Love one another.

John 13.34-35 KJV

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Lest we miss the point, Jesus says “Love one another” thrice. It’s not unimportant to him. It is unimportant to Christians however. We’ve really pooched this one. On a global level.

We don’t love our fellow Christians in our churches. They’re family, and sometimes we acknowledge they’re family… but they’re kinda like the family we barely tolerate for family reunions. We don’t interact with them outside our church buildings. We don’t know what’s going on with their personal lives. We don’t care, either. We’re too busy.

We don’t love our fellow Christians in the other churches. In many cases we convinced ourselves half of them aren’t real Christians anyway. Their denominations teach weird, inappropriate things. They’re too legalistic to really love Jesus, or they’re too loosey-goosy with God’s righteous standards to really love Jesus. They’re not Spirit-filled enough… or they think they’re more Spirit-filled than we are, but really they’ve just confused their weird fleshly impulses with the Spirit.

We don’t love our fellow Christians in far-off lands. If the nearby Christians aren’t Christian enough for us, foreign Christians definitely aren’t. Their customs are too bizarre. Their people are dirt poor, and we wealthy Christians are so unconsciously used to social Darwinist and prosperity gospel thinking, we suspect they can’t have a proper relationship with God if he’s abandoned them to their poverty like that. We assume their so-called Christianity is really their country’s version of Christianism: It’s a cultural and ethnic thing which everybody does by rote. It’s not a living relationship, but dead religion. Shame they’re getting persecuted though… which can’t possibly be because they really do know Jesus, and would die for him.

We barely love our neighbors anyway. And besides, we’re busy! We have jobs. We have kids to raise, and drive to their afterschool activities. We have dates to keep, buddies to stay connected with, movies to watch, teams to support, video games to play… We “have lives.” Jesus understands; he knows all, and knows how busy we are. We haven’t time. We’ll do it once we finally have time, like when we retire, or after we’re resurrected.

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Angels.

I get asked about angels a lot. A lot. Probably too much. People have a great interest in ’em. Sometimes it’s unhealthy; namely when they’re far more interested in angelology than in Jesus.

But to a point it’s understandable. I mean, here are these spirit beings, and—from what we’ve been told about ’em—they’re around us all the time. People figure we have guardian angels, who are watching us constantly… and shaking their heads in disapproval every time we sin. Others imagine they have a shoulder angel, who’s constantly whispering correction in their ear (and no, that’s the Holy Spirit, and he’s not on your shoulder either).

Far too commonly, they think angels are dead people. Yep. Ghosts. Usually dead family members; usually beloved dead family members, ’cause they certainly don’t wanna imagine their creepy uncle has become an angel and can now watch ’em shower. Ghosts, but not ghosts; they’ve had an upgrade, and popular art imagines ’em with wings and halo and a bright nightgown, even though we usually figure yeah, they don’t really look like that. But we imagine they look down on us, approvingly or not; and come down to intervene from time to time.

Despite what the Mormons tell you, angels are not dead humans. They were never human. Whole different species. In fact, from the scriptures, there appear to be several species of angel. Medieval Catholics referred to these differences by the Latin word chorus, “character”—which evolved into their word choir, and left most westerners with the false idea angels are bunched into different singing groups. Kinda like the various a capella groups at an Ivy League school. But yeah, that’s why various music pastors insist angels are primarily interested in singing. No; that’s them projecting their favorite form of worship upon angels. Some angels sing. Some don’t.

Our word angel comes from the Greek >ἄγγελος/ánghelos, “agent” or “messenger.” It translates the Hebrew מַלְאָךְ/malákh, which also means “agent” or “messenger.” In the Old Testament, God uses both humans and spirits to share his messages. We tend to call the humans prophets, and we just assume all angels prophesy. ’Cause whenever they appear to us, that’s typically what they do.

There are angels in the bible, and because the bible’s about the LORD and his relationship with humans, it doesn’t go into any detail about what an angel is, how it works, how many eyes it has (for some of them, lots), how many wings it has (if any!), and what they do for fun. Because the bible’s not about angels. They exist, so they’re in there, but most of the “information” humanity has about angels comes from personal experience, if they’ve had any; or fiction. Arguably more Americans “know” about angels from the old TV shows Touched by an Angel or Supernatural than from scripture—and those shows, regardless of how much data they tried to pull from bible (and Supernatural didn’t even try), are fiction.

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Getting Christian capitalization right.

We Christians have invented a lot of petty and stupid ways to judge our fellow Christians for how devout they are. That’s what these Expectations articles are about, y’know. We don’t look for fruit of the Spirit. We look for this crap. So from time to time I get judged for not meeting my fellow Christians’ expectations. So do you. Isn’t it tiresome?

One of the little litmus tests is how we do on Christian capitalization. I get rebuked for this on a frequent basis: I don’t capitalize Christian things enough. I don’t capitalize “bible”—as if people aren’t gonna know I’m talking about the bible when I do so. I don’t capitalize God’s pronouns. I don’t capitalize “church” and “liturgy” and “sacrament.” I do capitalize Satan.

Because I follow the rules of 21st century grammar. I know; it’s a dying practice. I read a lot of news, and regularly catch reporters misusing apostrophes. People love to use ’em for plurals. Love love love. Even though they shouldn’t. When in doubt, don’t. But I digress.

Now under the rules of 16th century grammar, you capitalize everything you wanna emphasize, which is why the U.S. Constitution and our Declaration of Independence are full (or to do it 16th-century style, Full) of capitalizations. But we stopped doing that in the 19th century, and the only reason Christians kept it up is because we liked old books. We oughta still like old books… but that’s another digression.

Under 21st century grammar, we capitalize proper names, and titles when we address people by ’em. We capitalize Jesus, of course; we capitalize Lord when we address him as such, but when we refer to him as our lord, we needn’t. Christians will, ’cause they don’t realize there’s a difference, and figure you always capitalize lord. And yeah, when we’re referring to YHWH, the LORD, yeah we do. But “lord” is his title, not a proper name. “God” is his species, not a proper name; calling him “God” is like when he refers to Ezekiel as “Son of Man.” Ek 2.1

Like I said, Christians don’t realize there’s a difference, and get all bent out of shape when people refer to “god,” as in “The guru claims to be an expert on god.” (Y’realize if the guru is Hindu, of course you wouldn’t capitalize “god,” ’cause we could be talking about any of their gods.) To the Christian’s mind, it doesn’t matter if “god” is only God’s species: You capitalize it! Always. It’s not lowercase-G “god,” and lowercasing God’s title disrespects him, doesn’t it? Just like how it disrespects us when people won’t capitalize “human,” right?

Just like how disrespects us when other people won’t capitalize our names, right? …Wait, do people do this as a way to disrespect one another? I mean, unless they’re being a little creative with graphic design, like movie credits which put everything in lowercase: Who lowercases people’s names so as to insult them? And when we see it done to our own names, who among us is so sensitive we identify this as a slight? Does it ever occur to anybody to consider this a big deal? Or an insult?

Yet you’ll actually find Christians do this to the devil. Seriously.

Now the things we call it—“devil” and “Satan”—are actually both titles. We don’t know its proper name. (No, it’s not “Lucifer.” That’s a misinterpretation… and another title, while we’re at it.) As titles, we don’t actually need to capitalize ’em either, unless we’re addressing the devil by its title—“Listen, Devil,” or “Listen, Accuser”—but Christians traditionally treat “Satan” as this particular satan’s proper name. Yet Christians, just to stick it to Satan a little, like to lowercase it where inappropriate. Yeah, like this gets it back for convincing people to use lowercase-G’s on God. It’s petty of us.

It also freaks Christians out when people capitalize “God” to refer to another religion’s god. Like Aten or Wotan or Vishnu—we don’t refer to these beings as “Gods,” but “gods.” Zeus isn’t a God, but a god. Properly, YHWH is a god too, but to honor him we insist on making him always, always an uppercase-G God, ’cause he’s the God.

Mix any of these customary rules up, and people are gonna doubt your salvation. Even if it’s an honest mistake, or a pagan editor removing all our sacred capitalization.

Yeah, it’s already kinda silly. But it goes further. A lot further. Follow me down the rabbit hole, will you?

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The Fruitless Fig Tree Story.

Luke 13.1-9.

Two stories before Jesus presented the Mustard Seed Story in Luke, he told the Fruitless Fig Tree Story in response to then-current events. Let’s start with the events, since they’re relevant.

Luke 13.1 KWL

Some were present among Jesus’s listeners at that time, who brought news

of the Galileans whose blood Pontius Pilate mixed with the sacrifices.

We don’t know the actual story behind this. We just have guesses. Most of ’em presume Pilate put down an uprising, and in so doing killed some Galileans in the temple area, either close enough to the ritual sacrifices to splatter blood on ’em… or at least close enough for the Israelis to object it was just as bad, and hyperbolically claim he may as well have splattered their blood on their sacrifices. You know how people can get.

But again: We don’t know this is what happened. The Romans are pretty good at keeping records about such things, and we have no record of such an uprising. It’s certainly staying in Roman character to indiscriminately kill people in order to keep the peace, and certainly staying in Roman character to kill people even in sacred spaces. The whole concept of claiming sanctuary is a Hebrew thing 1Ki 2.28-34 and later a Christian thing. Not a Roman thing.

Popular songwriter Ephrem the Syrian (306–73) told an interesting story. Remember when Antipas Herod had John the baptist executed? Ephrem claimed this outraged Pilate—’cause the execution was illegal. After all, John hadn’t done anything wrong; he only pointed out it was against the Law of Moses for Herod to marry his sister-in-law. Lv 18.16 Which is true after all. Anyway because Pilate couldn’t do anything to Herod, he decided the next best thing was to arrest and execute anybody else who was present. He found ’em in the temple, killed ’em as they were offering sacrifice, and that’s the backstory. Commentary on Tatian’s Diatesseron 14.25 But Ephrem lived three centuries after it happened, so again: We don’t know this is what happened.

What we do know is Luke kinda expected his readers—or his main reader, Theophilus Lk 1.3 —to know this backstory. And maybe Theophilus did. But we don’t.

Anyway, back to Jesus.

Disasters and karma.

Luke 13.2-5 KWL

2 In reply Jesus told them, “You think these Galileans were sinners.

Worse than all the Galileans, because they suffered such evil things.

3 No, I tell you.

But unless you repent, everyone will likewise be destroyed.

4 Or those 18 killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them:

You think they were worse debtors than all the people inhabiting Jerusalem?

5 No, I tell you.

But unless you repent, everyone will likewise be destroyed.

We know of a pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, Jn 9.7 but not a tower. Probably because it fell. Possibly while it was under construction; it fell, killed the workers, and was never rebuilt. Possibly it was poorly made—or well-made, but an earthquake took it down. Again, we don’t have the backstory. But it was likely another then-current event. One Jesus brought up for two reasons.

First, both Pilate killing the Galileans, and the tower falling on people, were disasters. One was the deliberate product of human will. The other was an accident. But if you’re planning to highlight this difference, don’t bother. Jesus treats ’em exactly the same. A disaster’s a disaster.

Second, Jesus didn’t want anyone in his audience getting the idea that Galileans needed to repent but Judeans didn’t. Disaster strikes Galileans and Judeans alike. Disaster strikes Jews and gentiles alike as well. Everybody needs to repent. Everybody’s a sinner.

The problem was the ancient Israelis—and present-day Christians, and really everybody—had and have the bad habit of leaping to the conclusion every disaster is a consequence. They don’t have any apparent, visible reason, but they happen because these people need to die. ’Cause karma. The universe needs to balance out good and bad karma, and destroy evildoers one way or another. Christians might credit God for balancing things out; determinists certainly do. But they act as if God is beholden to follow the laws of karma. He is not. He does grace. Always has.

So the Galileans were sinners, and the Jerusalemites were debtors (a popular synonym for sinner). So they deserved to die; and since everybody sins we kinda all deserve to die, as determinists love to uncharitably point out whenever disaster strikes. But as Jesus points out, everybody’s gonna die—unless they repent.

We Christians usually assume Jesus means we’re gonna die in our sins, and go to hell, unless we repent and follow him. And yeah, maybe Jesus means that too. But on a more historical level, in about four decades after Jesus taught this, the Romans came and destroyed Israel—and only the Christians among the Israelis were forewarned, fled, and survived. Unless these literal people repent, follow Jesus, and hear from his apostles to flee for the hills, they’re literally, in their present era and not the End Times, gonna die. Jesus might be talking about humanity’s need to repent, but he’s definitely talking about Roman-era Israel.

And karma really has nothing to do with it. We Christians need to ditch these karmic ideas. They’re not of God; they’re not his idea; they’re ours. They’re how humans imagine the world should work; how people explain things away when bad things happen to good people. But Jesus tells us no. Twice.

Not every disaster is God smiting the wicked, nor balancing out the cosmos. Some events don’t mean anything. Stop trying to find meanings in them, and connecting cosmic dots which aren’t there. Focus on what we properly oughta focus upon: Our lifestyle of repentance. On following Jesus, and pointing others to him. On loving God and our neighbors. On his kingdom come.

Now for the fig tree.

The Fruitless Fig Tree Story doesn’t follow the previous lesson for no reason. It’s definitely connected.

Luke 13.6-9 KWL

6 Jesus was speaking this parable: “Someone has a fig tree,

planted in his vineyard, and comes to check for fruit on it, and finds none.

7 He tells his vinedresser, ‘Look, it’s been three years;

I come checking for fruit on this fig tree; I find none.

Cut it down. Why should it waste the soil?’

8 In reply the vinedresser tells him, ‘Master, leave it be this year,

till the time I can dig round it and can throw manure on it.

9 If it produces fruit, it can stay.

If not, cut it down indeed.’ ”

Historically Christians have interpreted this story thisaway:

• The vineyard represents the church, or the world.
• The tree represents a Christian.
• The vineyard owner is the Father, who’s lost patience with this fleshly Christian.
• The vinedresser is Jesus, who talks the Father down.

The reason we know this is a problematic interpretation is ’cause Jesus somehow has more patience than his Father. “The Father” might insist, “Times up; we should see fruit by now; cut it down,” but “Jesus” sees our potential and talks his Father out of it.

Thing is, the Father shares Jesus’s attitude of wanting to save the world. Jn 3.16, 1Ti 2.3-4, 2Pe 3.9 Saving the world is their idea. Patience is a trait they have in common ’cause they’re God, and not in unequal amounts. Pitting them against one another presumes they aren’t One God.

So there are a few problems with the traditional interpretation. Something’s amiss.

What’s amiss is Christians interpret this story without looking at the previous passage. Jesus’s audience was talking about disasters, and Jesus brought the discussion round to disaster coming for ancient Israel. This story is likewise about disaster coming for Israel. The tree represents ancient Israel. Contrary to the Pharisees’ intentions, Israel wasn’t adequately producing fruit.

The people knew this already, and not just because John the baptist had said so.

Luke 3.7-9 KJV

7 Then said [John] to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. 9 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Yep, Jesus is talking about the very same thing John did. Even used a tree, and cutting it down, to make his point.

Jesus brings up one tree, and John many. One can argue each tree represents an individual person, and I’m inclined to say it’s an individual nation. Either way we know God judges both individuals and nations—that sometimes unrighteous people like Jeconiah and Zedekiah get what’s coming to them, and righteous people like Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel get caught up in the disasters that befall their nation. It’s why we all need to be forewarned.

In his story Jesus’s landowner says he’s seen nothing for three years. No this isn’t a secret code for how many literal years Israel had gone wrong. Too many Christians are trying to crack a code which isn’t there. Don’t fall for that. The three years in this story doesn’t represent literal years, but a length of time where a farmer should reasonably expect fruit. It doesn’t secretly represent three “weeks” of years, i.e. 21 years; the LORD took a lot longer than that to smite Egypt for its sin of Hebrew slavery, and to smite the United States for its sin of African slavery.

The Father and the Son have the same mind about salvation, and if the vineyard owner and the vinedresser represent them, they represent a discussion the LORD has within himself about what to do with his fruitless people. It’s not one person debating another person; it’s an inner monologue within the godhead. It’s the LORD determining what he’s gonna do, same as he does elsewhere in the scriptures.

Genesis 18.17-18 KJV

17 And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; 18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?

Who’s he talking to? Himself. He does that. We now know God is a trinity, and while we don’t fully understand how he works, we know there are persons of the One God who have different wills, Lk 22.42 yet agree because he is One. The vineyard belongs to Jesus, the king of kings who conquered the world, Jn 16.33 who may decide, “Okay, this fruitless tree of mine oughta come down.” Yet the Holy Spirit says, “But I want some more time to work on it first. And if I don’t get results, then it’ll come down.”

So this is what God’s up to. Disaster was coming. (Disasters are always coming.) God sees his fruitless tree, wasting soil, and knows it oughta come down… and also knows if he pushes the tree just a bit more, he can wring fruit from it. He wants to save everybody he can. He’s still trying to.

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Holiness versus solemnity.

Years ago I taught at my church’s Christian junior high and elementary school. We had yearly “staff retreats,” which took an inservice day and required us to go do something together. Sometimes an actual retreat at a conference center; sometimes just a dinner. (I think most of us appreciated the dinners most.)

Anyway, one year our principal decided it’d be neat if we visited the Friday night service at Bethel Church in Redding. We’d check into a hotel, go out to dinner, go to the service, return to the hotel, and go home in the morning. The reason for the overnight stay was ’cause Bethel services might, “as the Spirit led,” go past midnight. She thought it was a great idea—and was really surprised at the backlash she got from the teachers.

Y’see, Bethel’s a New Apostolic charismatic church. Their beliefs and teachings aren’t mainstream—and are therefore controversial. I don’t know how aware she was of this; I think she wanted to go to Bethel because she loved their music. (They do have great music.) Whereas some of our Fundamentalist teachers were worried they’d be taught heresy, and were really bothered by the idea of a mandatory staff retreat which’d teach ’em heresy.

So one day in the staff room, I heard my fellow teachers express their worry our principal was trying to convert them. I figured I knew her well enough to explain no, she really wasn’t. It was a simple case of her being really earnest… and kinda tone-deaf.

“All right,” said one of our more conservative teachers. In this article I’ll call her Rachel. She attended an independent Baptist church; one of those churches which only do hymns. Bethel’s guitar-driven music, dancing in the aisles, hands waving, flags flapping, tambourines, wild enthusiams: This was way out of Rachel’s comfort zone. (Not mine; I’d been Pentecostal for years.) But Rachel figured she’d take a look, and if she didn’t like it, she’d just go back to the hotel. Fair enough. And the other teachers decided to follow her lead: See it for themselves, at least.

So off we went. It was nothing I hadn’t seen before. Heck, my church’s Friday night services were similar. (Probably ’cause our music pastors were already big fans of Bethel songs.) Rachel kept asking, “Does your church really do all this stuff?” and yeah, it did. I go to a much smaller church now, where don’t have so much space for dancers and flags, but we still have a lot of fans of Bethel music. To her credit, Rachel stayed for most of it, and left only because it was getting way past her bedtime.

“I dunno,” she told me afterwards. “It’s not what I’m used to. I like my worship to be holy. You understand? Holy.”

At first no I didn’t. Exactly what’s unholy about it?

I grew up Fundamentalist, so I know exactly what kind of music Rachel’s church does. And as she described why she preferred that style of music to Bethel’s revivalist style, it dawned on me: By holy she means solemn. Serious. Sincere. Formal.

Because God, explained Rachel, is a holy God. Meaning he’s serious, sincere, and formal.

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The fruit of holiness: Let’s get weird.

Holiness is a fruit of the Spirit. And every time I point this out, there’s always some numbnut who says, “It is not. Holiness is good, and Christians oughta be holy, but it’s not in Galatians 5, so it’s not a fruit.”

Okay, three things. First, Galatians 5 isn’t a comprehensive list of the Spirit’s fruit, and was never meant to be. Jesus and his other apostles talk about fruit from time to time as well. Simon Peter’s the guy who brought up holiness, in his first letter.

1 Peter 1.13-16 KJV

13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 14 as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: 15 but as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16 because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. Lv 19.2

God expects his kids to be holy. It’s one of his traits that’s gonna inevitably flow into dedicated followers and make us holy.

Second, y’notice how tons of Christians regularly confuse holiness with goodness? So if you claim holiness isn’t a fruit of the Spirit but goodness is, and you think holiness and goodness are the same thing, what’re you doing claiming holiness isn’t a fruit of the Spirit? Although here’s where briefly I point out holiness is not goodness; it’s a different thing, and I’ll get into that, ’cause it’s the point of this article. But I won’t digress further.

Third and last: Fruit of the Spirit is empowered by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Who is—duh!—holy. It’s in his name. It’s bizarre to imagine the Spirit won’t try to push us towards holiness.

But back to how holiness isn’t goodness. It’s not, y’know. Holy means we stand out separate from the rest of the world. We’re unique. We’re trying to act like Jesus. We’re trying to be better people than we were, and that includes not being jerks about it. We have higher and better standards for our lives.

We live in the world, in the wider culture around us, all the way into the world. We don’t isolate ourselves like hermits or cultists, because that’s what Christians do when they don’t get how holiness works. Jesus never isolated himself; even the bible’s “isolationists” like John the baptist didn’t isolate themselves. How’re we gonna reach the lost if we don’t go out and find ’em? But despite how immersed in the world we get, we don’t conform to the world, because we know the world doesn’t know what it’s doing or where it’s going. The Spirit does, and we follow him.

Yep, holiness means we’re different. Or as the world more often calls it, we’re weird.

Which is fine. I don’t mind being called weird, so long as we’re talking good weird. There’s good weird and bad weird. Dark Christians are bad weird. That’s fruitless and honestly meant to alienate people, because they figure offending people is the best way to purge the hypocrites from their ranks. Problem is, fleshly Christians make the best hypocrites, so what it really does is alienate Christians and recruit hypocrites. That’s why I try to keep people away from ’em; I’d much rather convert hypocrites and get ’em to follow Jesus.

Anyway we’re looking for good weird. God calls us to be unique. What’s that look like?

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God’s holiness, our example.

As I wrote yesterday, when Christians talk about holiness we usually mean goodness. We figure what makes God holy is his perfection: He’s good, he’s pure, he’s worthy of honor, he’s so… well, clean. Whereas we humans get awfully dirty.

And yeah, God is all these things. But these are symptoms of his holiness. They’re the fruit. Let’s not confuse ’em with holiness itself.

The Old Testament Hebrew word קֹדֶשׁ/qodéš, “holy,” means separate—set apart from everything else. The New Testament Greek word ἅγιος/ágios means the same thing. God’s separate and set apart from everything else. Not because he’s removed himself; he deliberately got himself right in the middle of our situation. ’Cause he’s here to help if we’d just let him. But God still stands apart from everything else, because he’s unlike everything else. He’s unique. He’s diffrent. He’s holy.

No surprise, people tend to confuse the symptoms with the underlying condition. We think how we get holy like God is we gotta be perfect. Gotta be good, pure, worthy of honor, and clean. That’s how holiness is achieved. God’s holiness, and the serious emphasis the scriptures put on his holiness, must be all about his moral perfection; when the angels call him “holy holy holy” Is 6.3, Rv 4.8 (’cause repeating a word in ancient Hebrew, like “holy holy place,” means it’s a most holy place, He 9.3 and three holies means God’s even holier) they’re really making a big to-do about his perfection.

Here’s the catch: If God’s all about holiness, and holiness means pefection, he must really hate it when we sin. It either drives him away or drives him to get all wrathful.

Really, this interpretation comes from people who really hate it when we sin. And really hate sinners. And project their attitude upon God, and claim he hates sin and sinners just as much, and push us to “be holy” and sin not. Be perfect like God is perfect. Don’t trigger him.

Okay yes: God hates sin. He’s mighty clear about that. He’s good; he created the universe and called it good (and we fouled that up); and the entirety of salvation history, the whole point of God’s kingdom, has to do with God cleaning up our mess.

But to listen to certain dark Christians, God isn’t cleaning up our mess with kindness and grace. He’s pissed. He’s quite happy to fling millions into hell, and if we get on his bad side by not meeting his standard of perfection, we’ll head for hell along with them.

To such Christians, any statements about God’s grace and mercy and kindness and goodness has to be followed up with “But God is just, and God is holy.” To them, God’s holiness is all about his impatience, rage, and destructiveness. Not his actual character; not the fruit he wants to bring out of us. To them, his perfection requires him to purge us with fire, and the way they describe him, he’s eager to rage on the wicked. It’s gonna be an orgy of death and destruction. Then afterward, for eternity, he’s gonna be friendly and benign, and that oughta neatly make up for seven years of widespread slaughter.

See what happens when we get our definitions wrong? Bad theology.

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Holy and sanctified.

Whenever Christians talk about holiness, we’re usually talking about goodness. When we talk about sanctification, the practice of being holy, again we’re usually talking about being good: Gotta resist temptation. Gotta stop sinning. Gotta get rid of anything in our lives which might tempt us to sin. Gotta get rid of anything “worldly,” because we’re striving for heavenly. Gotta shun evil… and in many cases gotta shun evildoers, i.e. everybody else, which is why in the past, those who sought holiness frequently became hermits, or cloistered with fellow holiness-seekers in a monastery.

Thing is, this isn’t what holiness means. Nor what sanctification means.

Holy means dedicated to God and his service, and not just for ordinary common use. If we’re gonna be holy, we’re not gonna be ordinary. We’re gonna be different. We’re gonna be weird, in most cases. People are gonna notice we’re different; we don’t live like or act like everybody else. Not even like fellow Christians—who, to be honest, are often following cultural trends of what “Christian” means rather than the Holy Spirit.

But since Jesus expects his followers to produce good fruit, we’re not gonna be bad weird, nor creepy weird, nor offputtingly weird. We’re not gonna alienate pagans. Nor should we; we’re trying to lead ’em to Jesus! They’re gonna notice we’re different, but they’re not gonna flinch because we’re antisocial or anti-them. They’re gonna be drawn to us because we love people like Jesus does. ’Cause we’re gracious and kind like God is. ’Cause we’re patient and even-tempered and peaceful like Jesus teaches. Good weird. Refreshingly weird.

We’re gonna develop reputations among the pagans as “good people,” not “holier-than-thou.” Safe people, not condemning people. Kind, not jerks.

It’s gonna strike ’em as weird because, sad to say, Christianity doesn’t have this reputation in our culture. Too many jerks. Too many articles on sanctification which only zero in on how God wants us to be good, but spend way too much time on not sinning, and way too little time on being like Jesus—who didn’t sin, but that’s not his defining characteristic. God is love. “Be holy, same as I am holy” Lv 11.44-45 is about love. Not so much goodness… although if we just focus on loving God and loving people, we’re gonna wind up following all the other commands. Mt 22.36-40

Sanctification is our process of seizing control of the corrupt parts of our human nature, and adopting a Jesus-style human nature. He never stopped being human, y’know. He simply showed us what it’s like when a human has God’s character traits instead of selfish ones. Goodness is a part of it, ’cause goodness is the Spirit’s fruit, but again: Holiness isn’t just goodness! It’s being different same as God is different: Unlike the rest of the world, we strive for love, joy, patience, kindness, and temperance. Unlike the rest of the world, we go after truth and beauty instead of provocation and self-justification. We’re not just being different ’cause it’s fun to be different: We’re being different because these qualities matter.

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The Yeast in Dough Story.

Matthew 13.33, Luke 13.20-21.

Jesus gave this short one-liner parable right after his Mustard Seed Story in both Matthew and Luke. It’s quick.

Matthew 13.33 KWL

Jesus told them another parable: “Heaven’s kingdom is like yeast.

A woman who had it, mixed it into 43 liters of dough till it leavened it all.”

 

Luke 13.20-21 KWL

20 Jesus said again, “What’s God’s kingdom like? 21 It’s like yeast.

A woman who had it, mixed it into 43 liters of dough till it leavened it all.”

It follows the Mustard Seed Story because it’s presenting a similar idea about the growth and spread of God’s kingdom. The kingdom’s like a tiny seed which grows into a vast tree. Or like yeast which a woman mixes into an industrial-sized amount of dough.

The original text of both gospels has σάτα τρία/sáta tría, “three sátons.” No, not Satan; sáton. It’s Greek for the Hebrew unit of measurement סְאָה/çeá (NIV “seah”) which is a third of an אֵיפָה/eyfá (KJV “ephah”). No, that doesn’t clear things up any. Sorry.

Medieval rabbis believed measurements in the bible were based on the בֵּיצָה/beychá, “egg.” Six beychím made a לֹג/log, (pronounced loʊg, not like a block of wood). Four logím, or 24 eggs, made a קַב/qav (KJV “cab”). Six qavím, or 144 eggs, made a çeá. Three çeaím, or 432 eggs, made an eyfá… and I could go on, but your eyes would glaze over even more than they already have.

Whose eggs? Ah, that’s a whole other debate the rabbis had. Not that it mattered; some of them insisted eggs were smaller today than they were in bible times. But if we’re using chicken or duck eggs as a rough estimate, we get about 14⅓ liters per seah. Jesus said three of ’em, so that’s 43 liters.

Westerners tend to measure dough by weight, and figuring 1.18 pounds per liter, you’re talking roughly 50 pounds of dough. Which is what the translators of the CSB calculated; the translators of the NIV figured 60 pounds.

But most translators skipped the math and followed the KJV’s cop-out of translating sáta as “measures.” What’s a measure? You don’t know. Most people presume it’s the volume of a measuring cup; a quart, maybe. Three quarts. Three loaves of bread. Which is not what Jesus was thinking. Think much bigger.

KJV “…three measures of meal…”

CEB “…three batches of flour…”

ESV, ISV, NET, NLT, NRSV “…three measures of flour…”

GNT “…a bushel of flour…”

GNV “…three pecks of flour…”

ICB “…a big bowl of flour…”

NASB “…three sata of flour…”

NCV “…a large tub of flour…”

NLV “…three pails of flour…”

VOICE “…a huge quantity of flour…”

I used to work in a kitchen which had an industrial-size mixer for when we’d make lots of baked goods. I think we could fit a çeá’s worth of dough into it; might be pushing it. Yet Jesus described a woman mixing three of these volumes. Back in his day, it’d obviously be done by hand. Maybe with a really large spoon. Whenever I’ve had to mix a barrel’s worth of stuff by hand, I used an oar. It’s not light work.

This kinda begs the question: Why would this hypothetical woman be mixing 50 pounds of dough? The way they made bread in the ancient middle east, that’d make maybe 250 flatbreads. Enough for 100 people.

But like I said, these two parables are about impossibly large amounts. And Jesus is right about how yeast works: Given enough time, even a very small amount of yeast will work its way into every last milliliter of that dough. His kingdom’s like that. Little bit of gospel spreads everywhere.

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“You don’t know his heart.”

I got a coworker who loves to talk about End Times stuff, ’cause he’s kinda obsessed with it. (No, this article’s not on the End Times.) He likes to bring up any little thing which might be an End Times harbinger, just to get my take on it. Most of the time I tell him he’s worried over nothing. Yeah, some of those things are evil. Racism’s evil, slavery’s evil, pandemics are evil, wars are evil. And they’re the same evils humanity’s had since the very first humans. Wars happen. Plagues happen. Evil people take power. ’Tis nothing new. It’s new to him; he doesn’t know enough history. Which is the usual reason people claim, “Oh it’s so the last days; things have never been this bad.” Yeah they have. And worse.

In 2020 he asked me if I thought then-President Donald Trump was the Beast. Of course I told him no. Because I checked. Just because Trump still acts mighty beastlike on a frequent basis, and just because he’s managed to sucker a lot of partisan Christians into supporting him, doesn’t make him any more the Beast than Richard Nixon, Warren Harding, Woodrow Wilson, James Buchanan, Andrew Jackson, or any of the other various immoral men we’ve elected to govern the United States. Plus, I pointed out, we should never really be surprised when someone who’s not Christian doesn’t act Christian.

At this another coworker, whom I’ll call Yanni, butted in: “Trump is so a Christian.”

Yeah, no he’s not.

We got into a minor back-and-forth, where Yanni offered the usual arguments for why Trump’s a Christian. Like how he says he’s Christian. As do lots of people who aren’t really. Which is why I responded it doesn’t matter what Trump calls himself; he could call himself a unicorn if he so chose; doesn’t make him one. Calling yourself Christian means you think you’re Christian, but it’s really what Jesus thinks that counts.

“Who are you to say?” Yanni insisted. “You don’t know his heart.”

If you didn’t grow up Christian, “You don’t know his heart” is an old bit of Christianese which means “You can’t read his mind.” The ancients believed humans think with our hearts, and that’s what “heart” means in the bible. The medievals believed humans feel with our hearts, and from the middle ages to today, Christians have mixed up the medieval definition with the ancient one. So when many Christians say “You don’t know his heart” some of ’em mean, “You don’t know how he feels, deep down, inside.”

Either way, Yanni claimed there’s no way for me to know Trump’s true relationship with Christ. An argument, I might point out, which works both ways: Yanni doesn’t know his heart either, so there’s no way Yanni could know he is Christian.

But “You don’t know his heart” is false. Jesus told us how we can identify his followers: Fruit. If you’re Christian, you got the Holy Sprit within you. If you follow the Spirit—as you should!—you produce fruit. And if you resist the Spirit, you produce bad fruit; you’re fleshly. And back before he was banned from Twitter, what did Donald Trump tweet all day long? Hatred. Anger. Partisanship. Rabble-rousing. Separatism. Envy. Divisiveness. Unethical behavior.

Luke 6.43-45 KJV

43 For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 44 For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. 45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

You wanna know whether a person is Christian? Look at their character. Low character, no Christian.

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