody who looks at a woman to deliberately covet her, who has no business nor permission to imagine such things of her, has raped her in their heart. People object to radical feminists (or even ordinary feminists) using such terms to describe the way men leer at them, or referring to their objectification as “rape culture.” Turns out they’re absolutely right.

And I remind you: Jesus’s instruction was primarily addressed to the young men he taught, but it applies just the same to women. Covet a man who’s not yours, and it’s either mental adultery or mental rape. So don’t go there.

Doesn’t matter how “prolife” the president is.

I’m prolife. By which I mean I’m anti-death.

I know: Most of the time when Evangelical Christians call ourselves prolife, we really mean anti-abortion. We’re against that kind of death. All the other kinds?…

Well, some of us are against the other kinds of death. The rest of us only care about preventing abortion. To them, the unborn baby is the epitome of innocence, and totally undeserving of death. The rest of humanity: Meh, they’ve sinned already. Screw ’em.

In case you’re not clear what I mean by “the other kinds of death,” let me spell out a few of them.

• Death due to criminal or terrorist activity.
• Death due to domestic violence or child neglect.
• Death due to inadequate healthcare.
• Death due to inadequate gun laws.
• Death due to inadequate prison supervision.
• Death due to unnecessary, unjust war.
• Death due to unnecessary, unjust police shootings.
• Death due to inconsistent implementation of the death penalty.

Christ Jesus came into the world to defeat sin and death. Problem is, your typical “prolife” individual only frets about one form of death. But has no problem with implementing death of all other sorts, for every other form of sin. Not only that, they’re annoyed when we don’t implement it. All murderers should be executed, they insist, instead of clogging our prisons. All terrorists should be shot. Forget humane forms of execution; draw and quarter them!

For that matter, they’ve no problem with death being the unfortunate side effect their other beliefs. They want unlimited access to guns, and lose their tiny minds over a 5-day background check, yet bellyache against unrestricted access to abortion because it’s “too convenient.” They want free-market capitalism to dictate how healthcare runs—even if it means the sick can’t afford healthcare, and die—but rage when the free market decides abortion services oughta be made available. But I digress.

No, I’m not saying we need to abolish the death penalty, ban guns, never go to war, or nationalize healthcare. I wouldn’t mind way more responsible legislation regarding all these things. Stating, “The system has problems, so let’s be rid of the system,” is stupid. Doesn’t matter whether a liberal or libertarian says it.

But as we’re waiting for Jesus to return and overhaul our system top to bottom, let’s be good and faithful servants. Let’s do what we can to make it work as best we can. Let’s fight sin, and also fight death.

Reducing “prolife” to only being against one type of life, is also stupid. But let’s be blunt: It’s stupid because in its current form, it’s not actually a Christian movement. It’s political.

The prolife movement in the United states exists for the sake of winning the absolute loyalty of prolifers to the Republican Party. That is, so long that the party claims to be prolife. Claims is the vital word; in practice the Republicans do jack squat to reduce or prevent abortion. If they were serious, they’d’ve been successful. They’ve had the authority, the ability, and the mandate of their base. For eight years (from 2001 to ’09) they had control of the White House, and majority control of the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the statehouses. Eight whole years. Changed nothing.

Seriously. Substantively. Nothing.

Well, they did in that time finally get me to stop putting my faith in Republicans. I already distrusted the Democrats and third parties, so now I’ve been disabused of any naïve beliefs that any one party is any sort of savior. (Currently I’m registered as a Democrat, but only for pragmatic reasons. And yes, there are such political animals as prolife Democrats. Lots of ’em, actually. And unlike Republicans, you know they’re really prolife… ’cause they’ve very little to gain within their party for taking up that cause.)

One Spirit for the one body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12.4-27.

The way first-century pagans understood the supernatural, there were many supernatural abilities… but each of ’em was produced by a different spirit.

• If you wanted healing power, you prayed to Apollo.
• For wisdom, Athena.
• For speaking in tongues, Dionysius.
• For mighty acts of power, Zeus.

The Greek pantheon included a lot of gods, so if Apollo got ’em nowhere, they could also pray to Asklipiós, Panákia, and Ygihía. And frequently Greeks didn’t limit themselves to only Greek gods: If they got word the Egyptian or Persian or Arabian or Norse gods actually got stuff done, they’d try ’em out. Or if they figured the big gods were too busy, they’d try out lesser gods, personal gods, helper gods, known as δαιμόνια/demónia, from which we get our word demon. But nope, they’re not capital-G gods. Just unclean spirits.

Today’s pagans still think this way. If sick, they might try western medicine: They’ll grab some painkillers at the pharmacy, and maybe visit the doctor (unless they live in the United States and can’t afford it, so they Google their symptoms and try to diagnose themselves). If the doctor’s no help, they seek a second opinion. If no doctor can help, they look up researchers who are testing experimental cures—some legitimate, some very much not. Or they check out non-western medicine, like traditional Chinese or American Indian methods. Or psychic healers, medicine men, witch doctors. Whatever it takes to get well!

But Christians properly understand regardless of the method, there’s only one source of our life and well-being: God.

1 Corinthians 12.4-6 KWL

4There are a diversity of supernatural things,

and the same Holy Spirit.

5A diversity of ministries,

and the same Lord.

6A diversity of activities,

and the same God activating all in all.

The doctors at the hospital, the faith healers, the herbalists: They can only cure you if God grants ’em the knowledge to diagnose your ailment, the scientific technique to treat you, or the supernatural power to heal you. If they don’t depend on any of those things, you’re not getting cured. At best, you’ll heal up naturally and think your quack cured you. At worst, you’ll get tricked into thinking you were cured, and die anyway.

Same with any other supernatural thing you encounter. It was all done by God. Otherwise it was a trick. Devilish trick or human trick; doesn’t matter. ’Cause there’s only one Holy Spirit who dispenses the power. There are no others.

Heresy: When we 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 get God wrong.

HERESY 'hɛr.ə.si noun. Belief or opinion contrary to Christian orthodoxy.

[Heretic 'hɛr.ə.tɪk adjective, heretical hə'rɛd.ə.kəl adjective.]

In my circles, Christians don’t use the word heretic very much. They usually go with “wrong” or “non-Christian” or “unbiblical.” If they think the ideas originated from outside Christianity, they’ll call them “New Age-y” or “cultish.”

But the terms they really like are “satanic” and “demonic.” Which is nothing new. Anti-heretics have always tried to get the devil involved: These are all Satan’s ideas, aren’t they? You’re just the devil’s pawns, as it tries to lead Christians astray and overthrow churches and ministries and great Christian leaders with its lies.

Satan may be the father of lies, Jn 8.44 but this doesn’t automatically mean it’s the source of all heresy. We humans are plenty capable of coming up with wrong ideas on our own. Enthusiastically, I might add:

• Some of us really wanna come up with (and maybe become famous for) new God-ideas.
• Others really wanna debunk all the God-ideas we don’t really like, or struggle to believe.
• Others really wanna piss off our fellow Christians. Particularly the ones who were mean or judgmental towards us in the past. If we grew up with oppressive Christian parents, Ep 6.4 it’s evil fun to stick it to them by mocking their religion.
• And of course there are the people who wanna invent their own religion, ’cause when successful, it’ll make them rich and powerful.

Those who wring their hands ’cause they figure there are more heretics than ever nowadays (and surely it’s a sign of the End Times, innit?) aren’t always aware of why there are more heretics than ever: Freedom of religion. Before the first 13 states of the United States put religious freedom into their constitutions, you could be prosecuted and executed for heresy. In many parts of the world you still can. I’m not at all saying we should take religious freedom away: It means pagans and hypocrites can come out of hiding, and now we know who to minister to. But its inevitable side effect is frauds and heretics get to start churches, and we gotta be on our guard against them.

So how do you know whether someone’s heretic? Well, you gotta know what orthodoxy is. Learn the creeds. Read your bible. Get to know Jesus. If you know the real thing, you’ll recognize when something fake comes along.

But too many Christians don’t have time for that, so they usually just follow certain Christian apologists in the countercult movement. Don’t know whether a certain church or ministry is orthodox? Look up that organization on their website, or send them an email, and they’ll tell you. Why put any effort into following Jesus and becoming orthodox yourself, when you can just defer to “experts”?

As a result, Christians largely don’t know what “heresy” means. They think it simply means we’re wrong. And since we’re wrong about God in a whole bunch of different ways… does that mean we’re all heretics? For some of ’em yeah, that’s exactly what it means. I’ve heard more than one preacher claim, “We’re all heretics! But Jesus is right; follow Jesus.” Their hearts might be in the right place (well, unless they actually are heretics) but no, they don’t define heresy properly. We define heresy by how we define orthodoxy. ’Cause they’re opposites. If it’s not orthodox, it’s heretic; if it’s not heretic, it’s orthodox.

“Can I pray for you?”

Whenever you aren’t sure, or don’t know, what to do: Yalk to God. Pray.

Not only is this always good advice to follow, but it’s good advice when dealing with other people. Whenever other people share their difficulties with us, we won’t always know how to respond. We’ll be tempted to give advice—as if we know anything. But prayer’s one of the best responses—if not the best, period. It’s turning to God as our first resort.

I know; plenty of people think they know precisely what to do when they hear someone’s troubles. That’s why they immediately offer advice. No, the person sharing their woes didn’t ask for it. Often they just want to vent to someone. But that’s not gonna stop people from inflicting bad advice upon ’em anyway.

Remember Job’s friends? For a week he kept his mouth shut, Jb 2.13 but then he made the mistake of lamenting in front of them, Jb 3 and it opened up the floodgates of bad advice, naive statements, sorry platitudes—you know, the same stuff people still offer as advice, which just goes to show they’ve never read Job. It pissed the LORD off, ’cause nothing they said about him was correct. Jb 42.7 Like I said, shoulda gone to him first.

Me, I try to keep the unsolicited advice to this blog. If you want it, I’ll offer it, with the usual disclaimer that I’m hardly infallible. But really, the best response is, “Can I pray for you?”

And when we offer to pray for them, let’s not do the similar platitudinous “Oh goodness that’s awful; I’ll pray for you.” Mostly because among Christianists, “I’ll pray for you” means one of two things:

• “I’m really offended by what you just said, so you can go to hell. No, wait; I need to sound Christian. ‘I’ll pray for you.’ Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
• “Oh Lord, I don’t care about all your miserable problems. I’ve got my own stuff to deal with. How do I get out of this dreary conversation? ‘I’ll pray for you.’ Good; now I can leave.”

It’s seldom based on sympathy.

Well, don’t be one of those unsympathetic jerks. If you’re offering to pray for people, no time like the present! Stand right there and pray. Doesn’t need to be a long prayer; doesn’t need to be perfect words. Just needs to be you, telling God to help ’em out.

Our anger might create big, big trouble.

Matthew 5.21-22.

Here’s the first of the “Ye have heard… but I say unto you” parts of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus gets into them right after he says he has no intention whatsoever of undoing or undermining the Law of Moses, so if you ever get the idea he’s trying to do that with his teachings, no he’s not; he just said he’s not. He’s trying to clarify the intent of the Law: Here’s how we were always meant to follow it. And it’s not the way the scribes and Pharisees claim. Mt 7.28-29

Jesus begins with anger. ’Cause people get angry. Even Jesus got angry. Mk 10.14 And unless we know how to practice self-control, we’re gonna act on that anger, and do something regrettable. Oh, we might justify it by claiming we had “righteous” anger, but don’t fool yourself; Jesus’s brother James stated “human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” Jm 1.20 NIV Anger’s a work of the flesh, and we always need to be on our guard against it. Hence Jesus’s teachings.

Matthew 5.21-22 KWL

21“You² hear the oldtimers say,

‘You¹ will not murder, Ex 20.13, Dt 5.17

and whoever might murder will be found guilty’?

22I tell you:²

Everyone who’s been made angry by their¹ sibling,

{for no good reason,} will be found guilty.

Anyone who might tell their¹ sibling, ‘You¹ waste of space,’

will be guilty under the Judean senate.

Anyone who might say, ‘You¹ moron,’

will be guilty in fiery Gehenna.”

Other bibles tend to translate aorist-tense Greek verbs as past tense. I don’t; aorist verbs are neither past, present, nor future. They happen, but we only know when they happen by the context of other verbs or actions—and since Jesus is largely speaking in present tense, that’s how we’re meant to translate ’em. So when Jesus says “You hear the oldtimers say,” he’s not talking about something his listeners heard a long, long time ago, or read in the bible; he’s talking about what oldtimers say all the time, whether in synagogue, at home, or on the streets.

“You will not murder.” It’s in the Ten Commandments. It needs repeating, because murder still happens a lot. And in ancient times, it happened far, far more often than it does now—because people could get away with it. No cops, no detectives who worked for the state, and no science so you could do actual detection. Nobody had the attitude murder is a crime against God and the state (which it is); in fact the state, in the form of Roman soldiers and governors, murdered people all the time. Even righteous King David murdered a guy to steal his wife, and got away with it. People figured murder was only a crime against the victim’s family—and if nobody would miss the victim, nor mind that they’re dead, what’s the big deal?

Yep, throughout biblical times, including in Jesus’s day, murders and lynchings and fights that turned deadly happened all the time. And what’s the origin of most of these deaths? Anger.

Too often, anger for no good reason—which is why somebody inserted the word εἰκῆ/eikí, “in vain,” into a third-century copy of the text, and it wound up in the Sinaiticus, the Peshitta, the Textus Receptus, and the KJV. But Jesus probably didn’t say it—and didn’t need to. After all, people would try to use it as a loophole: “I didn’t kill him in vain anger, but righteous anger, so it’s a righteous kill.”

Nope; murder is murder. Don’t.

Is it worth our time for me to be the advice guy?

I don’t know how I turned into the advice guy. It just sorta happened. Years ago I was contributing to a couple different websites, and I had my own personal blog, and out of the blue strangers started asking me religion questions. Guess I sounded knowledgeable to them, so they figured they’d test my knowledge.

Questions? Comments? Email. But remember, my feedback policy means I can post it. Not as a regular advice column; that’s not what I do.

So what’s the best bible translation? Or what do I know about a particular Christian denomination? Or what have I heard about this or that book?—this or that preacher?—this or that theological idea? Am I Arminian or Calvinist, and why? Pretrib or posttrib, and why?

It’s not a new experience for me. I got questions like this from my students in Sunday school classes or Christian school. Or from newbies in my church who found out I knew stuff, and consider me less intimidating than our pastor. (Intimidating for no reason, I should add; he’s a very friendly guy.) I joke all the time, “I learned all this stuff so you don’t have to. If you’ve got questions, go ahead and pick my brain. That’s why God gave it to me.” So they do.

But writing stuff for the internet means now I also get email and direct messages from friends and strangers, also wanting to pick my brain. I don’t even have to solicit it. It just comes.

Since I’m always coming up with topics for TXAB, I’ll take some of my answers and turn ’em into full-blown articles. Lots of TXAB’s posts are the result of someone asking me, “What do you know about [subject]?” I even used to have a regular question-and-answer feature. (On my personal blog, back when I had one, I called it “Questions and Rants.”)

Only problem with having a Q&A feature: Certain other people take it upon themselves to rebuke my answers and offer their own. They do it in the comments section. Sometimes actually try to get ahold of the person who emailed me the question, and try to respond to them directly. It’s not a matter of people correcting me ’cause they disagree with me. It’s people who object to me offering any answers. They wanna be the advice guys. Not me.

There’s a paranoid belief you’ll frequently find among dark Christians. It’s that if any Christian teaches any error, it‘s intentional, and they’re knowingly working for Satan. That’s what I’m pretty sure I’m dealing with: People who think they’re “liberating” my questioners before they fall under my spell and believe every single thing I teach, and are thus led astray. Even though I regularly make a point of teaching I’m hardly infallible.

So they keep trying to hijack my advice. I used to think this was just a bizarre form of jealousy. I told ’em: Create your own blog, wait for people to come to you, and answer their questions. Since their unsolicited advice is often impatient and jerkish, I can certainly see why nobody goes to them for advice. But their misbehavior quickly became tiresome, so I banned ’em. They adopt new usernames and try again, and I ban ’em again. After I switched to the Disqus comment system, I’ve been blacklisting ’em as soon as they pop up again, and so far so good.

Now it’s fine if you don’t agree with something I write. I can be wrong, y’know. When I am, I honestly do appreciate the constructive criticism. Not so much when the criticism is more hostile than constructive, but still.

I never bothered to create a Q&A feature for TXAB. I usually give the answer and don’t post the question. Some people are really anxious about my posting their questions (and certainly their names) anyway. Fine; I’m not out to embarrass anyone. Well, not out to embarrass most people. Some of you could use a little embarrassment. Namely these wannabe advice guys.

When we remake Jesus in our image.

PROJECTION prə'dʒɛk.ʃən, proʊ'dʒɛk.ʃən noun. Unconscious transfer of one’s ideas to another person.

[Project prə'dʒɛkt, proʊ'dʒɛkt verb.]

When we’re talking popular Christian culture’s version of Christianity, i.e. Christianism, we’re not really talking about what Jesus teaches. We’re talking about what we’d like to think Jesus teaches. We’re talking about our own ideas, projected onto Jesus like he’s a screen and we’re a camera obscura. We’re progressive… and how about that, so is Jesus! Or we’re conservative… and how handy is it that Jesus feels precisely the same as we do?

Y’know, the evangelists told us when we come to Jesus, our whole life would have to change. But when we’re Christianist, we discover to our great pleasure and relief our lives really didn’t have to change much at all.

We had to learn a few new handy Christianese terms:

PAGAN WAY OF SAYING IT	CHRISTIAN WAY OF SAYING IT
“I think…”	“I just think God’s telling me…”
“I strongly think…”	“God’s telling me…”
“I feel…”	“I just feel in my spirit…”
“I don’t wanna do that.”	“We should just take that to God in prayer.”
“That scares me.”	“I just feel a check in my spirit.”
“That pisses me off.”	“That just grieves my spirit.”
“F--- you and the horse you rode in on.”	“I’ll pray for you.”

and we learned a few handy ways to act more Christian. Like learning all the Christian-sounding justifications for our fruitless behavior. Like pointing to orthodox Christian beliefs as the evidence of our new life in Christ; it’s way easier to learn and repeat than to develop fruit of the Spirit. Like how to act like Christians when surrounded by Christians, but be your usual pagan self otherwise, and never once ask yourself whether this is hypocrisy.

As for what Jesus actually teaches, for actually following him: Christianists figure we do follow him. ’Cause we believe in him. Jn 6.40 That’s how you get eternal life, right? Jn 3.16 Just believe. Nothing more. So we do nothing more. We’ve got faith, God figures this faith makes us righteous, Ro 3.22 and being righteous means we’re right. God rewires our minds so everything we think is right and good and usually infallible.

Problem is, that’s not how we become right. That’s how we stay wrong. That’s how we wind up arrogantly assuming the way we think, is the way God thinks. That all our depraved, self-centered motives are spiritual insights into how God’s gonna bring glory to himself. How God’s sovereignty and God’s kingdom works. How God’s sense of justice and wrath is gonna affect all the people in the world who, coincidentally, are the objects of our ire, spite, and disgust.

God’s ways are not our ways. Is 55.8-9 All the more true if we never bother to study God’s ways. But when we’re Christianists we think we know his ways, ’cause we have his Spirit (whom we barely follow), learned a few memory verses (some even in context!), skimmed a bit of bible, heard Sunday sermons for the past several years… and all our Christianist friends believe the very same way we do. There’s no way we could all be leading one another astray.

Every Christian is a priest.

PRIEST prist noun. An ordained minister of the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, or Church of England, having authority to perform certain rites and administer certain sacraments.

2. A person who performs the religious ceremonies and duties of a religion.

3. A mallet used to kill the fish one catches when angling.

[Priestlike 'pris(t).laɪk adjective, priestly 'pris(t).li adjective.]

I pulled the definition up top out of the dictionary. I hadn’t heard definition #3 before; I included it ’cause it amuses me.

Y’notice it either says a priest is an ordained minister of a liturgical church, or implies it’s some person who does the rituals in some other religion. But definition #2 in fact applies to Christianity too. If you perform religious ceremonies, duties, rituals, or whatever else in your church, you’re being a priest.

Yes, you. ’Cause you’re a priest. Every Christian is.

It was after all God’s intention to create a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. Ex 19.6, 1Pe 2.9 So Jesus made his followers—us Christians—his priests. A kingdom of priests to our God. Rv 1.6, 5.10 Every Christian can minister to fellow Christians; therefore every Christian is a priest.

Yeah okay, elders in particular tend to get called to do these duties. Rightly so, because they generally know what they’re doing. They’re mature enough to perform priestly functions correctly. They can preach, prophesy, lead us in worship, perform baptisms, anoint sick people, distribute communion, lay hands on people for dedication or commission or anointing, intercede for others in prayer, and perform weddings. (Although the state tends to get picky about who can do that last one, separation of church and state regardless.)

Because the ancient Christians’ elders were usually the ones doing these priestly duties, over time the Greek word for elder, πρεσβύτερος/presvýteros, came to mean “priest” in those churches. (Technically that’s inaccurate; the ancient Greek word for priest is ἱερεύς/yereýs.) The rest of us just translate it “elder” or “presbyter.” So yeah, when liturgical churches read the bible, they read the qualifications for elders just a bit differently than we do; they’re looking for the critieria for priests.

But again: Every Christian is a priest. A new believer can anoint and heal a sick person, same as any elder. God can use anybody, y’know.

Still, whenever we’re sick, and want a fellow Christian to pray for us, whom do we usually go to? Right you are: An elder. A mature Christian. Not some newbie, who doesn’t yet have the hang of hearing the Holy Spirit; not some longtimer who lacks spiritual maturity. We want someone whom we know can minister properly. Some Christians won’t permit anybody to minister to ’em but an elder; and in many cases they only want the senior pastor of their church, ’cause they’re sure that guy knows God. (Hopefully so!)

That’s why, when a newbie comes running to the front of the church, hoping to preach a little something, they’re not automatically gonna get the microphone. We tend to keep priestly functions in the elders’ hands. We permit newbies to do it only under an elder’s supervision and training.

Or, of course, when there’s absolutely no one else available. Or, let’s be honest, when they’re the pastors’ kids. Or when nobody else knows how to play the piano so well. Or when they’re interns who’ve been really good at hiding their hypocrisy whenever the grown-ups are around. Let’s be honest; we’ve got a few cracks in the system. But generally we’ve screened people before they minister as priests.

Oh yeah: I should mention many of the same Christians who claim presvýteros means “priest,” never ever translate πρεσβυτέρας/presvytéras, “elder women,” 1Ti 5.2 as “priestesses.” Relax. I’ll get to that.

We’re not the only ones who do grace, y’know.

Scott Hoezee told this story in his 1996 book The Riddle of Grace.

The story is told that, many years ago, a conference was convened to discuss the study of comparative religions. Theologians and experts from various fields of religious studies gathered from all over the world to tackle certain knotty questions relating to Christianity and its similarities or dissimilarities to other faiths. One particularly interesting seminar was held to determine whether there was anything unique about the Christian faith. A number of Christianity’s features were put on the table for discussion. Was it the incarnation? No; other religions also had various versions of the gods coming down in human form. Might it be the resurrection? No, various versions of the dead rising again were found in other faiths as well.

On and on the discussion went without any resolution in sight. At some point, after the debate had been underway for a time, C.S. Lewis wandered in late. Taking his seat, he asked a colleague, “What’s the rumpus about?” and was told that they were seeking to find Christianity’s unique trait among the world religions. In the straightforward, no-nonsense, commonsense approach that was to make Lewis famous, he immediately said, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.” As the other scholars thought about that for a moment, they concluded that Lewis was right: It is grace. No other religion had ever made the ultimate acceptance by the Almighty so absolutely unconditional. In other faiths, there is usually some notion of earning points. Whether it was karma, Buddhist-like steps among the path to serenity, or some similar system, the idea was that to receive the favor of the gods one had to earn the favor of the gods.

Not in Christianity, at least not in true Christianity. Hoezee 41-42

Philip Yancey was so impressed by it, he retold the story in his 1997 book What’s So Amazing About Grace? which is where I first heard it. Hoezee says he heard it from Peter Kreeft, in a speech Kreeft gave at Calvin College. I’ve no doubt he did.

Too bad it’s gotta be bunk though. Told to make C.S. Lewis sound clever. Smarter than those religion experts, who somehow never read anything G.K. Chesterton wrote about the uniqueness of Christian grace.

But Lewis, and any religion scholar who’s not a chauvinistic ninny, would know full well grace is found in other religions.

Grace is in Judaism, ’cause grace is all over the Old Testament. The LORD rescued the Hebrews from Egypt, not because they were a great and deserving people who merited salvation, but purely out of his love. Dt 7.7-8 The LORD gave them Palestine, not because they deserved it, but because he promised it to Abraham and their ancestors. Dt 9.5 We make the same mistake Pharisees did, and confuse the Law with the foundation of their faith. But the foundation is Abraham—who trusted the LORD, and the LORD graciously considered his faith to be righteousness. Ge 15.6

Grace is in Islam. Those whose only experiences with Islam is with its legalists, assume it’s not. They assume Muslims struggle to follow Islam’s rules because it’s how they earn heaven. It’s not. Muslims are quick to remind people we can follow the rules perfectly, yet still not know whether you attain heaven, ’cause heaven has nothing to do with the rules. Only God decrees who’s going to heaven or not, and it’s entirely based on his grace. The Quran begins, بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ/Bismi Allahi alrrahmani alrraheemi, “In the name of God, the wholly gracious, the wholly merciful.” Muslim prayers regularly address him this way. They’re continual reminders of his grace.

Grace is even found in Hinduism. Karma only gets people so far, y’know. But Hinduism’s gods can be appealed to, intervene, and push people ahead a little further. Apparently they can be gracious.

That’s the thing: Scratch the surface of every religion, and you’ll find despite any legalism they might have, they also have grace to grease the wheels. Otherwise their wheels can’t turn.

Nope, Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on mercy, forgiveness, kindness, compassion, and grace. In fact many’s the time Christians don’t practice these things… and other religions do, and frustrated Christians see this, quit Jesus, and go try out those other religions. And regularly claim these religions are the ones with grace, and Christianity isn’t, ’cause they never experienced any grace in their Christian upbringing.

Yeah, I’ve heard many a Christian apologist repeat this claim we’re the only ones who do grace. We’d sure like to think so, wouldn’t we? But we make that claim only when we don’t know squat about other religions. (Or we hope our debate opponents don’t know squat—and lying to win such debates is evil, Dt 5.20 so don’t do that.)

Jesus’s most misinterpreted teaching.

Matthew 5.17-20, Luke 16.16-17.

Matthew 5.17-20 KWL

17“None of you² should think

that I come to tear down the Law or the Prophets.

I don’t come to tear down,

but build up.

18For amen!—I promise you:²

Heaven and earth might pass away,

but neither one yodh nor one dot

ought ever pass away from the Law;

not until everything’s done.

19So whoever might annul the smallest of these commands,

and might teach this to people:

They¹ will be called least in heaven’s kingdom.

And whoever might do and teach them,

this one will be called great in heaven’s kingdom.

20For I tell you² this:

Unless your² rightness superabounds—

more than scribes and Pharisees—

you² might not enter heaven’s kingdom.”

Luke 16.16-17 KWL

16“The Law and the Prophets

are preached as good news until John.

Since then, God’s kingdom is preached as good news,

and everybody forces their way into it.

17It’s easier for heaven and earth to pass away

than one dot of the Law to fail.

Despite this very lesson, many Christians do in fact teach Jesus did come to dissolve “the Law and the Prophets”—the way people in his day referred to the bible, our Old Testament.

As in Luke 16.16-17, Jesus is not announcing the termination of the OT’s relevance and authority (else Luke 16.17 would be incomprehensible), but that “the period during which men were related to God under its terms ceased with John”; and the nature of its valid continuity is established only with reference to Jesus and the kingdom.

—D.A. Carson, Expositor’s Bible Commentary at Mt 5.17

It’s still relevant, still authoritative; it’s why Christian bibles still include it. But it’s no longer valid. It no longer counts. Fun to read, useful for historical context, and we can even pull a few End Times prophecies out of it. But follow it? Nah.

Exactly how is that not dissolving it? See, καταλῦσαι/katalýsë, which I translated “to dissolve,” refers to breaking stuff apart, like in water. Pour water on a sugar cube to dissolve it, and it’s no longer solid. Can’t construct any sugar-cube buildings, like the ones we made in grade school: It’s useless for any function which requires it to be solid. That’s precisely what Jesus said he didn’t do: He didn’t turn the Law and Prophets into crumbling, insubstantial mush. Yet that’s precisely what we claim he did: Rendered it moot. Invalid. Not binding. And therefore, really, not relevant and authoritative.

This idea exposes a huge, huge error in the way Christians think about God, his commands, the Law, and legalism. Worse, this false idea worms into the rest of Jesus’s teachings. Really, every instruction we find in the bible. As a result, Christians use grace as a loophole, an excuse to ignore Jesus’s teaching—or misunderstand it, misapply it, even violate it.

Gonna be a lot of “smallest” Christians in his heavenly kingdom.

My favorite End Times novel.

Years ago, I was complaining about one of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’s Left Behind novels. Don‘t remember which one, but I do remember my complaint—for once—wasn’t about the terrible Darbyist theology, but about the poorly-developed characters. Caricatures of characters, really.

The fellow I was ranting to was a bit of a Left Behind fan, so he didn’t appreciate my critique… although he admitted the writing “felt rushed.” There, I don’t agree. My beef wasn’t with how fast the Left Behind novels were cranked out. Some authors only need a month, start to finish, to produce a book. But they produce three-dimensional characters, whereas the Left Behind books produced melodramatic heroes and villains.

“Well fine,” he said, “what’s your favorite End Times book?”

“Easy,” I said, “The Stand.”

Yep, this book.

When I realized I meant the Stephen King novel, he was outraged. Which I get. After all, King uses swears in his novels. And some Christians have never forgiven King for his depictions of manic dark Christians in his previous novels Carrie and The Dead Zone. (His Christian characters are way better in The Stand and The Green Mile. But I digress.)

Yes, I have read other End Times novels, books, and so forth. I may as well tell you about a few of ’em, so you’ll know why I picked The Stand over the others.

Lukewarm Christians.

Revelation 3.15-16.

I give youth pastors a bad rap sometimes. Okay, often. Because I believe a lot of them fundamentally misunderstand their job. As did most of the youth pastors I’ve had to deal with, both decades ago as a teenager, and in the years since as I’ve worked with kids and young adults. Their job is to minister to the young people of the church, and share Jesus with the young people of their communities. You know, like any other pastor. Only with youth.

Problem is, many of the YPs I’ve run into, don’t think that way at all. Sometimes because their churches don’t think that way. My church, growing up, thought of the YPs as our babysitters. They were to make sure the church’s members’ kids behaved ourselves, and stayed Christian—at least till college. Once we graduated high school, we weren’t the YP’s responsibility anymore. My YPs made this fact quite clear to me when, shortly after my 18th birthday, they asked me to leave the high school group. Just like those parents who tell their offspring, “You’re 18; you’re outa here.”

Others of ’em think of the YP job as an internship, or “paying their dues” before they get their real ministry working with adults. Meanwhile they get to practice on us kids, and hopefully not screw us up too much. My first youth pastor was one of these. He really did make an effort with us kids… till that senior pastor job opened up in Colorado, and off he went.

Anyway, he was the one who first introduced me to the concept of out-of-context scriptures. He quoted the following Jesus statement from Revelation, then talked about how his fellow YPs typically misinterpreted it.

Revelation 3.15-16 KJV

15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Y’see, this is a verse which comes up in youth ministry a lot. It’s because a lot of us kids are identified as “lukewarm.” Because the term, it’s believed, describes our lack of zeal.

And let’s be honest: Kids aren’t always all that zealous about God. See, the bulk of us had grown up Christian. We were led to Jesus when we were little kids—which is great; never stop sharing Jesus with your kids!—but children tend to believe most of the things adults tell ’em. Then they become teenagers, and learn to doubt. Which is fine: Let’s get those doubts out into the open, and deal with ’em! But babysitter YPs don’t deal with them. They tamp down the doubts with platitudes and quick fixes. After all, their job is only to keep the kids Christian till college. Then, in college, like so many other kids who grew up Christian… they can unthinkingly embrace those doubts and become pagan. Or even atheist.

Our YP, at the time, addressed some of those doubts. Good on him. And he made sure we’re aware of the existence of out-of-context scriptures, by correcting a few of the misinterpretations. Like what it means to be “lukewarm.”

The sucky starfish story.

I grew up Christian, as some of you know. As a result I’ve heard hundreds of sermons.

Seriously, hundreds: I grew up Christian, and never took any longer than three-month break from attending a church. (And during that time, I was going to daily chapel, which was mandatory in seminary.) So, since I grew out of the childcare program at the age of five: One every Sunday, and sometimes two. One during many a midweek evening service. One every time I went to chapel, both in school, and when I taught school. Three to ten during conferences. At least one every time I listen to preacher radio, or download a church’s podcast. I listen to my own pastor’s sermons twice: Once on Sunday morning, and once again as I scrub the audio for podcasting. So no, I’m not kidding when I say hundreds. It’s possibly thousands.

Since many of these preachers tap the very same sources for sermon illustrations, the result is I’ve heard thousands of clichés. Some of these preachers haven’t been Christian as long as I, so they don’t know these stories are clichés, and even if they do, they inflict ’em on people anyway. Sometimes they love these stories, so if they weren’t clichés already, by golly these preachers would make them their own personal clichés if they could. They’ll trot ’em out over and over again, like a dog breeder who loves to show off his prize-winning poodle, and doesn’t notice the poor thing is 15 years old, covered in bald spots, and limping.

About a decade ago I was obligated to listen to some Christian radio, and the announcer decided to tell the starfish story again.

If you haven’t heard it by now, your church attendance sucks. It’s a mainstay of maudlin preaching. Goes like yea: Starfish washed up on the beach; there’s a kid throwing them back into the ocean; an adult notices this and comments, considering the number of fish, how futile this activity is, and “what difference will it make?” The kid, undeterred, states, “It’ll make a difference for this one,” and flings that starfish into the sea. And this is a parable to encourage us to plug away at any impossible-looking task. We may not change every life, but we may change one.

Now all it needs is to be made a poem, and people will put it on posters. Well, I beat y’all to it.

With a bit of a twist. See, when I tire of things, or grow irritated with them, I deal with them by parodying them. If you were expecting my poem to warm your heart… that’s not gonna happen today.

The best of all possible worlds.

You mighta noticed my articles on God's will thus far, mainly focus on what God revealed in the scriptures to actually be his will. His commands. His instructions. His wisdom. What he literally wants us to do.

Problem is, whenever Christians wanna know about God’s will, that’s not what we mean. Nor what we want.

Poll the Christians you know, and our overwhelming attitude about God’s commands is they’re either “too hard” cf. Ac 15.10 or “old covenant.” We don’t care about the commands. Well, unless they make us feel good about ourselves ’cause we’re already obeying them—whether intentionally or accidentally. (And if we’re not obeying them, we offer our excuses.) Or unless they justify our prejudices, ’cause it appears God doesn’t like certain sins any more than we do.

But whenever we Christians say, “I just wanna know God’s will for my life,” you gotta understand we don’t mean God’s commands. We don’t wanna be directed to the Sermon on the Mount, or the Proverbs, or anything having to do with God’s revealed will. Instead we’re talking about the unrevealed will. God’s secret will. His plan for the cosmos… and where we fit in it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he loves us and wants to save us and give us his kingdom. Lk 12.32 We know about salvation and eternal life and resurrection and heaven. That’s not what we mean either, ’cause that’s not part of the secret will; that’s common knowledge. We want the insider knowledge. We want the stuff that’s none of our business. Ac 1.7 We wanna know the details of our own personal futures.

Specifically: We want a heads-up on all the significant decisions we’re ever gonna make in our lives. Whom to marry. Where to go to university. Which career field to pursue. Which job to take. Which ministries to dabble in. The best financial investments. The best schools to put our kids into. The perfect things to say at particular moments in time. God knows all the possible outcomes of these decisions. We’re not asking to know all the outcomes; we just want God to point us to the best one, so we can do it. ’Cause we assume that’s God’s will: The best of all possible worlds.

“I wanna know God’s will for my life” really means we wanna make certain we’re not just getting some ho-hum, lackluster, not-reached-its-potential, regret-filled future life. We want the best future life. The fun high-paying job. The spouse and kids who never tell us no. The ministry which requires no sacrifice whatsoever. We want God pouring out blessings like the world’s loosest slot machine.

Not God’s commands. Not his righteousness. Not the good works he set out for us to do. Ep 2.10 Screw that. It’s too hard. And it’s the old covenant.

God must be our first resort. Never our last.

Let me reiterate: There’s nothing at all wrong with asking God for things. Jesus teaches us to do so in the Lord’s Prayer: It’s all prayer requests. (Even the parts Christians claim are “praise before the requests.” Asking that God’s name be blessed, his kingdom come, his will be done, are meant to be stuff we want.) When we need something, God expects us and invites us to turn to him for help.

In contrast, our culture encourages us to be independent. Do for ourselves, then ask for help. And you wanna avoid asking for help as long as possible. The world isn’t kind. They don’t help you without first asking, “What’s in it for me?” Strings get attached. They expect cash, or a quid pro quo… or at least a pizza.

As a result, a lot of Christians only turn to God when we need help with big things. The stuff we can’t handle. The stuff we need help with—and other people aren’t willing to give it, so in desperation we turn to God as a last resort. Or a long shot. A “hail-Mary,” as it’s called in football. (And that saying implies they still haven’t turned to God yet: They’re calling on Mary first!)

Pagans in particular. When things are going fine, they tend to ignore God. When things are dire, suddenly they “get religion” and try to bargain with God. And to many pagans’ surprise—’cause we’d never offer ’em grace on those terms—God regularly takes ’em up on it, and brings ’em into his kingdom as a result. How many testimonies have you heard where people came to Jesus because of a crisis?

But even Christians have a bad habit of only calling upon God when it’s a crisis. God was a last resort when we were pagans; God’s still the last person we turn to when we’re totally stuck.

When we’re shopping for phones, we don’t pray. When we’re buying a house (assuming we’re not so wealthy, such transactions are no big deal) we pray a ton. When we have an ache or pain, we pop an aspirin and go on. When it’s cancer, we’re calling the elders of our church to lay hands on us. Jm 5.14

Heck, I’ve heard Christians teach this. In church. “When there’s no one else to turn to, you have God.” Isn’t that nice? He’s our safety net.

He doesn’t wanna be our safety net. He wants to be our support. He wants to carry us. Help us. Love us. Provide for us. Our first resort.

My first Chick tract: “Bewitched?”

After I recently critiqued a Jack Chick tract, a reader commented it had given her flashbacks from when she was exposed to the awful things when she was a kid. I know what she’s talking about. I grew up in Fundamentalist churches. Fundies love the accursed things. They already have Chick’s worldview: Everything in the world is evil and leading you to hell. Quick, say the sinner’s prayer before God has to righteously toss you in there!

Thing is, Chick panders a little too much to the Fundie worldview. As a result Fundies spread his little Tijuana bible-style tracts everywhere, believing they win tons of people to Jesus… ’cause Chick tracts are everywhere! But they’ve no idea how creepy and wrong pagans (and fellow Christians) actually consider them. See, Chick doesn’t bother with fruit of the Spirit. He may have some, but you surely can’t tell from his tracts. They’re graceless, joyless, peaceless, unkind, impatient. “God so loved the world,” Jn 3.16 but in a Chick tract, he doesn’t love ’em unless they’ve said the sinner’s prayer. After they have, they can then be as judgy and preachy as they like. You know, fruitless.

Which actually isn’t about witches.  Bewitched 1
(Reference numbers refer to images on Chick’s website; the cover is 1, the next page is 2, etc.)

So non-Fundies read Chick tracts and are just horrified. God sounds distant, wrathful, and violent. Christians sound rude. The devil sounds ridiculous. Jesus only shows up to quote bible verses. And non-Christians sound like loony caricatures—and once non-Christians see the way Chick depicts them, they immediately realize he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And likely hasn’t the most solid grasp on anything.

Oh, and everything has a vast secret history, or devilish conspiracy, behind it. “Bewitched” falls into the devilish conspiracy category.

I first read “Bewitched” back in the 1970s. I remember finding it in the house we lived in when I was between the ages of six and eight. Don’t know how it got there. Either Mom was given the thing by people from church, or Dad found it at work and had brought it home for us Christians to appreciate. (Dad was forever in the habit of stealing finding things in the workplace and taking them home.) Regardless, I found it, and I liked comic books, so I read it.

The experience still stands out strongly in my mind. I remember it repulsed me. It wasn’t the theological content; I didn’t fully understand that anyway. No, what bugged me was the art. The devils were creepy-looking. So, for that matter, were the regular people in it. Chick and his artists specialize in creepy-looking cartoons. If the objective is to make it stick in your mind, mission accomplished.

The Lord’s my shepherd.

Adonái ro’i (Latin, Dominus pascit me), “the LORD’s my shepherd,” was written by King David ben Jesse in the 10th century BC. In the Hebrew bible it’s the 23rd psalm. (In the Septuagint and Vulgate it’s the 22nd.)

Hebrew poetry doesn’t rhyme. But really, all it takes to make a rhyming translation is a little effort. So I did. Went with anapestic septameter. (Poetry nerds know what that means.)

Psalm 23 KWL

0 David’s psalm.

1 I am never deprived, for my shepherd’s the LORD. 2 In his pastures of grass do I rest.

I am guided by him to the waters so calm. 3 He provides me my life. I am blessed.

I am led down the rightest of paths by his name. 4 In the valley’s dark shade, I may veer;

but because you are with me, I won’t be afraid. In your stick and your staff, I take cheer.

5 You arrange me a table in face of my foes. You rub fat on the wool of my head.

You have made my cup overflow. 6 All my life’s days, love and goodness pursue me instead.

I will always return to the house of the LORD for the length of my days. I’m well-led.

Now, the down side to doing this is the parallelism in these verses becomes a little less obvious. And that’s not unimportant. So in order to make the parallels more obvious, I’ll format it thisaway. (And drop the text I had to pad it with to keep it in meter; and put the contractions back in.)

Psalm 23.1-6 KWL

1 I’m never deprived; my shepherd’s the LORD.

2 In pastures of grass do I rest.

I’m guided by him to the waters so calm.

3 He provides me my life.

I’m led down the rightest of paths by his name.

4 In the valley’s dark shade, I may veer;

but because you’re with me, I won’t be afraid.

In your stick and your staff, I take cheer.

5 You arrange me a table in face of my foes.

You rub fat on my head. You make my cup overflow.

6 All my life’s days, love and goodness pursue me.

I return to the house of the LORD for the length of my days.