Hearing God. But doubting you do.

When I became Pentecostal, I suddenly found myself among Christians who regularly said, “Oh, God told me [ENCOURAGING WORD],” or “God showed me [DIRECTION TO GO].”

It’s not that I hadn’t met such Christians before—even in a cessationist church, where they preached he didn’t do that sort of thing anymore! Most Christians are continuationist, same as Pentecostals: God never turned off the miracles, never went away nor hid himself. He can and does talk to his kids whenever he wants. Where we disagree is how often he talks. Pentecostals, myself included, find he talks to his kids all the time. Other Christians think it’s more rare; supposedly God saves his statements for special and important occasions, and doesn’t just chat with us like a loving Father would with his children. Kinda reveals more about how their prayer life isn’t conversational. But I digress.

But yeah, I was surrounded by plenty of Christians who claimed God told ’em this or that. And as I learned how to hear God, I gradually became one of them: “God told me [SUCH-AND-SO].” Not as prophecies for others. I wasn’t trying to pull any Moses-style “Thus saith the LORD” declarations or commands. I only talked about what he told me personally.

Here’s the funny thing. Every so often, somebody publishes a book about how to hear God. And these very same Christians who act as if they know God told ’em stuff… scramble to buy these books.

There’s a preacher of my acquaintance who once said, “Y’know, every time I tell people there really needs to be a book about how to hear God, they get all excited: ‘I would love such a book.’ But these are the same people who claim they already do hear God. So… do they? Do they really?”

Fair question. I would suspect they really do. But here’s why they’d would love to read a book about hearing God’s voice: They have doubts. And rather than deal with those doubts like the Holy Spirit wants ’em to, they don’t. It’s easier not to.

Y’see, when we hear from God, in order to make sure we heard from God, we gotta test those messages. We gotta confirm them! Just as the scriptures instruct. Whether it’s somebody else claiming they got a message from God, or we ourselves believing we just got a message from God, we’re always meant to double-check.

But here’s what humans typically do: Believe it if you like it, disbelieve it if you don’t.

Nope, no further checking. No confirmation. Nothing more with any of the things which get dropped into our spirit; we never bother to confirm it’s God. Or, just as bad, never double-check in case it’s us talking to ourselves, or an evil spirit trying to mess with us.

You really don’t have to buy a book about how to hear God better. You just have to start confirming what you think he’s told you. Find a fellow Christian who also hears God. (Ideally your spouse, or some other trustworthy family member.) Make yourselves accountability partners. Make this prayer request to God: “If you’re ever gonna tell me something, please tell my partner the very same thing.” Then watch him do it. There, was that so hard?

But for too many Christians, this is so hard. They’re terrified if they do this, they’ll find out absolutely nothing God ever “tells them,” is actually God. That it’s entirely in their own head; that they’ve been psyching themselves into thinking God speaks to them, or anyone.

Yep, they’re letting their doubts paralyze them. And stop ’em from legitimately hearing God.

Raising Lazarus.

John 11.38-44.

At the time Jesus raised Lazarus of Bethany from the dead, he had raised people from the dead before: His synagogue president’s daughter, and some unnamed widow’s son. Raising the girl had happened privately, but raising the boy was right out there in public. So this wasn’t a new miracle… except Lazarus had been in the ground four days. The others might’ve been just dead or recently dead, but Lazarus was dead-dead.

That, and the other raisings had happened in the Galilee. But now they were down south in Judea, a few kilometers from Jerusalem. A number of Jerusalemites were there to grieve with Lazarus’s sisters. From their point of view, the stories about Jesus raising the dead were just that—stories. Raising kids who probably weren’t quite dead, and after the story passed through a number of gossips it got exaggerated into him raising the dead. Myths.

Whether they believed those stories or not, here they saw Jesus do the impossible for themselves.

John 11.38-44 KWL

38So Jesus—again, outraged within himself—

goes to the sepulcher,

which is a cave,

and a rock is lying against it.

39Jesus says, “Take the rock away.”

Martha, the sister of the dead man, tells him, “Sir,

he stinks by now,

for it’s the fourth day.”

40Jesus tells Martha,ᴾ “Didn’t I tell you¹

that when you¹ trust me,

you’ll¹ see God’s glory?”

41So they take away the rock

{which is at the place the dead lay},

and Jesus lifts up his eyes to the sky and says,

“Father, I give you¹ thanks that you¹ hear me.

42I knew you¹ always hear me,

but I say this because of the crowd around,

so they might believe you¹ send me.”

43This said, Jesus shouts in a loud voice:

“Lazarus! Come out!”

44The dead man comes out—

his feet and hands bound in linen strips,

and his face wrapped in a sudra.

Jesus tells them, “Loose him

and let him go.”

I kinda got into why Jesus was outraged in the previous passage: His empathy meant he felt the crowd’s anger, and you see some of that anger come out in the previous verse, “Wasn’t this Jesus, who opened the eyes of the blind man, able to do something so that this Lazarus might not die?” Jn 11.37 KWL They were frustrated with him, and he felt some of that frustration.

But now was not the time to vent at their lack of faith; it was time to get Lazarus out of that sepulcher and return him to his family. So for their sake, he prayed the “Lazarus prayer,” in which he reminded them his Father hears him; then ordered Lazarus to come out. Because Lazarus was alive already.

Jesus prays for the Father’s protection.

John 17.11-12.

Part of the reason for Jesus’s John 17 prayer is the protection of his followers—who would now include us. The world, Jesus says in the next verses, hates ’em because they’re not of the world any more than he is. Jn 17.14 So they’re gonna need protection. Thus far Jesus had been personally protecting them, but he was returning to his Father; now it was on the Father to protect them. ’Cause thus far, Jesus hadn’t lost any of the people the Father gave him… well, except Judas Iscariot.

It’d be better to put all that in Jesus’s words:

John 17.11-19 KWL

11“I’m no longer in the world.

They’re in the world, and I come to you.¹

Holy Father, guard them in your¹ name which you¹ gave me

so they might be one like we are.

12When I’m with them,

I’m guarding them in your¹ name which you¹ gave me.

I’m guarding them

and none of them are being destroyed

—except the son of destruction,

so the scripture can be fulfilled.”

This prayer is not a rote prayer which we can just repeat, and pray as if it’s all our own words. But we can adapt parts of it and include ’em in our own prayers. We can repeat Jesus’s request that the Father guard us, and help us become one like he and the Son are. Jn 17.11

Jesus weeps for Lazarus.

John 11.28-37.

One of the answers to the popular trivia question, “What’s the shortest verse in the bible?” is found in today’s passage. The shortest verse in the King James Version is the 9-letter “Jesus wept,” Jn 11.35 which I translate “Jesus weeps”—one letter longer—because aorist verbs aren’t always past tense.

Thing is, in the original texts, the 16-letter sentence ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς/edákrusen o Yisús, is not the shortest verse. That’d be the 9-letter עֵ֥בֶר פֶּ֖לֶג רְעֽוּ/Evér, Pelég, Rev in 1 Chronicles 1.25; three of Abraham’s ancestors. And in the New Testament it’d be the 12-letter καὶ ὁ δεύτερος/ke o dévteros, “and the second.” Lk 20.30 Thing is, the Textus Receptus added seven words to this verse, so it’s not all that short in that particular NT. But there’s still a verse in the NT shorter than edákrusen o Yisús, and it’s the 14-letter πάντοτε χαίρετε/pántote hérete, “rejoice always.” 1Th 5.16

Enough bible trivia. Everybody remembers Jesus wept, but now let’s get to why. Because it tends to dumbfound people. Why’s he crying? Why’s he mourning the death of Lazarus? Didn’t he go to Bethany specifically to “awaken” Lazarus from the dead? Jn 11.11 Why’s he grieving a death that he’s about to undo within the next 15 minutes?

I’ve got a ridiculously simple answer to that question, and it’d occur to you immediately if you share that trait. Unfortunately too many Christians don’t, don’t care to cultivate it, and even consider it an undesirable weakness. And it’s not; it’s a fruit of the Spirit. It’s empathy, the knowledge of what others are feeling—and feeling it too. The people were mourning—and kinda angry because they felt Jesus could’ve prevented Lazarus’s death. So Jesus was mourning—and, believe it or not, also kinda angry.

It’s all right there in the text:

John 11.28-37 KWL

28Martha, after saying this,

goes and secretly calls her sister Mary,

saying, “The Teacher is here and calls for you.¹”

29When she hears this,

this Maryᴾ quickly rises up

and is going to Jesus.ᴾ

30Jesus hadn’t yet come into the village,

but is still in the place where Martha met him.

31So the Judeans who are with Maryᴾ in the house,

comforting her,

seeing how Mary quickly rises up and goes out,

follow her,

thinking she goes out to the sepulcher

so she might weep there.

32So when Mary comes to where Jesus is,

on seeing him, she falls to his feet,

telling him, “Master, if you¹ were here,

my brother would never have died.”

33So when Jesus sees Maryᴾ weeping,

and those Judeans who came with her weeping,

he’s outraged in spirit

and stirred up within himself.

34Jesus says, “Where did you² put Lazarus?ᴾ”

They tell him, “Master, come and see.”

35Jesus weeps,

36so the Judeans are saying,

“Look how he loves Lazarus.ᴾ”

37And some say back to them, “Wasn’t this Jesus,ᴾ

who opened the eyes of the blind man,

able to do something

so that this Lazarusᴾ might not die?”

As it says in verse 33, when Jesus sees Mary and the crowd, he ἐνεβριμήσατο/enevrimísato, “snorts with anger.” The KJV has “groaned”; the translators skipped why he groaned, but they knew from their Latin bibles it was because Jesus fremuit spiritu, “raged in spirit.”

Why was Jesus angry? Like I said, empathy: The crowd of Judeans wanted to know why Jesus could cure the blind, but couldn’t’ve cured Lazarus. Jn 11.37 So, some of them were frustrated with him. And Jesus felt that, in his spirit. Not in his guts, which is where the ancients believed emotion came from; he spiritually knew there was anger in the crowd. They wanted to know why he hadn’t done anything. They expected he’d better do something now.

As for why he wept: Mary was weeping. So he wept with her. Because Jesus isn’t a compassionless, unfeeling dick. He’s a human being with the very same emotions we have, but he’s in full control of them and doesn’t use them as an excuse to sin. He rejoices with us; he mourns with us. And because he’s our example, we should do likewise.

Who wrote the bible’s books?

Recently I saw a meme which listed all the books of the bible, and who wrote ’em. And whoever wrote it got so many wrong. It’s a combination of unprovable traditions—Moses did not write “the five books of Moses,” no matter how often people claim he did—and oversimplifications, like “David” writing the psalms and not David plus other psalmists; or “Paul” wrote all his letters but skipping his cowriters.

Anyway here’s the actual list of who wrote what—as best we know, anyway. I’m listing the books in King James Version order; your bible might have ’em in a different order.

Talking snakes.

In the past, when I’ve spoken with nontheists about why they don’t believe in God, Christianity, the bible, or Jesus, often the reasons they gave was they weren’t raised Christian, and weren’t raised to take it seriously as a belief system.

Which is fair! It’s the very same reason I’m not Muslim. I was raised Christian, not Muslim, and was raised to favor Christianity. So if someone ever told me in my teens and early twenties, “Have you considered Islam?” I’d’ve honestly said no, I never have. And wasn’t interested in giving it a shot. If I were to give any religion a shot, it’d be my own. Eventually I did exactly that.

Nontheists do the very same thing. When they’re young, they don’t often think about why they don‘t believe in God; they simply don’t. Their parents don’t, and they mimic their unbelieving parents. They know this.

Now, if you encounter them when they’re older, when they’ve been studying atheism for a bit, and now they wanna debate Christians about the merits of religion, now they’re not gonna tell you, “I’m atheist because I was raised that way, and never considered religion a viable option.” No; now they’re definitely in the anti-religion camp, and that explanation—though true—sounds pathetic to them. Now they’re gonna say the reason they’re atheist is because [CURRENT POPULAR REASON]—whatever their favorite atheist authors are currently denouncing the hardest. Sometimes that’s ill-behaved Christians. Sometimes theodicy—“If God exists and is good, evil wouldn’t happen, but it does, so he doesn’t or isn’t.”

And sometimes they don’t believe because they find God, and popular Christian ideas about God, silly. The idea of a old bearded man in the sky, shaking his finger at us or hurling lightning bolts because we sin or don’t believe in him? Ridiculous.

In the second creation story, there’s a נָחַשׁ/nakháš, usually translated “serpent.” In Genesis 3 it has a conversation with the first woman. Seriously: A snake. Talking to a human. And the human talks back. And this isn’t fiction, like Harry Potter, where Harry talks to a snake too; this is a story Christians (and Jews, and Muslims) are meant to take seriously as an explanation for why God didn’t just make the world a paradise for us to live forever in: He totally did do that, but we sinned and ruined everything.

Skeptics simply can’t get past the talking snake. Heck, I’ve known Christians who struggle with it. I used to be one of them. I’m now of the opinion—same as many Christians, whether they admit it or not—this isn’t a literal snake. It’s the devil. Rv 12.9 Christians will pitch different theories about how this story took place—the devil transmogrified itself into a serpent, or somehow possessed an actual serpent—but I think in this context nakháš doesn’t even mean “serpent”; it’s means “devil.” But plenty of Christians have plenty of other theories.

Of course, skeptics find the idea of the devil silly too. Really?—a red man with horns, hooves, tail, and pitchfork, running amok, writing rock music, tempting Christians to not come to a full and complete stop at a stop sign? Ludicrous.

Now you can, and I have, wasted a whole bunch of time trying to explain the pop-culture depictions of God, the devil, the second creation story, and Christianity are filled to the brim with rubbish. These skeptics aren’t remotely interested in who God really is; they already don’t believe. In the very same way you don’t take Zeus seriously.

So shake the dust from your feet and move along.

The fall of humanity.

Genesis 3.1-8.

There’s a bit of wordplay in the first verse of Genesis 3. The last verse of chapter 2 describes Adam and Eve as עֲרוּמִּ֔ים/arummím, the plural of “naked.” The first verse of chapter 3 describes the נָחָשׁ/nakháš, KJV “serpent,” which in this passage I’m gonna translate “devil,” as עָר֔וּם/arom. Really similar word. Same letters, but one different vowel sound, which is what makes the difference. Otherwise you’d think the devil was the most naked being in the wild.

Why’m I translating nakháš as “devil” instead of “serpent”? Because this is not a literal serpent. This is Satan, as the apostle John later identifies it:

Revelation 12.9 KWL

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

The ancients used the word’s verb-form, נָחַשׁ/nakháš—pronounced the same way—to mean “murmur an incantation,” or “practice divination,” or “foretell.” In general it had to do with superstition, and someone which dabbled in superstition would also be a nakháš, used as a noun. Whether the ancients were calling such people serpents, or whether these were originally two different words which later got mixed up, we don’t know. Either way, Genesis 3 isn’t about a literal serpent. Sure looks like it is, considering the LORD’s later curse upon that nakháš that “upon thy belly thou shalt go.” Ge 3.14 But we mustn’t take that curse literally either. I’ll explain when I get there.

Some will object to my using Revelation to interpret a Genesis passage. They figure since John wrote 15 centuries later, what does he know about the historical context of this story? Heck, did the author of Genesis even know the historical context of something which happened millennia before he wrote the book?

But I figure John wrote down what Jesus showed him, and Jesus knows exactly what this story means. So I’m still going with “devil.” If you’d rather read a translation which sticks to “serpent,” feel free.

Genesis 3.1-8 KWL

1The devil was intelligent—

more than every wild living creature

which the god YHWH made.

It said to the woman, “Did God really say,

‘Don’t you² eat from any of the garden’s trees’?”

2The woman told the devil,

“We eat of the garden’s trees’ fruit.

3Of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden,

God said, ‘Don’t eat from it;

don’t touch it, lest you² die.’ ”

4The devil told the woman, “You² don’t die-die.

5For God knows on the day you² eat from it,

your² eyes will open,

and you² become like gods,

knowing good and bad.”

6The woman saw the tree was good for food,

that it was desirable to the eyes,

and that it was desirable for wisdom.

She took from its fruit and ate.

She also gave it to her man with her,

and he ate.

7The eyes of the two of them were opened—

and they knew they were naked.

They sewed together fig leaves,

and made themselves loincloths.

8They heard the sound of the god YHWH

going through the garden

in the wind that day.

The human and his woman hid themselves

from the face of the god YHWH

in the middle of the garden’s trees.

As if anyone can hide from God. But Adam and Eve were young and dumb, and knew they’d massively messed things up.