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From Doug Wilson’s Tuesday letters column, J asks what Doug’s “ideal Christendom” might look like for convicted criminals:
“In your ideal Christendom, where we have God-honoring laws, what would you do in cases of theft where the criminal cannot pay? How would they make restitution? And would that be considered a form of slavery?”
Hmm.
Matthew’s gospel is the very first thing we read in the New Testament, and we tend to think of it as coming early in church history; I know I used to before I looked into it. In fact, Matthew circulated his gospel close to three decades after the events it describes, long enough for Galatians, both Thessalonian epistles, both Corinthian epistles and Romans to predate it and make the rounds of the first century churches.
Question: Did Matthew understand the allegedly-Pauline doctrine of justification by faith when he recorded his version of the Lord’s genealogy in chapter 1 of his gospel? You betcha.
If you’ve been involved in many home Bible studies over the years, you have probably noticed that no two Christians read a verse or passage of scripture precisely the same way, draw the same conclusions from it, or see the same significance to it. The worst ideas you’ll hear are way out in left field or obviously wrong, pulled out of the air by people who likely haven’t read the passage more than once. The best of them correct you where you may have erred, or supplement your own understanding with nuances you may have missed.
Maturity, experience, gift, intellect and Bible study habits all factor into the differences. Whenever you ask folks what they think about a scripture, be prepared for an earful.
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.
In Matthew 16, upon Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus responds with two promises, which we may briefly restate as: (i) “On this rock I will build my church”, and (ii) “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven …”
Tom: There’s more to these promises, obviously, but I wanted to consider a couple of issues. First, whether these are two separate promises, or if the second is merely some kind of amplification of the first, and second, when can we anticipate the realization of these promises.
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“Was Jesus a refugee?”
The question arises out of Matthew 2, the only gospel that tells the story of how Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt on angelic instruction for some indeterminate period (scholarly estimates range from four months to a few years) after the birth of the Lord. Joseph’s objective was to protect his wife’s newborn child from King Herod’s attempt to kill off any potential competition for the throne. The flight to Egypt took place immediately after the visit of the wise men and lasted until after Herod died.
Had the family remained in Bethlehem, the four gospels may well have been a lot shorter. But God was at work, so Herod’s scheme was unsuccessful, and the Lord returned in good time in fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy.
“If you then, who are evil …”
The Lord Jesus used the phrase “your Father” a full eleven times in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 through 7, including in this very verse. In full, it reads, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” He was primarily addressing those who believed in him, trusted in him, and were seeking to follow him. (Throughout scripture, God is never “your Father” to the unbelieving world — I have yet to discover a single instance — though he certainly created it and seeks to call its lost to himself.)
“Where two or three are gathered …”
I’ve heard this little phrase quoted for years in churches all over the place. I’ve almost never heard it quoted correctly, meaning in its context and referring to the situations to which it actually applies.
When I’ve heard it quoted, almost invariably it is used to suggest that any local gathering of the church, no matter how small, is important enough to the Lord that he will, in some spiritual way, be present and involved with that situation. And really, I can’t say that isn’t true. But I can say for sure that that isn’t what this particular verse was given us to teach us.
What does biblical leadership look like?
The answer in many quarters these days is “servanthood”. The term “servant leadership” is said to have been coined by Robert Greenleaf in a 1970 essay, allegedly after reading a story by Hermann Hesse. Greenleaf’s concept has since been promoted by numerous evangelicals, including John Piper and the Acts 29 network of churches, of which ubiquitous YouTube presence Matt Chandler is president.
At one level, who can argue? “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”
Pretty unambiguous, really.
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.
Wow. Christians going to court with one another.
You’d think this issue would be put to bed speedily by even the most cursory glance at Matthew 5:25-26 or 1 Corinthians 6:1-8. But no, believers are keeping their lawyers on speed-dial in significant numbers. It used to be the primary reason was child abuse, but last year it was something new: property rights.
Tom: Here I thought we’d all be meeting in cell groups in homes sooner than later as a result of lawfare trial balloons from the transgender, feminist or gay lobbies. But no, this is even stranger: we’re doing it to ourselves, Immanuel Can; not just as individuals, but whole congregations. And most of it involves issues related to church buildings.
The Old Testament is full of hints, winks and nudges. Or so it seems to me.
For example, I cannot read Abraham’s words to Isaac, “God will provide for himself the lamb,” without marveling at the subtlety of the wording. It works as a double entendre in either Hebrew or English. Was Abraham a straight man or a prophet? I can’t tell you, but I love that line. From thousands of years down the road we look back and say, “He certainly did.”
That’s not a comment on our cleverness, of course.
As I noted in yesterday’s Mining the Minors instalment, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each penned an account of the triumphal entry. As usual with gospel accounts of the same events, these are complementary, not contradictory, much as any honest eyewitness accounts invariably reflect the personality, preoccupations, purposes and intended audience of the storyteller.
Bart Ehrman, Bible scholar and self-acknowledged unbeliever, would desperately like the accounts to contradict even if they don’t.
The Lord Jesus had just left the temple, prophesying its complete destruction. He sat down on the Mount of Olives, allowing the disciples to come to him privately and ask, “When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Three questions, and it’s not entirely apparent that the Lord answered them in the order they were asked. Over the ensuing centuries, much debate has resulted as Christians tried on various interpretations of his answer, comparing scripture with scripture.
The tendency to read familiar Bible passages the way we have always read them is almost overwhelming, and sometimes we miss the obvious. Our assumptions about the meaning of any word or phrase invariably default to the way we first heard them or had them explained to us. Viewing them more accurately is the task of a lifetime of attentive reading and study.
The dissenting views of other Christians and the proliferation of translations helps. Hearing a text the way someone else hears it forces us to ask which interpretation — if any — is the correct one.
Yesterday, I proposed an alternative translation of Matthew 16:24-26 legitimized by Greek usage in the New Testament that applies a little more broadly than the standard interpretation of the passage. I’m not suggesting the “life/soul” distinction that most translators see as key to understanding what the Lord taught is incorrect. What I’m proposing is that we apply these few verses to a whole lot more of our lives than just the moment in which we are willing to die for the faith if called upon to do so.
After all, dying is relatively easy. You only have to do it once. Living for Christ requires dying to self every day and in every way.
The footnote to Matthew 16:25-26 in my ESV reads as follows:
“The same Greek word can mean either soul or life, depending on the context; twice in this verse and twice in verse 26.”
That’s probably as good an introduction to our subject as any. It’s certainly what got my attention.
“I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around.”
Sometimes Jesus said things he didn’t need to say. Sometimes he asked questions to which he already knew the answer, or asked to be given things he didn’t require. Once, he even went through a baptism of repentance when he had nothing whatsoever for which to repent.
He had to, on account of the people standing around.
Watts Up With That lists seven times the global warm-mongers got it spectacularly wrong.
There’s biologist George Wald, who predicted “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years”. Then there’s ecologist Kenneth Watt, who was convinced the crude oil supply would be fully depleted by the year 2000. And let’s not forget the Life magazine prognostication that “in a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution”. That was all in 1970 and so far so good, except maybe in China.
We laugh, but some Christians are not much more accurate when they attempt to read tea leaves.
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.
Tom: So we did the Millennium, IC. Care to walk me through the ‘Rapture’?
Immanuel Can: I thought that was the same as the Second Coming. Next you’re going to tell me that Israel still exists and that I wasn’t predestined to election before the foundation of the world.
Tom: Do I need to put a </sarc> at the end there? Never mind. Sometimes you open a can and the worms just go everywhere ...
IC: Well, one way to manage the worms is to focus on making the distinction between the Second Coming and the Rapture.
Tom: Okay, then.
“No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.”
In a post entitled “Who was Ravi Zacharias?” one of the anonymous writers of the evangelical online answer-blog GotQuestions courageously exhumes the rotting corpse of a subject I’ve steadfastly avoided discussing here, except with generalities and allusions. But maybe now that the dust has settled, the Zacharias scandal can at least serve to illustrate a scriptural principle.
You’d like to hope we can use it for something.
Those of us who love to study the word of God often spend a pleasant hour or two comparing scripture with scripture in meditation, and by seeking to understand its concepts by grabbing our concordances and tracing the way its writers use various words and phrases.
Sometimes this is fruitful. Other times it can be perplexing.