One who brings justice to the gentiles.

Isaiah 42.1-4, Matthew 12.14-20.

After Jesus cured the man with the paralyzed hand, this happened.

Matthew 12.14-20 KWL

14 Going out, the Pharisees took a meeting about this—so they could have Jesus destroyed.

15 Jesus, who knew this, left there, and a great crowd followed him; he had cured them all.

16 Jesus had rebuked them, lest they reveal what he might do

17 so that he might fulfill the word from the prophet Isaiah, saying,

18 “Look at my servant whom I chose, my beloved. My soul approves of him.

I put my Spirit in him, and he’ll bring justice to the gentiles.

19 He won’t struggle or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.

20 He won’t split a broken reed, won’t extinguish smoking linen, till he can issue justice in victory.

21 Gentiles will put their hope in his name.” Is 42.1-4

Since Matthew quotes Isaiah and says Jesus fulfilled it, Christians presume this particular part of Isaiah is a messianic prophecy; that it’s specifically about Jesus. I may as well translate it too, instead of just translating Matthew’s translation of it:

Isaiah 42.1-4 KWL

1 “Look at my slave. I support him, my chosen one. My soul is pleased with him.

I put my Spirit upon him: Judgment goes forth to the gentiles.

2 He doesn’t cry out, doesn’t stir things up; his voice isn’t heard in the street.

3 He doesn’t break up crushed reeds, nor put out a dimming wick.

Judgment is issued to promote truth. 4 Likewise he doesn’t fade nor break down till he brings judgment to the earth.

The border lands await his instruction.”

Y’notice there are minor differences. No, not because I translated it differently; it’s because either Matthew was quoting a bad copy, or paraphrasing. (I prefer to think he was paraphrasing.) Matthew simply laid his ideas on top of Isaiah, same as Christians still do… and really shouldn’t.

Anyway, because Christians don’t understand what fulfillment means, again we assume the Isaiah passage is about Jesus. It’s actually not. It’s about Israel. The LORD specifically said so in the previous chapter of Isaiah.

Isaiah 41.8-9 KWL

8 “And you, my slave Israel, Jacob whom I chose, my beloved Abraham’s seed:

9 I seized you from the land’s end, called you one of its chiefs, and told you,

‘You’re my slave, my chosen. I don’t reject you.’ ”

No, he didn’t switch from Israel being the servant he meant, to Messiah being the servant he meant, in the course of a few verses. He was still telling Isaiah about Israel. He’s gonna put his Spirit on Israel and use the nation to promote justice among gentiles. True, Israel isn’t currently doing the best job of promoting justice towards anyone but fellow Israelis. But I don’t figure this prophecy is describing the present day anyway.

The LORD has big plans for Israel—and for Jesus as Israel’s king. So it’s entirely likely this prophecy refers to Israel when it’s finally following its Messiah during his millennium, after his second coming.

Meanwhile Matthew jumped the gun a little, ’cause though Jesus was starting his kingdom it hasn’t come yet. (Keep praying for it!) So in what way did Jesus fulfill this Isaiah passage in the first century?

Before you go book shopping…

This Christmas, some of you are getting gift cards or gift certificates. I regularly get Starbucks cards—which is great, ’cause that’s exactly what I want. I’ll definitely use ’em. Yes, I’m at Starbucks as I write this.

Anyway, some of these gift cards will be for bookstores. Maybe Amazon, maybe not. And as Christians who wanna get religious about our relationships with Jesus, some of us are likely thinking of buying Christian books and resources, and stuff that’ll help us get better at Christianity. I know I do.

And, when I was newly devout, I wasted a bunch of money on stuff that really didn’t do any of those things. Likely so will you. We all do. Our zealousness overtakes our wallets. But hold on there, little buckaroo: Don’t get all fired up to ride off an’ lasso some steer, ’cause you might just wind up with some bull.

If you go to a brick ’n mortar Christian bookstore, first thing you’re gonna notice is they sell an awful lot of “Jesus junk.” And bibles; most of their money comes from bibles. But they also sell art, T-shirts, CDs, devotionals, romance novels without any sex in ’em (with Amish girls on the cover, just to tell everyone who catches you reading one, “Nope, the clothes are staying on”), inferior Christian fiction, bestselling Christian books by famous authors, and classic Christian books by famous dead Christians.

There are some actually useful books in there. But more of them are junk. Even among the classics. They’re nice sentiments, disguised as God-inspired wisdom. They’ll make you feel good, like they’re expected to. But you won’t grow any closer to Jesus, won’t get any more spiritually mature, won’t grow in the Spirit’s fruit, won’t anything. I used to own bookshelves of that rubbish.

How d’you tell the difference? Which of them should you buy? Well maybe this article’ll help get you started.

The seven deadly sins.

The “seven deadly sins” confuse a lot of people.

Back in 2008, a rumor spread that the Vatican declared more deadly sins. It came from an interview with Gianfranco Girotti, the head bishop of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary. (I know; this sounds like the Vatican prison. It’s actually the theologians who handle questions about sin, repentance, and forgiveness.) Anyway, in Girotti’s interview with L’Osservatore Romano on 7 March 2008, he listed certain present-day practices which he believed have a harmful global impact: Pollution, drug trafficking, embryo-destroying research, other unethical human experiments, abortion, pedophilia, and economic injustice.

Somehow the press converted this into “The Vatican announced there are new sins!” And since your average reporter (lapsed Catholics included) know bupkis about the seven deadly sins, they just assumed there are now 14 deadly sins. Now littering is gonna send you to hell.

Like I said, they confuse people.

Most people figure they’re a Roman Catholic thing. And they largely are. Few Protestants teach on ’em. More of them, particularly the Fundamentalists, consider way more things to be deadly sins than seven. Like voting for the wrong political party.

Loads of people think the seven deadly sins are in the bible. And they actually are. Just not in the form of a list.

I’ve heard Protestants claim the list is found in Catholic bibles. Well, maybe if it’s a Catholic study bible, it’ll be in the notes, but no. You’ll find passages—in all bibles—which rebuke these attitudes and the behaviors they cause. And whether you’re Catholic or not, you might wanna know about them. So here’s the list, in convenient chart form.

DEADLY SIN		LATIN	OUT-OF-CONTROL DESIRE	OPPOSITE VIRTUE
1.	LECHERY	luxuria/“sexual lust”	For sex. Cl 3.5	Purity
2.	GLUTTONY	gula	For food, drink, intoxicants. Ek 16.49	Moderation
3.	GREED	avaritia/“avarice”	For money, wealth, possessions. Ep 5.3	Generosity
4.	LAZINESS	acedia/“sloth, discouragement”	To evade responsibility, avoid work, stay uninvolved. Mt 25.26	Integrity
5.	WRATH	ira/“anger”	To fight, take revenge, act out of rage or bitterness. Ep 4.32	Meekness
6.	ENVY	invidia/“begrudge”	To covet, be jealous. Mk 7.22	Kindness
7.	PRIDE	superbia/“magnificence”	To exalt oneself: Self-praise, self-promotion. Mt 7.22	Humility

What makes ’em deadly? Well, they’re works of the flesh. And those who choose a lifestyle of works of the flesh don’t inherit God’s kingdom. Ga 5.21 Their lifestyle implies they’re not saved: They don’t have the Holy Spirit indwelling them, making ’em fruity, making ’em not want to sin, getting them to reject the sort of lifestyle which burps up deadly sins.

Fasting on the feast days.

Christian holidays are also known as feast days. The term comes from the bible, ’cause that’s how the LORD described the holidays he instituted for the Hebrews: “Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year,” Ex 23.14 KJV namely Passover, Pentecost, and Tents. Christians turned Passover into Easter, added Christmas, usually downplay Pentecost, and usually skip Tents… but otherwise yeah, on Christian holidays we tend to do a bit of feasting. (And on St. Patrick’s Day, drinking.)

Thing is, Evangelicals regularly forget Christmas is 12 days long. Our secular culture thinks it’s one day—beginning and ending on 25 December. If the decorations stay up till New Year’s Day, it’s only because you personally struggle to let go of things. Give it up; take ’em down. Hey, the stores are already getting ready for Valentine’s Day.

In reality Christmas continues till Epiphany. But because Evangelicals follow the culture, and tend to dismiss ancient custom as “Catholic,” they figure Christmas is over and the next major holiday is New Year’s Day.

And what’s the best way to start a new year? No, not partying till pukey. It’s to focus on what God’s will might be for the year.

What’s he want us to do? If we can figure it out and do it, maybe God’ll reward us by taking away suffering and showering us with wealth. Or, y’know, spiritual blessings. But let’s be honest: Deep down we’re kinda hoping for material ones.

So in order to really focus on God, really listen for his voice, and demonstrate to him and ourselves we really mean it, Evangelicals dip into one of our old Christian traditions… and fast.

Well, kinda. North Americans usually refuse to defy our stomachs and palates; even for Jesus. So we made some adaptations about what “fasting” means; we don’t go anywhere remotely as hardcore as Jesus. We skip a meal at most. Some of us go on a diet we like to call “the Daniel fast.” This way we deprive ourselves, but we’re not actually starving. And hey, we might lose a little weight, as we resolved to do anyway.

Evangelical churches get so eager to get started on that sweet, sweet Daniel fasting, we start right away. On 1 January if possible. Okay, maybe 2 January, because it’s so hard to start fasting when we’re hung over snacking as we watch New Year’s football games. We can put it off a day. But 2 January for sure!

Okay, so we start fasting on 2 January. Which is the ninth day of Christmas; a feast day.

Are we supposed to fast on feast days? No.

But as I said, Christians don’t know it’s a feast day. So we’ll fast anyway. And various other days throughout the Christian year.

Our suffering servant.

Isaiah 53.

Mixed in with all the Messianic prophecies about a king who’d restore Israel, conquer the world, and set aright everything gone wrong, there are also prophecies about a suffering servant who’d get crushed.

We Christians likewise recognize these prophecies to be about Jesus. But people only realized it after the fact. Before Jesus went through his suffering, Pharisees believed these prophecies can’t be about Messiah. He’s gonna conquer the world! It’s gonna be an easy victory, achieved through the Almighty’s power. Suffering and death? Has to be some other guy.

Y’might recall as soon as Jesus brought up the very idea this suffering servant was him, his best student Simon Peter recoiled. “This will never happen to you,” was his rebuke. Mt 16.22 Human nature being what it is, we pick and choose the bible passages we like, skip the rest… and consequently miss most of the story. ’Cause the parts we avoid are frequently the really important parts. Jesus’s death saves the world just as much, if not more so, than his second coming will.

The Pharisees believed Messiah would come once, to conquer the world. They presumed he’d do it same as other conquerors: Take it by force, and make humanity submit. Smite his enemies with an iron scepter. Politically-minded Christians figure they can take over their society on his behalf, and make our nation into an outpost of his kingdom. They don’t realize Jesus demonstrated, by humility and self-sacrifice, not conquest, how very much he deserves the world as his inheritance. They don’t get how he gets people to submit to him out of love, out of recognizing the absolute wisdom and rightness of his rule. That’s much harder to achieve than mere force. (Plus there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in the idea of forcing people to submit, instead of getting ’em to want to. Such is human nature.)

But winning the world through his suffering, rather than seizing it by force, is what Isaiah saw him do. And reported thisaway.

Isaiah 53 KWL

1 Does anyone believe what we’ve reported?

The LORD’s arm is upon this person who’s been revealed.

2 He grew up in God’s presence like a sapling, like something rooted in dry ground.

We could see nothing honorable in his form. He wasn’t anything to look at.

3 People dismissed and refused to hear him. A man in pain, familiar with illness,

dismissed like one who hides his face from people—we took no account of him.

4 But in fact he’d taken up our illness. He carried our pain.

We figured he’d been smited: God had struck him down to humble him,

5 but he was wounded for our rebellion, crushed for our evil deeds.

Our peace came from his punishment. His beating brought us healing.

6 Like sheep, all of us have wandered off; we all went our own way.

The LORD put all our evil deeds on him.

7 He was abused and humiliated, and didn’t open his mouth.

Like a sheep to slaughter, or an ewe to her shearers, is silent: He didn’t open his mouth.

8 Arrested, judged, he was carried off. His peers—who spoke up for him

when he was cut off from the land of the living? beaten for the evil deeds of my people?

9 They put him in the grave with evildoers, with the rich in death,

though he’d treated no one violently. No deceit was in his mouth.

10 The LORD was pleased to crush him, to make him unwell, to make his soul a guilt offering,

and see his seed survive. God will prolong its days. The LORD is pleased to make it prosper in his hand.

11 God will be satisfied by the trouble of this servant’s soul:

He will be right in knowing the righteous one, my servant, will bear the weight of both the great and the evildoers.

12 Therefore I will give him something from the great ones. He’ll be given spoil with the mighty ones.

For under them, his soul was poured out to death. He was counted with the rebels.

He carried the sin of the great. He brings light to the rebels.