On the Mount (1)

I’m working my way through the Sermon on the Mount again (Matthew 5-7). It’s a pretty pivotal piece in Christ’s teaching ministry, and one that seems to invite scrutiny on multiple levels.

Infogalactic’s entry on the Sermon lists eight different categories of views about it, the most commonly held of which is that it “contains the central tenets of Christian discipleship”. Augustine called it “a perfect standard of the Christian life”.

I struggle with that. See, the Sermon is fundamentally Jewish; and while Christianity has its roots in Judaism and would not exist without it, the two are not interchangeable.

If we miss that, we’re missing more than we might think.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Galilee probably looked something
like this in the time of Isaiah.

Are Christians really the world’s most persecuted religious group?

Nelson Jones at New Statesman has taken up the issue at some length in response to a recent statement from British Prime Minister David Cameron: “It is the case that Christians are now the most persecuted religion around the world,” Cameron said. “We should stand up against persecution of Christians and other faith groups wherever and whenever we can.”

Jones starts his article by appearing to agree with Cameron and others who have voiced similar sentiments but as he meanders on, it becomes evident that what he really wants to say is: 1) religion causes fighting, 2) Muslims are persecuted too, 3) “persecution” is a relative term, and 4) anyway, if Christians ARE being persecuted, it’s certainly not because of their faith.

Which pretty much covers all the bases.

Too Hot to Handle: See You in Court, Brother

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Let’s Just Back That Up A Step

From the Department of Missing the Obvious: I appear to have missed the obvious, and for most of my life. Funny how that works.

The more seasoned believers who read and comment here occasionally are welcome to have a giggle at my expense, though I know some of you well enough to be sure you’ll be considerably more gracious.

This is how the Christian life goes, right? So I throw this out there for any who are as thick as I am, which may well be nobody.

Tom 1, John the Baptist 0

Jim Plunkett when he was
not winning Superbowls

Congratulate me, gentle reader. I have officially beaten John the Baptist.

Oh, he put up a good fight. Taking on the Jewish religious establishment was brave. Living on a diet of locusts and wild honey was certainly evidence of great devotion to his job, not to mention that he spent way, way less than I do on his wardrobe. Excellent stewardship there. And that whole martyrdom thing, well ... it’s a pretty special honor to die for what you believe. I’m not sure I’m up to that at all.

But I won anyway. How do you like them apples!

By What Authority?

Busted for blogging with insufficient authority

I love error. Error is a beautiful thing.

Don’t panic. Let me get going here and you’ll soon see what I mean. And in case it doesn’t become howlingly obvious, I promise I’ll clear it up at the end.

Ready? Here we go. So … Tish Harrison Warren is an author and a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. She currently serves as co-associate rector at Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’m going to quote her a bit here, so I mention this not at all in an attempt to disqualify what she says, but so that you can better enjoy the many, many helpings of mouth-wateringly delicious irony she dishes up.

You see Ms. Warren fears the Christian blogosphere is off its leash. She thinks its various Christian and heretical voices are operating without spiritual authority and ought to be reined in.

Wow. Just … wow. Pot, meet kettle.

The Heft and Substance of Cobweb

The other day I referenced an Andy Stanley quote about the historicity of Adam and Eve. Andy believes Adam and Eve were historical because Jesus believed they were historical — or so he argues.

I agree with Andy that Adam and Eve were real, flesh-and-blood human beings, not mere symbols or allegories. Making the first couple mythical upends a great big nasty can of worms all over the pages of our New Testament. Let’s not do that.

Unfortunately, the way Andy has framed his argument gives it the heft and substance of cobweb.

Things You Don’t Know You Know

The question came right out of the blue.

It was entirely ingenuous, I think. There was nothing calculating about the teenage girl who asked it. I don’t think she was looking for a pass on any particular sin; she was just curious how God works.

It was Sunday School, and I was discussing Matthew 5:28 — the part where the Lord says, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” I wasn’t trying to be especially relevant or anything, but you know teenagers.

So she says, “But if you’re already guilty before God just from looking, why wouldn’t you just go ahead and act on it then?”

Good question.

That’s MY Mail You’re Reading

I came across a very cool website.

RationalWiki is basically a repository of unbelief designed to show people how and where the Bible is (in their view) untrue. Somebody has gone to a lot of effort to attempt to debunk scripture and compile evidence of its alleged irrationality.

Possibly the coolest section of all is the page on ‘failed’ prophecy, which begins this way:

“Some Christians claim that fulfilled prophecies prove the Bible’s inerrancy … mainstream Christians will actually claim that, for example, the Gospels are historical evidence of Isaiah being accurate prophecy (rather than works written with a copy of Isaiah to hand to claim fulfilment of prophecy), therefore the Bible is accurate and Jesus is Lord.”

You know, I think they’re probably correct about Christians claiming such things, though they don’t provide specific examples. But they have a bigger problem: they’re reading my mail. Small wonder they’re a bit confused.

The Commentariat Speaks (8)

TechCrunch editor John Biggs mourns the fact that social media is no longer a place where you can air an opinion without fear of adverse consequences:

“Our errant Twitter thoughts can make us targets and we often don’t know we’re being watched. A prominent writer and friend recently mused about what would happen if he posted some political rants. The first thing that leapt to his readers’ minds was the potential for SWATing and doxing and then a visit from the FBI. Then, as evidenced by the above CEO example, you get fired.

Social media has become a very real, very visceral, and very censorial force and it can now only worsen the human condition.”

Now, none of this is news. Ironically, it’s John Biggs’ fellow Democrat voters who fired the opening salvos in the online equivalent of the nuclear arms race.

Tax Collectors Do the Same

Living involves action after action, choice upon choice, day after day.

Those of us who are children of God find ourselves regularly involved in what appear on the surface to be exactly the same kinds of daily interpersonal transactions as everyone else. “Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” the Lord asked his would-be followers. “Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”

Yeah, they do. Thus, when a Christian loves his enemies and prays for his persecutors, he stands out from the crowd. When he simply and normally loves his family and greets his friends, he doesn’t.

Down the Road

Every day of our lives, by means of the Holy Spirit’s agency, God is steadily working away to achieve in each of us the character of his Son.

Transforming us involves both IN-forming us and RE-forming us — but there is often a fair bit of time that elapses between the two.

Sometimes that means today’s lesson is only understood later this week. And sometimes full understanding of any given piece of spiritual information is years or even decades away.

Motion Granted

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief.”

(Isaiah 53:10, KJV)

“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

(Matthew 3:17, KJV)

Not only the King James Version but many English translations of the Bible, old and modern, use the word “pleased” in both verses, accurately reflecting the meanings of the relevant words in each original language. Both the Greek and Hebrew words translated “pleased” have wide semantic ranges and are frequently rendered as “pleasure” or “delight”.

Still, it seems obvious to us that there are two very different kinds of pleasure in view here.

More Use from His Enemies

“A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.”

― Baltasar Gracián

I can’t help but notice that all through the trial and execution of Jesus — at least seven times in Matthew 27 alone — enemies and bystanders cannot seem to avoid testifying to the exemplary character of the one they are busily engaged in putting to death, a fact that is both remarkable on its face and corroborative of Gracián’s adage.

If such a thing has ever happened before or since, I’d be more than a little surprised.

Weights and Mirrors

In two previous posts, I’ve tried to distinguish between: (1) historical narrative in scripture, and (2) the commands of God — basically, between description and prescription.

Why? Well, because people frequently crack open “holy books” in search of answers to questions that are very personal, and reading historical narrative as if it is God’s direction for your life can lead to considerable confusion — like the atheist who thinks the Bible says ritual castration will get you into heaven. I suspect the Lord would prefer that we not experience that sort of muddled thinking. My advice is to read commands as commands, and history as history.

But let me play devil’s advocate for a moment and point out a fly in my own ointment, if you will.

Is and Ought

The Bible tells it like it is, and most times it tells us what we should do about it. But not always at the same time, and not always in the same place.

Much of the Old Testament record is very dispassionate; very ‘just the facts, Jack’. Sure, from time to time an inspired author offers his editorial comment, but this is a rarity. Most of the time, we are simply getting a record of what happened. Those who need to find an application to their own lives beyond the obvious must in many instances look elsewhere in scripture to do so.

To fail to note the difference between the parts of scripture that are prescriptive and those that are merely descriptive is to invite confusion.

Someone Else’s Stuff

Erick Erickson wants to give away your stuff. [Caution: language in linked post]

Technically, I suppose, he wants YOU to give it away. But he would also like you to give away your wife’s stuff, your neighbour’s stuff, your co-worker’s stuff and your children’s and grandchildren’s stuff. So it amounts to the same thing, right?

As a Christian, I have to draw the line at such extravagant generosity.

Too Hot to Handle: Unpardon Me

The most recent version of this post is available here.

That Wacky Old Testament (4)

Bible Babble’s atheist webmaster appears confused by the second commandment:

“People seem to think the second commandment says you aren’t supposed to make a graven image of God, and that’s it. But you are not to make any graven images of anything in heaven, in the earth, or in the water. This would include no graven images of fish, moles, worms, birds, shrimp, ants, and all sorts of things. One must wonder why God was so worried about these things that he felt the need to put these ahead of murder and stealing.”

The apostle Paul saw it as his job (and the job of those he travelled and taught with) to demolish “every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God”.

You know, I think this just may qualify …

Pretending to See the Future

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Twitterized Bible

How about that morning verse, eh?

Ben Irwin dislikes the ‘Twitterized’ Bible.

You know, the way Christians tend to quote scripture in tiny fragments. He’s concerned that in doing so we’ll lose the Author’s original meaning and not even realize it’s gone. Twitterizing is only one name for it. Others call it “using the Bible as a medicine cabinet” or “prooftexting”.

For the most part I agree with Ben, so I’m going to tread carefully here.

After all, I have harped here about context as the most critically important interpretive tool in the Bible student’s tool kit so many times I’ve lost track. Taken out of their original context, verses of holy writ may be misunderstood or have their meanings entirely inverted.

But not always.

Testimony in the Twilight Zone

The most recent version of this post is available here.

I’m Not Sorry

Elton John sang that “Sorry seems to be the hardest word”, which is quite untrue.

We hear the word “sorry” dozens of times a day, usually about something entirely trivial. For those of us who are by nature conciliatory, “sorry” is actually a very easy word, one we bandy about reflexively the moment anyone near us starts to look tense. Even those who are dispositionally dominant and ordinarily insensitive to others learn quickly that faking regret can be useful in forging alliances and spreading influence, provided you don’t overdo it and come off looking weak.

Most of the time we say sorry, we are not sorry at all.

It Makes A Good Headline, But ...

... that doesn’t make it true.

In a post entitled There Was Room at the Inn, Rachel Held Evans is off and running again, this time about Syrian refugees and how their situation is morally equivalent to that of Mary and Joseph long ago in Bethlehem when a child was born who would change the world forever.

For Evans, saying no to having Syrians resettled in your neighbourhood is like turning away the Lord Jesus.

Could we have another spoonful of cheesy rhetoric, please?

I am the One

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Disqualify!!

People whose foremost desire is to disqualify the word of God from application to the human experience start with a set of baseline assumptions that cannot help being wrong.

One is that the world has always operated exactly the way they have personally experienced it to operate. Another is that every difference in eyewitness testimony amounts to a contradiction.

Neither is remotely true.

The “Loving Society” and Category Error

In 1949’s The Concept of Mind, Gilbert Ryle gives this example: 

“One day a girl visited a college campus. After seeing buildings, teachers, students, and dorms, she looked at the tour guide and sweetly asked, ‘This is all nice, but when do I get to see the university?’ ”

Now I don’t agree with Ryle on too much, but he deserves credit for coining the expression that describes what is wrong with the girl’s thinking in this story. The mistake she makes is called a category error. She has seen buildings, teachers, students and dorms, and thinks a “university” is just one more item in the same category or on the same level as these things. She fails to grasp that all these elements make up the university. The university itself is in a different category.

Christians and unbelievers alike are susceptible to category error.

Forgive or Die

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Problem with Compassion

Compassion is a fine quality. But an excess of emotion without appropriate practical follow-up always seems to end very badly indeed.

Now I’m not talking about Leftist social engineering, professional fundraising or the welfare state when I use the word “compassion”. Such projects are promoted as compassionate and claim a tender-hearted motive but produce little effect. Professional fundraisers often absorb most of the funds they raise. The welfare system is so administration-heavy and fraud-ridden that handing stacks of cash to the visibly distressed on the street might well mitigate the effects of poverty more efficiently.

We may credit Progressives and Redistributionists with good intentions if we are being generous, but those ideologies have never been effective at producing their desired outcome — the only metric by which we may judge the fruits of compassion.

That Day and Hour

 The most recent version of this post is available here.

That Guy Outside Starbucks is NOT Jesus’ Brother

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Thank You for the Failures

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Inbox: This Makes A Good Point

Passed on to me today by a friend:

The bit that is often forgotten: “... first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye”.

That’s miles from our society’s passive, boundless, mindless tolerance of anything and everything.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Reflections on the Lord’s Prayer

A gazillion more profound things have been written about the so-called Lord’s Prayer. I’m going to shoot for a low bar here and merely try to supplement the Wikipedia entry on the subject, though I promise not to be anywhere near as lengthy.

You will remember it goes like this, though not because anyone has recited it in school recently:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

(Matthew 6:9-13)

(I’m not, of course, suggesting that having unsaved children recite any mere religious formula daily, especially one that means nothing whatsoever to them, does much that is useful for their spiritual state. I do note that removing its recitation from the school day has not improved schools any. Of course, singing the national anthem never really made me more patriotic either.)

Testimony in the Twilight Zone

The most recent version of this post is available here.

What Makes a Marriage a Marriage?

The answer may surprise you.

It’s not the ring, the dress or the ceremony. It’s not the preacher, the church or the gathered friends and family. It’s not government sanction or the filling out of the correct legal forms. It’s not the taking of vows or the proclamation of banns.

We do all that stuff, and there are sound reasons not to discard most of these customs. One is foolish to spurn the accrued wisdom of generations simply for the sake of novelty. And there is value in the blessing and support of family and friends. There is strength in community. As Immanuel Can pointed out recently, marriage is hard and we need all the incentives we can gather, especially in this individualistic age, to remind us to take it seriously.

But not one of these trappings is essential.

Who’s That Prophecy For Anyway?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

John Calvin, Context and Kingdom Parables: “Others Are Deprived of This Grace”

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Inbox: The Purpose of the Gospels

In connection with this, JRM writes:

Just wanted to pass along a thought on the genealogy of Matthew 1. It’s obviously divided into three sections. A while back, I was impressed by the fact that the main divisions are related to the three main turning points in the kingship of Israel: (a)  the first section ends with “David the king” – the first genuine king of Israel (since Saul was from Benjamin and was the “teach Israel a lesson” king); (b) the second section ends with the exile to Babylon – the end of the kingship; and (c) the third section ends with “Jesus who is called Messiah” – the ultimate king of Israel. All of this fits nicely with the fact that Matthew is presenting Christ as the king.

To which I can only add: Yeah, exactly. Wish I’d thought of it.

The Limits of Toleration

The most recent version of this post is available here.