Receiving not our witness.

Sometimes you share the gospel with someone… and they’re not interested.

To be fair, sometimes they didn’t ask you to share the gospel: You just kinda impose it on them. “Lemme tell you about Jesus,” you start, and before they can agree or say “No thank you,” off you go. Or you present the gospel as, “If you were to die this very minute, do you know whether you’d be in heaven?”—as if that’s the only thing the gospel is: Afterlife insurance.

Whether you do it right, or do it intrusively, or emphasize popular dark Christian fears instead of good news: They’re not interested. You offer to lead ’em in the sinner’s prayer; they don’t care to pray that. You invite ’em to church; they’re not coming. No thank you. Pass. I’m happy with how things are.

Some Christians take this rejection kinda hard. Especially when, for various reasons, they were sure they were gonna lead this person to Jesus. Or really wanted to. Or thought they heard the Holy Spirit tell them to share Jesus with this specific person (as if the Spirit’s direction automatically means we’ll have success). Some folks take every rejection hard, as if every no is a personal defeat in their spiritual hand-to-hand combat with Satan itself.

And when people take it hard, the less-mature of ’em get petty about it, and quote today’s out-of-context scripture to justify themselves: “We shared the gospel, but they didn’t wanna hear it. They wouldn’t receive our witness.” Sometimes they straight-up quote the entire verse.

John 3.11 KJV

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.

This verse isn’t at all about evangelism. You’d think so, ’cause it comes just after Jesus teaches the Galileans and Judeans about himself and God, and the Judean leadership didn’t care to hear him, because they already had their own ideas about God and his Messiah. But it comes when one Judean senator, who wanted to hear Jesus out, was actually listening to Jesus. “Ye receive not” means the mass of you aren’t listening; but this individual actually was.

True, when we talk about Jesus with other people, a number of ’em likewise have their own ideas about who Jesus is, and don’t wanna hear our views because they “don’t follow organized religion.” They prefer how they organized things. Only in these cases are we even approaching the same thing Jesus is speaking of in John 3.11.

The rest of the time, it’s just people who dismissed the gospel. And in quoting this scripture, we’re being such drama queens about it. Calm down, little snowflake. You need to learn to deal with rejection better.

Lifting Jesus up—in worship, or in crucifixion?

John 12.32.

When I first wrote about out-of-context scriptures, I dealt with the misquotes I heard most often. Like taking the Lord’s name in vain, or God’s word not returning void, or when two or three gather in Jesus’s name, or God making all things work for our good. There are dozens.

I don’t hear any of them misquoting today’s verse.

I have no reason to believe people don’t do it; people will misquote anything. It’s just I haven’t caught ’em doing it. I got the verse from an internet search I did years ago for “Most common verses Christians take out of context.” It turned up a bunch of listicles, and John 12.32 shows up in a number of them. (I kinda wonder whether the people who write these listicles aren’t just swiping ideas from one another. “Um… I can only think of nine out-of-context scriptures; what’s a tenth? Better Google it.”)

But it’s not been on my radar. Here it is though.

John 12.32 KJV

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

Okay. I have heard plenty of Christians, including myself, talk about “lifting up the name of Jesus.” We’re talking about exalting Jesus—giving him honor, worshiping him, praising him, spreading the good news about him, treating him with respect, and so forth. Exalting Jesus is what we Christians do. We praise him ’cause he’s awesome. We hope our praises—multiplied by our good deeds—might get pagans to give Jesus a second look, and maybe come to exalt him themselves.

But we don’t use John 12.32 as our proof text. Well I don’t, anyway.

Here’s what I suspect: People assume that’s our proof text, because our “lifting up” language sounds an awful lot like a reference John 12.32. So every time someone speaks of lifting up the name of Jesus, we’re indirectly quoting that verse.

Nope. I’m not. I don’t have that verse in mind at all. Pretty sure no one does.

But let’s not rule out the possibility. Maybe someone, when they read John 12.32, think the scripture is about praising Jesus: If we lift him up—in praise—it’ll draw people to Jesus. I’ve never heard anyone preach this, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if someone did preach this. It’s not at all what the verse is about, but since when has that stopped anyone?

If you know of anyone misquoting the verse to mean something else, by all means let me know. The listicles were no help.

James’s ruling at the Council of Jerusalem.

Acts 15.12-21 KWL

12 All the crowd was silent.

They’d heard Barnabas and Paul explain all the miracles God did,

and wonders among the gentiles because of them.

13 After their silence James answered, saying,

“Men, fellow Christians, hear me.

14 Simon Peter explained just how God first chose

to take a people for his name out of the gentiles.

15 The prophets’ words harmonize with this,

just as it’s written:

16 ‘After this, I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent.

I will rebuild its ruins. I will lift it up.

17 Thus whenever the remnant of the Lord’s people might earnestly search,

and all the gentiles who had been called by my name…

says the Lord who does these things,’ Am 9.11-12

18 well-known in that age.

19 So I judge to not further trouble

those of the gentiles who repent to God.

20 Instead we’re to write them about abstaining

from the contamination of idolatry—

porn, strangled idolatrous sacrifices, and blood.

21 From the earliest generations, the Law of Moses

has been read in synagogue every Sabbath

in the cities which proclaim him.”

Previously:

“The Council of Jerusalem.” Ac 15.1-12

To recap: Certain Christians from Jerusalem had gone to Syria, to Barnabas and Paul’s church in Antioch, and were teaching gentile Christians they needed to first become Jews before they could be saved. This was after all what Jews believed and taught: Messiah is king of Israel, king of the Jews—not the world. So if any non-Jews wanna be included in his kingdom, they needed Jewish citizenship. They had to become Jews. Starting with ritual circumcision. Whip it out; we’re gonna cut you!

Barnabas and Paul objected: Messiah is king of Israel and king of the world. Becoming Jews isn’t necessary. And in fact, requiring it has the side effect of telling people our works save us; not God’s grace. We’re not saved by jumping through hoops. We’re saved only by turning to Jesus.

Simon Peter pointed out God himself confirmed this by granting the Holy Spirit to Cornelius and the first gentiles he ever preached the gospel to. If God didn’t require ritual circumcision before gentiles could become Christian, why should Christians? What business do we have in adding any prerequisites to salvation?

As I said before, Roman Catholics like to imagine Peter led the church back then, as its first pope; later as the first bishop of Rome (notwithstanding the leaders of any other churches in the city of Rome before Peter eventually moved there). But by this point he had stepped back from leading the Jerusalem church, to concentrate on other ministry. So Jesus’s brother James had stepped up, and in his capacity as the Jerusalem church’s supervisor (Greek ἐπίσκοπος/epískopos, “bishop”) presided over this council. As president, same as the president of a synagogue, his job was to moderate: Recognize the speakers, stop discussion when it turned into bickering, and make the final ruling. It’s exactly like being a judge.

The Council of Jerusalem.

Acts 15.1-12 KWL

1 Certain people, coming down from Judea to Antioch,

were teaching the fellow Christians this:

“Unless you’ve been circumcised in the manner of Moses,

you are not able to be saved.”

2 It became no small standing controversy and debate

between Paul and Barnabas and them.

Paul and Barnabas arranged to go up to Judea

with some others of them,

to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem,

to talk about their debate.

3 (By the way, while being sent off by the church,

they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria,

telling the Christians there about converting gentiles in detail,

causing great joy among all their fellow Christians.)

4 Appearing in Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas were received

by the churches, the apostles, and the elders.

5 They brought up certain things

about the heresy the Pharisee believers were speaking of—

that “It is necessary to circumcise yourselves

to keep the command of the Mosaic law.”

6 The apostles and elders gathered together to look at this word.

7 Many debates were coming out of it.

Rising up, Simon Peter told them, “Men, fellow Christians,

you know that in the olden days,

God chose from among you, through my mouth,

for gentiles to hear the word of the good news, and believe.

8 God, the heart-knower, witnessed to them,

giving the Holy Spirit just as he did to us as well.

9 The Spirit never discriminated between us and them,

cleansing their hearts by faith.

10 So why do you now challenge God

to put a yoke on the students’ necks

which neither our parents nor we have to carry?

11 Instead, because of our Master Jesus’s grace,

we trust him to save them in the same way as us.”

12 All the crowd was silent.

They’d heard Barnabas and Paul explain all the miracles God did,

and wonders among the gentiles because of them.

Next:

“James’s ruling at the Council of Jerusalem.” Ac 15.12-21

Whenever I talk about Christian orthodoxy, and whether a Christian doctrine is debatable or not, I define the debatable ones by the ancient Christian councils. If the ancient Christians hashed this out during the first 700 years of Christianity—back before the one church split into the separate Orthodox and Catholic camps—then it’s decided. That’s the orthodox position.

No we don’t get to second-guess the ancient councils and decide they were wrong. We recognize they were still listening to the Holy Spirit at that time, and he led ’em to their theological conclusions. The only reason—the only reason—today’s Christians argue the ancients were wrong (or push the popular conspiracy theory that Emperor Constantine, or “the popes”—which didn’t even exist yet!—hijacked ancient Christianity and turned it heretic), is because those naysaying Christians wanna claim they get to decide these things, and they’re right. And they don’t, and they’re not. (Their bad attitudes and bad fruit kinda give ’em away, too.)

The precedent for these ancient councils is found in the bible, in the very first church council, which we call the Council of Jerusalem. It was presided by Jesus’s brother James, who was the head apostle in Jerusalem at the time. (Roman Catholics like to claim Simon Peter was still in charge, ’cause he’s their favorite. But Peter had stepped down some years before, during one of the persecutions—although you notice in today’s passage he was definitely active among them.) As president, James got the last word, in which he expressed the consensus of the apostles—which appears to be their unanimous conclusion. Later councils also tried for a unanimous conclusion—after all, if they’re all listening to the same Holy Spirit, shouldn’t the conclusion be unanimous?

Because today’s Christians are fragmented into denominations, and some of our denominations refuse to talk to one another, much less come to agreements with one another, we can’t do church councils anymore. We can do denominational councils, and do: Certain church networks can get together and hash out all the divisive debates within their churches. And while they might claim they speak for all Christians everywhere (like the Roman Catholics try to do), they really only speak for themselves. Their regular inability to see outside their own boxes, makes it kinda impossible for the Holy Spirit to speak to every Christian. Hence he frequently doesn’t even try; he just speaks to that denomination. But every so often these denominational councils come up with declarations which every Christian oughta listen to—because they are actually heeding the Spirit. So it’s not a bad idea for the rest of us to pay some attention to what the Spirit’s doing among our fellow Christians. It might profit us.

Anyway, back to this council.

“Why is God silent?”

One of the more common questions—really, more of a complaint—I hear from pagans is, “Why is God so invisible? Why’s he so impossible to detect? Why’s he so hidden? How come, when I pray, I never hear him talk back? How come, whenever I call on him, I get nothing—no answers, no signs, no miracles, no prophets, no audible voice, no burning bush nor pillar of fire, no thunder and lightning, nothing? Why’s he gotta be so impossible? Why’s he gotta be… well, not there?”

Which is an excellent question.

It’s one more Christians oughta ask. Because for a number of us, we have the very same question. We likewise think God’s playing a cosmic game of hide-and-seek with us, and wanna know why he’s so silent, invisible, and missing.

In fact some of those Christians even teach God chooses to be absent: He turned off his miracles, stopped talking to his kids, withdrew himself as much as possible from the universe, and only answers prayers through natural processes and coincidence. He’s made himself impossible to find.

Why would he do such a thing? Well these cessationists claim it’s ’cause he’s trying to grow our faith. See, if he were visible, and we could see for ourselves he exists… we wouldn’t have to trust him, or the bible, or fellow Christians, when they tell us he exists. We wouldn’t need faith. So we wouldn’t practice it, wouldn’t grow it; it’d be tiny and anemic.

I grew up hearing this explanation. I still think it’s stupid.

And inconsistent with the bible. God wants to be found. 1Ch 28.9, Jr 29.13 Jesus taught us to ask, seek, knock, Mt 7.7 and make our requests known to our Father, who isn’t far away. Nor is he hiding.

Errors in the bible.

Years ago I was asked whether I believe in biblical inerrancy, the idea the bible contains no errors. Nope, I said. It’s got errors. We learned about ’em in bible college.

He was outraged. I learned about them in bible college? What kind of godless so-called “bible college” did I attend? Well it was an Assemblies of God school, which outraged him all the more because that’s his denomination, and he had presumed Assemblies professors would never, ever teach such a thing. (Actually that particular professor was Presbyterian, but I didn’t tell him that.)

I pointed out, same as my professor pointed out, that if he hadn’t told us about the errors, plenty of nonchristian apologists will gleefully inform us about ’em, just to freak us out. Better we learn about them and deal with them, than never learn about them… then have a massive faith crisis when we stumble across them. (Or when some antichrist forces us to look at them for fun.)

It’s for this same reason I’m writing about them here. They exist. Deal with ’em.

’Cause as you know, plenty of Christians refuse to deal with them. In fact this is part of the reason the New International Version is so popular: Its editors deliberately edited out most of the errors. I’m not kidding. They straight-up changed the text… and now they can claim the NIV is error-free. And anyone who carries an NIV can claim, “I don’t know what you mean about errors in the bible; my bible doesn’t have any such errors.” Well of course.

How can they defend this behavior? Meh; they don’t even try. They just figure it’s their duty as good Christian inerrantists to delete the discrepancies, lest antichrists use the discrepancies against us. How they did it—yet can claim any degree whatsoever of intellectual honesty—is by sliding ’em downward, into the footnotes. When 2 Kings 8.26 says Ahaziah ben Jehoshaphat became king at 22 years old, but 2 Chronicles 22.2 says he was 42, the NIV makes ’em both say 22, then includes this footnote in 2 Chronicles:

Some Septuagint manuscripts and Syriac (see also 2 Kings 8:26); Hebrew forty-two

My copy of the Septuagint says he was 20, not 22; so that’s an inconsistency as well.

But to be fair it’s not just the NIV which translated this verse this way. The Amplified Bible (current edition), CSB, ESV, ISV, Message, NASB, NET, NLT, and Voice have decided to ignore the original text, and go with a translation consistent with their personal beliefs about inerrancy. I leave it to you as whether it’s truly inerrantist of them to change the bible to suit themselves. Because changing the verse to read “22” instead of the original text’s אַרְבָּעִ֨ים וּשְׁתַּ֤יִם/arbayím u-settím, “forty and two,” is actually a clear declaration the original text is wrong—and a clear attempt to hide this fact.

And what’s to say 42 is the wrong number, not 22? Maybe Ahaziah was actually 42 years old. You don’t know.

Versions, translations, paraphrases, and padded texts.

Most English-language bibles have the word version in their title: The King James Version, the Revised Version, the American Standard Version, the New International Version, the English Standard Version, and so on.

It’s a popular way to indicate your bible is different from other bibles: You got a different version. Just like the fifth edition of a textbook might be a little different from the fourth edition: Still the same book, but a little different. It doesn’t tell a different story from other bibles, nor communicates different ideas. There should be exactly the same stories and ideas. But the way one bible puts it into English, isn’t gonna phrase it the same way as another bible will. The KJV will use 16th century English, and the NKJV won’t.

More recently, bibles are starting to be titled translations—like the Good News Translation, the New Living Translation, the New English Translation, the God’s Word Translation. It’s a more precise word than version, ’cause “version” can suggest a different point of view, and bible versions had better not present a different point of view from one another. All should be accurate translations of the original text. And all bibles are translations.

Well… unless they’re not. Sometimes they’re paraphrases.