“God makes all things work together for our good.”

Romans 8.28.

“You make all things work together for my good,” goes the bridge of the 2008 Jesus Culture song “Your Love Never Fails.” (Or are you more familiar with the 2013 Newsboys version? No? Doesn’t matter.) It’s a common variation of a popular idea, borrowed from Paul in Romans, which goes like so:

Romans 8.28 KJV

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Frequently people drop a “the” in quoting it, and end it, “to them who are the called according to his purpose.” More like the ESV has it. But however we remember it, the problem is why we remember it; and this being a “Context” article you can bet it’s about wrongly remembering it.

Together with “Everything happens for a reason!” this is a myth we Christians use to comfort ourselves, and one another. When we’re going through a rough time, we like to imagine God’s permitting or allowing or even causing these trials, because he has a greater good in mind. We just gotta trust God, and ride it out.

But this is an idea Calvinism teaches. Not the scriptures. It’s based on the Calvinist belief God sovereignly micromanages everything in the cosmos. They say he’s actually behind all things—even evil things—so of course he’ll work ’em out for our good. But we gotta stretch the scriptures beyond their breaking point before they state any such thing.

You do realize there’s an entire book of the bible dedicated to the existence of meaningless things, right? Not everything happens for a reason! It’s why Qohelét, the author of Ecclesiastes, started his book with “Vapor of vapors. It’s all vapor.” Ec 1.2 KWL

I won’t go as hardcore as Qohelét did, and claim we can’t find meaning in anything. Certain things definitely have meaning. Sometimes we grant the meaning to them; sometimes God does. But Qohelét was dealing with a culture which—like our own—tries to find meaning in everything. A random accident upends our lives, and we go out of our minds playing mental connect-the-dots, trying to find anything deep or truthful or profound in it. So to give his culture a solid slap in the face, Qohelét pulled out the stops: Nothing has meaning. Nothing makes sense. All sorts of stuff that’s “supposed” to happen, doesn’t. Stuff that should be fair, isn’t. Life sucks.

For these people, Ecclesiastes is a bummer, so they avoid it. We don’t wanna believe it. We way prefer the idea God has a grand plan, and these random accidents are secretly part of the plan. We imagine every irrelevant, minor thing triggers a butterfly effect, with great, life-altering consequences. Every decision matters. Every action counts. Every time we talk about God, we plant a seed which never returns void. You know, the usual hyper-optimistic crap.

You know, the usual hyper-optimistic crap. And don’t get me wrong; Christians ought to be optimistic. Jm 1.2 But not delusionally so. We live by faith, not wishful thinking.

Gentleness: Take charge of your emotions!

“Gentle” doesn’t mean “nice.” It means, like a well-trained horse, you don’t spook easily.

When Christians go through Paul’s list of the Spirit’s fruit in Galatians—love, joy, peace, etcetera Ga 5.22-23 —we tend to skip gentleness. ’Cause we figure it’s just a synonym of kindness. Gentle people are kind, right? Gentle Jesus is meek and mild, according to Charles Wesley’s hymn; we assume gentleness is therefore meekness and mildness. Nice, friendly people.

Or gentle people are patient. They handle others softly, not roughly. Like the washing machine on the gentle cycle: Treats your clothes softly and tenderly, kinda like the way Jesus is calling, “Oh sinner, come home” in Will Thompson’s hymn.

What’re the chances I’m gonna tell you both those definitions are incorrect? Better than average.

The word Paul used for gentleness is prahýtis. It describes someone who’s prahýs/“gentle.” In classical Greek literature, it’s used to describe people or animals who were angry, sad, or fearful… but they got control of themselves.

• In Homer’s Hymn to Hermes, Apollo was enraged, but let music make him gentle. 417
• In Hesiod’s Works and Days, stubborn mules were made tame, or gentle. 797
• In Aeschylus’s Persians, Xerxes tried to gentle a team of horses, 190 and Darius advised Atossa to use gentle words to soothe her grieving son. 837
• In Pindar’s Pythian Odes, Hero was “gentle to his citizens.” 3.71
• And in the Septuagint, Moses was more gentle than anyone, Nu 12.3 in contrast to his angry brother and sister. Nu 12.1-2

The term refers to someone who’s emotionally stable. You know, like a wild horse that’s been broken, who doesn’t buck every unfamiliar rider, or freak out at every odd thing it encounters. Like a tame animal who’s not passive and quiet one moment, then tearing through your throat the next.

Unlike some humans. And some Christians.

The ancient Greeks highly praised gentility. Gentle rulers weren’t emotion-driven despots, who’d freak out whenever you tweeted something they don’t like. They weren’t easily outraged—which, I remind you, is a work of the flesh. They weren’t thrown into panic, frenzy, depression, or euphoria, at the smallest things. They weren’t quick to sorrow, despair, rejoice, or ecstasy. Like I said, stable.

God’s that way too: Gracious, merciful, slow to anger, quick to forgive. Jl 2.13 Stands to reason it’s a fruit of the Spirit: All those fruits are God’s traits. If we follow his Spirit, we’re gonna take on his attitudes, behaviors, and emotional stability. We’re gonna be gentle like God is. We might feel excitement, rage, sadness, zeal, all sorts of emotions—but we’re never gonna let ’em take over our lives, and lead us to do something sinful. We are in control. Never our emotions.

Master of the Sabbath.

Who defines what’s good and evil on Sabbath? Jesus.

Mark 2.23-28 • Matthew 12.1-8 • Luke 6.1-5

As I said last time, don’t assume Pharisees were questioning Jesus because they wished to challenge him. Sometimes they were. But sometimes they were merely trying to understand why Jesus ignored their traditions—and why he was teaching his students to do likewise.

Just like it came up one Sabbath when Jesus and his kids were going past the fields, and some of ’em began to yank a few of the heads of grain off.

Mark 2.23-24 KWL

23 Jesus himself happened to travel through the fields on Sabbath.

His students began plucking the grain along the road.

24 The Pharisees told Jesus, “Look, why are they doing what one shouldn’t on Sabbath?”

Matthew 12.1-2 KWL

1 At that time, Jesus went through the fields on Sabbath.

His students were hungry, and began to pluck the grain and eat it. 2 Seeing it,

the Pharisees told Jesus, “Look, your students are doing what one shouldn’t do on Sabbath.”

Luke 6.1-2 KWL

1 Jesus himself happened to go through the fields on Sabbath.

His students were plucking and eating, rubbing it in their hands.

2 Some of the Pharisees said, “Why are they doing what one shouldn’t on Sabbath?”

Mark doesn’t mention they were eating the grain, so it sounds a little like petty vandalism—as kids will do. But no, it wasn’t that; the other gospels point out they were eating it. And no, that’s not theft. The Law stated people were permitted to do so.

Leviticus 19.9-10 KWL

9 “When you harvest the harvest of your land, don’t harvest the edge of your field completely.

Don’t take a second pass.

10 Your vineyard: Don’t strip it bare, and take the broken grapes of your vineyard.

Don’t take a second pass.

Leave them for the poor and the foreigner.

I’m your LORD God.”

God capped certain commands with “I’m your LORD God” when he really meant it.

This was all part of God’s welfare plan for the poor: When they’re hungry, let them eat from the edges of your fields, or pick up whatever you left behind after harvest, and God would bless you and make up for it. The nation was kinda on the honor system: They could glean what they needed… so long that they don’t grab a sickle and reap a swath of it. Dt 23.25 But for the most part it worked. Our culture, in comparison, considers any gleaning a form of theft, and farmers are far more likely to grab a rifle and take potshots at ’em to scare them off.

Regardless of feeding the poor: It was Sabbath. And you might recall the Pharisees had a whole list of stuff you can’t do on Sabbath. In the Mishnah’s list of 39 forms of prohibited work, number 3 would be reaping, and number 5 would be threshing. That whole “rubbing it their hands” bit Luke mentioned—getting the chaff off the seeds—counts as threshing. And if you really wanna get anal about it, by selecting which heads of grain to pluck, the students were sorting—number 7.

Three different kinds of work, and work is banned on Sabbath. It’s in the Ten Commandments, remember? Ex 20.10 Back in Old Testament times, it’d even get you the death penalty. Ex 32.2 So this is no minor quibble. It’s a capital crime.

So why weren’t Jesus’s students fasting?

Mark 2.18-22, Matthew 9.14-17, Luke 5.33-39.

In the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus taught on fasting, it was namely to say it’s to be private; we’re not to do it to seek attention. Mt 6.16-17 Certain Christians claim it also means we’re not to do it at all, and the basis for this claim is this passage, wherein some Jews complain Jesus’s kids don’t fast.

Mark 2.18 KWL

John’s students and the Pharisees were fasting. They came and told Jesus,

“For what reason do John and the Pharisees’ students fast, and your students don’t fast?”

 

Matthew 9.14 KWL

John’s students visited Jesus, saying,

“For what reason do we and the Pharisees fast so often, and your students don’t fast?

 

Luke 5.33 KWL

They told Jesus, “John’s students fast frequently and hold vigils.

Same with the Pharisees—and yours eat and drink.”

Ísan nistévontes/“were fasting” Mk 2.18 can also be interpreted “were [the sort of people who practiced] fasting.” The Pharisees were known to fast twice a week, Lk 18.12 probably on Monday and Thursday. Didache 8.1 Since the context of this story is Levi’s dinner party, some folks speculate Levi was throwing it on one of the Pharisees’ fast days. So part of what irritated Pharisees about the dinner wasn’t just the eating and drinking with taxmen and sinners; it was how Jesus was supposed to be fasting along with them, and instead he was enjoying a gourmet lunch, with better wine than they could afford. You know, jealousy.

Of course it’s just as likely this wasn’t a fast day. But they’d been keeping track: They’d never seen Jesus nor his students fast. (They didn’t know about his stint in the desert.) So this was as good a time as any to broach the subject: Why didn’t Jesus do they did?

And lest we blow this off as Pharisees whining about Jesus violating their customs again, all three gospels point out it wasn’t just Pharisees. The students of John the baptist—and we like John, right?—also fasted. Notice Matthew even had John’s students ask the question. Too often we Christians ignore the Pharisees’ considerations, ’cause we presume they were nothing but self-justifying hypocrites only looking to bash Jesus. And partly because we wanna ignore the Law, wrongly figure Jesus taught we can, and wanna bash Pharisees as legalists.

But most Pharisees were good Jews, earnestly trying to follow God, figuring their rabbis knew best… and unaware their rabbis were too often looking for loopholes in the Law. The reason Jesus wound up critiquing the Pharisees so often, was because he chose to be around them all the time. He taught in their synagogues. He ate in their homes. These were, for the most part, his people—who rejected him, Jn 1.11 but still. They followed him around because they wondered whether he was Messiah.

So they asked questions like this, not necessarily to accuse, but understand. Don’t assume they were trying to entrap him till the authors of the gospels, or Jesus, say so. “Why don’t you fast when we do?” is a perfectly valid question.

Jesus calls Levi. Or Matthew. Whoever.

Mark 2.13-17, Matthew 9.9-13, Luke 5.27-32.

I don’t expect anyone’s ever liked taxmen—except of course the kings for whom they were collecting. In first-century Israel, the Judeans and Galileans particularly disliked the taxmen, and to understand why, you gotta understand their history.

In 67BC, Queen Alexandra Salomé of Jerusalem died. Her sons Hyrcanus (whom she made head priest) and Aristobulus fought over who’d be the next king. Antipater bar Antipas, the governor of Idumea (formerly Edom) backed Hyrcanus, and talked him into getting military help from Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, whom we know as Pompey. The Romans intervened in the fight, overthrew Jerusalem (and out of curiosity, Pompey took a peek in the Holiest Place of the temple), and imprisoned Aristobulus. But Pompey screwed Hyrcanus over, keeping him head priest, but making Antipater governor of Judea.

Antipater’s son Herod: You might’ve heard of him. He married Hyrcanus’s granddaughter, and despite not being Jewish, used his Roman connections to become king of Jerusalem. After Herod’s death, his sons likewise fought over who’d be the next king—and again the Romans intervened, with Augustus dividing Israel into fourths. Two sons, Antipas and Philip, were made tetrarch/“ruler of a fourth” over the Galilee and Perea (today’s Golan Heights), and a Roman procurator was put over the other half, namely Jerusalem.

The procurators appointed whoever they pleased as head priest. Usually the Levite who bribed them the most. And this was the state of things when Jesus began his ministry: Half-Jewish “kings” over northern Israel, Romans over southern Israel, and a family of corrupt Sadducees—who don’t even believe in miracles!—running the temple. Plus Roman soldiers everywhere, keeping the scum in power, and crucifying anyone who rebelled.

You already don’t like the taxman, but these taxmen were collecting money for the Romans—forcing the people to pay to be oppressed. As a result they were seen as traitors. Most Jews simply hated them. For the most part they refused to let them into their synagogues or temple. Since the taxmen sided with the pagans, they were considered no different from pagans.

Romans didn’t pay their taxmen, but simply let ’em overcharge on taxes, and take their income from the overcharge. So taxmen regularly overcharged. And why shouldn’t they?—the people hated ’em anyway. May as well hate ’em back… and get rich off them.