Don’t conform to this world. [Ro 12.2]

Romans 12.2 KJV

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Paul of Tarsus spent the first part of Romans explaining salvation and how it works. Once done, he encouraged the Romans to live a proper Christian lifestyle. This verse is part of his advice.

Christians love to quote it. Not always for good reason.

A number of Christians presume we already are transformed. Our minds were renewed when we came to Jesus, and we have the mind of Christ now. Don’t need to persue the good, acceptable, perfect will of God anymore; we already have it. We think like he does! Or, he thinks like we do—it’s all the same. They quote this verse to remind one another: “We’re different!”

Other Christians, namely in the United States, love to imagine ourselves as countercultural. Even though our country is predominantly, overtly Christian. But they love to imagine themselves as an oppressed minority, because it makes ’em feel like the martyrs of Roman times; it makes ’em feel righteous. For them, they’re definitely not conformed to this world—it’s out to get them, and their children, and make them “woke” or something. So they quote this verse to remind one another: “Be different.”

Then there’s the Christians who recognize they’re not an oppressed minority; who recognize we’re not countercultural at all—we are the culture. And annoyingly, the worst parts of Christianity prevail; the hypocritical parts, where everybody’s pretending to be devout and righteous and good, but our crime rates and internet browser histories prove we’re statistically no different than pagans. So they try to stand apart from the crowd of Christianists, and be Christ-followers: The world may be going to hell, but they follow Jesus. As best they can, anyway. And also quote this verse to remind one another, “Be different.”

So which sort are you? Because all three of these groups are wrong in a number of ways, and still need to renew their minds.

Groaning in prayer.

There’s a passage my fellow Pentecostals like to quote whenever we’re trying to show biblical support for prayer in tongues. We honestly don’t need to quote this one, because there are plenty of other, better verses to support and encourage the practice. But Pentecostals love to quote this one anyway. It’s in Romans 8, and I’ll quote it in its context… and just for fun I’ll use the Modern English Version, a bible which just happens to be translated by Pentecostal linguists. Ahem:

Romans 8.18-27 MEV

18For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us. 19The eager expectation of the creation waits for the appearance of the sons of God. 20For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but by the will of Him who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22We know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. 23Not only that, but we also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves while eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For we are saved through hope, but hope that is seen is not hope, for why does a man still hope for what he sees? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

The point I’m gonna zoom in on, is the bit in verse 26 where the Holy Spirit intercedes for us “with groanings too deep for words.” That right there, claim a large number of Pentecostals, is an example of praying in tongues. When we Christians pray aloud, and in our prayer we’re speaking in an unknown language which kinda sounds like moaning and groaning, that’s precisely what this verse is about.

But you read the context: It’s obviously not. Paul was writing about suffering. People suffer. Life is suffering. All of creation itself suffers, because humanity’s sinful condition has corrupted it. And we who suffer, and creation which suffers, are looking forward to Jesus making all things new.

Meanwhile we suffer. And groan. And the Holy Spirit groans too. Sometimes we’re so miserable we don’t have words to describe it, not even to God. But that’s okay. The Holy Spirit is not unfamiliar with the “language,” so to speak, of groaning. But this does not mean groaning is a literal language. Including a literal prayer language.

This means when we’re miserable—we’re sad, we’re depressed, we’re in agony, we’re terrified, we’re anxious, we’re upset, we’re feeling any which way, and we wanna call out to God but words have failed us: It’s okay. The Holy Spirit understands. Go ahead and pray in groans.

And the Holy Spirit will intercede: He’ll pray to the Father right along with us. In groans too, when appropriate. The Father likewise understands.

The weak-in-faith Christian.

Romans 14.1-4, 22-23.

Sometimes I’m asked about a certain topic. Recently it was about Romans 14, and I figured that’s a discussion which needs something far more than a short answer. Christians use this chapter in a number of ways; typically to fight whatever they describe as legalism and hypocrisy, whether it’s actually those things or not.

The chapter begins by Paul introducing his audience—the Christians of the city of Rome, a city he’s not yet visited, though he knows a number of its denizens—to the concept of the weak-in-faith Christian. It’s one a lot of Christians skim over, ’cause we’re too busy preaching on legalism and hypocrisy. But it’s an important concept, so let’s take a minute to look at it closely. To the scriptures!

Romans 14.1-4 KWL

1Take in the weak-in-faith Christian,

not the argument-starting Christian.

2One person believes they¹ can eat everything,

and one weak-in-faith person only eats vegetables.

3You who eat everything:

Don’t scorn the one who doesn’t eat!

And you who don’t eat:

Don’t condemn the one who eats!

For God accepts them,¹

4and who are you¹ to judge another’s servant?

They¹ stand or fall

before their own master,

and they¹ will stand up

because their¹ Master can make them stand.

Lemme start by defining weakness in the faith, and I’ll define it the way Paul does at the end of this chapter.

Romans 14.22-23 KWL

22You¹ have a belief of your¹ own:

Have it between yourself and God.

You who don’t condemn yourselves¹

for what you think is right

are awesome.

23One who still doubts it’s okay when they¹ eat,

was condemned because it’s not their belief.

Everything which isn’t their belief

is sin.

Being weak in faith is not, as some Christians claim, the same thing as being new in the Christian faith. That’s a teaching I’ve heard from time to time—that these folks are weak in faith because they’re new in faith; they haven’t followed Jesus long enough to learn to be strong in faith. ’Tain’t necessarily so. I’ve known longtime Christians who are extremely weak in faith. We’re meant to grow out of it, but some of us haven’t, and at this rate never will.

What Paul’s talking about are people whose consciences won’t let them do things. That’s actually true of all of us: My conscience tells me I shouldn’t steal. So does the bible; so do the laws of California and the United States, and most countries. But what decisively gets me to not rob people is, of course, my conscience. If my conscience didn’t have any problem with it—if I thought theft was okay under certain circumstances, or that I’m somehow an exception and it’s okay for me—I might steal. Might steal a lot; theft is way easier to get away with than most other crimes. Those of you with consciences which forbid stealing, might call me a sociopath, and you’d be right if I took thievery so lightly. But as you can see, most of us have consciences which forbid the things most folks consider sin. We were raised to not sin; to recognize these sins seriously disrupt the social order; to believe God strongly disapproves. Our consciences were well-trained.

But the weak in faith: These are the people whose consciences are extra restrictive. They believe more things are probably sins. They believe there are many things Christians are forbidden to do. Not just stuff in the bible, either: Christians should do all that too, but we should also abstain from loads of things. No swearing. No drinking. No gambling. No popular music. No movies other than G-rated Disney fairy tales. No being alone with an unrelated member of the other sex. No voting for the opposition party. No, no, no—not just for them, but for any Christian, and if you do ’em you’re probably not Christian.

Yep, weak-in-faith Christians are what we’d call legalists. These folks don’t entirely trust we’re saved by grace, and focus a little too much on works righteousness.

And Paul tells us not to scorn them. Which, y’might notice, is what non-legalists typically do. Quite often we quote Romans 14 when we’re doing it. “But why dost thou judge thy brother?” Ro 14.10 KJV we’ll say, to condemn the legalists… and ignore how, in context, the verse specifically addresses us non-legalists, who are judging them for judging us, and think Paul wrote Romans 14 because he has our back. He does not. He’s telling us to stop sticking stumbling blocks in front of the legalists, Ro 14.13 because they are the weak in faith.

The non-legalists? Strong in faith. They’re not so tempted to sin, they need a few thousand bonus rules, just in case. Legalists? Super tempted. Rules against swearing because they’d swear their heads off if they could. Rules against drinking because they’d get alcohol poisoning every night if unrestricted. Rules against gambling because they’d leave every casino not just penniless, but butt naked with their thumbs broken. They can’t be trusted to be good without a ton of rules. Too immature.

And we who are strong in faith, need to have their back. So stop condemning them and help these weak sisters and brothers out!

The Humble Guest Story.

Luke 14.7-11.

At first glance this passage doesn’t look like a parable; we only know it’s one because Luke straight-out begins it with, “And he put forth a parable…” Lk 14.7 KJV If we didn’t know this was a parable, we’d think it was simply shrewd advice from Jesus; we’d even teach it as such in our churches. “Whenever you go to a dinner party, go sit at the kids’ table till the host tells you no, come sit with the adults; come sit by me. I know, I know; you’re afraid they won’t ask you to move, and now you gotta listen to kids talking all day about [thing kids are into].” (Depending on whether the preacher has little children, it’ll either be something kids really are currently into; or something kids were into years ago, and Pastor hasn’t updated his data any more than he’s updated his stash of corny “dad jokes.”)

It’s the first of five parables Jesus tells in this chapter, and the first three all have to do with dinner-party guests. This one’s the Presumptive Guest Story. There’s the Dinner Party for the Poor Story in verses 12-14, which people tend to skip because Jesus sorta tells a fuller version of it in his Dinner Party Story right after it, verses 15-24. Then his Counting the Cost Story, verses 25-33; and Unsalty Salt Story, verses 34-35.

This story is often lumped together with the other dinner-party stories and called the Parables (or Parable) of the Guests. Or the first two stories are the Parable of the Guests, and the third story is the Parable of the Dinner Party. Or sometimes this is singled out as its own parable—which it is—and made the Parable of the Exalted and Humble Guests, or they just focus on the jerk in the story and call it the Parable of the Ambitious Guest, Arrogant Guest, Embarrassed Guest, Presumptive Guest, and so forth. I prefer to focus on what Jesus wants his followers to do. So, the Humble Guest Story.

It comes right after Jesus cures a guy at a dinner party held on sabbath. After our Lord deals with the bad attitudes about helping others on sabbath—which, Jesus states, does not break sabbath; and since Jesus never sinned 1Pe 2.22 let’s not start foolishly claiming he did because he supposedly did away with the Law of Moses. But now that this controversy was put to bed—for now—Jesus has some observations to make about dinner parties. And since they’re parables, they’re actually about God’s kingdom—if you have the ears to hear Jesus.

Luke 14.7-11 KWL

7Jesus is telling a parable

to those who’d been invited to dinner

while noticing how

they’re choosing their places at table.

He’s telling them,

8“Whenever you’re¹ invited to a wedding by someone,

you¹ shouldn’t take the first place.

Perhaps someone more honored than you¹

was invited by them.¹

9And coming to you¹ and the other guest,

the one inviting you two will tell you,¹

‘Give this guest this place,’

and then, with shame,

you’ll¹ have to go to the last place.

10Instead, whenever you’re¹ invited,

go sit in the last place!

This way, whenever the one inviting you¹ comes,

they’ll¹ tell you,¹ ‘Friend, go forward!’

Then honor will be yours¹

in front of everyone dining with you.¹

11For everyone who exalts themselves¹

will be humbled,

and everyone who humbles themselves¹

will be exalted.”

You’d think first place at the table at a wedding banquet would go to the couple who’s getting married. Nope! They have their own table. Like our weddings, there were lots of tables.

“First place” at a table would usually be the place closest to the food, so you’d be the first person to dip your (hopefully washed) hand in everything. Last place would get the stuff everyone’s already touched, then licked their fingers and touched some more. Yeah, even though ancient Israelis were way cleaner than ancient Romans, hygiene back then sucked. And you can see why first place was a big deal.

Why I am not a young-earth creationist.

Genesis 1.1-5.

From time to time I’m asked whether I believe God created the universe in six days, or whether it and humanity evolved over time. My usual answer is “Yes.” I believe both.

Various Christians insist I can’t believe both. I must believe in one and reject the other. And they’re pretty insistent I gotta beleive in the six-day creation. In a literal six-day creation; God literally spent six 24-hour periods creating the heavens and the earth. ’Cause if I don’t believe this, I’m going to hell.

That’s largely why they asked me about what I believe in the first place: They wanna see whether or not I’m going to hell. If I believe as they do, we’re good. If I don’t, since I’m going to hell they want nothing more to do with me, lest I corrupt them and drag them to hell with me.

Oddly they’re not saying people go to hell for believing in evolution. There are a few extra steps in their procedure.

1. You believe in evolution.
2. Which means you don’t believe the bible’s depiction of a literal six-day creation.
3. Which means you don’t beleive the bible.
4. Which means you don’t believe anything the bible says about Jesus.
5. Which means you don’t believe Jesus can actually save you.
6. Which means he won’t.
7. So you’re going to hell.

There are all kinds of flaws in this logic, beginning with #3: Just because you don’t interpret the Genesis stories literally does not automatically mean you don’t believe the bible. Nor the gospels, nor in Jesus.

Plus it’s not even logically consistent with how Christians come to Jesus. I came to Jesus before I had ever read a bible. Likely so had you. Yeah, the truths about Jesus which we were taught, largely came from the stories in the gospels—but they didn’t have to. The first people Simon Peter preached to in Acts 2 didn’t have a written gospel. Paul wrote his letters before the gospel authors wrote their gospels. Paul did extraordinarily well at sharing Jesus without a New Testament. Because you don’t actually need a bible to share Jesus. You only need the Holy Spirit. You always need the Holy Spirit.

Requiring the bible for salvation, is elevating a book above the Holy Spirit. Yes, it’s inspired by the Spirit. Still mighty useful for explaining salvation, correcting us, and training us in doctrine and righteousness. Still a book though, and claiming it, instead of the Spirit, has the power to save, is still bibliolatry.

And anyone who says a devout follower of Jesus, who just happens to believe in theistic evolution or old-earth creationism, is going to hell for these beliefs, have elevated their young-earth creationist (YEC for short) beliefs above Jesus. That’s idolatry too. Jesus requires us to trust him to be saved; that’s all. And I do. As should you.

My firm belief is God created the universe. Doesn’t matter how. Doesn’t matter if it took him six literal days, or six ages lasting a billion years apiece. Doesn’t matter if we’re descended from lower animals… and frankly, thanks to sin and human depravity, there are no lower animals than us humans. Christ Jesus came to us to fix that, and through his self-sacrifice and the Holy Spirit’s power, humanity can now adopt the mindset of Jesus, the nature of God, and evolve to perfection. (YEC promoters hate when I say that. It’s biblical though.)

So, studying weird YEC pseudoscience for the purpose of debating an evolutionist? Massive waste of time. You won’t convince them you’re anything but a nut, and you won’t grow any more Christ-like. You’ll be another one of those smart-alecks who take pride in winning arguments, but never win any souls… and don’t win as many arguments as they imagine they do.

So if I’m okay with evolution, what’s the point of Genesis’s creation stories? Ah, good question; glad I asked it.

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.