The prayers of a jerk.

Last week I wrote about Jesus’s Pharisee and Taxman Story, in which he compared the prayers of two guys in temple—a self-righteous Pharisee, and a taxman begging for mercy. The taxman, said Jesus, went home righteous. Lk 18.14

The Pharisee, on the other hand… well, it really depends on how you translate the Greek preposition παρ’/par’. Properly, it’s “besides,” but Christian tradition has been to interpret it as “against, contrary to,” and claim the Pharisee was not righteous.

Why’s this? Well, his works. His prayer makes him sound like a real jerk. Jerks aren’t righteous, are they?

Luke 18.11-12 NASB

11“The Pharisee stood and began praying this in regard to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, crooked, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ ”

“I don’t swindle. I don’t connive. I don’t cheat. I’m not like this collaborator with our Roman oppressors. I voluntarily give up food so I can concentrate on you. I give away a tenth of absolutely everything.” What a braggart.

Thing is, once you think about it, plenty of devout God-followers oughta be able to say the very same thing, and honestly mean it. Hopefully not with this Pharisee’s attitude, but still, as far as good works are concerned, dude was doing ’em.

The part which makes us unsympathetic to the Pharisee’s prayer is of course the very first part of it. “God, I’m so happy you didn’t make me one of the lowlifes who don’t do as I do. Thank you that I was born into this race, and for making me one of the good ones.” Yep, it’s his crappy, fruitless Pharisee-supremacist attitude. How dare he. (And hopefully our offense isn’t because we figure only we are permitted to think that way, as Christian supremacists will.)

Still, does the Pharisee’s bad attitude undo his righteousness? What does makes us righteous or unrighteous? What justifies us before God?

Hopefully we’ve not forgotten basic Christian doctrine: It’s faith. We don’t merit justification and salvation by fasting and tithing. Neither do we unearn it by disparaging others in our petty, selfish prayers. When we believe and trust God, he accounts it to us as righteousness, same as he did with Abraham. Ge 15.6, Ro 4.3 Does the Pharisee in Jesus’s story not trust God? Clearly he does—and he’s totally thanking God for making him the way he is. And yes, he’s a great big jerk about it. But he does believe God. Like it or not, this means he’s not unrighteous, no matter how your favorite bible translates Luke 18.14.

Okay, maybe he’s less righteous, as William Tyndale put it:

Luke 18.14 Tyndale

14AI tell you: this ma departed hoe to his housse iustified moore then the other.

But again: If our righteousness comes from faith not works, it bad theology to say this Pharisee isn’t righteous. Jesus does rebuke his hypothetical Pharisee for being a dick, but he never does declare him outside of God’s kingdom. For he’s not.

This oughta be some comfort to those Christians who slip up, mirror this Pharisee’s attitude, and start thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought. And even start praying that way too. We shouldn’t do that; we should certainly know better; the Christian walk should reflect humility not pride. Remember no matter how many good deeds we do, it never wholly cancels out our sins; we don’t deserve salvation. But God is gracious, so we have his salvation anyway. So be gracious as well. Be better than this Pharisee.

Suffering for goodness.

1 Peter 4.1-6.

You remember in 1 Peter 3.18, Simon Peter wrote, “Christ Jesus once also suffered for sins… so that he could bring us to God, putting us to death in the flesh and making us alive in the Spirit.” (My translation.) In today’s passage he bounces back to that idea. Jesus suffered, and in so doing conquered sin.

And y’know, if we suffer, we can kinda conquer sin:

1 Peter 4.1-6 KWL

1So, about Christ suffering in the flesh:

Prepare yourselves² as well with the same mindset.

For one who suffers in the flesh prevents sin;

2is no longer into human desires,

but the rest of the time they’re in the flesh,

is into God’s will.

3The past was plenty of time

to achieve the desires of gentiles—

living in unchastity, lust, drunkenness,

partying, drinking, breaking the law for idols.

4They’re surprised you don’t join them in these things;

in the same flood of indecency as they,

slandering you.

5They will give an account

to the One who has to judge the living and dead,

6This is why the dead are preached to:

Though they are judged by human flesh,

they may yet live by God’s Spirit.

Now yes, there are certain Christians who take this idea “One who suffers in the flesh prevents sin” in verse 1, and put it into practice in very unreasonable ways. They look for ways to suffer. They figure “Suffering builds character,” so they set out to do things in the most challenging, backwards, wasteful, ridiculous ways. They put up with abuse, instead of resisting it or getting their abusers rightly prosecuted, because they think they’re meant to suffer. They deprive themselves of healthy things, and fast way longer than is medically safe. They reject medical treatment and ordinary comforts. They whip and cut themselves. They seek out the sort of people who would murder them, because they want to be martyred.

Christians have been doing this stuff throughout Christian history. And unless they were following the explicit orders of the Holy Spirit, they were wrong to do it. Yes, life is suffering, but Jesus has conquered the world, Jn 16.33 and there’s no reason for us to suffer unnecessarily. There’s plenty enough suffering in our lives! Family and friends die, accidents and disasters happen, we lose money, we lose our health. There’s lots we can’t prevent—without adding more to it, just because we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking random suffering makes us righteous.

In context, Peter is writing about the pushback his audience got from pagans who couldn’t understand why they were no longer living like pagans—who could no longer even condone pagan behavior.

Why 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 we cure people on sabbath?

Luke 14.1-6.

One of the regular Pharisee complaints about Jesus was he cured people on sabbath. He’d even cure them right in the middle of his synagogue lessons.

Y’might know Pharisees were strict about sabbath. Y’might also know they weren’t all that strict about a whole lot of things. Like Christians nowadays, they cherry-picked the issues they cared to be strict about, based on their own prejudices and conveniences. Like us, they’d come up with loopholes in the Law of Moses which let ’em do the bare minimum. If they wanted to do a certain kind of work on sabbath, they’d easily find a pious-sounding reason which let ’em get away with it. And like many a hypocrite, they likely hated when Jesus called ’em on it—which he basically did every time he cured someone on sabbath.

Pharisee attitudes about curing people on sabbath were mixed. Life-saving procedures, like slapping a choking person on the back, was fine; like helping someone who’d just been curb-stomped by the Romans was fine. Praying for the sick was usually fine—we can always pray, and if the Holy Spirit answers the prayer and cures someone on sabbath, that’s on him, not us. (Shammai and his disciples felt this teaching was pushing it, but they recognized they couldn’t legitimately rebuke anyone for praying.)

But both these schools of thought rebuked the practice of any medical treatments on sabbath. Any of that stuff was supposed to be done Friday, before sabbath began at sundown; then held off till sabbath ended at sundown on Saturday. In that 24-hour period, you could pray, but otherwise you did nothing.

This story takes place during a dinner party. Luke doesn’t say whether it’s breakfast, brunch, lunch, or supper. But y’know, let’s just say it’s the evening meal. Let’s say it happened at 5PM—let’s even say it happened a half-hour before sundown, when it wouldn’t be sabbath anymore and nobody could object to Jesus curing this guy. Because it doesn’t really matter what time it was: Jesus is establishing the principle that it’s always right to help people on sabbath.

Luke 14.1-6 KWL

1This happens on sabbath,

when Jesus goes to eat bread

in the house of one of the Pharisees’ leaders.

People are watching him closely—

2look, a certain person who has an edema

is in front of Jesus.

3In reply, Jesus speaks to the lawyers and Pharisees,

saying, “Can one cure on sabbath,

or not?”

4The lawyers and Pharisees are silent.

Laying hands on the sufferer,

Jesus cures him

and sets him free.

5To the Pharisees, Jesus says,

“If a child or ox will fall down a well,

who among you² will not quickly pull him out?

—even on the sabbath day?”

6The Pharisees are not able

to reply to these things.

The KJV translates ὑδρωπικὸς/ydropikós, “fluid build-up,” as “dropsy.” Nowadays we call it an edema. You know those people whose ankles swell up, so they have to wear compression socks or they’ll have cankles? That. It’s not necessarily life-threatening, but it can make you miserable.

Luke says this person was ἔμπροσθεν/émprosthen, “in the face of,” Jesus. It gets translated “before him,” but he wasn’t just really close to Jesus; he was unavoidably close. Probably on purpose. In Jesus’s day, people ate dinner Roman-style, laying down on couches, and it’s entirely likely this guy’s cankles were right next to Jesus’s head. Whoever was in charge of the seating put Jesus right next to this guy.

And the rest of them were watching to see what Jesus would do. Would he break sabbath?

Well, Jesus never sinned, 1Pe 2.22 so he never did break sabbath, regardless of what your favorite dispensationalist preachers might claim. But he totally broke Pharisee customs about sabbath. Broke a lot of their customs, intentionally, because they were just godless hypocrisy. The custom about not helping the needy on sabbath?—perfect example.

The Pharisee and Taxman Story.

Luke 18.9-14.

Immediately after the Persistent Widow Story, Jesus tells this one. It likewise touches upon prayer… but it’s more about people who consider themselves devout, yet are jerks. Sometimes it’s called the Pharisee and Publican story, ’cause “publican” is how the KJV translates τελώνης/telónis, “collector of tolls, customs, or taxes.” But “publican” is an anachronism at this point in history.

Yep, it’s history lesson time, kids. Before the Cæsars took over, Rome was a republic. Not a democracy; it was an oligarchy run by patricians, the Roman upper caste. At some uncertain point in their past, the patricians overthrew their king and ran Rome collectively. Every year, patricians elected two consuls to run things; the consuls selected senators, and these senators ruled for life. But senators weren’t permitted to collect taxes, so they hired lower-rank patricians to do it for ’em. These tax-gatherers were from the publicani rank, and over time, publicani became synonymous with taxmen.

These publicans practiced tax farming: Different companies applied for the job of collecting taxes in a certain town or county, by offering the government an advance—say, x10,000. (The x stands for denarii; it’s like our dollar sign.) If they outbid everyone they got the contract, and had to pay the government the x10,000 advance. Now they had to make the money back: Collect rent, charge tolls, demand a percentage of merchants’ profits. They shook everybody down to make back that x10,000.

Everything they made beyond that x10,000, they got to keep. So the more unscrupulous the publican, the higher taxes would be, and the richer they got. Richer, and corrupt. They’d bribe government officials to get their contracts, bribe their way out of trouble if they were charged with over-taxing, and bribe their way out of trouble for any other crimes.

When Cæsar Augustus took over the senate in 30BC—that’d be about 60 years before Jesus tells this story—he took tax-gathering away from the publicans and put government officials in charge of it. He figured it’d lower taxes and reduce bribery. The publicans switched careers, and got into banking and money-lending. So, like I said, “publican” is an anachronism: Publicans weren’t taxmen anymore.

But Cæsar’s reforms didn’t fix the problem. Lazy government officials simply hired tax farmers to collect for them. Any wealthy person could bid for the job and get it. That’s what we see in first-century Israel: Wealthy Jews became tax farmers, and did the Romans’ dirty work for them. Their fellow Jews saw them as traitors—as greedy, exploitative sellouts. Which, to be fair, they totally were.

So to Jesus’s audience, a Pharisee—a devout follower of the Law of Moses—would be the good guy; and a taxman would be an utter scumbag. And now, the story.

Luke 18.9-14 KWL

9Jesus also says this parable

to certain hearers who imagine themelves fair-minded

and despise everyone else.

10“Two people go up to temple to pray.

One’s a Pharisee, and the other a taxman.

11The Pharisee, standing off by himself, is praying this:

‘God, thank you¹ that I’m not like every other person!

Greedy capitalists, totally unfair, totally unfaithful!

Or even like this taxman!

12I fast twice a week.

I tithe whatever I get.’

13The taxman, who’d been standing way back,

didn’t even want to raise his eyes to heaven,

but beat his chest, saying,

‘God have mercy on me, a sinner!’

14I tell you² this taxman goes back to his house

declared right in God’s eyes

—same as the other man!

For everyone who raises themselves will be lowered.

And those who lower themselves will be raised.”

The Feast of Peter’s Confession.

Today, 18 January, is a feast day for Anglicans, Lutherans, and Orthodox Christians, held in memory of when Simon Peter first publicly identified as Messiah.

Weirdly, not Roman Catholics, even though they’re huge fans of St. Peter, whom they consider the first pope. They’re the ones who started the feast too. It was part of their Feast of St. Peter’s Chair—which honors, as the title plainly states, St. Peter’s chair. His literal chair. (But probably not—unless they swapped out broken parts of it until it was all swapped, Ship of Theseus style. The oldest parts of it date from the 500s.) It’s big, it’s wooden; they’ve got it in a place of honor in the Vatican. They think Peter sat on it when he ran the Roman church. Catholics moved that feast to 22 February, and dropped the Feast of the Confession, and celebrate his confession along with his chair. After all the chair didn’t confess anything.

The other liturgical churches kept the Feast of the Confession where it is, and celebrate it then. If you’ve read the gospels, you know the story. Here’s the Matthew version of it.

Matthew 16.13-20 GNT

13Jesus went to the territory near the town of Cæsarea Philippi, where he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

14“Some say John the Baptist,” they answered. “Others say Elijah, while others say Jeremiah or some other prophet.”

15“What about you?” he asked them. “Who do you say I am?”

16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

17“Good for you, Simon son of John!” answered Jesus. “For this truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my Father in heaven. 18And so I tell you, Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church, and not even death will ever be able to overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven; what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”

20Then Jesus ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

These events took place near Cæsarea-Philippi, yet another one of the cities named for the Cæsars, but also named for Herod Philip, tetrarch of the Dekapolis, who founded it. (It’s now called Banias. It’s one of the sources of the Jordan River.) At the time Jesus and his Twelve were in the Dekapolis, which was largely populated by Syrian Greeks, who were less likely to recognize Jesus and his kids: Nobody would know their cultural background, nor what a Messiah is. So it was kind of a safe space for Peter to come right out and say Jesus is Messiah.

Even so, Jesus shushed them and told them not to repeat this. In their culture “Messiah” means king. If you claim you’re the king, anybody else who’s using or who covets the title, might object. Especially when you have a really good claim to the title, as Jesus does.

Spiritual warfare: Resist temptation!

Plainly and simply, spiritual warfare is resisting evil. Evil in our own lives, evil in our families and church, evil in the world.

Now yeah, some Christians only describe it as fighting evil. And mostly they imagine 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, and 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. For that matter 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 the good and evil 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 sabers 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 the novels 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 this is biblical. They’ve heard this myth so long, and heard other Christians quote it as if it’s wholly true, so they’re convinced it’s totally biblical.

But again: Spiritual warfare is about us 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 indicate the only human activity in spiritual warfare consists of evildoers unknowingly following the evil spirits, or saints praying. So “spiritual warriors” are gonna insist they have been spiritually battling—with all the weepy, loud praying they do, which knocks down strongholds and takes ground for God. (“Takes ground” when the novels only describe spirits fighting in the skies. What ground. Meh; whatever.)

In reality God wins the battle against evil in the End, with or without us. But of course he’d much rather have us on his side, and not get consumed by all the evil, and destroyed. 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.

The scriptures’ purpose. [2Ti 3.15-17]

2 Timothy 3.15-17 KJV

15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

Most of the time, when Christians memorize this passage, they only memorize verse 16, the bit about scripture being inspired, and profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. They might also memorize verse 17, which says this’ll prep us for good works. But seldom do they include verse 15, which is a huge mistake.

I’ve heard more than one preacher pitch the question, “What’s the scriptures for?” and then launch into 2 Timothy 3.16: It’s for doctrine! And reproof!—or as the New International Version puts it, rebuking!—and man alive do they love to rebuke this evil, evil world and all its sins, and throw proof texts at this world as if our pagan world is somehow gonna be convicted by sayings from a book it considers massively out of date. Never you mind that Paul wrote this passage to Timothy, a Christian, and that it’s about us Christians rebuking ourselves for our own selfish behavior, and reminding us to follow Jesus for once.

It’s for correction! It’s for instruction in righteousness! And again—it’s for Christians to self-correct; it’s for Christians to work on being on being righteous, although a better translation of δικαιοσύνῃ would be justice. It’s not about us being good, although we absolutely should be good, and the scriptures do teach us the difference between good and evil, and push us towards goodness. It’s about doing the right thing to God and others, and being fair-minded and equitable in a cruel world which upholds social Darwinism and worships Mammon.

But these preachers skip verse 15 altogether, and completely miss Paul telling Timothy, plain as day, what the scriptures did for him. They made Timothy “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” 1Ti 3.15 KJV. The scriptures taught him how to be saved.

And that is what the scriptures are for. What the bible is for. Doctrine, rebuke, correction, and justice, make very little sense, and have very little lasting impact, when they’re not in the context of how God saves us and adopts us as his children, and is making his temple and an everlasting kingdom out of us.

Doctrine is for us Christians—because pagans aren’t gonna follow it! Rebuke is for us Christians—because pagans dismiss it. Correction is for us Christians—because pagans don’t think they’re wrong and need correction, and unfortunately way too many Christians believe the very same thing. And training in justice is for us Christians, because pagans think justice is about putting criminals in prison, executing rapists and murderers… and giving free passes to the wealthy and famous because somehow these qualities are rewards for them being better and smarter people, and again, that’s just social Darwinism talking. God taught us better than that, but social Darwinists have convinced many a Christian that perhaps we, just by being Christian, are also some of those better and smarter people, and maybe we deserve some free passes too. Maybe we should get to take over the country or something. “If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine,” Lk 3.7 promises Mammon, and Christians who can’t tell the difference between it and Jesus are perfectly happy to bend the knee. ’Cause they might know their bible verses, but they’re missing the context.

But I digress. We learn this stuff from the scriptures, and practice it, because we’re a saved people. Because Jesus called us forth from our cruel world, forgave us, showers us with infinite blessings, and makes a new nation out of us; a nation that’s marked by the good works he wants us to do for others. We don’t do those good works just because the bible says; we do it because we’re sharing those blessings. And if those whom we’ve helped bless, wanna know how to likewise be saved… well if you’ve memorized verse 15, you know that’s why we have the scriptures in the first place.