Just Church (4)

Chapter 2: From Among Your Own Selves

“I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be on the alert …”

The verse above is from Paul’s “swan song” to the Ephesian elders. He knows his ministry with them is done, and he’s concerned that they might not be ready. He knows trouble is coming, and it’s coming from two directions. One they’ll probably expect, the other not so much.

Wolves Among the Flock

There will be merciless, God-hating persecutors — “wolves” — who will come in among the flock and do them harm. Paul says they need to be aware of them, and not to be surprised if such persecution comes. But there’s another danger for which they really need to be on the alert: the danger of people rising up “from among your own selves”. These are people who only appear to be Christians — but equally, may be people who genuinely are, but who have been poisoned, corrupted or misled in some way. Either way, they will be “speaking distorted things”, things that are nearly Christian but are twisted in some way so that they really are not.

Giving Opportunity Away

If you are looking for something to stimulate the tear ducts, this will definitely get you going.

A UK widow writing for The Conservative Woman makes a profound observation about the nature of choice-making in a post entitled “I am so grateful my husband ignored those who would have assisted his dying”. What Gabriella Dunn has to say about her personal experience applies far beyond the issue of assisted dying.

We might say it presents us with a particular type of choice that goes back all the way to Eden.

The Language of the Debate (11)

Back in March of this year, a Special Reporter advised the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide … has been met.” She was referring, of course, to Israel’s ongoing incursion into Gaza against Hamas.

Nobody blinked. The glib Francesca Albanese redefinition of a well-understood term slid by the council without a murmur of objection. Israel called the report “an obscene inversion of reality”, but news programs around the world now routinely describe the invasion as a genocide without significant pushback.

Was the description accurate?

Anonymous Asks (331)

“Are mono-ethnic churches biblical?”

I have never been to a truly mono-ethnic church. I have no evidence they exist. To remain truly mono-ethnic for more than a few weeks, a church would have to find a way to enforce ethnicity-based membership. Which leads to the obvious question: What makes a person, for example, Chinese? Is 100% racial “purity” required? Or would it be permissible for him to have one Tibetan grandparent, or if not a grandparent, perhaps a great-grandparent?

How would you prove such a thing, and why should you have to?

Reminders and Remembrance

Under the Law of Moses, the sacrificial system reminded devout Israelites of their sins, failures and shortcomings year after year. In this respect, it was much like a nagging mother: you know she’s right, but you wish she’d please stop talking. As the writer to the Hebrews puts it, “It is impossible for the blood for bulls and goats to take away sins.”

If that’s what Israel was looking for, it went home disappointed. The fix was only temporary.

119: Zayin

I don’t always believe everything Hebrew scholars say about their alphabet (or anything else). As I may have mentioned, they have a tendency to be whimsical.

Nevertheless, they suggest the letter Zayin [ז] represents movement and struggle, not to mention the number seven. Literally, it means “weapon” or “sword”, and looks like one — or so it is claimed — if you angle your eyeballs exactly the right way when you squint at it.

I’m still trying to see it, but then I’m about as Hebrew as a polar bear. To me it looks more like a club or maybe a wooden mallet.

Too Hot to Handle: Woman Overboard

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Last week we discussed the “new normal” — that almost 70% of divorces are now initiated by unhappy wives — and suggested a number of possible reasons for a phenomenon that is growing not just in the world but in our churches: young women brought up in Christian homes, most or all of whom have made professions of faith, seem increasingly able to walk away not just from their husbands but from their families, often to raise the children of their new partner.

Tom: We talked about the Internet and the work environment, IC, and the family-associated problems of over-protection and legalism.

But let’s leave the family for a moment.

Just Church (3)

In our last segment of this serialization, we were looking at how a new belief system is currently penetrating evangelical congregations. We saw that it begins with someone, or some group of people, who seems very, very nice ... well-intended, kind, and focused on making sure everybody is welcomed and included, and nobody is made to feel pushed to the margins, especially because of things like “race” and “gender”. It all sounds, at first, like a matter of simple Christian fairness, so it seems hard even to express a hesitancy about it.

However, as this new push for inclusion continues, it becomes apparent that more and more serious changes are involved. Every part of church life is starting to morph, and new people are becoming the voices that are heard first in important church decisions. Should you be concerned? You don’t know. Aspects of the new spirit that is coming over your congregation seem harmonious with Christian kindness; but if you’re attuned to the spirit of things, you’ll also notice a kind of hardness creeping in, a sort of coldness and unkindness to anybody who implies any problems with the new program might exist. And maybe you wonder if it’s all so thoroughly loving and Christ-like as it was first presented to be.

But even if you don’t have those intuitions of concern, you will notice practical changes are going on. Some seem necessary. Others ... you’re not so sure. And this is where we pick our story up.

All But Forgotten

Dying is the great leveler.

I work for an estate service these days, and I’ve seen the closing chapters of men and women on the high end of the financial spectrum up close and personal.

You may not know this, but the rich often die as unpleasantly or mundanely as the poorest of the poor, some more so. The deathbeds of the wealthy sit in rooms with loftier ceilings and more elaborate decor, but they are still deathbeds. The sheets have a higher thread count and those who lie under them are declared deceased in silk undergarments, but the process is no different.

When you’re old and sick, there are things no amount of money will buy.

The Tears of Esau

“He found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.”

Esau couldn’t turn back the clock and undo losing his birthright and blessing to Jacob. That’s really what the writer to Hebrews is talking about here. Genuine repentance for sin and reconciliation with God are always options unless your heart is so hard you would never do it or your mind so dull you don’t realize it’s necessary or desirable.

But a do-over that gives you back the thing you lost? That’s rarely possible, and it wasn’t for Esau. Blessing and birthright were gone forever. So Esau experienced all kinds of regret but no real repentance.

What we’re seeing in the mainstream American media for the last week or two is the tears of Esau. In some cases, they are the tears of a crocodile. But the clock will not roll back regardless.

Anonymous Asks (330)

“Was Jesus a Palestinian?”

The word “Palestine” has an interesting etymology. It appears five centuries before Christ in the secular history of the Greek Herodotus as Palaistínē [Παλαιστίνη]. The similarities to our modern noun are obvious. The Greek word in turn derives from pᵊlištî, a Hebrew word that appears as early as Genesis.

Other ancient languages like Akkadian and Egyptian had similar constructions, so it’s probable Hebrew simply transliterated it from another local tongue as “Philistine”. To the Hebrews it meant “immigrant”, to the Egyptians “sea people”.

The Forgotten Priestly Function

The priesthood in Israel performed numerous functions, all of which have some spiritual application to Christian living.

The Israelite and Judean priesthood offered sacrifices to God, prefiguring the praise and worship of believers. The priesthood performed an intercessory function, offering sacrifices to cover sins. The priesthood taught the law, just as Christians who let the word of Christ dwell in them richly are able to teach and admonish one another in all wisdom. Moreover, the priesthood judged between clean and unclean, just as the Christian must learn to avoid earthly ties and partnerships.

119: Waw

The first Waw [ו] in the Torah (pronounced vav) begins its sixth Hebrew word, thus joining the words for “heaven” and “earth”. This is also the twenty-second letter of the Hebrew Bible (our Genesis 1:1), so scholars believe it represents all twenty-two individual powers of creation and all the letters of the alphabet together. (The Hebrew alphabet, as mentioned several times in this series, has only twenty-two letters.)

Literally, ו means “hook” or “peg”. Hebrew sages say the letterform portrays Jacob’s ladder, reaching down from heaven to earth. It’s a nice thought, but personally I think those sages may have waxed a little fanciful.

Too Hot to Handle: Abandoning Ship

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Men have always done it mid-life — some men, anyway, though thankfully Christian men did it somewhat more rarely.

We met the “right” waitress, secretary, serving wench or married woman bathing on a rooftop and bailed on our wives and families. We did it to find happiness (or at least firmer skin or, for a time at least, a cheerier disposition). We did it to demonstrate we were still virile and desirable. Or we did it for some other perfectly scrutable male reason that we wholeheartedly believed was unique to our own experience.

Tom: It took them a while to catch up, Immanuel Can, but thanks to feminism’s influence, women are doing it too, and they’re doing it with a vengeance. Almost 70% of divorces are now initiated by unhappy wives.

Just Church (2)

Chapter 1: In the Side Door

“For certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into indecent behavior and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

One day soon, a very nice person will appear in your church.

It could be a person from a visible minority group, somebody disabled, somebody with a distinctive skin color, or somebody who doesn’t look any different from most of the congregation. It could be a man or a woman; and while it is more likely to be a young-to-middle-aged person, it could conceivably be somebody older as well. Likely, but not certainly, it will be a formally-educated person, somebody with a university degree, perhaps; but not necessarily. They may appear singly or in a group of some kind.

Something Nice

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.”

The saying is venerable, to be sure, but not old enough to merit inclusion in holy writ. They’re not the words of a prophet, they’re the words of a rabbit.

Nevertheless, to this generally prudent advice, I would add the following gentle suggestion for my fellow Christians when commenting on politics: If you can’t say something understandable, don’t say anything at all.

Staying in Your Lane

A few years ago I watched a friend melt down in slow motion.

At the time I didn’t know it was coming. If I had known, I might have said something, but I had my own family distractions to deal with and he seemed to be managing. He was one of those good guys who shows up in a local church with a surplus of gift, energy and goodwill, and is immediately drafted into everything. He was recognized as an elder despite a shortage of family qualifications. He ran the youth group and helped with Sunday School, preached regularly, spoke at conferences, worked a more-than-full schedule and he and his wife were relentlessly hospitable, despite not having a large place to share with others.

And then suddenly … POOF! He was gone.

Anonymous Asks (329)

“What is a post-Christian society?”

I remember first using the term “post-Christian” in the early 2000s. A Roman Catholic co-worker my own age with whom I shared a fair number of views about society was trying to pin down where and when Western culture began to slide into the abyss.

“Post-Christian” popped into my head as a good description of Canada in the new millennium. I probably picked it up from somebody else along the way, but it seemed apt.

A Dead Horse in the Church Parking Lot

To my great amusement, last Sunday’s post inspired a text from a regular reader only a few hours after it went up, requesting I suggest a few remedies for Christians suffering from reduced attention spans, which I suspect is almost every Christian in the Western world and more than a few outside it.

He’s a good friend, but he fell right into my trap, which was very much deliberate. I wanted our readers to stop and think.

119: He

Gabriele Levy’s Alefbet entry for today’s letter reads: “He [ה] represents divine revelation, the breath of the Creator (Psalm 33:6 — ‘By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host’). The world was created with the utterance of the He. It represents the gift of life and creates the verb of being (היה Haya — being).”

Wow, is that ever on the nose, as we will see shortly. The themes of life and being weave throughout this section of Psalm 119.