Be indiscriminate in loving other people.

Matthew 5.44-48, Luke 6.31-36.

Probably the most important trait Jesus wants to see in his followers is grace, which Evangelicals tend to describe as “unmerited favor,” but I define as “God’s generous, forgiving, kind, favorable attitude towards his people.”

Because the attitude is a significant part of it. You can grudgingly or apathetically grant unmerited favor to people, as you might’ve seen clerks or bureaucrats do when you beg ’em for stuff. Sometimes they don’t wanna, but they realize it’s in their best interests if they do it, so they roll their eyes, and do it. And sometimes we appreciate it… and sometimes not, ’cause we think we do merit some favor out of them.

But God’s attitude isn’t, “Ugh, you humans; here.” It’s love. He’s eager to give us his kingdom. He’s happy to. Lk 12.32 He wants us in it! Including even the ungrateful, selfish, most obnoxious Christians you can think of. Or pagans.

And Jesus wants us to share this attitude, which is why in his Sermon on the Mount and Sermon on the Plain, he tells us his followers to love our enemies. He doesn’t have to order us to love our friends; we already do. But now we gotta love the people we don’t wanna love. Because God loves ’em—and if we wanna be legitimate children of God, we gotta start acting like our Father for once.

Matthew 5.44-48 KWL

44“I tell you²:

Love your² enemies!

{Bless your² cursers.

Do good to your² haters.}

Pray over {your² slanderers

and} your² persecutors.

45This way, you² might become children

of your² Father who is in the heavens,

since he raises his sun over evil and good,

and rain over righteous and unrighteous.

46For when you² love those who love you²,

should you² expect compensation for that?

Don’t taxmen do the very same thing?

47When you² greet only your² family members,

what more do you² do than others?

Don’t pagans do the very same thing?

48So you² will be consistent,

just like your² heavenly Father is consistent.”

Luke 6.31-36 KWL

31“Same as you² want

that people might do for you²,

do likewise for them.

32If you² love those who love you²,

in what way is this grace from you²?

For sinners also love those who love them.

33When you² do good for those who do good for you²,

in what way is this grace from you²?

{For} sinners do the same.

34When you² lend to those

from whom you² expect similar treatment,

in what way is this grace from you²?

Sinners lend to sinners

so they might receive the same treatment.

35Regardless, love your² enemies.

Do good, and lend expecting nothing.

Your² compensation will be abundant.

You’ll² be children of the Highest,

for he is kind to the ungrateful and evil.

36Be compassionate

just like your² Father is compassionate.”

Millennium: When Jesus rules the world.

MILLENNIUM mə'lɛ.ni.əm noun. Thousand years.

2. One of the thousand-year periods after Christ’s birth: The first millennium, the third millennium, etc.

3. Where one thousand-year period ends and another begins.

4. [theology] Christ Jesus’s reign on earth, represented in an apocalypse as a thousand-year age.

[Millennial mɪ'lɛ.ni.əl adjective.]

Whenever Christians talk about being “premillennial” or “amillenial,” no we’re not criticizing millennials, the kids born after the year 2000. We’re talking End Times theories. (We’ll use other terms to criticize millennials.)

The idea comes from Revelation. In one of its visions of Jesus’s second coming (oh, you didn’t know there are multiple visions of the second coming in Revelation? Y’oughta read it sometime), Jesus returns, brings us Christians back from the dead, throws Satan into the abyss for 10 centuries, and rules the world. At the end of that time, Satan gets out, starts a fight, Jesus ends it, judges the world, and ends the world—to be replaced by New Heaven/Earth.

Shall I quote the vision? Yeah, why not.

Revelation 20.1-10 NRSVue

1Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years 3and threw him into the pit and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while.

4Then I saw thrones, and those seated on them were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its brand on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5(The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. 6Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him a thousand years.

7When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison 8and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle; they are as numerous as the sands of the sea. 9They marched up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from heaven and consumed them. 10And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

At face value, it looks like Jesus is literally gonna reign over earth, as the human king of a political kingdom, for a literal thousand years. If Jesus returned in 1988 (he didn’t; I'm just picking a not-all-that-random example) it means the actual end of the world will take place in the year 2988. Mighty long time from now. But as resurrected Christians, who’ll no longer die, we’ll be alive to see it.

But bear in mind: This millennium is part of an apocalyptic vision. It’s not a literal millennium; apocalypses aren’t a literal anything. We honestly don’t know whether it represents a thousand-year stretch of time, a significantly long time-period, or just a significant time period of any length whatsoever.

Hence Christians have come up with various ideas of what it looks like, and generally I’m going over the main three. Handy-dandy chart time:

Three possible timelines of the future. That’ll make things clear as mud.

General revelation: How to (wrongly) deduce God from nature.

GENERAL REVELATION 'dʒɛn(.ə).rəl rɛv.ə'leɪ.ʃən noun. The universal, natural knowledge about God and divine matters. (Also called universal revelation, or natural revelation.)

2. What the universe, nature, or the human psyche reveal to us about God.

A number of Christian apologists love, love, LOVE the idea of general revelation. And I always wind up on their bad side, because as a theologian I have to point out it’s a wholly unreliable form of revelation. It’s so useless it actually does pagans more good than Christians.

This, they really don’t wanna hear. Because they’ve pinned so many hopes on it.

Y’see, apologists love to debate nontheists—people who don’t believe there’s such a being as God, and therefore are mighty sure he’s never interacted with them. Apologists try to prove God has so interacted with them. If the nontheist can’t remember any particular events, the apologist will often point at nature and claim, “See, that’s a way God interacted with you!” God created a really impressive sunset! Or God not-all-that-supernaturally cured ’em of a disease. Or God created one of their kids. Or they had any sort of warm fuzzy feeling which kinda felt divine.

Or, if we’ve got a more philosophically-minded apologist, they’ll try to argue certain cultural or scientific beliefs in a westerner’s brain can’t properly work unless there’s a God-idea somewhere deep in that brain. Absolutes of right and wrong supposedly can’t exist unless there’s an absolute authority (like, say, God) to define these absolutes. Or the unfulfilled desire for a higher power has to be based on an actual Higher Power out there somewhere.

Apologists like to regularly tap the idea of general revelation, then use it to springboard to special revelation—the stuff God has personally revealed about himself, particularly through Jesus.

Me, I figure all this general revelation stuff is quicksand. That’s why I prefer to leapfrog it and straightaway talk about Jesus. Apologists waste way too much time trying to argue in favor of God’s existence by pointing to nature, reasoning, and the human conscience. And while they’re busy trying to sway skeptics—often unsuccessfully—you realize we coulda just prophesied over the skeptic, proving there’s a Holy Spirit who knows all and empowers prophecy, and suddenly we’re talking about the Jesus the Spirit points to. While the prophesied-upon skeptic’s head is spinning from this unexpected, dumbfounding new revelation of a God who loves her… the apologist is still trying, and failing, to convincingly explain why intelligent design isn’t merely wishful thinking.

Why is general revelation quicksand? Because every religion does general revelation. Every religion says, “Look at the universe!—how beautiful and complex it is! Surely it proves there’s a creator behind it!” Then they try to point to the being they consider the creator—but they’re not talking about the LORD. They’re not talking about Jesus. It’s a whole other god. Ọlọrun, perhaps. Or Ahura Mazda, Brahma, Amun-Ra, etcetera.

Likewise people try to deduce God from creation. We begin with the assumption creation kinda resembles its creator; that it has his fingerprints all over it, so we can sorta figure out what God’s like. Look at the people he created, and the way we think and reason. Look at the intelligence which had to go into some of the more complex things in the universe. Look at the attention to detail, the intricacy, the mathematical and scientific precision, the way everything all neatly fits together. Tells you all sorts of profound things about the creator, doesn’t it?

Well… not if you’ve read your bible. You forget this universe isn’t as God originally created it. It fell.

What’s America’s role in the End Times?

The bible, in entirety, was written before the middle east, Europe, Asia, and Africa knew the western hemisphere ever existed.

True, God knew it was there. But his apostles and prophets had no idea. And God didn’t see any point in informing them. It’s not like the Americas, nor any other yet-to-be-discovered islands in the world, were excluded from the scriptures’ various blanket statements about humanity. The LORD is God, and Jesus is King, of the whole earth. Known and unknown lands alike.

So North and South America—the Indian nations then, and the current nations now—aren’t in the bible. At all. Neither suggested nor alluded to in it.

I’m a citizen of the United States, loyal and patriotic. If you’re like me, or even just a big fan of all things American like so many of our resident aliens, I gotta break it to you: Other than the bits about “all the world,” our country doesn’t figure into End Times predictions whatsoever.

You’d be surprised (okay, if you’re American, you probably wouldn’t be) how many American End-Times prognosticators simply can’t abide that.

Blame American exceptionalism, the idea the United States is special, the greatest country in the world, the greatest country in history, and the related belief that Americans are smarter, more capable, more innovative, more talented, than the folks of any other nation. No offense to the people of other countries; that’s what we grew up hearing. We were told we grew up under more freedom that you, and if you had American-style freedom, maybe you’d do as well… but probably not, ’cause we’ve got other traits you lack. Like drive. And, to be honest, money.

We’ve been taught this exceptionalism all our lives. It’s a huge part of American-style civic idolatry. So yeah, this is a lot of the reason why we Americans behave as if we’re special: We’ve always been told we are. Even those of us who realize this is just patriotic propaganda… still kinda believe it. Look at our inventions. Our influence. All the Olympic medals we keep winning. True, maybe the reason we succeed so often is ’cause we think we’re destined to succeed, and other countries really oughta try American-style positive reinforcement like we do. On the other hand, there’s a lot of arrogance mixed up in it.

This attitude has trickled into our religion. Our End Times prognosticators figure the United States is special, doggone it, so we oughta fit in the End Times timeline somewhere. They’re not entirely sure where, but they shoehorn us pretty much anywhere they can get away with it.

The weepy person in the prayer group.

Decades ago, in my previous church, I led the prayer group a few months. At that time we got a new regular attendee, who’d come pray with us every Wednesday. And every time she prayed, sang, or otherwise interacted with God, she cried.

A lot.

We’re not talking misty eyes, or a few tears rolling down her face. Lots of Christians pray with our eyes closed, and you’ll naturally get tears when you squeeze ’em tight—but nope, this wasn’t that either. We’re talking full-on snotty blubbering. Like her child just died.

That first prayer meeting she attended, the women of our prayer meeting gathered round her, hugged her, prayed for God to comfort her, asked God to help whatever had her so sorrowful, and asked whether there was anything they could do. Took ’em the rest of the prayer meeting. And then some! I had to stick around afterward as they tried to minister to her, ’cause I had to lock the building. I didn’t get home till 10PM.

The next week: Same deal. We came to pray, and so did she. Next thing you know, she’s bawling and moaning, and the women are trying to comfort her again, and we again went overtime doing so.

The third week: One woman went over to pray with and comfort her. The rest were telling me, “Oh, she has some serious emotional issues. She needs therapy, not prayer.”

Fourth week, all the women just let her go off in a corner of the chapel to wail.

Some of you who are reading this, think this sounds just awful of us. Hey, if I were a newbie Christian, I’d think the very same thing. She’s coming to us for help, and we’re pushing her aside? Bad Christians!

Except we didn’t push her aside. We tried to help. The women who realized she needed therapy, tried to get her therapy. Found her a therapist who’d see her. Tried to line up an appointment. (Money wasn’t an issue; our church had the resources.) But the weepy person was having none of that. So the women were done—like exhausted parents who give up on trying to get their infant to sleep in her own bed, and just leave the baby in the room to cry it out. They realized they weren’t actually helping; that she didn’t want actual help. So they stopped.

A psychologist friend explained it best: You know how some people feel much better after having a good cry? That’s largely what this woman was doing.

Here’s what’s wrong with her behavior. What also made her feel much better, was having a crowd of Christians console her. And it’s not our job to do that! In fact it’s emotionally draining when we try to do that. None of the women who prayed over her, felt better about things after Wednesday was done; they worried about her all week long. Betcha she didn’t worry about them any. She just came back to get their comfort again, and again… until they realized she’s basically an emotional vampire, and decided they were done being drained.

It’s not our job to console such people; it’s God’s. He has infinite energy for that. He can actually touch us where we need healing.

I’ve seen this phenomenon a number of times since. No, such people don’t necessarily need therapy and medication. But what they’re doing is wholly inappropriate. We’re supposed to take our lamentation to God, and the Holy Spirit is supposed to do the comforting. Instead they take their emotions to us, and drain us like emotional leeches. Humans aren’t equipped to do this! We either cry along, and get just as ruined; or we clamp up and step away in self-defense… and get accused of being cold, unsympathetic, and compassionless.

Love your enemies.

Matthew 5.43-44, Luke 6.27-28.

Sometimes I joke the two commands Jesus said are most important—love God and love your neighbor Mk 12.29-31 —are respectively the easiest and hardest commands. It’s really easy to love God. But the neighbors are such a pain.

Some respond with a laugh. Others disagree: For them, it’s actually a struggle to love God, because he’s invisible and unknowable. (He’s not, but they’ve never been taught how to interact with him, and their churches have been no help.) Whereas the neighbors are sometimes difficult… but sometimes not. And at least they’re visible.

Of course, sometimes their definition of “neighbor” isn’t quite what Jesus has in mind. When asked to define a neighbor, Jesus told the Good Samaritan Story, Lk 10.29-37 and deliberately picked someone Israelis would not care to identify as a “neighbor.” Samaritans were considered heretics of mixed-race ancestry, who insisted they were the real descendants of Israel, and all those Judeans down south were the real heretics. Yet in Jesus’s story, the Samaritan stepped up and helped the half-dead victim when Levites, the most Israeli of Israelis, would not.

Ask Christians who their neighbors are, and sometimes they’re fully aware of Jesus’s story, and try to love the unloveable. But most of us will only think of neighbors as good neighbors—as people who are friendly to us. The less-than-friendly neighbors “aren’t neighborly,” or “aren’t good neighbors,” and therefore aren’t neighbors. We figure they abdicated their status. We only love those who love us. Kind people are easy to love. Unkind people not so much.

In the Law, God obligated the Hebrews to love their neighbors:

Leviticus 19.17-18 Schocken Bible

17You are not to hate your brother in your heart;

rebuke, yes, rebuke your fellow,

that you not bear sin because of him!

18You are not to take-vengeance, you are not to retain-anger against the sons of your kinspeople—

but be-loving to your neighbor [as one] like yourself;

I am YHWH!

And God usually tacks “I am the LORD”—declaring his name YHWH/Jehovah—onto any commands he considers uniquely holy. Don’t hate sinners. Rebuke them, but don’t hate them, don’t take revenge on ’em, don’t stay angry with them; love them. Like God loves ’em.

Like you love yourself. Okay yeah, some of us don’t love ourselves; we got issues. But more often than not, people definitely love ourselves, and prove it regularly with selfish behavior. Now, turn that selfishness outward, turn it into selflessness, and there ya go: You’re loving your neighbor as yourself.

Pharisees strove to follow every command in the Law, including “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and were quite familiar with it ’cause more than one of their rabbis had claimed it’s one of the most important commands. Yet Pharisees were always on the lookout for loopholes, which let ’em look like they followed every command but not really. And if the LORD didn’t explicitly command ’em to love everybody, it meant there were some people they were permitted to hate. Like enemies. Hence the saying “Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.” Which Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, rebuked.

And Jesus didn’t pussyfoot around. He jumped right to the hatable folks, the people who are just plain hostile and vicious towards us. Persecutors. Mistreaters. Cursers.

Matthew 5.43-44 KWL

43“You² hear people say this:

‘You¹ will love your¹ neighbor,’ Lv 19.18

and ‘You¹ will hate your¹ enemy.’

44I tell you²:

Love your² enemies!

{Bless your² cursers.

Do good to your² haters.}

Pray over {your² slanderers

and} your² persecutors.”

Luke 6.27-28 KWL

27“But I tell you² who listen:

Love your² enemies.

Do good to your² haters.

28Bless your² cursers.

Pray for your² accusers.”

The words in braces are what the Textus Receptus added to Matthew by splicing in the sayings of second-century Christians—gospel commentators like Origen, Cyprian, Clement, and Tertullian—who were trying to combine the ideas of the Sermon on the Mount and Sermon on the Plain. It’s not inaccurate to say Jesus taught us to bless our cursers and do good to our haters; he said exactly that in Luke 6. He just didn’t say it in the original text of Matthew.

The devil is a dirty liar.

Years ago I listened to a podcast where a pastor was talking about how he did what he called “spiritual warfare.” He didn’t mean resisting temptation, which is what the scriptures mean when they describe actual spiritual warfare; he means fighting devils.

Then he told a story about fighting a particular devil. A woman came to him for counseling, and in the course of talking with her, he determined she had an evil spirit in her. He demanded to speak to it. It answered. He ordered it to “be bound in Jesus name.” Then he asked it a bunch of questions about how it’s been bothering the woman. When it got started, how things escalated; things like that.

Nope, didn’t throw it out of the woman like he absolutely should have done—like Jesus did every time he realized someone had an evil spirit in ’em. I remind you Jesus forbade those spirits from speaking, Mk 1.34 but this guy got an interview out of the critter.

As I recall, he didn’t put the spirit under oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, like our courts of law do. Not that we should be so stupid as to think a devil would keep any such oath. Humans don’t; perjury happens all the time. To think a devil would be more honest, honorable, and oath-keeping than a human… well that’s ridiculous.

Popular fiction likes to depict Satan as “a man of his word,” because whenever humans in these stories make a deal or wager with the devil, then somehow outsmart or outperform it, it keeps its word and pays its debts. Sometimes ironically, but even so. But Satan is not a man of its word. It’s not even a man!

What it is, is a liar. Precisely as Jesus describes it:

John 8.44 KJV

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

There is no truth in the devil. Nor in any devilish spirit you encounter. Nothing any of them tell you can be trusted. Nothing.

Everything this particular pastor got the evil spirit in the woman to tell him: As far as we know, everything it said is pure garbage. Might’ve sounded plausible and convincing—either because devils can tell a good story, or they swipe someone else’s good story and tell that. And of course devils can easily identify a sucker who’ll believe it—who really wants to believe it, like this pastor.

But again: Pure garbage. Trust nothing.