January 2, 2012: Did Isaiah Mean To Predict Jesus' Birth?
Writing around 730 BC the prophet Isaiah said, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14). Hundreds of years later St. Matthew called the birth of Jesus a fulfillment of these words (Matthew 1:22).
But did Isaiah intend to predict Messiah's birth?
If you read Isaiah 7:14 in context it is very hard to come to that conclusion. Read all of Isaiah chapters 7 and 8 and you will see what I mean. Here's a brief summary:
In chapter 7 King Ahaz of Judah is worried. Two kings, Rezin and Pekah, have formed an alliance and are getting ready to march against him. Isaiah approaches King Ahaz and tells him to trust God and not worry about Rezin and Pekah. Those two will never even make it to Jerusalem. Then Isaiah tells King Ahaz to ask for a sign to confirm this prediction - any sign at all.
Ahaz refuses. He will not "do business" with Isaiah, and he will not put his trust in God.
Isaiah bursts out in anger and says, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also?" Then he tells Ahaz (in effect), OK you'll get your sign all right - but ultimately it won't be a good one. He says,
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. But before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria. (Isaiah 7:14-17)
In other words: "You see this young unmarried maiden here? Well she is going to get pregnant and have a baby boy and call him 'God is with us' [or, 'God's on our side']. By the time that baby is barely a toddler, the two kings you're so afraid of now will be history. (See, I told you not to be afraid of them!) Though now you're worried about a jackal and a hyena, pretty soon those two will be eaten up by an 800 pound lion - the king of Assyria. Then when he's done with them he will turn his attention to you, and he will bring devastation on the land of Judah the likes of which it has not seen before."
And that's exactly what happened.
In chapter 8 Isaiah marries the virgin he referred to in 7:14. She becomes Mrs. Prophet Isaiah. Verses 3 and 4 of chapter 8 read, "Then I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me, “Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz ['quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil']. Before the boy knows how to say ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus [King Rezin] and the plunder of Samaria [King Pekah] will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”
Isaiah's prediction in chapter 7 is fulfilled in chapter 8. See 8:8,10 for references to "Immanuel" ("God is with us!"), which remains true of the faithful remnant in Judah even when Assyria is wreaking havoc and besieging the city of Jerusalem itself.
So, given the letter-perfect fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy in a few short years, how can Matthew say that Jesus' birth fulfilled it more than 700 years later? (Among other things, what's Assyria doing by then? Answer: nothing. At the time of Jesus' birth, Assyria's star has long faded and now it's all Rome.)
I'll tell you two answers I heard recently that I don't like at all.
A professor from a Bible institute recently told radio listeners that Isaiah's prophecy in 7:14 was not about events then current in Judah! He noted that while in the first part of the verse Isaiah is indeed addressing Ahaz, in the second part the "you" is plural rather than singular. The plurality of the addressee, the professor explained, constitutes evidence that, starting with the word "Therefore," Isaiah is no longer speaking to Ahaz about events in the immediate future but rather is addressing the nation about a Messianic birth many years later.
Anyone who finds this argument convincing may stop here. To the rest, your intuition is correct: this professor's evaluation is a disingenuous outrage against Reason. In order to believe it you must stick your fingers in your ears and sing while the rest of chapters 7 and 8 are read. Never has a poor plural been grabbed by the throat more violently and made to squawk more loudly. To respond: by the use of the plural Isaiah is simply addressing everyone present. That's all.
Then I heard a message at a church I visited a couple weeks ago where, thankfully, the preacher acknowledged the immediate fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. But he also said that Isaiah was making two predictions - one short-term and one long-term. To illustrate, the pastor said, "Suppose I told you who would win the presidential election in 2012. That would be one thing, and if I were right you might think it was a lucky guess. But what if I then told you who was going to win the election in 2712? And I told you his name, his party affiliation, where he would be born, and the circumstances happening in the world at that time. That would be pretty incredible. Well, that's what Isaiah did."
No it isn't. When a preacher says that I wince and hope that no sincere doubting seeker will, after investigating the texts himself, give it all up and conclude that everything the preacher says lacks credibility. The fact is, nothing - nothing at all - in Isaiah 7 and 8 indicates a self-conscious attempt on Isaiah's part to predict an event that he knows will occur in the distant future.
There is a much better way to understand Matthew's use of Isaiah's words. It involves taking a cue from John 11:49-52 and 2 Peter 1:20-21. This approach takes seriously both divine inspiration and the prophet's intent.
In John 11 the enemies of Jesus convene a council in order to discuss what to do about him. Jesus has been gathering so many followers that there is fear that the Roman overlords will take notice, interpret the movement as a political rebellion, and respond by crushing not only Jesus and his followers but the whole Jewish nation. In this discussion the high priest Caiaphas recommends killing Jesus. This will solve the problem: if only this one man dies, the rest of their lives will be spared. Caiaphas says,
You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish. (verse 50)
It is very clear what Caiaphas meant. He literally meant that if Jesus would die, others could live. The sacrifice of this one man would save a multitude.
Caiaphas spoke better than he knew. Someone Else was speaking through Caiaphas, manipulating or hijacking his choice of words in order to make him the mouthpiece of a truth far beyond his imagination. In the next two verses John tells us,
He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. (verses 51-52).
I believe God did the same thing with Isaiah. Isaiah spoke better than he knew. When he said, "a virgin will conceive," he simply meant a woman who was a virgin at the time - his fiance, in fact. (By the time they got married and she got pregnant she would no longer be virginal.) But, like Caiaphas, "he did not say this on his own." God inspired, and Isaiah chose, words that would apply so literally to the birth of Jesus that, if you told Isaiah about it, he would drop to his knees in silent awe. One day, a true virgin - still a virgin! - would give birth to a baby boy.
And when Isaiah said the baby would be called "Immanuel" (God with us), to him and his wife that meant, "God's on our side, not theirs. In these upcoming days of conflict, God is with us, not them." But one day, "Immanuel" would be literal. The baby born of a virgin would be God of Very God dwelling in our midst.
Both Isaiah and Caiaphas were "carried along by the Holy Spirit," and, by God's decree, spoke deep truths that neither intended. This principal of prophecy is taught in 2 Peter 1:20-21: Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Though Isaiah was a child of God and Caiaphas was a child of the devil, God used them both to speak some of the most profound truths of our faith. Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, is God in our midst. He died so that we might live.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Graciousness 6: Just Ask A Question
(A continuation of an occasional series, see previous posts March 24-April 21, 2009 and May 6, 2011.)
In my last post on this topic I said that gracious people answer your questions directly and sincerely. Recently I noticed something else: gracious people ask you questions. They're interested in what you have to say.
What brought this to mind what was a situation where my wife and I sat at the kitchen table and listened to one person speak for a very, very long time. During a brief intermission my lovely wife - as gracious a woman as the sun has ever risen upon - confessed to me that she was going nuts. Then afterward she begged me to shoot her if advancing years ever turned her into a monologist.
What I noticed mainly was that the person who was talking to us never once asked us a question.
If people know a lot about you, but you know little about them, it may be because you have been filling them in with details about your life and thoughts and opinions and dreams without ever stopping to ask about theirs. Start asking them some questions. Then listen when they respond, and try to remember what they say.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not good at this. I dare to instruct on this matter only because, as a learner rather than as a master, I have to break down into doable chunks the features of gracious behavior that good people know instinctively and practice so effortlessly that they are not aware of it and cannot it explain to you.
I also instruct because I have been privileged to observe some excellent role models.
Before my wife met my brother Dave I warned her, "He will probably interview you." By that I meant that he would ask her lots and lots of questions for no other reason than to get to know her better. He does that to people because he is genuinely interested in them. Something I've noticed too: by being interested in other people and acquiring through questions massive amounts of information about them, you become a more interesting person yourself. Dave is interesting.
My mother was interesting too. At her funeral 10 years ago my friend Bill said to me, "Your mother would talk to high school sophomores as though their opinions really mattered." By reflecting on table-talk from my youth I saw he was right. Mom often did not seem to realize that she was a grownup with authority to pontificate but no obligation to listen. Like a curious peer she would ask my friends things and probe them with follow-up questions, and if she argued it was just a sign that she was taking them seriously.
I know that it is hard to elicit responses from some people. Maybe they just don't want to talk, or maybe they have nothing to say. After a few of their monosyllables it might be best to let them get back to their earphones.
For the rest, try to think of something to ask. Here's a question for any occasion: "Which would you rather be, an ostrich or a penguin?" If you ask that of an interesting person you may get a thoughtful response that reveals the hidden depths of a delightful personality. I'm afraid though that if you ask it of me I'll just look at you blankly and say, "What kind of stupid question is that?"
In my last post on this topic I said that gracious people answer your questions directly and sincerely. Recently I noticed something else: gracious people ask you questions. They're interested in what you have to say.
What brought this to mind what was a situation where my wife and I sat at the kitchen table and listened to one person speak for a very, very long time. During a brief intermission my lovely wife - as gracious a woman as the sun has ever risen upon - confessed to me that she was going nuts. Then afterward she begged me to shoot her if advancing years ever turned her into a monologist.
What I noticed mainly was that the person who was talking to us never once asked us a question.
If people know a lot about you, but you know little about them, it may be because you have been filling them in with details about your life and thoughts and opinions and dreams without ever stopping to ask about theirs. Start asking them some questions. Then listen when they respond, and try to remember what they say.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not good at this. I dare to instruct on this matter only because, as a learner rather than as a master, I have to break down into doable chunks the features of gracious behavior that good people know instinctively and practice so effortlessly that they are not aware of it and cannot it explain to you.
I also instruct because I have been privileged to observe some excellent role models.
Before my wife met my brother Dave I warned her, "He will probably interview you." By that I meant that he would ask her lots and lots of questions for no other reason than to get to know her better. He does that to people because he is genuinely interested in them. Something I've noticed too: by being interested in other people and acquiring through questions massive amounts of information about them, you become a more interesting person yourself. Dave is interesting.
My mother was interesting too. At her funeral 10 years ago my friend Bill said to me, "Your mother would talk to high school sophomores as though their opinions really mattered." By reflecting on table-talk from my youth I saw he was right. Mom often did not seem to realize that she was a grownup with authority to pontificate but no obligation to listen. Like a curious peer she would ask my friends things and probe them with follow-up questions, and if she argued it was just a sign that she was taking them seriously.
I know that it is hard to elicit responses from some people. Maybe they just don't want to talk, or maybe they have nothing to say. After a few of their monosyllables it might be best to let them get back to their earphones.
For the rest, try to think of something to ask. Here's a question for any occasion: "Which would you rather be, an ostrich or a penguin?" If you ask that of an interesting person you may get a thoughtful response that reveals the hidden depths of a delightful personality. I'm afraid though that if you ask it of me I'll just look at you blankly and say, "What kind of stupid question is that?"
Friday, December 9, 2011
December 18, 2011: True Fear Waits
In her book "Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns," Wheaton College Communications professor Christine Gardner maintains that True Love Waits and similar evangelical abstinence programs "are using the very thing they are prohibiting to admonish young people to wait. They are saying, 'If you are abstinent now, you will have amazing sex when you are married.'"
Gardner has a point. I imagine that some abstinence campaigners might object to her blunt summary of their rhetoric, but she backs up her claim with research. To be fair to all, it is not a bad thing to make known the data that indicate that, generally, the people who are happiest sexually are those who didn't sleep around before marriage and who are faithful within it. Just as long as everyone keeps in mind that "statistically favorable" does not mean "divinely certain," and that individual results may vary. Some fornicators are very happy, and some godly people chafe under perceived crosses of abstinence and faithfulness.
But there is one thing that evangelicals never talk about as a motivation for pre-marital chastity - at least in my limited experience and observation. We don't talk about being afraid of God. We don't even talk about righteous fear when speaking to ourselves in church environments where we don't need to worry much about offending outsiders. Fear as a motive for obedience is the great taboo.
I take that back - I do know two preachers who regularly mention fear as a motivator in their sermons, but only to condemn it as something that should not move us to obey. These preachers like to couple pride with fear and denounce both as reasons for submitting to the will of God. As one said recently, "Pride and fear will always hinder you from being filled with the Spirit, and will always hinder you from doing the work of God...The gospel cancels out the pride and fear that fills the hearts of men and women."
When I hear pride - a damnable motivator for obedience - linked so fatuously with fear - a godly and biblical one - I feel despair, and lament the sad state of preaching in our churches. I also want to give these preachers a homework assignment: go look up occurrences of phobos, phobeomai ("fear" as noun and verb) in your Greek Bible and read them in context. Then repent of your homiletic sin, and confess to your congregations that you have misled them week after week in sermon after sermon.
A good place to start when exhorting Christians to sexual purity is Hebrews 13:4: "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure." Why? Why should I maintain my purity? Because if I do I will be happier sexually in the long run? Even if that is true, it is an argument the Bible never makes. What the Bible says instead - read the rest of the verse! - is, "For God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." Now there's motivation for you. God judges immoral people. If you are immoral (or contemplating immorality), you should be afraid of God's judgment.
The Bible teaches what many preachers today refuse to acknowledge and never tell their congregations - perhaps (ghastly thought!) because they do not really believe it themselves: sexual immorality is one of those sins that provoke the wrath of God. Colossians 3:5-6 says, "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming."
The wrath of God referred to here is not manifested in merely temporary things like unfulfilled sex lives or broken relationships or sexually transmitted diseases. It is much more serious than that. God's anger, when brought to bear on an individual, means banishment from his presence. It means being shut out of his realm, or kingdom. Ephesians 5:5-6 says that no immoral person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, and that because of such sin, "God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and Galatians 5:9-10 likewise say that immoral people will not inherit the kingdom of God. And Revelation 21:8 specifies that fornicators are among those whose "place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur."
If you do not fear the fiery lake of burning sulfur and the God who can throw you there, then I'm afraid you are too much of a fool for the Word to benefit you. You must start fearing God. The Bible says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7, 9:10). It may not be the end of wisdom, but it sure as hell is the beginning of it. Preachers who reject fear as a motivation undermine a crucial support that helps bear the weight of godliness. Like blind Samson they push against a strong pillar, and they should not be surprised when the roof collapses around them and leaves a vast wreckage of sexual immorality. By telling sinners not to be afraid they are actually encouraging them to disobey a command of Christ: "Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." (Luke 12:5).
That commandment, and others like it, have been sapped of their power by some teachers who like to maintain that "fear" does not really mean "fear": it just means "respect," or "revere," or "honor." But these softer translations do not withstand scrutiny of the words in the original languages. "Fear" was the right word in the first place. For example, in many passages the Greek word for fear is coupled with physical trembling (see literal translations of 1 Corinthians 2:3; 2 Corinthians 7:15; Ephesians 6:5; Philippians 2:12). In the passage above where Jesus commands his disciples to fear God, he tells them, "Do not fear those who can merely kill the body." Jesus is not telling his disciples "Don't respect or honor authorities who can kill the body": far be it from Jesus to counsel disrespect of worldly authorities! (See 1 Timothy 2:1-3; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17.) No, he meant literally "Do not be afraid of them." They're not the ones who should make you tremble and shake: God is.
So to make this practical:
The next time your boyfriend or girlfriend or date wants to sleep with you without marrying you, say to him or her, "No. I've repented of that. I can't do that any more." And if you are asked why, say, "Because I'm afraid of God sending me to hell."
In her book "Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns," Wheaton College Communications professor Christine Gardner maintains that True Love Waits and similar evangelical abstinence programs "are using the very thing they are prohibiting to admonish young people to wait. They are saying, 'If you are abstinent now, you will have amazing sex when you are married.'"
Gardner has a point. I imagine that some abstinence campaigners might object to her blunt summary of their rhetoric, but she backs up her claim with research. To be fair to all, it is not a bad thing to make known the data that indicate that, generally, the people who are happiest sexually are those who didn't sleep around before marriage and who are faithful within it. Just as long as everyone keeps in mind that "statistically favorable" does not mean "divinely certain," and that individual results may vary. Some fornicators are very happy, and some godly people chafe under perceived crosses of abstinence and faithfulness.
But there is one thing that evangelicals never talk about as a motivation for pre-marital chastity - at least in my limited experience and observation. We don't talk about being afraid of God. We don't even talk about righteous fear when speaking to ourselves in church environments where we don't need to worry much about offending outsiders. Fear as a motive for obedience is the great taboo.
I take that back - I do know two preachers who regularly mention fear as a motivator in their sermons, but only to condemn it as something that should not move us to obey. These preachers like to couple pride with fear and denounce both as reasons for submitting to the will of God. As one said recently, "Pride and fear will always hinder you from being filled with the Spirit, and will always hinder you from doing the work of God...The gospel cancels out the pride and fear that fills the hearts of men and women."
When I hear pride - a damnable motivator for obedience - linked so fatuously with fear - a godly and biblical one - I feel despair, and lament the sad state of preaching in our churches. I also want to give these preachers a homework assignment: go look up occurrences of phobos, phobeomai ("fear" as noun and verb) in your Greek Bible and read them in context. Then repent of your homiletic sin, and confess to your congregations that you have misled them week after week in sermon after sermon.
A good place to start when exhorting Christians to sexual purity is Hebrews 13:4: "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure." Why? Why should I maintain my purity? Because if I do I will be happier sexually in the long run? Even if that is true, it is an argument the Bible never makes. What the Bible says instead - read the rest of the verse! - is, "For God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." Now there's motivation for you. God judges immoral people. If you are immoral (or contemplating immorality), you should be afraid of God's judgment.
The Bible teaches what many preachers today refuse to acknowledge and never tell their congregations - perhaps (ghastly thought!) because they do not really believe it themselves: sexual immorality is one of those sins that provoke the wrath of God. Colossians 3:5-6 says, "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming."
The wrath of God referred to here is not manifested in merely temporary things like unfulfilled sex lives or broken relationships or sexually transmitted diseases. It is much more serious than that. God's anger, when brought to bear on an individual, means banishment from his presence. It means being shut out of his realm, or kingdom. Ephesians 5:5-6 says that no immoral person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, and that because of such sin, "God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and Galatians 5:9-10 likewise say that immoral people will not inherit the kingdom of God. And Revelation 21:8 specifies that fornicators are among those whose "place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur."
If you do not fear the fiery lake of burning sulfur and the God who can throw you there, then I'm afraid you are too much of a fool for the Word to benefit you. You must start fearing God. The Bible says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7, 9:10). It may not be the end of wisdom, but it sure as hell is the beginning of it. Preachers who reject fear as a motivation undermine a crucial support that helps bear the weight of godliness. Like blind Samson they push against a strong pillar, and they should not be surprised when the roof collapses around them and leaves a vast wreckage of sexual immorality. By telling sinners not to be afraid they are actually encouraging them to disobey a command of Christ: "Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." (Luke 12:5).
That commandment, and others like it, have been sapped of their power by some teachers who like to maintain that "fear" does not really mean "fear": it just means "respect," or "revere," or "honor." But these softer translations do not withstand scrutiny of the words in the original languages. "Fear" was the right word in the first place. For example, in many passages the Greek word for fear is coupled with physical trembling (see literal translations of 1 Corinthians 2:3; 2 Corinthians 7:15; Ephesians 6:5; Philippians 2:12). In the passage above where Jesus commands his disciples to fear God, he tells them, "Do not fear those who can merely kill the body." Jesus is not telling his disciples "Don't respect or honor authorities who can kill the body": far be it from Jesus to counsel disrespect of worldly authorities! (See 1 Timothy 2:1-3; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17.) No, he meant literally "Do not be afraid of them." They're not the ones who should make you tremble and shake: God is.
So to make this practical:
The next time your boyfriend or girlfriend or date wants to sleep with you without marrying you, say to him or her, "No. I've repented of that. I can't do that any more." And if you are asked why, say, "Because I'm afraid of God sending me to hell."
Sunday, December 4, 2011
December 4, 2011: Even Jesus Had To Learn Obedience
Some verses in the book of Hebrews sound a little strange to those of us who have an orthodox view of Jesus' moral nature. Hebrews 5:8 says "he learned obedience from what he suffered." What? Learned obedience? Wasn't he always obedient? How can you learn something that you already know and practice perfectly? And Hebrews 2:10 says it was fitting that God "should make the author of their salvation [Jesus] perfect through suffering." Make him perfect? Wasn't Jesus already perfect? When was he ever imperfect?
To understand these passages I think it is helpful to distinguish between sinlessness and perfection.
The Bible definitely maintains that Jesus was always sinless:
2 Corinthians 5:21:
God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
1 John 3:5:
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
1 Peter 2:22:
He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.
(It's worth noting in passing that Paul, John and Peter each expressed Jesus' sinlessness in ways appropriate to their writing and character. Paul the scholar said that Jesus "knew" no sin. John, who liked to speak in broad categories about ways of being, said "in him" was no sin. And Peter, man of action, said he "committed" no sin.)
Sinlessness means simply to be without sin, to have violated no righteous command, to have done no evil. Newborn babies are sinless because they haven't done anything wrong yet. If we call a baby a "sinner" we only mean it in an ontological sense: we mean that the baby has inherited a sinful nature that will soon manifest itself in actual works of disobedience. A baby is like an acorn which has no leaves but does have the DNA to sprout them in due time. It will take a few months for bald acorns and sinless babies to start churning out massive amounts of foliage and iniquity.
In contrast, Jesus remained sinless all his life. He never committed even his first sin. But that does not mean he was always perfect. Perfection - in the sense implied by the Greek word that we translate "perfect" - does not mean "without error" so much as it does "mature," "fully developed," "grown to fulfillment of the intended state." The word in Greek was used to describe a piece of fruit that we would call "ripe." A young fruit, even if it has no worms, blotches or deformities ("sins"!), would never be called "perfect" simply because it is not yet big enough and sweet enough to be picked.
While "sinless" means without sin, "perfect" means much more: it means to be in a state where one has acquired all virtue and resisted all vice. That takes time. No one can be called "perfect" or "mature" until he is old enough to have encountered many temptations and resisted them, and to have seen many opportunities to do good and taken advantage of them.
Please note in the verses above in Hebrews what God used in order to ripen Jesus into perfect obedience. He used suffering. Jesus learned obedience not through things that brought him joy but through things that brought him pain. If this was true of the sinless Son of God, how much more true is it of creatures whose "righteousness is as filthy rags"? We cannot be good except that we suffer. It is virtuous, for example, to respond to cruelty with kindness. But how can we ever know and practice this virtue fully until someone is mean to us, lies about us, treats us contemptuously, laughs at us, lays in ruin all our prospects for joy?
Grievous trials have been allowed to come into your life, in part, in order to make you perfect. If you would be like Christ, you must let them ripen you rather than poison you.
Some verses in the book of Hebrews sound a little strange to those of us who have an orthodox view of Jesus' moral nature. Hebrews 5:8 says "he learned obedience from what he suffered." What? Learned obedience? Wasn't he always obedient? How can you learn something that you already know and practice perfectly? And Hebrews 2:10 says it was fitting that God "should make the author of their salvation [Jesus] perfect through suffering." Make him perfect? Wasn't Jesus already perfect? When was he ever imperfect?
To understand these passages I think it is helpful to distinguish between sinlessness and perfection.
The Bible definitely maintains that Jesus was always sinless:
2 Corinthians 5:21:
God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
1 John 3:5:
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
1 Peter 2:22:
He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.
(It's worth noting in passing that Paul, John and Peter each expressed Jesus' sinlessness in ways appropriate to their writing and character. Paul the scholar said that Jesus "knew" no sin. John, who liked to speak in broad categories about ways of being, said "in him" was no sin. And Peter, man of action, said he "committed" no sin.)
Sinlessness means simply to be without sin, to have violated no righteous command, to have done no evil. Newborn babies are sinless because they haven't done anything wrong yet. If we call a baby a "sinner" we only mean it in an ontological sense: we mean that the baby has inherited a sinful nature that will soon manifest itself in actual works of disobedience. A baby is like an acorn which has no leaves but does have the DNA to sprout them in due time. It will take a few months for bald acorns and sinless babies to start churning out massive amounts of foliage and iniquity.
In contrast, Jesus remained sinless all his life. He never committed even his first sin. But that does not mean he was always perfect. Perfection - in the sense implied by the Greek word that we translate "perfect" - does not mean "without error" so much as it does "mature," "fully developed," "grown to fulfillment of the intended state." The word in Greek was used to describe a piece of fruit that we would call "ripe." A young fruit, even if it has no worms, blotches or deformities ("sins"!), would never be called "perfect" simply because it is not yet big enough and sweet enough to be picked.
While "sinless" means without sin, "perfect" means much more: it means to be in a state where one has acquired all virtue and resisted all vice. That takes time. No one can be called "perfect" or "mature" until he is old enough to have encountered many temptations and resisted them, and to have seen many opportunities to do good and taken advantage of them.
Please note in the verses above in Hebrews what God used in order to ripen Jesus into perfect obedience. He used suffering. Jesus learned obedience not through things that brought him joy but through things that brought him pain. If this was true of the sinless Son of God, how much more true is it of creatures whose "righteousness is as filthy rags"? We cannot be good except that we suffer. It is virtuous, for example, to respond to cruelty with kindness. But how can we ever know and practice this virtue fully until someone is mean to us, lies about us, treats us contemptuously, laughs at us, lays in ruin all our prospects for joy?
Grievous trials have been allowed to come into your life, in part, in order to make you perfect. If you would be like Christ, you must let them ripen you rather than poison you.
Friday, October 28, 2011
November 24, 2011: Can An Act Of Self-Interest Be Called "Forgiveness"?
Some years ago my friend Doug Schmidt wrote a book on forgiveness and sent the galley proofs to Lewis Smedes, author of Forgive And Forget: Healing The Hurts We Don't Deserve. Smedes suggested that Doug include in his final draft some mention of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. When South Africa emerged from apartheid, truth commissions were established in the mid 1990s wherein perpetrators of atrocities - even murder - could confess crimes they had committed under the old regime and receive amnesty. Smedes celebrated these commissions as examples of Christian forgiveness.
But were they? In a recent article on the assassination of Moammar Gaddafi ("Libyan Crossfire," Washington Post, Oct 27, 2011) Charles Krauthammer mentions in passing that South African forgiveness was granted in order to avoid civil unrest. He writes, "In...post-apartheid South Africa, it was decided that full justice — punishing the guilty — would be sacrificed in order to preserve the fragile social peace of the new democracy. The former oppressors having agreed to a peaceful relinquishing of power, full justice might have ignited renewed civil strife. Therefore, [this infant democracy] settled for mere truth: a meticulous accounting of the crimes of the previous regime. In return for truthful testimony, perpetrators were given amnesty."
Is that forgiveness? Something seems wrong. If I kill my neighbor in the US in 2011, I get lethal injection or life in prison. But if I raid a shantytown in South Africa in 1982 and kill a black man, all I have to do is say, "Yep, I did it," in 1995, and I get off scot-free? What accounts for the difference between the ways the two cases of murder are handled? Is it really because African Amnesty 1995 manifests grace, mercy, compassion and forgiveness while American Justice 2011 runs roughshod over these virtues? Should our system be more like theirs?
Nonsense. Generally it is right to punish murderers, and it is an abuse of justice to let them go. The exception is when we see that just punishment will result in more pain for us. Then we grant amnesty, though not from the goodness in our hearts so much as from the wisdom in our brains. It is folly to pursue justice at the cost of riots and retaliation and bloodshed. So we calculate consequences and act as righteous counterparts to Pontius Pilate, who condemned a man he knew to be innocent in order to avoid public mayhem. We release men we know to be guilty for the same reason.
Please do not misunderstand - I am not saying that the South African truth commissions did the wrong thing. They did the right, wise and best thing. They even gave the world a model for how to manage painful national transition without upheaval. But let us not put noble labels ("forgiveness," "mercy," "Christian reconciliation") on travesties of justice done mainly to benefit victims. True forgiveness is not quite so self-serving.
I think we often congratulate ourselves (or praise others) for acts of forgiveness whose real motive is mere self-interest. Nearly 20 years ago my guileless mother said she admired Hillary Clinton for the way she forgave Bill and preserved her marriage despite his infidelities. Hmmm. Well. It would not be right for me to say that I know what was in Hillary's heart. But perhaps it is permissible to leave some room for the cynical speculation that the grace she extended to her husband involved a shrewdly calculated plan to keep her own aspirations alive. Would she have forgiven him if he were a warehouse laborer incapable of furthering her eventual career as first lady, senator, presidential candidate and secretary of state? If so, then I take back my unseemly doubts about her motive and confess that Mom was right: Hillary Clinton is an extraordinarily gracious and magnanimous woman.
It is not hard, though, to find some pretty obvious examples of phony forgiveness that cry "fraud!" right in our faces. Consider sports. A college athlete runs afoul of the law, and Coach, after some necessary discipline, reinstates him with fatherly rhetoric about everyone deserving a second chance. Left unsaid is the fact that the athlete has a 40 inch vertical leap, runs the 40 in 4.4 seconds, and can probably help the team win enough games to keep Coach from getting fired.
Please forgive me for finding an especially giddy example of self-serving pardon in the depraved muck of South Park. In one episode Kenny's friends warn him that his new girlfriend is impure - they have heard that she gave certain satisfaction to a former boyfriend. Kenny responds not with dismay but with ecstasy over the prospect that he might be the next target of her favors. When he sees her next, she tearfully acknowledges that the rumor is true, and asks him, "Can you ever forgive me?" Barely able to contain his glee he puts a comforting arm around her shoulder: Of course darling. Of course I forgive you.
In recent years I have noticed in many evangelical sermons that the motive of self-interest for forgiveness is not merely tolerated or winked at but positively extolled. The reason we are supposed to forgive is because of the benefit we will receive. We'll get peace of mind and a joyful spirit and a release from bitterness if only we forgive those who have wronged us. Smedes concluded one of his sermons on forgiveness by saying, "The first person who gets the benefit of forgiving is always the person who does the forgiving. When you forgive a person who wronged you, you set a prisoner free, and then you discover that the prisoner you set free is you...When you forgive, you heal the hurts you never should have felt in the first place. So if you have been hurt and feel miserable about it, our Lord himself recommends forgiving as the only way to healing. I hope that you will try it for yourself."
Smedes is wrong. Jesus never recommended forgiveness as a way to heal your hurts. He commanded it as a way to please God and release others from their indebtedness to you. Smedes' notion of forgiveness is so severely twisted back on itself that the offending party becomes - in some cases - an irrelevance. For Smedes and other preachers I have heard, forgiveness is so much a matter of me getting my peace of mind that it does not even matter if the offender is alive or dead! A couple years ago I heard a well-known evangelical pastor tell his listeners that they must forgive people who abused them as children even if the abusers died unrepentant many years ago. What this preacher fails to understand is that "forgive" does not mean "get over your feelings of bitterness and resentment" but rather "release an offender from the obligations of his indebtedness." Forgiving the dead, then, is neither right nor wrong but simply nonsensical. It is like visiting a graveyard and saying to a corpse buried beneath the tombstone (and I suppose you had better shout pretty loudly), "You know that 100 bucks you owe me? You don't have to pay it back!"
Protestant Christians in particular may understand this point better if it is explained that we are to forgive people under the same kinds of conditions and circumstances that we would pray for them. Ask a Protestant why he never prays for the dead, and he might say (among other things), "Because it can't do them any good." Right then - so, what possible good can it do them to forgive them? None at all, of course. In a case like this, all the benefit of forgiveness goes to the forgiver and none whatsoever to the party forgiven. But to call an act so self-centered and self-focused "forgiveness" is to poison that high and noble word. We are commanded to forgive as God forgives us (Colossians 3:13). When God pardons us, we are the beneficiaries, not he. God will do just fine with or without us, thank you very much. He does not forgive us in order to free himself from the shackles of bitterness that ruin his day and leave him feeling grumpy. He forgives in order to bless us with wholly undeserved favor that cancels our debt and enables our everlasting joy.
Forgive others for their sake, not yours. Let whatever benefit you receive in consequence be a side effect rather than a goal.
The temptation among evangelical believers to frame the topic of forgiveness in terms of self-benefit is part of a much larger problem these days where nearly all the commands of God seem to be held at bay until we can get an answer to the question, "What's in it for me?". Then, only when we know we can defend obedience on the grounds of rational self-interest do we feel safe urging others to submit to God's will. In all the Christian literature promoting abstinence, for example, I dare you to find even one article whose main argument is "Fornication displeases God" rather than "Abstinence is good for you!" Lord willing I'll write more about that larger issue some day.
If you would like to pursue some further thoughts on forgiveness, please see the blog posts for October 27, November 3, and November 10 of 2009. As always, I welcome comments and interaction.
Some years ago my friend Doug Schmidt wrote a book on forgiveness and sent the galley proofs to Lewis Smedes, author of Forgive And Forget: Healing The Hurts We Don't Deserve. Smedes suggested that Doug include in his final draft some mention of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. When South Africa emerged from apartheid, truth commissions were established in the mid 1990s wherein perpetrators of atrocities - even murder - could confess crimes they had committed under the old regime and receive amnesty. Smedes celebrated these commissions as examples of Christian forgiveness.
But were they? In a recent article on the assassination of Moammar Gaddafi ("Libyan Crossfire," Washington Post, Oct 27, 2011) Charles Krauthammer mentions in passing that South African forgiveness was granted in order to avoid civil unrest. He writes, "In...post-apartheid South Africa, it was decided that full justice — punishing the guilty — would be sacrificed in order to preserve the fragile social peace of the new democracy. The former oppressors having agreed to a peaceful relinquishing of power, full justice might have ignited renewed civil strife. Therefore, [this infant democracy] settled for mere truth: a meticulous accounting of the crimes of the previous regime. In return for truthful testimony, perpetrators were given amnesty."
Is that forgiveness? Something seems wrong. If I kill my neighbor in the US in 2011, I get lethal injection or life in prison. But if I raid a shantytown in South Africa in 1982 and kill a black man, all I have to do is say, "Yep, I did it," in 1995, and I get off scot-free? What accounts for the difference between the ways the two cases of murder are handled? Is it really because African Amnesty 1995 manifests grace, mercy, compassion and forgiveness while American Justice 2011 runs roughshod over these virtues? Should our system be more like theirs?
Nonsense. Generally it is right to punish murderers, and it is an abuse of justice to let them go. The exception is when we see that just punishment will result in more pain for us. Then we grant amnesty, though not from the goodness in our hearts so much as from the wisdom in our brains. It is folly to pursue justice at the cost of riots and retaliation and bloodshed. So we calculate consequences and act as righteous counterparts to Pontius Pilate, who condemned a man he knew to be innocent in order to avoid public mayhem. We release men we know to be guilty for the same reason.
Please do not misunderstand - I am not saying that the South African truth commissions did the wrong thing. They did the right, wise and best thing. They even gave the world a model for how to manage painful national transition without upheaval. But let us not put noble labels ("forgiveness," "mercy," "Christian reconciliation") on travesties of justice done mainly to benefit victims. True forgiveness is not quite so self-serving.
I think we often congratulate ourselves (or praise others) for acts of forgiveness whose real motive is mere self-interest. Nearly 20 years ago my guileless mother said she admired Hillary Clinton for the way she forgave Bill and preserved her marriage despite his infidelities. Hmmm. Well. It would not be right for me to say that I know what was in Hillary's heart. But perhaps it is permissible to leave some room for the cynical speculation that the grace she extended to her husband involved a shrewdly calculated plan to keep her own aspirations alive. Would she have forgiven him if he were a warehouse laborer incapable of furthering her eventual career as first lady, senator, presidential candidate and secretary of state? If so, then I take back my unseemly doubts about her motive and confess that Mom was right: Hillary Clinton is an extraordinarily gracious and magnanimous woman.
It is not hard, though, to find some pretty obvious examples of phony forgiveness that cry "fraud!" right in our faces. Consider sports. A college athlete runs afoul of the law, and Coach, after some necessary discipline, reinstates him with fatherly rhetoric about everyone deserving a second chance. Left unsaid is the fact that the athlete has a 40 inch vertical leap, runs the 40 in 4.4 seconds, and can probably help the team win enough games to keep Coach from getting fired.
Please forgive me for finding an especially giddy example of self-serving pardon in the depraved muck of South Park. In one episode Kenny's friends warn him that his new girlfriend is impure - they have heard that she gave certain satisfaction to a former boyfriend. Kenny responds not with dismay but with ecstasy over the prospect that he might be the next target of her favors. When he sees her next, she tearfully acknowledges that the rumor is true, and asks him, "Can you ever forgive me?" Barely able to contain his glee he puts a comforting arm around her shoulder: Of course darling. Of course I forgive you.
In recent years I have noticed in many evangelical sermons that the motive of self-interest for forgiveness is not merely tolerated or winked at but positively extolled. The reason we are supposed to forgive is because of the benefit we will receive. We'll get peace of mind and a joyful spirit and a release from bitterness if only we forgive those who have wronged us. Smedes concluded one of his sermons on forgiveness by saying, "The first person who gets the benefit of forgiving is always the person who does the forgiving. When you forgive a person who wronged you, you set a prisoner free, and then you discover that the prisoner you set free is you...When you forgive, you heal the hurts you never should have felt in the first place. So if you have been hurt and feel miserable about it, our Lord himself recommends forgiving as the only way to healing. I hope that you will try it for yourself."
Smedes is wrong. Jesus never recommended forgiveness as a way to heal your hurts. He commanded it as a way to please God and release others from their indebtedness to you. Smedes' notion of forgiveness is so severely twisted back on itself that the offending party becomes - in some cases - an irrelevance. For Smedes and other preachers I have heard, forgiveness is so much a matter of me getting my peace of mind that it does not even matter if the offender is alive or dead! A couple years ago I heard a well-known evangelical pastor tell his listeners that they must forgive people who abused them as children even if the abusers died unrepentant many years ago. What this preacher fails to understand is that "forgive" does not mean "get over your feelings of bitterness and resentment" but rather "release an offender from the obligations of his indebtedness." Forgiving the dead, then, is neither right nor wrong but simply nonsensical. It is like visiting a graveyard and saying to a corpse buried beneath the tombstone (and I suppose you had better shout pretty loudly), "You know that 100 bucks you owe me? You don't have to pay it back!"
Protestant Christians in particular may understand this point better if it is explained that we are to forgive people under the same kinds of conditions and circumstances that we would pray for them. Ask a Protestant why he never prays for the dead, and he might say (among other things), "Because it can't do them any good." Right then - so, what possible good can it do them to forgive them? None at all, of course. In a case like this, all the benefit of forgiveness goes to the forgiver and none whatsoever to the party forgiven. But to call an act so self-centered and self-focused "forgiveness" is to poison that high and noble word. We are commanded to forgive as God forgives us (Colossians 3:13). When God pardons us, we are the beneficiaries, not he. God will do just fine with or without us, thank you very much. He does not forgive us in order to free himself from the shackles of bitterness that ruin his day and leave him feeling grumpy. He forgives in order to bless us with wholly undeserved favor that cancels our debt and enables our everlasting joy.
Forgive others for their sake, not yours. Let whatever benefit you receive in consequence be a side effect rather than a goal.
The temptation among evangelical believers to frame the topic of forgiveness in terms of self-benefit is part of a much larger problem these days where nearly all the commands of God seem to be held at bay until we can get an answer to the question, "What's in it for me?". Then, only when we know we can defend obedience on the grounds of rational self-interest do we feel safe urging others to submit to God's will. In all the Christian literature promoting abstinence, for example, I dare you to find even one article whose main argument is "Fornication displeases God" rather than "Abstinence is good for you!" Lord willing I'll write more about that larger issue some day.
If you would like to pursue some further thoughts on forgiveness, please see the blog posts for October 27, November 3, and November 10 of 2009. As always, I welcome comments and interaction.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Graciousness 5: Just Answer The Question
(A continuation of the series Graciousness 1-4, March 24-April 21, 2009)
The other day I caught myself doing something I hate, though oddly I can't remember exactly what it was. But I remember the gist well enough to write this as a rebuke to myself and as a warning to you to avoid my mistake.
What happened was my wife asked me a question and I answered it - or thought I did. The question and the answer are gone from my memory. It was something very simple like, "Do you know if it is going to rain today?" and I answered something like, "I left the umbrella in the car." That is, instead of answering her question, I intuited a reason behind it, and responded to that. You're asking about rain because you want to know where I put the umbrella. But I was wrong - she was asking for some other reason. If I had simply told her "Yes, it's supposed to rain," or, "No, I think it's supposed to be sunny," then it would have saved her the bother of asking a follow-up question or having to explain her motive.
Some time ago I began to notice that rude, hostile, arrogant, or passive-aggressive people almost never give simple answers to simple questions. Instead they use other people's questions as opportunities to take offense, give offense, show off, demean, express irritation, or heap scorn. Often they will "read the mind" of the questioner in order to tell him what they think he really needed to know. Don't be like that. Let your replies to simple, straightforward questions be simple and straightforward. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
(Of course, it goes without saying that some questions actually expect you to intuit the reason for them. If someone asks, "Do you know where the restroom is?" it would be rude to say "Yes" and leave it at that. I'm not talking about those kinds of things.)
One of my least favorite non-answers is, "You already asked me that!" This is an especially cruel thing to say to an elderly person, or to anyone who fears that his mind or memory are unstable. Yes, I may have asked you before. Please just tell me again as though I were asking you for the first time. It hurts to be reminded that I can't hold on to thoughts the way I used to.
Perhaps you know someone (Lord love you if you are married to one of these!) who responds to a question like, "What time is it?" with
- "You asked me that 10 minutes ago."
- "Is your watch broken?"
- [Silence. She heard you, but is pretending not to.]
- "It doesn't matter if we're late."
- "I thought you got a watch for Christmas."
- "Why do you always have to be so concerned about the time?"
- "They're already closed."
Etcetera. If you ever catch yourself responding like that, stop, repent, and say (in a pleasant tone of voice), "It's 7:15."
To this day I can recall the horror I felt in sixth grade when poor Ricky, a classmate, asked the teacher why, if the sun was a star, we didn't see it at night with the other stars. Rather than answering simply, Mr. Rossi sighed loudly and ridiculed him for asking such a stupid question. He brought Ricky up in front of the class, stood him in front of a globe and spoke in exasperated tones that brought tears to Ricky's eyes and laughter from the class. I believe Ricky learned the lesson, "If confused, don't ask Mr. Rossi."
Be the kind of person who gives such simple and gracious answers that people feel comfortable asking you anything.
The other day I caught myself doing something I hate, though oddly I can't remember exactly what it was. But I remember the gist well enough to write this as a rebuke to myself and as a warning to you to avoid my mistake.
What happened was my wife asked me a question and I answered it - or thought I did. The question and the answer are gone from my memory. It was something very simple like, "Do you know if it is going to rain today?" and I answered something like, "I left the umbrella in the car." That is, instead of answering her question, I intuited a reason behind it, and responded to that. You're asking about rain because you want to know where I put the umbrella. But I was wrong - she was asking for some other reason. If I had simply told her "Yes, it's supposed to rain," or, "No, I think it's supposed to be sunny," then it would have saved her the bother of asking a follow-up question or having to explain her motive.
Some time ago I began to notice that rude, hostile, arrogant, or passive-aggressive people almost never give simple answers to simple questions. Instead they use other people's questions as opportunities to take offense, give offense, show off, demean, express irritation, or heap scorn. Often they will "read the mind" of the questioner in order to tell him what they think he really needed to know. Don't be like that. Let your replies to simple, straightforward questions be simple and straightforward. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
(Of course, it goes without saying that some questions actually expect you to intuit the reason for them. If someone asks, "Do you know where the restroom is?" it would be rude to say "Yes" and leave it at that. I'm not talking about those kinds of things.)
One of my least favorite non-answers is, "You already asked me that!" This is an especially cruel thing to say to an elderly person, or to anyone who fears that his mind or memory are unstable. Yes, I may have asked you before. Please just tell me again as though I were asking you for the first time. It hurts to be reminded that I can't hold on to thoughts the way I used to.
Perhaps you know someone (Lord love you if you are married to one of these!) who responds to a question like, "What time is it?" with
- "You asked me that 10 minutes ago."
- "Is your watch broken?"
- [Silence. She heard you, but is pretending not to.]
- "It doesn't matter if we're late."
- "I thought you got a watch for Christmas."
- "Why do you always have to be so concerned about the time?"
- "They're already closed."
Etcetera. If you ever catch yourself responding like that, stop, repent, and say (in a pleasant tone of voice), "It's 7:15."
To this day I can recall the horror I felt in sixth grade when poor Ricky, a classmate, asked the teacher why, if the sun was a star, we didn't see it at night with the other stars. Rather than answering simply, Mr. Rossi sighed loudly and ridiculed him for asking such a stupid question. He brought Ricky up in front of the class, stood him in front of a globe and spoke in exasperated tones that brought tears to Ricky's eyes and laughter from the class. I believe Ricky learned the lesson, "If confused, don't ask Mr. Rossi."
Be the kind of person who gives such simple and gracious answers that people feel comfortable asking you anything.
Friday, April 22, 2011
April 27, 2011: Perhaps The Three Best-Spent Hours Of Your Life
Last week I promised to guide you to a good preacher whose sermons you can get online. His name is D.A. Carson, professor of New Testament at Trinity International University. I had the privilege of attending some classes he taught at Trinity years ago. You will not find a more knowledgeable or accurate teacher of the Bible anywhere.
There are few better ways to spend three hours of your life than by listening to three messages by Carson, "What Is The Gospel And How Does It Work?" Parts 1, 2 and 3. They're available at thegospelcoalition.org. I'm afraid I don't know how (or if it is possible) to create a link on this blog, so I'll simply write out for you the full web addresses of these sermons. They are:
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_1_of_3
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_2_of_3
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_3_of_3
You will also benefit from his lecture on suffering at
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/how_can_a_good_god_allow_suffering
Anyone who reads my blog will quickly detect my zeal for accurate preaching. I admit my standards are high. But Carson meets the standards of holier men and wiser teachers and more exacting scholars than I will ever be. If I can succeed in moving someone to listen to his sermons, my joy will be like that of getting somebody to read works by C.S. Lewis or George MacDonald. I will feel that by God's grace I have done something good.
Last week I promised to guide you to a good preacher whose sermons you can get online. His name is D.A. Carson, professor of New Testament at Trinity International University. I had the privilege of attending some classes he taught at Trinity years ago. You will not find a more knowledgeable or accurate teacher of the Bible anywhere.
There are few better ways to spend three hours of your life than by listening to three messages by Carson, "What Is The Gospel And How Does It Work?" Parts 1, 2 and 3. They're available at thegospelcoalition.org. I'm afraid I don't know how (or if it is possible) to create a link on this blog, so I'll simply write out for you the full web addresses of these sermons. They are:
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_1_of_3
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_2_of_3
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/what_is_the_gospel_and_how_does_it_work_part_3_of_3
You will also benefit from his lecture on suffering at
http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/how_can_a_good_god_allow_suffering
Anyone who reads my blog will quickly detect my zeal for accurate preaching. I admit my standards are high. But Carson meets the standards of holier men and wiser teachers and more exacting scholars than I will ever be. If I can succeed in moving someone to listen to his sermons, my joy will be like that of getting somebody to read works by C.S. Lewis or George MacDonald. I will feel that by God's grace I have done something good.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
April 20, 2011: Verify!
When I was in school I heard about a professor who taught at three seminaries: Dallas, Fuller and Trinity. At Dallas, when he announced to the class "It is raining outside," students immediately took out their notebooks and wrote, "It is raining outside."
At Fuller, if he'd say "It is raining outside," students would leave their chairs and go to window to see if he was right.
At Trinity, when he told the class that it was raining, every student would raise his hand to ask, "Will this be on the test?"
The professor's parable was a clever way to poke fun at three types of students - the compliant sheep, the wary skeptic and the uncaring pragmatist - and the schools to which they tend to gravitate. But let me use his joke to make a point. When listening to anyone who claims to speak for God, be a Fullerite: doubt, verify and falsify. Subject every statement to rigorous intellectual cross-examination. Do not swallow every bit of slop tossed your way. And please shun the self-centered contempt for fact that never asks more than "Will this help me?". Jesus said "The truth will set you free" (John 8:32), and to know the truth you must engage your mind. You have to get up out of your chair and go to the window to look for yourself.
Noble people do that, and the Bible applauds them. In Acts 17:11, St. Paul's colleague Luke reports, "The Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." Paul was not offended that they were checking out his message for themselves. He encouraged it!
Yesterday my lovely wife told me she heard a preacher maintain that in the Bible Jesus only answered three questions, and she wanted to know what they were. Good for her! First I had to verify that this was actually what the preacher said. Maybe there was a misunderstanding. But there wasn't - I listened to him online, and in fact he did say, "Do you know that in the gospels Jesus was asked 183 questions? Do you know how many he answered? Three."
Whenever a preacher says something like that, take it as a signal, a challenge, a command even - to dive into your Bible. Two good things will happen. First, you'll learn (or have reinforced) truths of Scripture. Second, you'll have evidence to confirm or disconfirm the preacher's credibility. Maybe you will wind up saying, "Wow! He's right! He's worth paying attention to - even when he says something completely counterintuitive." Or maybe you'll say, "My but he's careless. I had better take his words with a grain of salt."
I spent about three minutes reading passages in the gospels and found right away the following questions that Jesus answered. The questions and answers themselves are in bold.
(1) John 9:1-3: As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."
(2) John 6:28-29: Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
(3) John 14:5-6: Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
(4) Matthew 19:3-6: Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
(5) Matthew 19:7-8: “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning."
(6) Matthew 19:16-17: Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
(7) Matthew 19:18-19: “Which ones?” the man inquired. Jesus replied, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
(8) Matthew 19:20-21: “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
(9) Matthew 19:27-29: Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life."
In the other room my wife was reading her Bible, and when I walked in she said, "Jesus answers lots of questions!" He sure does, doesn't he. Do you know I can almost identify the moment when I first fell in love with her? It was at a Bible study two years ago when, sitting next to me, she pointed to Matthew 16:19 and asked, "What does this verse mean?", and listened intently while I went off on the verse. By God's grace I am married to an earnest seeker of truth.
We who preach like to say provocative things, and there is nothing wrong with that. Stunningly counterintuitive statements are more easily remembered than bland cliches. We learn a lot when we are surprised. For example, tell an ordinary evangelical Christian that, in the Bible, when people convert to Christ, they never say a prayer inviting Jesus into their hearts but they always get baptized immediately, and he might say, "Are you kidding me? That can't be right." But if he "goes to the window to look for himself," and reads all 20 texts in the February 13, 2005 Pastor's Page, he may well come away saying, "Oh. Wow. That's not the way they do it at my church."
Over the years I have disturbed quite a few good souls - and provoked some angry reaction - by saying, "Though you hear frequent talk of 'God's unconditional love,' the Bible in fact flatly denies that God's love is unconditional." But please don't take my word for that. Go to the window and look for yourself. Type the word "love" into BibleGateway's online search (or look it up in a fat concordance), read the passages listed, and see what you conclude. (While you're at it, type in the word "unconditional" and see if you get any hits.) You may find some help in my “Unconditional Love” Is Unbiblical Nonsense (June 11, 2006) and Nothing You Can Do Can Make God Love You More? (September 22, 2009).
Next week, Lord willing, I'll guide you to some online preaching you can practically always trust from a teacher who, in my experience, virtually never makes a careless statement about the Bible. But remember that even when listening to the best of the best preachers, the same principle remains. Verify.
When I was in school I heard about a professor who taught at three seminaries: Dallas, Fuller and Trinity. At Dallas, when he announced to the class "It is raining outside," students immediately took out their notebooks and wrote, "It is raining outside."
At Fuller, if he'd say "It is raining outside," students would leave their chairs and go to window to see if he was right.
At Trinity, when he told the class that it was raining, every student would raise his hand to ask, "Will this be on the test?"
The professor's parable was a clever way to poke fun at three types of students - the compliant sheep, the wary skeptic and the uncaring pragmatist - and the schools to which they tend to gravitate. But let me use his joke to make a point. When listening to anyone who claims to speak for God, be a Fullerite: doubt, verify and falsify. Subject every statement to rigorous intellectual cross-examination. Do not swallow every bit of slop tossed your way. And please shun the self-centered contempt for fact that never asks more than "Will this help me?". Jesus said "The truth will set you free" (John 8:32), and to know the truth you must engage your mind. You have to get up out of your chair and go to the window to look for yourself.
Noble people do that, and the Bible applauds them. In Acts 17:11, St. Paul's colleague Luke reports, "The Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." Paul was not offended that they were checking out his message for themselves. He encouraged it!
Yesterday my lovely wife told me she heard a preacher maintain that in the Bible Jesus only answered three questions, and she wanted to know what they were. Good for her! First I had to verify that this was actually what the preacher said. Maybe there was a misunderstanding. But there wasn't - I listened to him online, and in fact he did say, "Do you know that in the gospels Jesus was asked 183 questions? Do you know how many he answered? Three."
Whenever a preacher says something like that, take it as a signal, a challenge, a command even - to dive into your Bible. Two good things will happen. First, you'll learn (or have reinforced) truths of Scripture. Second, you'll have evidence to confirm or disconfirm the preacher's credibility. Maybe you will wind up saying, "Wow! He's right! He's worth paying attention to - even when he says something completely counterintuitive." Or maybe you'll say, "My but he's careless. I had better take his words with a grain of salt."
I spent about three minutes reading passages in the gospels and found right away the following questions that Jesus answered. The questions and answers themselves are in bold.
(1) John 9:1-3: As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."
(2) John 6:28-29: Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
(3) John 14:5-6: Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
(4) Matthew 19:3-6: Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
(5) Matthew 19:7-8: “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning."
(6) Matthew 19:16-17: Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
(7) Matthew 19:18-19: “Which ones?” the man inquired. Jesus replied, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
(8) Matthew 19:20-21: “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
(9) Matthew 19:27-29: Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life."
In the other room my wife was reading her Bible, and when I walked in she said, "Jesus answers lots of questions!" He sure does, doesn't he. Do you know I can almost identify the moment when I first fell in love with her? It was at a Bible study two years ago when, sitting next to me, she pointed to Matthew 16:19 and asked, "What does this verse mean?", and listened intently while I went off on the verse. By God's grace I am married to an earnest seeker of truth.
We who preach like to say provocative things, and there is nothing wrong with that. Stunningly counterintuitive statements are more easily remembered than bland cliches. We learn a lot when we are surprised. For example, tell an ordinary evangelical Christian that, in the Bible, when people convert to Christ, they never say a prayer inviting Jesus into their hearts but they always get baptized immediately, and he might say, "Are you kidding me? That can't be right." But if he "goes to the window to look for himself," and reads all 20 texts in the February 13, 2005 Pastor's Page, he may well come away saying, "Oh. Wow. That's not the way they do it at my church."
Over the years I have disturbed quite a few good souls - and provoked some angry reaction - by saying, "Though you hear frequent talk of 'God's unconditional love,' the Bible in fact flatly denies that God's love is unconditional." But please don't take my word for that. Go to the window and look for yourself. Type the word "love" into BibleGateway's online search (or look it up in a fat concordance), read the passages listed, and see what you conclude. (While you're at it, type in the word "unconditional" and see if you get any hits.) You may find some help in my “Unconditional Love” Is Unbiblical Nonsense (June 11, 2006) and Nothing You Can Do Can Make God Love You More? (September 22, 2009).
Next week, Lord willing, I'll guide you to some online preaching you can practically always trust from a teacher who, in my experience, virtually never makes a careless statement about the Bible. But remember that even when listening to the best of the best preachers, the same principle remains. Verify.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
April 12, 2011: How To Know The Truth
In George MacDonald's The Musician's Quest, young Robert Falconer comes to doubt the faith in which he was raised. At one point he asks himself whether he can even be sure that Jesus existed. But immediately his familiarity with Scripture brings to mind these words of Jesus: If any man chooses to do his will, he shall know whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak of myself. (John 7:17). MacDonald writes, "Here was a word from Jesus himself, giving the surest means of arriving at a conclusion of the truth or falsehood of all that he said, namely, by doing the will of God." For the remainder of the book, Robert does the will of God, and believes.
I can hardly tell you the joy I felt in finding in MacDonald an expression of a truth that first gripped me about 15-20 years ago and has helped shape the way I teach and preach and present the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is simply this: obedience opens the heart to faith, while disobedience (but for the grace of God!) closes it.
We Christians rightly try to persuade non-Christians of gospel truths: that God exists, that he is powerful and good, that Jesus of Nazareth is his unique son, that Jesus died for fallen sinners, that he rose again from the dead. I value sound apologetics as I value few other things, and have given as gifts countless copies of C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity and Lee Strobel's The Case For Christ, The Case For Faith, The Case For Creator, and The Case For The Real Jesus. And I have often said things like "The only thing that really matters about Christianity is whether it is true. If it is false, we must discard it no matter how much it helps us; if it is true, we must embrace it no matter how much it costs us and no matter how much we despise its sterner doctrines."
But we are limited in what our proclamation of truth can accomplish simply because waves of reason tend to crash uselessly against granite cliffs of sin. People who choose to defy God will not embrace the truth of his gospel. Truth masquerades as foolishness to those who know the will of God but do not do it. Disobedient people deafen their ears. You cannot convert a man who is not good and does not want to be good.
But a man who is sincerely trying to do right is a likely candidate for conversion. C. S. Lewis wrote that it was no coincidence that he became a Christian at a time in his life when he was trying to be good: "[I]t is significant that this long-evaded encounter [with God] happened at a time when I was making a serious effort to obey my conscience. No doubt it was far less serious than I supposed, but it was the most serious I had made for a long time.” Likewise, the centurion Cornelius in Acts 10 was first a righteous, respected, God-fearing man who gave generously to the poor (vs. 2,22) before he heard the gospel and believed.
For that reason my ears ring with indignation every time I hear an evangelical preacher label submission to the will of God with pejorative and demeaning terms like "works' righteousness," "do's and don'ts", "mere moralism," "shoulds," "keeping the rules," "Phariseeism," "trying hard to be good," "trying to earn favor with God." If you're a preacher and you talk like that, could you please stop it? Obedience is a good thing. The Bible says, "Without holiness no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6). Unbelievers are most ripe for conversion when they are trying to be good and longing to be better. They should be encouraged in their efforts! Few things ease the work of the Holy Spirit more than a disciplined submission to the demands of conscience. By doing the will of God (and yes, this will require effort, it won't be easy, a man will indeed have to "try hard" to obey), a man will know soon enough whether Jesus spoke the truth about himself and the Father.
Of course there is an awful corollary. I am sorry to say that I have known quite a few apostates over the years - people who once professed faith in Jesus and then renounced it. In every case (I have yet to see an exception) the departure from faith was preceded by a willful rebellion against God's will. I have also noted a stunning contrast between clear-minded, thoughtful explanations of arrival to Christian faith with later vague, inarticulate, shoulder-shrugging rejections of it. (E.g., "I don't know. It's just, um - I don't want to talk about it. I just want to do what makes me happy.") Having chosen to be disobedient, they lose interest in Christ, and having lost interest, they assume him to be false without ever having bothered to engage their minds in a single rational argument about him.
When Robert Falconer (in all likelihood, a fictional projection of George MacDonald himself) came to the dark night of doubt, and could not resolve his difficulties intellectually, he had two choices. He could start sleeping with his girlfriend and become an alcoholic and train his tongue to tell lies, or he could say his nightly prayers, stay honest and chaste, and commit himself to serve his fellow man. The same kind of choice still faces all those who stand near the cliff that divides faith from unbelief.
In George MacDonald's The Musician's Quest, young Robert Falconer comes to doubt the faith in which he was raised. At one point he asks himself whether he can even be sure that Jesus existed. But immediately his familiarity with Scripture brings to mind these words of Jesus: If any man chooses to do his will, he shall know whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak of myself. (John 7:17). MacDonald writes, "Here was a word from Jesus himself, giving the surest means of arriving at a conclusion of the truth or falsehood of all that he said, namely, by doing the will of God." For the remainder of the book, Robert does the will of God, and believes.
I can hardly tell you the joy I felt in finding in MacDonald an expression of a truth that first gripped me about 15-20 years ago and has helped shape the way I teach and preach and present the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is simply this: obedience opens the heart to faith, while disobedience (but for the grace of God!) closes it.
We Christians rightly try to persuade non-Christians of gospel truths: that God exists, that he is powerful and good, that Jesus of Nazareth is his unique son, that Jesus died for fallen sinners, that he rose again from the dead. I value sound apologetics as I value few other things, and have given as gifts countless copies of C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity and Lee Strobel's The Case For Christ, The Case For Faith, The Case For Creator, and The Case For The Real Jesus. And I have often said things like "The only thing that really matters about Christianity is whether it is true. If it is false, we must discard it no matter how much it helps us; if it is true, we must embrace it no matter how much it costs us and no matter how much we despise its sterner doctrines."
But we are limited in what our proclamation of truth can accomplish simply because waves of reason tend to crash uselessly against granite cliffs of sin. People who choose to defy God will not embrace the truth of his gospel. Truth masquerades as foolishness to those who know the will of God but do not do it. Disobedient people deafen their ears. You cannot convert a man who is not good and does not want to be good.
But a man who is sincerely trying to do right is a likely candidate for conversion. C. S. Lewis wrote that it was no coincidence that he became a Christian at a time in his life when he was trying to be good: "[I]t is significant that this long-evaded encounter [with God] happened at a time when I was making a serious effort to obey my conscience. No doubt it was far less serious than I supposed, but it was the most serious I had made for a long time.” Likewise, the centurion Cornelius in Acts 10 was first a righteous, respected, God-fearing man who gave generously to the poor (vs. 2,22) before he heard the gospel and believed.
For that reason my ears ring with indignation every time I hear an evangelical preacher label submission to the will of God with pejorative and demeaning terms like "works' righteousness," "do's and don'ts", "mere moralism," "shoulds," "keeping the rules," "Phariseeism," "trying hard to be good," "trying to earn favor with God." If you're a preacher and you talk like that, could you please stop it? Obedience is a good thing. The Bible says, "Without holiness no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6). Unbelievers are most ripe for conversion when they are trying to be good and longing to be better. They should be encouraged in their efforts! Few things ease the work of the Holy Spirit more than a disciplined submission to the demands of conscience. By doing the will of God (and yes, this will require effort, it won't be easy, a man will indeed have to "try hard" to obey), a man will know soon enough whether Jesus spoke the truth about himself and the Father.
Of course there is an awful corollary. I am sorry to say that I have known quite a few apostates over the years - people who once professed faith in Jesus and then renounced it. In every case (I have yet to see an exception) the departure from faith was preceded by a willful rebellion against God's will. I have also noted a stunning contrast between clear-minded, thoughtful explanations of arrival to Christian faith with later vague, inarticulate, shoulder-shrugging rejections of it. (E.g., "I don't know. It's just, um - I don't want to talk about it. I just want to do what makes me happy.") Having chosen to be disobedient, they lose interest in Christ, and having lost interest, they assume him to be false without ever having bothered to engage their minds in a single rational argument about him.
When Robert Falconer (in all likelihood, a fictional projection of George MacDonald himself) came to the dark night of doubt, and could not resolve his difficulties intellectually, he had two choices. He could start sleeping with his girlfriend and become an alcoholic and train his tongue to tell lies, or he could say his nightly prayers, stay honest and chaste, and commit himself to serve his fellow man. The same kind of choice still faces all those who stand near the cliff that divides faith from unbelief.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
March 23, 2011: Reverence
In George MacDonald's The Musician's Quest, 14-year-old Robert Falconer finds a violin in his attic and brings it to a local shoemaker who knows how to play. The poor man had pawned his own violin a year earlier and had not touched one in a while. But as Dooble Sanny began to play a tune on the attic fiddle, young Robert, enraptured, resolved to become a musician himself. MacDonald writes,
What added considerably to the excitement of his feelings was the expression of reverence and awe with which the shoemaker took the instrument from its case, and the tenderness with which he handled it...The moment he began to play, the face of the shoemaker grew ecstatic. He stopped at the very first note, let his arms fall, one with the bow and the other with the violin, at his sides and exclaimed solemnly, "The creature must be a Straddle Various at least! Listen to her! I have never had such a combination of wood and catgut between my fingers before."
As to its being a Stradivarius, the testimony of Dooble Sanny was not worth much. But the shoemaker's admiration roused in the boy's mind a reverence for the individual instrument which he never lost.
The reader cherishes the hope that Robert, inspired by reverence, would go on to become a conduit of that same feeling in the hearts of others. Good reverence begets more. Seeds of reverence find fertile soil in the hearts of good people who want to be awed.
I believe that all of us who make it our business (or accept our calling) to minister the goodness of God to the souls of men must never forget the desire he has placed within them to be overwhelmed by that which is grand and holy. People are tickled by spectacle and stimulated by entertainment, but they are unlikely to be moved unless they revere. They must be moved genuinely, not by contrived attempts to manipulate their emotions but by being allowed to see, through us, quiet glimpses of wonderful things.
A friend who is thinking about going to church regularly told me that last week someone invited him to a giant church in Chicago's western suburbs. He said that they didn't actually go into the sanctuary (or is it stadium?). The church had a cafeteria or restaurant of sorts, and they ate breakfast there as people milled around and shopped and watched a live feed of the worship service on a large screen. The service featured an as-seen-on-TV inspirational speaker and (in honor of St. Patrick's Day) a professional troupe of Irish dancers who kicked up a storm. Glancing at me, my friend said, "I don't imagine that's your kind of thing, is it?"
No, I can't say that it is. Leave aside the question of whether a bacon-and-eggs, Riverdance-and-God approach to worship reflects the kind of corruption that so infuriated Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem (John 2:13-16). Just ask this: how can anybody be drawn into the presence of God in an atmosphere so deliberately casual and carnival? St. Paul wanted first-time visitors to be convicted of sin and fall down and worship, saying "God is truly among you!" (1 Corinthians 14:24-25) - not, "I kind of liked how non-threatening it was, and I must say I really had fun."
But "fun" seems to be the driving force behind many churches today. Note how many times that word appears in the following blurb for a church that recently opened in Naperville:
At Resolution Church, we believe that faith should be fun and relate to everyday life! While adults enjoy our modern worship experience, the children are having fun a few steps away in their very own theater with some of the most creative programming today...So whatever your spiritual background, we invite you to join the fun and explore Christianity at your own pace.
Like Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull, "my gorge rises" at such a revolting trivialization of Christian faith and fellowship. Concerning fun - which I like as much as the next man - it would be good for all evangelists to remember C. S. Lewis' wise comment in Mere Christianity: "Repentance is no fun at all."
Reverence and awe, not fun and games, provide the right atmosphere for a sinful soul's approach to God. In The Supremacy of God in Preaching, John Piper writes, "I have seen a strange silence begin to come over a congregation and watched the preacher, seemingly intentionally, dispel it quickly with some lighthearted quip or the use of a pun or a witticism" - as though the holy hush of reverential silence were a thing to be ashamed of rather than embraced.
But reverence rightly cultivated opens the soul to receive the benefits of all that is good - whether that be the goodness of violin music or the goodness of God.
In George MacDonald's The Musician's Quest, 14-year-old Robert Falconer finds a violin in his attic and brings it to a local shoemaker who knows how to play. The poor man had pawned his own violin a year earlier and had not touched one in a while. But as Dooble Sanny began to play a tune on the attic fiddle, young Robert, enraptured, resolved to become a musician himself. MacDonald writes,
What added considerably to the excitement of his feelings was the expression of reverence and awe with which the shoemaker took the instrument from its case, and the tenderness with which he handled it...The moment he began to play, the face of the shoemaker grew ecstatic. He stopped at the very first note, let his arms fall, one with the bow and the other with the violin, at his sides and exclaimed solemnly, "The creature must be a Straddle Various at least! Listen to her! I have never had such a combination of wood and catgut between my fingers before."
As to its being a Stradivarius, the testimony of Dooble Sanny was not worth much. But the shoemaker's admiration roused in the boy's mind a reverence for the individual instrument which he never lost.
The reader cherishes the hope that Robert, inspired by reverence, would go on to become a conduit of that same feeling in the hearts of others. Good reverence begets more. Seeds of reverence find fertile soil in the hearts of good people who want to be awed.
I believe that all of us who make it our business (or accept our calling) to minister the goodness of God to the souls of men must never forget the desire he has placed within them to be overwhelmed by that which is grand and holy. People are tickled by spectacle and stimulated by entertainment, but they are unlikely to be moved unless they revere. They must be moved genuinely, not by contrived attempts to manipulate their emotions but by being allowed to see, through us, quiet glimpses of wonderful things.
A friend who is thinking about going to church regularly told me that last week someone invited him to a giant church in Chicago's western suburbs. He said that they didn't actually go into the sanctuary (or is it stadium?). The church had a cafeteria or restaurant of sorts, and they ate breakfast there as people milled around and shopped and watched a live feed of the worship service on a large screen. The service featured an as-seen-on-TV inspirational speaker and (in honor of St. Patrick's Day) a professional troupe of Irish dancers who kicked up a storm. Glancing at me, my friend said, "I don't imagine that's your kind of thing, is it?"
No, I can't say that it is. Leave aside the question of whether a bacon-and-eggs, Riverdance-and-God approach to worship reflects the kind of corruption that so infuriated Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem (John 2:13-16). Just ask this: how can anybody be drawn into the presence of God in an atmosphere so deliberately casual and carnival? St. Paul wanted first-time visitors to be convicted of sin and fall down and worship, saying "God is truly among you!" (1 Corinthians 14:24-25) - not, "I kind of liked how non-threatening it was, and I must say I really had fun."
But "fun" seems to be the driving force behind many churches today. Note how many times that word appears in the following blurb for a church that recently opened in Naperville:
At Resolution Church, we believe that faith should be fun and relate to everyday life! While adults enjoy our modern worship experience, the children are having fun a few steps away in their very own theater with some of the most creative programming today...So whatever your spiritual background, we invite you to join the fun and explore Christianity at your own pace.
Like Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull, "my gorge rises" at such a revolting trivialization of Christian faith and fellowship. Concerning fun - which I like as much as the next man - it would be good for all evangelists to remember C. S. Lewis' wise comment in Mere Christianity: "Repentance is no fun at all."
Reverence and awe, not fun and games, provide the right atmosphere for a sinful soul's approach to God. In The Supremacy of God in Preaching, John Piper writes, "I have seen a strange silence begin to come over a congregation and watched the preacher, seemingly intentionally, dispel it quickly with some lighthearted quip or the use of a pun or a witticism" - as though the holy hush of reverential silence were a thing to be ashamed of rather than embraced.
But reverence rightly cultivated opens the soul to receive the benefits of all that is good - whether that be the goodness of violin music or the goodness of God.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
March 19, 2011: Who Is Washing Whose Feet?
Let us suppose that you are in the presence of Jesus and some foot-washing is going on. Understand first that in the ancient Middle East foot-washing was a menial job done by slaves or perhaps by the youngest member of a household. A five-year-old could do it. Independent grown men did not wash one another's feet. It was an act of deference that lesser people did for the benefit of greater people.
So again, you're with Jesus and there is a bucket and a towel handy. Who is washing whose feet? Is he washing yours, or are you washing his?
In John 13 Jesus washed his disciples' feet, and this unusual act of service - Jesus the king taking the role of a slave! - has tempted some proud souls to view Jesus as their foot-washer in chief. I have even heard sermons encouraging people to regard Jesus this way: "If Jesus were here, he'd want to wash your feet." But such rhetoric misses the point of what Jesus did that night.
Consider this: how many times did Jesus wash his disciples' feet? Once. Once only. After his resurrection four days later, he met with his disciples repeatedly and even ate with them, but it is not recorded that he ever washed their feet again. Of course, the notion of them expecting him to do so is preposterous and vile. Imagine Peter meeting Jesus later and exclaiming (while slipping out of sandals and plopping down prone on a mat), "Jesus! Good thing you're here. Boy did I step in some nasty stuff outside. Bucket's in the corner. You'll find a towel in the closet."
When Jesus washed his disciples' feet, he was not, not saying to them, "From now on I want you to view me as your humble servant. Any time you need a good foot-washing, I'm there for you." God forbid. On the contrary, Jesus made his point explicit by saying, "Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you" (John 13:13-15). The lesson was clear: Jesus served his disciples not because he was their servant, but because he wanted them to serve one another.
If you would like to picture yourself in a foot-washing episode with Jesus, the text you want to go to is Luke 7:36-48. There a penitent sinner washed Jesus' feet. While Jesus dined with a Pharisee, a woman "who had lived a sinful life" wet his feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and poured perfume on them. She grieved her sin and served Jesus with all she had. The Pharisee, on the other hand, didn't even bother providing Jesus with the normal services that should have been done for an honored guest.
The Bible likes to pair up penitent people grieving their sin with impenitent self-righteous snots and declare that only the former are forgiven. For more examples of this theme see the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee (Luke 18:9-14) and the story of the two men crucified next to Jesus (Luke 23:39-43). Penitent people hate their sin and throw themselves unconditionally at Jesus' feet. The proud, on the other hand - if they relate to Jesus at all - seem to view him as their service-provider. That service need not be foot-washing: it could be a free meal (John 6:26); a miraculous show (Luke 23:8); a manifestation of prophetic insight (Luke 7:39; 22:64); a financial windfall (Luke 12:13); or even a fiery judgment on those who irritate them (Luke 9:54).
View yourself as a servant of Jesus Christ. You're here to honor him, render service to him, do his will rather than wait for him to do yours. Demand nothing of him, but humbly plead his grace. To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, ask not what Jesus can do for you. Ask what you can do for Jesus.
Let us suppose that you are in the presence of Jesus and some foot-washing is going on. Understand first that in the ancient Middle East foot-washing was a menial job done by slaves or perhaps by the youngest member of a household. A five-year-old could do it. Independent grown men did not wash one another's feet. It was an act of deference that lesser people did for the benefit of greater people.
So again, you're with Jesus and there is a bucket and a towel handy. Who is washing whose feet? Is he washing yours, or are you washing his?
In John 13 Jesus washed his disciples' feet, and this unusual act of service - Jesus the king taking the role of a slave! - has tempted some proud souls to view Jesus as their foot-washer in chief. I have even heard sermons encouraging people to regard Jesus this way: "If Jesus were here, he'd want to wash your feet." But such rhetoric misses the point of what Jesus did that night.
Consider this: how many times did Jesus wash his disciples' feet? Once. Once only. After his resurrection four days later, he met with his disciples repeatedly and even ate with them, but it is not recorded that he ever washed their feet again. Of course, the notion of them expecting him to do so is preposterous and vile. Imagine Peter meeting Jesus later and exclaiming (while slipping out of sandals and plopping down prone on a mat), "Jesus! Good thing you're here. Boy did I step in some nasty stuff outside. Bucket's in the corner. You'll find a towel in the closet."
When Jesus washed his disciples' feet, he was not, not saying to them, "From now on I want you to view me as your humble servant. Any time you need a good foot-washing, I'm there for you." God forbid. On the contrary, Jesus made his point explicit by saying, "Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you" (John 13:13-15). The lesson was clear: Jesus served his disciples not because he was their servant, but because he wanted them to serve one another.
If you would like to picture yourself in a foot-washing episode with Jesus, the text you want to go to is Luke 7:36-48. There a penitent sinner washed Jesus' feet. While Jesus dined with a Pharisee, a woman "who had lived a sinful life" wet his feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and poured perfume on them. She grieved her sin and served Jesus with all she had. The Pharisee, on the other hand, didn't even bother providing Jesus with the normal services that should have been done for an honored guest.
The Bible likes to pair up penitent people grieving their sin with impenitent self-righteous snots and declare that only the former are forgiven. For more examples of this theme see the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee (Luke 18:9-14) and the story of the two men crucified next to Jesus (Luke 23:39-43). Penitent people hate their sin and throw themselves unconditionally at Jesus' feet. The proud, on the other hand - if they relate to Jesus at all - seem to view him as their service-provider. That service need not be foot-washing: it could be a free meal (John 6:26); a miraculous show (Luke 23:8); a manifestation of prophetic insight (Luke 7:39; 22:64); a financial windfall (Luke 12:13); or even a fiery judgment on those who irritate them (Luke 9:54).
View yourself as a servant of Jesus Christ. You're here to honor him, render service to him, do his will rather than wait for him to do yours. Demand nothing of him, but humbly plead his grace. To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, ask not what Jesus can do for you. Ask what you can do for Jesus.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
March 5, 2011: George MacDonald And The Unveiling Of Character
In The Landlady's Master, George MacDonald writes,
[W]hat we call degeneracy is often the unveiling of what was there all the time, and the evil we become, we are. If I have in me the tyrant or the miser, there he is, and such am I - as surely as if the tyrant or the miser were even now visible to the wondering dislike of my neighbors.
Something I have noticed again and again in MacDonald's novels is the way in which the deep character flaws of his villains are gradually revealed through the circumstances that come upon them. Their depravity does not always rest visibly on the surface. MacDonald is right: what appears to be a man's "fall" into corruption is often simply the manifestation of wickedness that was already there, fully formed, waiting for the right events to expose it to light. Goodness is equally latent. Circumstances do not create character so much as they reveal it.
You can think of it this way. Imagine two men who both wake up in the morning, have coffee and breakfast, shower and brush their teeth, go to work, come home, eat, run errands, go to bed. Which man is evil and which one is good? Which one - in biblical terms - is a fruitful stalk of wheat, and which one is a tare fit for burning? On a given day you may not see much to distinguish them. That is because no testing circumstances have pried open their souls to let you see what's inside.
But now start throwing circumstances at them. Give both men a bitchy wife, for example. One man suffers quietly, endures, remains faithful, tries what he can to inspire his wife to goodness, and encourages other men who are similarly burdened. The other man starts drinking, grows bitter, cheats on her, and deliberately provokes her to more outrageous behavior so that the marriage will dissolve.
Or give both men lots of money. One man lives modestly, gives generously, creates job opportunities for others, blesses his neighbor. The other buys a luxury car and a mansion and gets plastic surgery and dumps his aging wife for a trophy.
Or make them sick. Many a man's pleasant disposition depends crucially on nature's gift of energy and strength. Assault the source of his pride with debilitation so that now, in his own eyes, he amounts to little more than the object of charitable goodwill - and what becomes of his cheerful good grace?
Goodness and evil are both found deep in the heart. I do not believe in sudden falls from grace so much as I do in sudden unveilings. Nor do I believe that great acts of courage or discipline or charity can spring spontaneously from unprepared souls. As Jesus said in Luke 6:45: "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."
In The Landlady's Master, George MacDonald writes,
[W]hat we call degeneracy is often the unveiling of what was there all the time, and the evil we become, we are. If I have in me the tyrant or the miser, there he is, and such am I - as surely as if the tyrant or the miser were even now visible to the wondering dislike of my neighbors.
Something I have noticed again and again in MacDonald's novels is the way in which the deep character flaws of his villains are gradually revealed through the circumstances that come upon them. Their depravity does not always rest visibly on the surface. MacDonald is right: what appears to be a man's "fall" into corruption is often simply the manifestation of wickedness that was already there, fully formed, waiting for the right events to expose it to light. Goodness is equally latent. Circumstances do not create character so much as they reveal it.
You can think of it this way. Imagine two men who both wake up in the morning, have coffee and breakfast, shower and brush their teeth, go to work, come home, eat, run errands, go to bed. Which man is evil and which one is good? Which one - in biblical terms - is a fruitful stalk of wheat, and which one is a tare fit for burning? On a given day you may not see much to distinguish them. That is because no testing circumstances have pried open their souls to let you see what's inside.
But now start throwing circumstances at them. Give both men a bitchy wife, for example. One man suffers quietly, endures, remains faithful, tries what he can to inspire his wife to goodness, and encourages other men who are similarly burdened. The other man starts drinking, grows bitter, cheats on her, and deliberately provokes her to more outrageous behavior so that the marriage will dissolve.
Or give both men lots of money. One man lives modestly, gives generously, creates job opportunities for others, blesses his neighbor. The other buys a luxury car and a mansion and gets plastic surgery and dumps his aging wife for a trophy.
Or make them sick. Many a man's pleasant disposition depends crucially on nature's gift of energy and strength. Assault the source of his pride with debilitation so that now, in his own eyes, he amounts to little more than the object of charitable goodwill - and what becomes of his cheerful good grace?
Goodness and evil are both found deep in the heart. I do not believe in sudden falls from grace so much as I do in sudden unveilings. Nor do I believe that great acts of courage or discipline or charity can spring spontaneously from unprepared souls. As Jesus said in Luke 6:45: "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
February 19, 2011: On The Meaning And Application Of Matthew 5:28
Matthew 5:27-28: You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who even tries to seduce a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
It is very unlikely that you have ever seen Matthew 5:28 translated the way I have it above. In all Bible versions I know, and in every sermon I have ever heard on the subject, the Greek wording of Matthew 5:28 is interpreted to mean "Anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Imagine my amazement when I discovered, in reading a commentary by top Greek scholar D. A. Carson, that the traditional understanding of this verse is wrong. How wrong? Believe it or not, best grammatical evidence suggests that the subject of the verb "to lust" (or "to desire") is not the man but the woman! That is, the sense of the verse is, "Anyone who looks at a woman in order to get her to lust has committed adultery with her in his heart". Or, more succinctly in English, "Anyone who tries to seduce a woman...". Jesus is condemning not merely the act of adultery but even the look (not to mention the schemes!) by which a man would seek to entice a woman who is not, and can never be, his wife.
Carson writes, "The evidence for this interpretation is strong," but now that I have investigated the Greek myself I would go further and say it is decisive. The following discussion is a little technical; if you would like to skip it, go to the practical application that starts several paragraphs below with the words, "Where does that leave us?"
First, the verb. epithumēo means "[I] desire." Sometimes that is a bad thing ("lust," "covet"); sometimes it is a good thing, as in 1 Timothy 3:1: "If any man aspires to be an elder, he desires a good thing." Context determines whether it is good or bad. So I will translate it with the neutral word "desire."
The verb "desire" in New Testament Koine Greek usually does not take a noun as a direct object. Sometimes there is no object at all:
Romans 7:7; 13:9: You shall not desire [i.e., You shall not covet]
James 4:2: You desire but do not have [i.e., You lust but do not possess]
And sometimes the object is a whole verb phrase - the desire to do something:
Luke 22:15: "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."
1 Peter 1:12: Even angels desire to look into these things.
In the Matthew 5:28 passage, the traditional interpretation understands the verb to have an explicit direct object: "He desires her." In the interpretation that Carson prefers, "She desires," the verb functions in its more typical role - that is, without an overt nominal direct object.
Second, the case marking. If the Greek word for she/her is the direct object of "desire" in Matthew 5:28, then it's in the wrong case! In every other instance in the New Testament where the verb "desire" takes a noun as its direct object, the noun is in the genitive case:
Acts 20:33: I have not coveted (desired) anyone’s silver [genitive] or gold [genitive] or clothing [genitive].
1 Corinthians 10:6: Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on (desiring) evil things [genitive] as they did.
1 Timothy 3:1: Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone aspires to be an elder, he desires a noble task [genitive].
The Greek word for "her" in Matthew 5:28, however, is not in the genitive case. It is in the accusative case.
Third, the verb "desire" in Matthew 5:28 is infinitive: "to desire." Guess what Greek does to a noun when it wants to make it the subject of an infinitive verb? It puts it in the accusative case! English does the same. We say, "I expect him to run for mayor," not, "I expect he to run for mayor." We say, "In order for him to achieve his goal...", not "In order for he to achieve his goal...".
So, the grammatical case of the Greek word "her" is not what you would expect if the woman were the object of "to desire," but it is what you would expect if the woman were the subject of "to desire."
Fourth, we have a parallel grammatical construction in Luke 18:1 that everyone agrees on. In English it reads, "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." Very literally in Greek, the key parallel phrase reads
about the to pray them
which matches perfectly with Matthew 5:28's
about the to lust her
In Luke 18:1, it goes without saying that the third person plural pronoun is the subject of "pray": they are the ones who are doing the praying. Likewise, in Matthew 5:28, the third person singular feminine pronoun is the subject of "desire": she is the one who is doing the desiring. If the grammatical construction of Luke 18:1 were interpreted according to the traditional understanding of Matthew 5:28, we would have to assume that the disciples were the ones being prayed to! Carson is correct: Matthew 5:28 means, "Whoever looks at woman in order to inspire her to lust has committed adultery with her in his heart."
Where does that leave us?
In Matthew 5:28, what Jesus is doing is ripping open a man's heart to expose his adulterous intentions. It is not enough to say, as a Pharisee might, "I have never committed adultery or fornicated." There is a deeper question to be asked: "Have you ever tried?" For many men, the only reason they are not adulterers is because the women that they longed to seduce were turned off by them! But their failure to get women to be immoral with them does not count as a point in their favor when reckoning sexual purity. God sees them as adulterers.
Here Jesus condemns even the subtlest measure - the look, the meaningful gaze - whose intent is to arouse an unavailable woman's affection and to win sexual favors from her. Whether the man succeeds in his attempted conquest is beside the point. What matters is his purpose. The "player," as we might call him, sends out signals, subtle or bold, in hopes of inspiring in some woman a desire for himself which might result in sexual gratification without marriage. A good passage to cross-reference with Matthew 5:28 is 2 Timothy 3:5-6, where Paul instructs Timothy to avoid seemingly godly men (they have "a form of godliness") who are actually vile hypocrites. One expression of their wickedness: "They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women." That is, they would exploit a woman's vulnerability rather than protect her virtue.
I mentioned last week that one of the features of George MacDonald's novels that so appeals to me is the gracious and gentle way that the good men in his books treat the women of their acquaintance. Sometimes they marry and sometimes they don't. But whether single, courting, or married, they behave as perfect gentlemen with regard to the opposite sex. They neither exploit them nor shun them. They are sensitive to feminine weakness without being patronizing. When they find that, quite by accident - just by being themselves - they have aroused the passion of some woman whom they will not marry, they treat her with beautiful kindness from a respectful and appropriate distance.
Christian men must do likewise. We must guard not only our own hearts but those of our sisters. The only woman for whom you are permitted to stir up a desire for yourself is the woman whom you are willing to marry. Or to whom you are already married.
Matthew 5:27-28: You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who even tries to seduce a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
It is very unlikely that you have ever seen Matthew 5:28 translated the way I have it above. In all Bible versions I know, and in every sermon I have ever heard on the subject, the Greek wording of Matthew 5:28 is interpreted to mean "Anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Imagine my amazement when I discovered, in reading a commentary by top Greek scholar D. A. Carson, that the traditional understanding of this verse is wrong. How wrong? Believe it or not, best grammatical evidence suggests that the subject of the verb "to lust" (or "to desire") is not the man but the woman! That is, the sense of the verse is, "Anyone who looks at a woman in order to get her to lust has committed adultery with her in his heart". Or, more succinctly in English, "Anyone who tries to seduce a woman...". Jesus is condemning not merely the act of adultery but even the look (not to mention the schemes!) by which a man would seek to entice a woman who is not, and can never be, his wife.
Carson writes, "The evidence for this interpretation is strong," but now that I have investigated the Greek myself I would go further and say it is decisive. The following discussion is a little technical; if you would like to skip it, go to the practical application that starts several paragraphs below with the words, "Where does that leave us?"
First, the verb. epithumēo means "[I] desire." Sometimes that is a bad thing ("lust," "covet"); sometimes it is a good thing, as in 1 Timothy 3:1: "If any man aspires to be an elder, he desires a good thing." Context determines whether it is good or bad. So I will translate it with the neutral word "desire."
The verb "desire" in New Testament Koine Greek usually does not take a noun as a direct object. Sometimes there is no object at all:
Romans 7:7; 13:9: You shall not desire [i.e., You shall not covet]
James 4:2: You desire but do not have [i.e., You lust but do not possess]
And sometimes the object is a whole verb phrase - the desire to do something:
Luke 22:15: "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."
1 Peter 1:12: Even angels desire to look into these things.
In the Matthew 5:28 passage, the traditional interpretation understands the verb to have an explicit direct object: "He desires her." In the interpretation that Carson prefers, "She desires," the verb functions in its more typical role - that is, without an overt nominal direct object.
Second, the case marking. If the Greek word for she/her is the direct object of "desire" in Matthew 5:28, then it's in the wrong case! In every other instance in the New Testament where the verb "desire" takes a noun as its direct object, the noun is in the genitive case:
Acts 20:33: I have not coveted (desired) anyone’s silver [genitive] or gold [genitive] or clothing [genitive].
1 Corinthians 10:6: Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on (desiring) evil things [genitive] as they did.
1 Timothy 3:1: Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone aspires to be an elder, he desires a noble task [genitive].
The Greek word for "her" in Matthew 5:28, however, is not in the genitive case. It is in the accusative case.
Third, the verb "desire" in Matthew 5:28 is infinitive: "to desire." Guess what Greek does to a noun when it wants to make it the subject of an infinitive verb? It puts it in the accusative case! English does the same. We say, "I expect him to run for mayor," not, "I expect he to run for mayor." We say, "In order for him to achieve his goal...", not "In order for he to achieve his goal...".
So, the grammatical case of the Greek word "her" is not what you would expect if the woman were the object of "to desire," but it is what you would expect if the woman were the subject of "to desire."
Fourth, we have a parallel grammatical construction in Luke 18:1 that everyone agrees on. In English it reads, "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." Very literally in Greek, the key parallel phrase reads
about the to pray them
which matches perfectly with Matthew 5:28's
about the to lust her
In Luke 18:1, it goes without saying that the third person plural pronoun is the subject of "pray": they are the ones who are doing the praying. Likewise, in Matthew 5:28, the third person singular feminine pronoun is the subject of "desire": she is the one who is doing the desiring. If the grammatical construction of Luke 18:1 were interpreted according to the traditional understanding of Matthew 5:28, we would have to assume that the disciples were the ones being prayed to! Carson is correct: Matthew 5:28 means, "Whoever looks at woman in order to inspire her to lust has committed adultery with her in his heart."
Where does that leave us?
In Matthew 5:28, what Jesus is doing is ripping open a man's heart to expose his adulterous intentions. It is not enough to say, as a Pharisee might, "I have never committed adultery or fornicated." There is a deeper question to be asked: "Have you ever tried?" For many men, the only reason they are not adulterers is because the women that they longed to seduce were turned off by them! But their failure to get women to be immoral with them does not count as a point in their favor when reckoning sexual purity. God sees them as adulterers.
Here Jesus condemns even the subtlest measure - the look, the meaningful gaze - whose intent is to arouse an unavailable woman's affection and to win sexual favors from her. Whether the man succeeds in his attempted conquest is beside the point. What matters is his purpose. The "player," as we might call him, sends out signals, subtle or bold, in hopes of inspiring in some woman a desire for himself which might result in sexual gratification without marriage. A good passage to cross-reference with Matthew 5:28 is 2 Timothy 3:5-6, where Paul instructs Timothy to avoid seemingly godly men (they have "a form of godliness") who are actually vile hypocrites. One expression of their wickedness: "They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women." That is, they would exploit a woman's vulnerability rather than protect her virtue.
I mentioned last week that one of the features of George MacDonald's novels that so appeals to me is the gracious and gentle way that the good men in his books treat the women of their acquaintance. Sometimes they marry and sometimes they don't. But whether single, courting, or married, they behave as perfect gentlemen with regard to the opposite sex. They neither exploit them nor shun them. They are sensitive to feminine weakness without being patronizing. When they find that, quite by accident - just by being themselves - they have aroused the passion of some woman whom they will not marry, they treat her with beautiful kindness from a respectful and appropriate distance.
Christian men must do likewise. We must guard not only our own hearts but those of our sisters. The only woman for whom you are permitted to stir up a desire for yourself is the woman whom you are willing to marry. Or to whom you are already married.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
February 12, 2011: His Sister's Keeper: George MacDonald And The Honorable Treatment Of Women
The good men in George MacDonald's novels always treat women with dignity. MacDonald taught that no good man ever violates a woman's honor, or even attempts to compromise it. If a woman of his acquaintance is weak, the man of moral conscience - far from exploiting her vulnerability - will protect her and help her to do right. He will even shield her from the darkest features of his own corruption, his own temptations to seize her as prey.
In The Highlander's Last Song, a worldly businessman, at dinner with other men, maintains, "it is necessary for developing manhood that young men should drink a little and gamble a little and sow a few wild oats...A fellow that will neither look at a woman nor drink his glass is not cut out for a man's work in the world!"
A Christian at the table responds,
"Pray, Mr. Palmer, let us understand each other: do you believe God made woman to be the slave of man? Can you believe he ever made a woman that she might be dishonored - that a man might caress and despise her?"
Palmer replies,
"I know nothing about God's intention; all I say is we must obey the laws of our nature."
The Christian answers,
"Is conscience, then, not a law of our nature? Is it not even on the level of our instincts? Must not the lower laws be subject to the higher? It is a law - forever broken, yet eternal - that a man is his brother's keeper: still more must he be his sister's keeper."
His sister's keeper - the phrase comes up more than once in MacDonald's writings. We see it again in The Lady's Confession, where a doctor confesses to a minister that, as a young medical student, he seduced a woman and fathered a child with her out of wedlock. He did not know what became of the woman or their offspring (he could barely remember if it was a boy or girl!). Concerning that old "romantic fling," MacDonald writes,
"He did her no end of kindness - taught her much, gave her good advice, still gave her books, went to chapel sometimes with her on a Sunday evening, took her to concerts and the theater, and would have protected her from every enemy, real and imaginary. But all the while he was slowly depriving her of the last line of her self-defense against an enemy neither he nor she could see. For how is an ignorant man to protect even a woman he loves from the hidden god of his idolatry - his own grand, contemptible self?...With all his tender feelings and generous love of humanity, [he] had not yet learned the simple lesson of humanity - that a man who would be his brother's keeper, or his sister's, must protect every woman first of all from himself."
Neglecting to protect a vulnerable young lady from himself, the narcissist physician condemned the poor woman to a miserable life of single motherhood while he quietly moved on to success and relative ease. He felt a bit guilty, but soothed his conscience by blaming her for most of it.
Some years ago when I was a pastor a woman with a heavy heart came to speak to me. Naive and bewildered, she had fallen hard for a powerful older man who had seemed to be a model of mature Christian virtue. Cherishing hopes that he would some day be hers, she ventured intimacy with him. But he used her a few times and then dumped her. Despite his actions, she continued to wrestle with a longing for him, and wondered whether somehow she might still have a future with him.
Gently as I could I told her what MacDonald said about how a good man protects rather than seduces a woman - protects her even from himself! And any man who could not do that was not worth having. I also thought it best to tell her (though I'm sure it was painful) what my intuition affirmed to be true: that what this man had done to her he had almost certainly done to other women as well. That is because a man either treats women with respect or he does not. Seduction is an art practiced by repeat offenders, not by chronically innocent men of honor.
So far I have counted no less than three occasions in MacDonald's books where a woman confesses her love to a good man and all but proposes to him. (It makes me wonder if such a thing happened to MacDonald himself!) In each case the good man, who knows he cannot marry the woman, treats her with the kindest of grace and charity and good will. But he carefully refrains from embracing her, or taking her hand, or doing anything at all to encourage an attachment to him that he cannot honorably fulfill.
In other words, he obeys the commandment of Matthew 5:28 according to its true meaning. More on that next week, Lord willing.
The good men in George MacDonald's novels always treat women with dignity. MacDonald taught that no good man ever violates a woman's honor, or even attempts to compromise it. If a woman of his acquaintance is weak, the man of moral conscience - far from exploiting her vulnerability - will protect her and help her to do right. He will even shield her from the darkest features of his own corruption, his own temptations to seize her as prey.
In The Highlander's Last Song, a worldly businessman, at dinner with other men, maintains, "it is necessary for developing manhood that young men should drink a little and gamble a little and sow a few wild oats...A fellow that will neither look at a woman nor drink his glass is not cut out for a man's work in the world!"
A Christian at the table responds,
"Pray, Mr. Palmer, let us understand each other: do you believe God made woman to be the slave of man? Can you believe he ever made a woman that she might be dishonored - that a man might caress and despise her?"
Palmer replies,
"I know nothing about God's intention; all I say is we must obey the laws of our nature."
The Christian answers,
"Is conscience, then, not a law of our nature? Is it not even on the level of our instincts? Must not the lower laws be subject to the higher? It is a law - forever broken, yet eternal - that a man is his brother's keeper: still more must he be his sister's keeper."
His sister's keeper - the phrase comes up more than once in MacDonald's writings. We see it again in The Lady's Confession, where a doctor confesses to a minister that, as a young medical student, he seduced a woman and fathered a child with her out of wedlock. He did not know what became of the woman or their offspring (he could barely remember if it was a boy or girl!). Concerning that old "romantic fling," MacDonald writes,
"He did her no end of kindness - taught her much, gave her good advice, still gave her books, went to chapel sometimes with her on a Sunday evening, took her to concerts and the theater, and would have protected her from every enemy, real and imaginary. But all the while he was slowly depriving her of the last line of her self-defense against an enemy neither he nor she could see. For how is an ignorant man to protect even a woman he loves from the hidden god of his idolatry - his own grand, contemptible self?...With all his tender feelings and generous love of humanity, [he] had not yet learned the simple lesson of humanity - that a man who would be his brother's keeper, or his sister's, must protect every woman first of all from himself."
Neglecting to protect a vulnerable young lady from himself, the narcissist physician condemned the poor woman to a miserable life of single motherhood while he quietly moved on to success and relative ease. He felt a bit guilty, but soothed his conscience by blaming her for most of it.
Some years ago when I was a pastor a woman with a heavy heart came to speak to me. Naive and bewildered, she had fallen hard for a powerful older man who had seemed to be a model of mature Christian virtue. Cherishing hopes that he would some day be hers, she ventured intimacy with him. But he used her a few times and then dumped her. Despite his actions, she continued to wrestle with a longing for him, and wondered whether somehow she might still have a future with him.
Gently as I could I told her what MacDonald said about how a good man protects rather than seduces a woman - protects her even from himself! And any man who could not do that was not worth having. I also thought it best to tell her (though I'm sure it was painful) what my intuition affirmed to be true: that what this man had done to her he had almost certainly done to other women as well. That is because a man either treats women with respect or he does not. Seduction is an art practiced by repeat offenders, not by chronically innocent men of honor.
So far I have counted no less than three occasions in MacDonald's books where a woman confesses her love to a good man and all but proposes to him. (It makes me wonder if such a thing happened to MacDonald himself!) In each case the good man, who knows he cannot marry the woman, treats her with the kindest of grace and charity and good will. But he carefully refrains from embracing her, or taking her hand, or doing anything at all to encourage an attachment to him that he cannot honorably fulfill.
In other words, he obeys the commandment of Matthew 5:28 according to its true meaning. More on that next week, Lord willing.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
February 6, 2011: George MacDonald
Please read George MacDonald's novels.
MacDonald (1824-1905; contemporary of Twain and Dickens) was a Scottish preacher, poet, novelist, fantasy writer. I became aware of him through the writings of C. S. Lewis, who called MacDonald "my master," published an anthology of MacDonald quotations, and affirmed that he himself never wrote a book without quoting MacDonald. Lewis selected MacDonald as his tour guide through heaven in my favorite Lewis book, The Great Divorce.
Now that I have read five MacDonald novels, and plan to read them all, I understand why Lewis, of whom I am in awe, was so in awe of him. Never, ever, have I read a more compelling moral voice or more thrilling expositor of goodness. MacDonald's characters make a person ache for holiness. Lewis experienced that ache when reading MacDonald as a young man - though, as an atheist from the ages of 16-30, he refused for many years to admit it to himself.
You can order MacDonald novels through Amazon. His used paperbacks are very cheap, sometimes just 1 cent, with the 4 dollar shipping fee. Get the ones edited by Michael Phillips. I'm afraid - unless you're Scottish! - you won't be able to read MacDonald in the original. He wrote in Scottish brogue. If you can make sense of the following
It'll be upo' them to haud them doon, an' the haill hoose agin' the watter...I'm thinkin' we'll lowse them a'else; for the byre wa's 'till gang afore the hoose
then feel free to read MacDonald in the original. I can't. For my part, I thank God for scholar and translator Michael Phillips, who has rendered the great teacher intelligible.
Over the next few weeks, Lord willing, I would like to outline and comment upon some themes that come up regularly in Macdonald's works.
I would be delighted beyond measure if anyone reports back to me that he or she has read a MacDonald novel and stirred to rejoice over the holiness in it.
Please read George MacDonald's novels.
MacDonald (1824-1905; contemporary of Twain and Dickens) was a Scottish preacher, poet, novelist, fantasy writer. I became aware of him through the writings of C. S. Lewis, who called MacDonald "my master," published an anthology of MacDonald quotations, and affirmed that he himself never wrote a book without quoting MacDonald. Lewis selected MacDonald as his tour guide through heaven in my favorite Lewis book, The Great Divorce.
Now that I have read five MacDonald novels, and plan to read them all, I understand why Lewis, of whom I am in awe, was so in awe of him. Never, ever, have I read a more compelling moral voice or more thrilling expositor of goodness. MacDonald's characters make a person ache for holiness. Lewis experienced that ache when reading MacDonald as a young man - though, as an atheist from the ages of 16-30, he refused for many years to admit it to himself.
You can order MacDonald novels through Amazon. His used paperbacks are very cheap, sometimes just 1 cent, with the 4 dollar shipping fee. Get the ones edited by Michael Phillips. I'm afraid - unless you're Scottish! - you won't be able to read MacDonald in the original. He wrote in Scottish brogue. If you can make sense of the following
It'll be upo' them to haud them doon, an' the haill hoose agin' the watter...I'm thinkin' we'll lowse them a'else; for the byre wa's 'till gang afore the hoose
then feel free to read MacDonald in the original. I can't. For my part, I thank God for scholar and translator Michael Phillips, who has rendered the great teacher intelligible.
Over the next few weeks, Lord willing, I would like to outline and comment upon some themes that come up regularly in Macdonald's works.
I would be delighted beyond measure if anyone reports back to me that he or she has read a MacDonald novel and stirred to rejoice over the holiness in it.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
January 29, 2011: Make God Happy
In recent days I have had the joy of sharing in a small group and in a nursing home chapel service my favorite Bible verse. It's John 3:30: He must become greater; I must become less. I selected it as my life verse when I was in college more than 25 years ago. John the Baptist said it when asked (you have to read between the lines) if he was jealous of Jesus. Friends had come to him and said, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan - the one you testified about - well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him." (John 3:26)
John was used to commanding the attention of thousands, but now his crowds (his crowds?) were all following Jesus. Did that bother him? Did he feel a bit pushed to the side, under-appreciated, out of the loop? His quiet answer reveals a heart of perfect humility:
A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride belongs to the groom. The friend who attends the groom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the groom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.
John's selflessness compels my admiration. He lived and worked only for the sake of Jesus Christ. The glory and honor and delight that Jesus experienced mattered more to John than anything, and he found his joy in the exaltation of his Lord. John considered himself a mere best man at a wedding between Jesus and all who would yield to him. Any attention John drew to himself would necessarily be siphoned off from Christ - abominable thought! Let all glory and honor be Christ's. Let him become greater and greater, and I less and less.
The other day my heart sank as I heard a preacher explain from the pulpit, "I don't read my Bible every day because it makes God happy." God's happiness was an irrelevance to him. He explained how he engaged in spiritual discipline for his own sake, for his own spiritual development and need: "I read my Bible every day because I need more of Jesus."
I certainly recommend acknowledging a need for Jesus, and I agree that one of the best ways to draw near to the Incarnate Word is through the Written Word. But to value one's own enrichment - even spiritual enrichment - over the pleasure of God is to invert the biblical order of priorities that must motivate our goodness! As Calvin wrote, "zeal [for God's glory] ought to exceed all thought and care for our own good and advantage."
After dismissing God's happiness as a motive for Bible reading, the preacher then went on to dismiss God's wrath as a motive for prayer. "I don't pray every day because I'm afraid of God," he said. What motivated his prayer (rather than a fear of the Lord) was the benefit he received personally: prayer helped him to be a better husband and a more godly leader.
We stand on dangerous ground when the prospect of God's pleasure does not inspire us and the prospect of his wrath does not frighten us. We tread the road toward corruption when we stop asking, "How will this action affect God?" and ask only, "How will this affect me?"
I confess to a growing hunger for preaching that places God rather than ourselves at the center of every thought and act and word and motive. Goodness must be practiced because it pleases God, because it makes God happy, because it delights the heart of God, because it brings greater honor and glory and pleasure to God. And sin must be shunned because God hates it, because God judges it, because God is provoked to wrath and displeasure because of it. Value his pleasure and fear his wrath! When you eliminate from your consideration the pleasures and displeasures of God ("I don't do this in order to make God happy"; "I don't shun this because I'm afraid of God") you risk making your faith a self-centered monstrosity where God's honor is an afterthought.
In the humility of John the Baptist I find blessed refuge from the self-centered inward gaze to which I myself am relentlessly tempted. Let Christ become greater. So what if I become less? Let the motivation for my actions and thoughts be the happiness, pleasure, honor and glory of Christ. And let the prospect of angering or displeasing him - diminishing his glory, staining his honor - cause me to tremble with shame, and fill me with righteous fear.
In recent days I have had the joy of sharing in a small group and in a nursing home chapel service my favorite Bible verse. It's John 3:30: He must become greater; I must become less. I selected it as my life verse when I was in college more than 25 years ago. John the Baptist said it when asked (you have to read between the lines) if he was jealous of Jesus. Friends had come to him and said, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan - the one you testified about - well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him." (John 3:26)
John was used to commanding the attention of thousands, but now his crowds (his crowds?) were all following Jesus. Did that bother him? Did he feel a bit pushed to the side, under-appreciated, out of the loop? His quiet answer reveals a heart of perfect humility:
A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride belongs to the groom. The friend who attends the groom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the groom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.
John's selflessness compels my admiration. He lived and worked only for the sake of Jesus Christ. The glory and honor and delight that Jesus experienced mattered more to John than anything, and he found his joy in the exaltation of his Lord. John considered himself a mere best man at a wedding between Jesus and all who would yield to him. Any attention John drew to himself would necessarily be siphoned off from Christ - abominable thought! Let all glory and honor be Christ's. Let him become greater and greater, and I less and less.
The other day my heart sank as I heard a preacher explain from the pulpit, "I don't read my Bible every day because it makes God happy." God's happiness was an irrelevance to him. He explained how he engaged in spiritual discipline for his own sake, for his own spiritual development and need: "I read my Bible every day because I need more of Jesus."
I certainly recommend acknowledging a need for Jesus, and I agree that one of the best ways to draw near to the Incarnate Word is through the Written Word. But to value one's own enrichment - even spiritual enrichment - over the pleasure of God is to invert the biblical order of priorities that must motivate our goodness! As Calvin wrote, "zeal [for God's glory] ought to exceed all thought and care for our own good and advantage."
After dismissing God's happiness as a motive for Bible reading, the preacher then went on to dismiss God's wrath as a motive for prayer. "I don't pray every day because I'm afraid of God," he said. What motivated his prayer (rather than a fear of the Lord) was the benefit he received personally: prayer helped him to be a better husband and a more godly leader.
We stand on dangerous ground when the prospect of God's pleasure does not inspire us and the prospect of his wrath does not frighten us. We tread the road toward corruption when we stop asking, "How will this action affect God?" and ask only, "How will this affect me?"
I confess to a growing hunger for preaching that places God rather than ourselves at the center of every thought and act and word and motive. Goodness must be practiced because it pleases God, because it makes God happy, because it delights the heart of God, because it brings greater honor and glory and pleasure to God. And sin must be shunned because God hates it, because God judges it, because God is provoked to wrath and displeasure because of it. Value his pleasure and fear his wrath! When you eliminate from your consideration the pleasures and displeasures of God ("I don't do this in order to make God happy"; "I don't shun this because I'm afraid of God") you risk making your faith a self-centered monstrosity where God's honor is an afterthought.
In the humility of John the Baptist I find blessed refuge from the self-centered inward gaze to which I myself am relentlessly tempted. Let Christ become greater. So what if I become less? Let the motivation for my actions and thoughts be the happiness, pleasure, honor and glory of Christ. And let the prospect of angering or displeasing him - diminishing his glory, staining his honor - cause me to tremble with shame, and fill me with righteous fear.
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