God, That Hurts! (January 22, 2006)

A friend of mine in college told me about the time an orthopedist manipulated his injured ankle while asking, "Does this hurt?" My friend said "YES! That hurts." Then the orthopedist kept right on working the ankle and my friend, thinking that the man was hard of hearing, said, "That hurts! I said that HURTS!" The doctor calmly responded, "Oh, I'm not trying to find out if it hurts any more."

My friend had assumed that the doctor was trying to minimize his pain - but apparently he had some other good reason for rotating my friend's foot like a corkscrew. My guess is that he was aiming at a more accurate diagnosis.

That incident came to mind when a devout friend wrote to me recently about some nastiness he was suffering. He understands that God teaches us things through our sorrows. Yet he wrote, "But sometimes I just want to say 'Enough already, I get it, I get it - there couldn't possibly be anything more I could learn from this pain.'"

I think he's right. Maybe there is still some lesson he needs to learn, but I doubt it. I suspect the reason lies elsewhere. In saying, "I get it, I get it!" he is probably like my broken-ankled friend saying "That hurts! That hurts!" - to which God might respond, "Oh, I know. At this point I'm not trying to teach you anything."

So what is God trying to do? I don't know, but it won't hurt to throw out a couple guesses - as long as it is understood that these are mere guesses.

Maybe your trial will benefit someone else in ways you could never imagine. I once wrote a whole Pastor's Page on this (“Do We Always Benefit From Suffering?” - August 14, 2005), so I won't belabor the point. But I know that I need to remind myself that even when my sufferings have been mined for all the possible benefit they can do
me, the divine drilling may continue strictly for the sake of someone else. Maybe if I could talk to God and say, "This isn't refining me any more!" he would respond, "Child, it isn't you I'm refining."

I wonder if the apostles of our Lord ever got sick of the beatings and imprisonments and death sentences and were driven to say, "Lord, is this really necessary? I think you know by now that I am loyal to you! These pains sure aren't making me any holier." But I don't think those sufferings were mainly for their sakes. They were for ours. To me one of the strongest evidences for the resurrection of Christ is the fact that the apostles were willing to suffer so much for it. That was unpleasant for them, but it is a constant support for my faith.

Another of God's goals when he keeps "twisting our broken ankles" may be to make heaven all the sweeter for us. I believe there are only two ways for a saved person to increase his reward in heaven: (1) Do good, or (2) Suffer a lot. The first factor is one we can control, the second is one that just kind of happens to us. I think that most of us know that we can make our heaven better by doing good, but maybe it is less widely appreciated that suffering (as long as we don't self-inflict it) has much the same effect. Jesus talked a lot about the last being first, the mourners being comforted, the hungry being fed, etc. Look at the story of poor Lazarus in Luke 16! A wretched earthly life yielded to a blissful eternity. Where grief has abounded, joy will abound all the more.

In the meantime, we just keep trusting God.

Helping Others When You Have Nothing Left (January 15, 2006)

Are you running on empty?

I suppose there comes a time in most people's lives when, in one way or another, they're running on empty - or at least on fumes. Maybe it is money they have run out of. They can't pay their bills. Maybe they have run out of patience for solving a domestic problem. Maybe their idealism has evaporated and left them cynical about doing any good in the world. Maybe their wells of creativity have gone dry (pastors know this!), and they fear they can't open their mouths without boring the bejeebers out of people.

I have a word for those who have nearly run out of money, energy, ideas, hope, or even goodwill: God may still require your fumes. He required the fumes of a desperate woman in 1 Kings 17. The prophet Elijah needed food, but God, rather than sending him to a wealthy patron with stockpiled provisions, sent him to a widow who had almost nothing. When Elijah asked her for bread, she explained that she had only a tiny bit of flour and oil with which she was going to make a meal for herself and her son before they starved. Elijah said, "Make some bread for me first."

That seems so wrong. Wouldn't it have been better to say, "Terribly sorry. I'll go beg elsewhere - enjoy your last meal"? But Elijah was just being obedient. In verse 9 God had told him that he had commanded this woman to feed him. It pleased God to supply Elijah's need from the near-empty cupboard of a miserable widow who was waiting to die. Then, of course, it pleased God to replenish her stock with just
enough food to feed Elijah, her boy and herself till relief came.

Sometimes our cup is filled to overflowing; sometimes there is just a bare runnel of fluid that will hardly collect to a single drop. But that drop is precious in the eyes of God when shaken out onto the tongue of a thirsting soul. Maybe it is the word of encouragement you give to a grieving spirit just before you retreat to your own room to cry your eyes out. Maybe it is the support check you write to a missionary that drops your own balance to zero. Maybe it is the favor you do for somebody that eats up the last minute of your available time.

What a humbling experience it has been for me to discover that some need of mine was supplied by an exhausted individual giving the last he or she had. And what a boon to faith it has been when my own hopeless fumes gave hopeful encouragement to some needy Elijah. Some varieties of God's grace seem only to abound when our resources most severely abate.

God still has good use for your near-empty tank.

Sinners Are Boring (January 8, 2006)

Evil gets dull after a while.

I mulled this over recently when I read Walter Scott's answer to a Parade reader who asked, "Is it my imagination or has "Desperate Housewives" become boring?" Scott answered, "If anyone's imagination is failing, it's not yours; it's that of the writers of 'Desperate Housewives', who've run out of ideas about how to keep five monotonously promiscuous suburban women fresh and entertaining."

I've never seen "Desperate Housewives", but I have no doubt that the reader's evaluation and Scott's analysis are correct. Evil, whether in the form of promiscuity or any other vice, just doesn't have staying power. After it entices and entraps, it bores.

One fine fall afternoon 20 years ago I sat in the Quad of the University of Illinois and overheard a conversation between two students about the upcoming parties that weekend. It was unbearably sad. These two had evidently partied themselves out, and their conversation turned into a grim analysis of how pathetic and disappointing the weekend's gatherings would be. But they would probably go to them all the same.

I once saw a snippet of an interview with a man - I think he was the manager of a Las Vegas show - whose job included the regular evaluation of bare-breasted young dancers. Certainly that's the dream job of any reprobate male, but he intoned lifelessly to the interviewer, "To me this is like mixing cement."

It probably wasn't like mixing cement the first few times. But my guess is that it got old quicker even than literal cement mixing, which, if done diligently for the sake of building roads and homes while providing work for a man's body and sustenance for his family, would eventually bring more satisfaction than constant breast-gazing.

Virtue is the winning tortoise to vice's spent and exhausted hare. Read a novel like Leif Enger's Peace Like a River (I'm trying to get everybody to read it) and notice how the holiest character (the father, a janitor) is also the most compelling. The same goes for The Chronicles of Narnia with its diamond stars Lucy, Reepicheep, Puddleglum and of course Aslan. Take any George MacDonald novel and the same pattern holds. Evil is a shallow puddle whose resources are soon sucked dry; goodness is an ocean whose bottom you cannot sound and whose farthest shore you cannot reach.

I am certain the writers of "Desperate Housewives" would take no counsel from me, but I think I can solve the riddle of "how to keep five monotonously promiscuous suburban women fresh and entertaining."

Easy. Get them to repent.

Can We Believe St. Paul Was Divinely Inspired? (December 25, 2005)

Last installment from my son’s letter from college:

"The professor challenged the assumption that Paul's words could be thought of as divine...Now obviously, Paul's word is not absolute, as women don't wear cloth over their heads, but with what seems to us such faulty morality [regarding Paul's words on slavery], why are we to believe that Paul was, in fact, divinely inspired?"

I replied:

There must be an explanation for what turned Paul from a murderer of Christians into a man who spent the last 30 years of his life as a ruthlessly persecuted Christian himself. Maybe he was just a nut - and a very unlucky one at that to have had religious hallucinations that worked so vigorously to his disadvantage. I think it is more reasonable to believe that he was telling the truth, that the risen Christ had appeared to him on the road to Damascus and turned his life around and commissioned him to speak God's word to the Gentiles.

Ultimately it is a matter of faith whether one accepts that Paul (or any other biblical writer) was inspired by God. Can you know it for sure in the same way that you know that two and two are four? Can you prove it like Pythagorean theorem? No. You can simply read Paul's words claiming divine authority ("If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing you is
the Lord's command" - 1 Corinthians 14:37), and then either accept it or reject it. Maybe Paul was a mouthpiece of God, or maybe he was an ego-drunk, power hungry, manipulative gas bag. Choose.

Do you remember the scene in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where the crew came to Ramandu's island and saw a magnificent feast laid out but were afraid to eat it? They thought the food and wine were the cause of a deep sleep that had settled (for years, apparently) over three figures seated at one end of the table. Ramandu's daughter appeared and told the hungry crew to eat. They explained their fears of enchantment, and she told them that the sleepers had never touched the food. When Edmund asked how they could know this for sure, she told them they could not. They could either eat the food or leave it alone. They could trust her and risk that she was deceiving them; they could distrust her and go hungry.

Noble Reepicheep broke the silence that followed by saying, "I will drink to the lady." He partook and suffered no ill effects and the rest joined in.

It is kind of like that with Scripture. The Bible itself says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8). To press the metaphor of feasting, I would likewise say that we must "eat" the Scriptures - but we must do so wisely. Though everything on the table is good, that does not mean we eat all of it the same way. (We eat teaspoonfuls of pudding, not teaspoonfuls of salt). Some examples might help explain
what I mean.

I take St. Paul's word as inspired and authoritative, but that does not mean that I have got a room ready for him in obedience to his command in Philemon 22: "And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me..." We all know that that was a temporary, specific command for Philemon and it does not apply directly to us. (Though indirectly we might draw from it a lesson about hospitality.) Likewise, I don't kiss anyone at Faith Bible Church - despite Paul's insistence that Romans and Corinthians "greet one another with a holy kiss." A handshake and a "Good morning!" are what get the job done today.

You mentioned the head coverings for women that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 11. Here it gets interesting. In some Christian fellowships women still wear head coverings in submission to Paul's command. But I think I can safely argue that head coverings carry no more meaning for us than holy kisses do. A womanly hat meant something to the Corinthians but means nothing to us. So then should we simply ignore this admonition? I don't think so - we must re-interpret it in light of today's cultural practice. This is what we do with Jesus' command to wash one another's feet. I think it would be silly to obey that command literally (I'd rather wash my own feet, thank you), but hopefully we obey the principle of humble service that lies behind it.

I think it is reasonable and right to ask what principles lie behind the culturally specific mandates of Scripture. This does not deny the biblical writer's inspiration - rather it affirms that inspiration by seeking to submit to it in the most meaningful ways possible.

St. Paul And The Evil Institution Of Slavery (December 18, 2005)

More from my son’s letter from college:

“The professor challenged the assumption that Paul's words could be thought of as divine. Of course, right away he pointed to Philemon, and asked, ‘Is slavery ok then?‘ When I brought up the fact that slavery was a very different practice at the time, as people could sell themselves into slavery of their own free will, or become slaves because of bankruptcy, etc., he vigorously denied my claim, saying slavery was, if anything, worse at the time. He talked about how masters could do anything they wanted with their slaves, including, as was often practiced, sending them to die in the arena. Now obviously, Paul's word is not absolute, as women don't wear cloth over their heads, but with what seems to us such faulty morality as was displayed with Philemon, why are we to believe that Paul was, in fact, divinely inspired?”

I responded:

FAULTY MORALITY AS WAS DISPLAYED WITH PHILEMON??? FAULTY MORALITY as was displayed with PHILEMON??? Einstein was an idiot, Mother Teresa a terrorist, Hitler a nice guy. Black is white, night is day. Education is dead.

Read Philemon.

Now that you have read Philemon, it should be clear that not only was Paul's behavior in this matter worthy of adoration, but that his words to slaveowner Philemon practically dismantle the institution of slavery! Paul orders Philemon to receive back Onesimus, "no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother" (verse 16). Do not pass quickly over those words. Paul insisted that Philemon and Onesimus no longer relate to one another as owner and property but as brother and brother. I challenge the religion professor, or any historian, to find a more enlightened, egalitarian statement concerning slavery in all of ancient literature. Brothers! Abraham Lincoln was not this progressive. Not even the heroic abolitionists of the 19th century unanimously regarded Africans Americans as their brothers.

But for Paul the fundamental equality among human beings was a given, and he referred to it often. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male not female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28). "Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." (Colossians 3:11)

There is more. Paul does not simply suggest that Philemon take Onesimus back as a brother - he twists his arm into a pretzel to make him do so! He writes, "I could be bold and order you" (v.8) (but of course I wouldn't dream of doing THAT so) "I appeal to you on the basis of love." He plays the sympathy card, reminding Philemon that he is old (v. 9) and chained up (vs. 10, 13). He "won't even mention the fact" that Philemon owes him his very self (v. 19). He considers Onesimus his son (v. 10), his very heart (v. 12), and is reluctant to let him go (v. 13) - but "if you're my friend" then Philemon must welcome Onesimus as he would welcome Paul himself (v. 17)! And just in case Philemon neglects his obligation to take back Onesimus "as a man and as a brother in the Lord" (v. 16), Paul will be checking in on them to see how things are going: "Prepare a guest room for me" (v.22).

What more could you possibly ask of Paul? He even agrees to pay Onesimus' debts out of his own pocket! "If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back." (vs. 18-19).

Anyone who reads Philemon and still regards Paul's actions as anything less than righteous, heroic and phenomenally progressive should grab handfuls of sand and stuff them in his mouth to keep himself from saying any more unbelievably stupid things.

With regard to the meaning of the word "slave", you're right and the professor is wrong about slavery in Paul's day being distinct from American slavery. No African ever willingly walked onto a slave ship and offered his hands to the shackles, but slavery in Biblical times was frequently voluntary: "I offer you my service in exchange for a roof over my head and food in my stomach." Paul actually advised people not to make this particular life choice: "Do not become slaves of men" (1 Corinthians 7:23), and he told those who were currently slaves to take advantage of opportunities to become free: "If you can gain your freedom, do so" (1 Corinthians 7:21).

It is hard to make generalizations about slave treatment, because "slaves" then ran the gamut from what we would call "employees" to "maids and servants" to "serfs" to, yes, "war-booty captive foreigners" who might have to die fighting wild beasts in the arena. The latter was clearly wrong, as was American slavery. But to label a complex social phenomenon with the same term that we apply to the disgraceful American practice of the 17th to 19th centuries is misleading. If the experience of being a slave in the first century was as negative and degrading as that of blacks in the American South, then Paul would certainly not have adopted the metaphor of servitude in calling himself "a slave of Christ" (Romans 1:1).

To suggest, as I think the professor does, that if Paul were truly inspired he would have said "Free the slaves!" is about as realistic as saying that if he was so smart he would have been able to build a rocket ship and go to the moon. Inspired or not, all moral or scientific genius has to accomplish what it reasonably can within the confines of its time and culture.

“The Word ‘Homosexuality’ Isn’t In The Bible!” And Related Nonsense (December 11, 2005)

More from my son’s letter from college:

"The professor challenged the belief that the Bible condemns homosexuality, saying that that term as we understand it did not even exist in ancient times, and that, though the Greek in the New Testament is unclear and may be referring to male prostitution, it cannot be understood to be referring to the sort of committed,
long-term relationships homosexuals have today. How would you address this?"

I wrote:

1) To say that the term "homosexuality" did not exist in ancient times is a stunningly irrelevant point, even if, for argument's sake, we grant that the word did not exist. So what if Hebrew had no word that precisely parallels our word "homosexuality"? When other words combine to describe (and condemn) homosexual acts, the presence or absence of any particular word is moot. The professor's argument here is a deceptive piece of psycholinguistic sleight-of-hand.

An example may help. Consider the gory details of what Ehud did to Eglon in Judges 3:20-22: "Ehud...drew the sword...and plunged it into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, and the fat closed over it." Question: did Ehud stab Eglon? Yes. Did Ehud assassinate Eglon? Yes. Did Ehud disembowel Eglon? You could say he did. But the text never mentions the words "stab", "assassinate", or "disembowel". Maybe Hebrew didn't even have these words. But who cares? Does that mean that the English words stab, assassinate and disembowel do not accurately describe what happened? Of course they do. We've always taken for granted that languages carve the same reality into the distinct semantic shapes of their own particular words. This is so self-evident it hardly qualifies as an insight. But it is a principle that needs to be made explicit whenever a professor (or anyone else) trots out that old stinker of an argument: "They had no word for!" whatever might be the issue at hand.

The texts in Leviticus say that a man should not lie with a man as he would with a woman. I'll be the first to concede that there is no word in that last sentence that even remotely matches the English word "homosexuality." But so what? Only a mentally blind partisan with an ax to grind could fail to find homosexual behavior in words as plain as those.

2) The professor almost has a point when he says "the Greek in the New Testament is unclear and may be referring to male prostitution." He is referring to the difficult Greek of 1 Corinthians 6:9, which says that among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God are (NIV) "male prostitutes" (Greek malakoi) and "homosexual offenders" (Greek arsenokoitai). The first word can literally mean "soft" (and thus metaphorically referred to effeminacy) and almost certainly indicated a male prostitute - a man paid to play the role of a woman. The second word, literally men-bedders, appears in known Greek literature for the first time right here in 1st Corinthians. It has no prior history and for all we know Paul coined the term. What is certain is that both terms refer to homosexual behavior. What is uncertain is whether that behavior here is to be understood mainly in the context of prostitution.

But again, the point is moot for the purposes of the professor's argument. In Romans 1:26-27, the same Paul writes, "Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men..." There is no hint of prostitution here. What is being condemned are simply male-to-male and female-to-female sexual relations. The possibility that only male prostitution is explicitly condemned in 1st Corinthians 6 does not mean that mere homosexual contact is not condemned elsewhere.

3) When the professor says that biblical prohibitions of homosexual behavior "cannot be understood to be referring to the sort of committed, long-term relationships homosexuals have today," his brain is just out to lunch. The matter is really pretty simple. The Bible, Old Testament and New, forbids same-sex sexual contact. To respond that it says nothing about homosexual conduct performed in the context of long-term committed relationships is just desperate pleading. It is like John Dillinger saying, "OK, maybe the Bible condemns stealing, but it never says that there is anything wrong with my long-term, vocational commitment to robbing banks. Where exactly does the Bible say that it is wrong to rob banks for a living? The Bible never envisioned my kind of situation - in fact, the word 'bank' did not even exist in Hebrew!"

Ben, be on your guard against sleight-of-hand arguments. It's amazing what kind of nonsense people can pull out of their sleeves when they are desperate to drum up support for untenable positions. It would be so much more honest of the professor - and those who believe as he does - to say simply, "Yes, the Bible unambiguously condemns homosexual behavior, but I think the Bible is wrong." Fair enough. That's were we disagree. But all this pretending that the Bible doesn't say what it clearly does just makes it difficult to have a frank discussion where honest differences can be aired.

Is Rape The Only Kind Of Homosexual Behavior The Bible Forbids? (December 4, 2005)

More from my son’s letter from college:

"The professor challenged the belief that the Bible condemns homosexuality, saying that...the ban against it in Leviticus had more to do with banning homosexual rape..."

I wrote back,

The liberal religious left has been trotting out this nonsense for a while now. It is simple lunacy. My guess is that this professor and others like him are crossing their fingers and hoping you'll just take their word for it, and that you won't go to the trouble of actually looking up the texts in Leviticus and seeing what they say. Here are the texts:

Leviticus 18:22: Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

Leviticus 20:13: If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death. What they have done is perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.

There is no rape here! The texts forbid "lying with a man" as one would lie with a woman - not "raping a man" as one would rape a woman. The Hebrew word for "rape" is 'anah, which generally means "afflict, oppress, humble, humiliate", but in sexual contexts refers to rape. That word appears in each of the three rapes that the Bible records: Genesis 34:2 (Dinah); 2 Samuel 13:14 (Tamar); and Judges 19:24 (a Levite's concubine). The Levitical texts above do not have that word.

The word that they do have, "lie with" (shakab) is precisely parallel to English "have sex with," a phrase we never use to mean "rape" unless we put it in a non-consensual context or qualify it with a word like "forcibly." In Genesis 39:14, for example, Potiphar's wife accuses Joseph, saying "He came in here to lie with (shakab) me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house." She is saying he tried to rape her, but we don't get the inference of rape from the verb "lie with". We get it from the context of her resisting and screaming for help.

The actual crime of rape is dealt with in Deuteronomy 22:25-27, which reads:

But if out in the country a man happens to meet a girl pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. Do nothing to the girl; she has committed no sin deserving of death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders his neighbor, for the man found the girl out in the country, and though the betrothed girl screamed, there was no one to rescue her.

The Hebrew for "rape" here is literally "lay hold on (or 'force') her and lie with her." The phrase "lie with her" merely indicates sex; rape is inferred from the fact that he "laid hold on her" and that she screamed. Note that the Levitical texts on homosexual contact have no reference to "laying hold" on the part of a perpetrator nor "screaming for help" on the part of a victim. That is because it is consensual. Note also that there is no penalty at all for the girl who is raped (she is no more guilty than a murder victim), but both partners in the homosexual act are to be executed. According to the professor's view, the Bible is invoking the death penalty on someone who has done nothing more than suffer as the unwilling victim of a homosexual rapist!

The prohibition of homosexual behavior in Leviticus 20:13 follows a series of commandments, "If a man lies with his father's wife..." (verse 11); "If a man lies with his daughter-in-law..." (verse 12). (The NIV has "sleeps with" in verses 11 and 12, but it is all the same Hebrew word shakab.) Read these verses and you will see that each act is clearly consensual, as indicated by the dual punishments for both partners rather than the singular punishment for the rapist alone in Deuteronomy 22.

The professor didn't do his homework.