Put a stop to argumentative Christians.

Titus 3.8-11.

Paul’s letter to Titus is full of advice on how to deal with Christians behaving badly, although recently I’ve heard a preacher using the pastoral epistles to attack pagans behaving badly. That’s not why it was written. My guess is he really wanted to criticize pagans, and wrongly thought these scriptures might help him do it. Problem is, these letters were written to correct us, to keep us on the straight and narrow… and now the people of his church—if they never double-check their pastor to make sure he was right, and let’s be honest; many don’t!—are gonna ignore the apostles’ corrections, think these verses are about pagans not them, and continue being jerks.

Because that’s precisely why Paul wrote the letters! The people of Titus and Timothy’s churches, same as the people of many Christian churches, were being self-righteous jerks, and their pastors needed to shut that bad behavior down. Still do! Too many pastors either lack the spine to do it, or the wisdom to know how to steer people lovingly—they try to discipline their churches with threats and bluntness, and that just drives people away, to attend other churches where the pastors never, ever correct ’em.

And one of the most common pestilences we see in Christian churches, is what we see in today’s passage. It’s about argumentative Christians. Argumentativeness is a work of the flesh, but so many of us justify our fighting and debating and “apologetics” by claiming, “I’m standing up for the truth. I’m doing it for Jesus!” Yeah, no we’re not. We’re indulging our lust for battle, which you can see by all the other carnal, bad fruit which emerges from these fights: Anger, harsh words, hurt feelings, unforgiveness, grudges, vengeance. Even full church splits.

That’s why Paul instructed Titus to nip ’em in the bud.

Titus 3.8-11 KWL

8A true teaching—

and I’d like you to regularly insist on these things

so those who trusted God

might thoughtfully practice good works.

These things are good and helpful for people.

9Moronic lessons and good heritage,

friction, and fights over the Law:

Step away, for they’re wasteful and meaningless.

10After the first and second rebukes,

shut down a heretic person,

11knowing such a person was uprooted

and sins, condemning one’s self.

I have several Greek New Testaments, which I look at when I’m translating bible; including ancient copies of the NT like the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus. (The Codex Vaticanus doesn’t include Titus.) The ancient copies don’t have punctuation, but some of ’em do have paragraphs, and verse 8 is the beginning of a new paragraph in the Alexandrinus. But Desiderius Erasmus and Robert Estienne, editors of the Textus Receptus (which did use the Alexandrinus text as a reference, and was later used to translate the King James) came up with their own paragraphs. Which is why some bibles either make verse 8 part of the previous paragraph, or make verses 1–11 into one big paragraph. Grammatically, verse 8 can be its very own paragraph. But I’ll just go with the ancient Christians on this one: The previous passages were “a true teaching” (KJV “faithful saying”), but heads up: There are also false teachings.

Apocrypha: The “extra books” your bible may lack.

APOCRYPHON ə'pɑk.rə.fɔn noun. A writing or book not considered part of the accepted canon of scripture.

2. Story of doubtful authenticity.

3. Story that’s obscure or little-known.

[Apocrypha ə'pɑk.rə.fə plural, apocryphal əˈpɑkrəfəl adjective.]

One of my favorite stunts with new Christians used to be, “Turn in your bibles to the book of Wisdom, chapter 4.” And they’d try—they’d flip around their bibles, then give up and look at the table of contents… then realize the book wasn’t there.

“Well it’s in my bible,” I’d tell ’em. And hold it up to show them, confusing them all the more.

My bible included apocrypha. Actually a few of my bibles include apocrypha. And I know; you’re thinking, “Oh, those are Catholic bibles.” Nope; I do own a Catholic bible, but it’s only a New Testament, which has no apocrypha. All my bibles with the apocrypha included are Protestant. Yep, some Protestant bibles have them!

Unfortunately I can’t pull this stunt anymore, ’cause nowadays people look up the bible on their phones. And a lot of bible apps include apocrypha, so they can actually find Wisdom in there. Bible Gateway has apocrypha too. Spoils my little joke. Oh well.

But I had a reason for this joke: I wanted to introduce newbies to the fact not every bible includes all the same books. Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican bibles are gonna have books in them which your average Evangelical bible will not. Evangelicals call these books apocrypha. Catholics call ’em deuterocanon, and Orthodox anagignoskómena.

Contrary to popular belief, they’re not merely “extra books.” For four centuries before Jesus, Greek-speaking Jews had these books in their bibles. For 17 centuries thereafter, Greek-speaking, Latin-speaking, and English-speaking Christians had ’em in their bibles. Some of these books got quoted in the New Testament. Got quoted by the early church fathers. Got translated and included in the Geneva Bible and King James Version. Seriously.

So when people ask me “Why do Catholics have extra books?” I gotta point out the proper question is why we Evangelicals don’t include these books. ’Cause the majority of Christians in the world do have ’em. And Evangelical Protestants used to have no problem with including ’em in our bibles… well, for about two centuries. Wasn’t till the Puritans began purging apocrypha from bibles that they even became an issue.

Today we have some Protestants who insist not only should apocrypha not be in bibles, but claim they’re devilish. Doesn’t matter that Martin Luther called ’em nützliche, aber nicht heilige Schriften/“useful, but not holy writings.” To these dark Christians, not only are apocrypha not useful, but they (and Roman Catholics) are part of Satan’s evil conspiracy to corrupt the bible.

Here’s what conspiracy theorist Jack Chick had to say on the topic. [The Attack, 8]

According to these cranks, if you read any of the apocrypha, they’ll corrupt you too. Flee the scary books!

Well, let’s put aside the loopy paranoia and get to what apocrypha actually are.

Submission. It’s not domination.

SUBMIT səb'mɪt verb. Yield to or accept a superior force, authority, or will. Consent to their conditions.

2. Present one’s will to another for their consideration or judgment.

[Submission səb'mɪs.ʃən noun.]

Notice there are two popular definitions of submit in use. The more popular of the two has to do with acceptance, obedience, and blind capitulation. To turn off our brains, to do as we’re told. And most sermons instruct Christians to do precisely that. Submit to one another, as Paul ordered.

Ephesians 5.21 ESV

…submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

’Cause we kinda have to. If we can’t submit to God—if we insist on our own way, our own standards, our own values, our own lifestyles—it’s a pretty good bet we’re outside his kingdom.

Romans 8.5-8 ESV

5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

So we especially submit to God. Jm 4.7 And to Christian leaders; 1Pe 5.5 we follow the doctrines they proclaim from the pulpit. And wives, submit to your husbands. Ep 5.22 When he says “Jump,” you ask “How high?”

Then there’s the other definition of submit: The one where it’s not typical of a relationship between a benevolent (or not-so-benevolent) despot and their subjects, but between partners, friends, or coworkers. One where we instead bounce ideas off one another. Find out whether these ideas help or inconvenience one another—and of course try to get ’em to help as best we can.

One which sounds appropriate for a παράκλητος/paráklitos, “helper” Jn 14.16, 14.26, 15.26, 16.7 and the people he’s trying to help. For a teacher and his pupils. For a loving God and his kids.

So… which definition d’you think fits what the authors of the scriptures were talking about?

Oh, the benevolent despot thingy? Well it does work for cult leaders and wannabe patriarchs. But in God’s kingdom, where the king calls us his friends, Jn 15.15 where love doesn’t demand its own way, 1Co 13.5 it’s pretty obvious the despotic definition is entirely incorrect. In many ways it’s kinda the opposite of God’s intent. Almost as if the devil got Christians to flip it 180 degrees, n’est-ce pas?

Praying for the dead.

Praying for the dead is a controversial subject among Evangelicals. Because just about everybody does it. Yet just about every Evangelical preacher I’ve heard, has insisted we absolutely shouldn’t.

Yeah, you might be thinking, “I’ve never done it.” You’d be rare. When a loved one dies, usually most Christians will pray, “God, grant them peace,” or “God, grant them eternal rest,” or otherwise ask God to make sure they’re nice ’n comfortable in paradise. (Or “heaven,” because your average Christian doesn’t know squat about the afterlife, and thinks they’re in heaven.) We want the best for our loved ones, and we know God wants the best for our loved ones, and isn’t asking God for their best a form of praying for God’s will to be done? What’d be wrong with that? It’s a prayer we can be sure he’ll answer “yes” to!

Other times when a loved one dies, we Christians might not be all that sure about their eternal destination. It’ll be someone whose relationship with Jesus… well, bluntly, sucked. There are an awful lot of those! They might’ve claimed to be Christian, but never went to church, didn’t know jack squat about the bible, and Jesus’s teachings, and grace. Never displayed any good fruit—in fact they displayed quite a lot of bad fruit, and you wouldn’t know ’em from pagans if you had to pick ’em out of a lineup with paper bags over their heads. We hope they’re in paradise, but we have a bad feeling there’s every chance they may not be. So we’re praying! The prayers vary. Some of us actually try to pray ’em into paradise, if that’s possible (and it’s likely not). Others are praying for their own peace of mind; they don’t like that their loved ones may not be in paradise, but either way, God’s will be done.

Often there are those people who want God to pass a message to their loved ones. Being dead, the loved ones clearly can’t hear us, but they oughta be able to hear God. And we want them to know we love them. Or that we’re okay; or we’ll be okay, eventually. Or that we miss ’em. Or something sentimental; so God, could you let ’em know? Please? Thanks.

And, since I’m posting this on Memorial Day in the United States, there are gonna be those people who pray that God honor our dead, bless their memory, and ask that good fruit will come from their sacrifices. While some Evangelicals might claim that’s not actually praying for the dead, let’s not be hypocrites; it absolutely is, yet y’all don’t seem to have any problem with that. Heck, some of the preachers who shout, “We don’t pray for the dead!” the loudest, will eagerly lead those prayers on Memorial Day.

So who’s right? Well obviously I’m not siding with the preachers. (Not completely.)

The armor of God.

Ephesians 6.10-17.

Christians are fascinated by the armor-of-God metaphor which Paul used in Ephesians 6. Sometimes too fascinated.

Jesus teaches us to foster and encourage peace. Mt 5.9 Of course, our depraved human nature would much rather fight, and kick ass for Jesus if we can. So the idea we get to wear armor and play soldier really fires up certain Christians, who’d love to engage in a little testosterone-fueled warfare, and find this passage an excuse to indulge their blood-soaked he-man fantasies a little. If only metaphorically.

For such people, God’s armor is never for defense, Ep 6.11 but offense. Those who fancy themselves “prayer warriors” love to talk about how to attack with this armor. Christians even make plastic armor for children to play with—including a sword of the Spirit, Ep 6.17 which kids can use to smite one another. In so doing they learn—wrongly, even blasphemously—the word of God is about hurting people.

But just because God’s word is sharper than a sword He 4.12 doesn’t mean we’re to wield it like that! Using it surgically is the Holy Spirit’s job. When we use it, we’re not so precise. Without his guidance it’s a blunt instrument, used to maim our foes, not cure them.

But as part of Paul’s inventory of God’s armor, properly the sword is likewise used for defense. It’s used to parry our opponents’ swords, just as Jesus did with Satan. Our Lord quoted Deuteronomy in order to defeat the devil’s temptations. We gotta do likewise: Assuming we know what God’s told us (and assuming we’re not just projecting our own will upon him), we quote it at devils and naysayers and use it to resist.

Paul actually borrowed the idea of God’s armor from Isaiah 59.17, and expanded upon it a little.

Ephesians 6.10-17 KWL

10As for the rest, {my family}:

Be empowered by the Master,

and in the might of his strength.

11Put on all of God’s gear,

so you can enable yourself to stand against the devil’s tactics.

12Because the struggle isn’t us against blood and body,

but against types of rule,

against special privilege,

against the things which rule this dark world {in this age},

against supernatural evil in the high heavens.

13This is why, so receive all God’s gear,

so you might be able to stand against those things on the evil day,

and they’re enabling you to withstand everything.

14So stand: Belt your waist with truth.

Put on the body armor of justice.

15Lace up your shoes in preparation

to deliver the good news of peace.

16Carry at all times the shield of trust in God,

which you’ll use to put out every flaming arrow of evil.

17Accept the helmet of your salvation

and the machete of the Spirit—

which is God’s spoken word.

And pray at all times in the Spirit Ep 6.18 —but I’ll discuss that another time.

Spiritual warfare: Resist temptation!

Spiritual warfare is resisting evil. Plain and simple.

Now yeah, some Christians describe it as fighting evil. And when they think of fighting evil, they’re thinking of fighting some evil spirit, if not Satan itself. The devil and its imps are trying to destroy the world. So they’re fighting back! They’re praying really, really hard for the devil to get defeated. Bound in unbreakable chains. In some cases they’ll pray directly to the devil: “I bind you, Satan; I order you into the pit.” I’m not sure they understand only Jesus puts Satan in the pit; I’m not sure they understand spiritual warfare in general.

Y’see, back in the 1980s, author Frank Peretti wrote some novels about an unseen cosmic battle taking place between spirits, which used humans as their proxies. (Much like the Greek gods manipulated humans in Homer’s Iliad.) From the humans’ point of view, there was a culture war going on between good Christians and evil pagans. From the spirits’ view, they were fighting in the skies with swords and scimitars. And somehow prayer made the angels’ swords mightier. And that’s why we gotta pray. Our prayers are like the charging cable for our angels’ lightsabers!

In real life? No. Dumb. But it really struck a nerve with the fleshly, fightin’ part of culture warriors, and to this day you’re gonna find some the language from Peretti’s novels mixed in with the speech of “prayer warriors.” Doesn’t matter that none of it is biblical. They’ve heard this myth so long, they’re convinced it’s totally biblical.

But again: Spiritual warfare is resisting evil. And to do that effectively, we gotta be humble before God. We gotta recognize there’s no way we can defeat evil without him. He’s gotta empower us to resist. He, not our prayers, does it.

James 4.7-10 KWL

7So be submitted to God;

stand against the devil, and it’ll run away from you.

8Come near to God

and he’ll come near to you.

Sinners, cleanse your hands!

Those on the fence, sanctify your minds.

9Recognize your misery, mourn, and weep.

Change your laughter into sorrow

and joy into shame:

10Be humble before the Master

and he’ll lift you up.

But of course the Frank Peretti novels insist it’s the prayers of the saints, so “spiritual warriors” are gonna insist it’s all the weepy, loud praying they’ve been doing which knocks down strongholds and takes ground for God. Nope; it’s all God. Who defeats evil in the End with or without us. But of course he’d much rather have us join him, and not get destroyed along with all the evil. So I recommend doing as James said: Come near to God, clean your hands and minds, stop laughing off these things as if they’re nothing to worry about, and acknowledge Jesus is right and we are not.

Stop assuming prayer is warfare, worship is warfare, going through the motions of devout religiosity is warfare. None of those things are. Jesus and his apostles never describe ’em as such. Because they’re not.

Submitting to Jesus and resisting temptation: That’s warfare.

To whom are the scriptures written? It’s kinda important.

Some months ago I visited another church. (So if my pastors are worried this article’s about them: Relax! I figure you know better than to do this.)

The passage was from the New Testament; Paul of Tarsus was, as usual, correcting Christians. I won’t say which of Paul’s letters was quoted; I don’t actually need to. In his sermon, Pastor Berwyn (not his name, but it’s what I’m calling him) expounded on what Paul had to say to all the sinners in our wicked world.

Except… was Paul writing to all the sinners of our wicked world? Or all the sinners of his wicked world?—namely the Roman Empire and its pagan practices. And maybe I should use the word “Pagan” with a capital P, because we’re not talking about today’s pagans, who lean monotheist thanks to the influence of Abrahamic religions: I’m talking old-school pagans, who believed in many gods, few of whom were good or moral or cared about humanity.

If you’ve read your bible, you’re fully aware every single one of Paul’s letters, whether written solo or with co-writers, was addressed to the Christians of various Roman Empire cities. And you’re fully aware every letter—the ones by James, Peter, John, Jude, and Luke—and all the gospels, were likewise written to Christians. The recipients and audience of the entire New Testament? Ancient Christians. And their posterity, which includes today’s Christians.

Not pagans. Not pagans then; not pagans now. Yep, even though we’ll give free bibles and gospels of John to pagans, in the hopes they’ll find Jesus in there: It wasn’t written to them.

Now, since the New Testament was written to ancient Christians, it stands to reason there are gonna be some things in it which dealt specifically with ancient Christian issues and problems. And for that, we gotta do a little historical research, and make sure we’re not borrowing the instructions about an ancient problem, and wrongly turning ’em into a current problem. (Like telling women they can’t speak in church.) Historical context is just as important.

Otherwise, the New Testament was written to Christians. Not pagans. And Paul’s instructions—and rebukes—are to Christians. Not the cold cruel world of the Roman Empire, nor the cold cruel world of the United States. He’s doing housekeeping. He’s trying to clean up the people who claim to follow Jesus. The people who make no such claims: They’re on their own. Ro 1.28-32 Till they repent.

If you ever hear a preacher angrily condemning the world… well, that’s gonna happen. Shouldn’t be done in anger, ’cause sinners aren’t gonna listen to an angry person; such preachers are speaking without love. (And don’t give me any rubbish about “tough love.” That’s just more anger.) But they’re gonna figure, “The Old Testament prophets did it; why can’t I?” and rant about it as much as they please, and maybe there’ll be some truth in it.

But if you’re claiming or implying the apostles did the same thing in the New Testament, you’d be wrong. You’re pulling the scriptures out of their context, and teaching your own bile instead of godly wisdom.