A friend asked if I'd comment on those Bible passages that talk about Pharaoh's hardened heart:
Did God harden Pharaoh's heart, or did Pharaoh harden his own heart (or both)? The Bible seems unclear about this. If God hardened Pharaoh's heart, how could Pharaoh be blamed for his actions?
There are 17 verses in the book of Exodus that speak of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. In three of them, Pharaoh hardens his own heart. For example:
Exodus 8:32:
But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and he did not let the people go.
In five verses, the text leaves unspecified who does the hardening. For example:
Exodus 7:13:
Yet Pharaoh's was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.
In nine verses, God hardens Pharaoh's heart. For example:
Exodus 11:10:
Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; yet the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land.
The texts clearly and unambiguously say that (1) God hardened Pharaoh's heart, (2) Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and (3) Pharaoh hardened his own heart. The question is how to relate these statements to one another.
As careful Bible scholars have long pointed out, the texts themselves never draw a causal connection between what God does to Pharaoh and what Pharaoh does to himself. The texts just say both. We never see a statement like, "Because God determined beforehand to harden Pharaoh's heart, therefore Pharaoh necessarily hardened his own heart." Nor does any text say, "Because Pharaoh hardened his own heart, therefore God confirmed him in that decision and hardened it just the way Pharaoh wanted." The second option seems more palatable, because the first sounds an awful lot like "God forced Pharaoh to sin." That can't be right, can it?
The Hebrew text may help us understand this better. The phrase "harden the heart" does not mean "compel to sin." There are three different Hebrew words used in these texts in Exodus, and all appear to be synonymous in context and used interchangeably. The most common is chazaq (found in 12 of the 17 hardening passages), and its primary meaning is "to strengthen, to be or to grow strong or firm." Often this strengthening is a good thing. For example, this word is used three times in Joshua 1:6-9 where God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous:
6 "Be strong (chazaq) and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7 Be strong (chazaq) and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you...9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong (chazaq) and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
In Joshua's case, I believe he wanted to do the right thing but required chazaq (strength, toughness, hardness) to go ahead and do it. With Pharaoh it's the opposite: he wanted to do the wrong thing but may have lacked the chazaq to carry it out. If Pharaoh had let the Israelites go, it would not have been out of justice and wisdom and fairness and goodwill but out of mere cowardice. (Who wants to endure another series of plagues?) But God hardened, toughened, strengthened, emboldened him - and Pharaoh hardened, toughened, strengthened, emboldened himself - to do what he really wanted to do in the first place, which was to oppress the Israelites.
By analogy, we might think it would be good if every time a man wanted to commit adultery God made him impotent and unable to carry out what his will desired. But that is not what God usually does. God gives the adulterous man chazaq - hardens him - and he sins. God never forces a man to cheat on his wife, but often he empowers a man to do what his evil will would choose.
Does this make God responsible for a person's sin? No. See what you think of the following true story.
A seminary professor of mine once served a church where the previous pastor - I'll call him Adolph - had committed adultery and wrecked everything. It turns out Adolph had done the same thing in two churches he had pastored earlier. (Don't they do background checks?) The last anyone heard, Adolph moved to Ohio where he was now selling computer components. My professor said if you confront Adolph and ask him, "What went wrong? Why did you fall into the same wretched trap three times?" he answers, "I fell because God is a liar. God says, 'No temptation has seized you except what is common to man, but God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but will provide you a way out' (1 Corinthians 10:13). I wasn't able to bear it. So God is a liar." And he will not pursue the conversation further.
What an evil son of hell.
I believe that Pharaoh and Adolph are equally responsible for their sins. "Hardening the heart" does not mean "hijacking the will." God did provide Adolph a way out, but he chose not to take it. I have never seen a text in Scripture that says that God forced a man to do something he didn't want to do. If Pharaoh had been a different kind of man, then he might have used the chazaq God gave him to do right by the Israelites no matter what the cost. Abraham Lincoln was a hard man too - but he used his chazaq to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.
In Scripture we find that a readiness to do the divine meets with glad assistance from God. Those who desire goodness get it. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6), not: "Regardless of whether people hunger and thirst for righteousness, God may, in his sovereignty, harden their wills so that they succumb to wickedness." Jesus also said, "If anyone is willing to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" (John 7:17), not: "If anyone is willing to do God's will, he will nonetheless find his quest for truth hopeless if God chooses to harden his heart." No Scripture anywhere shows God responding to a person who says, "I long to do your will" with, "Too bad - I am going to force you to disobey me."
But God often gives willful sinners what they want most: the ability to sin without the burden of conscience. Shakespeare's MacBeth, wanting to kill Malcom, prayed to the universe saying,
Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
He was asking, "Just let me do this wickedness without interference from the fire of truth or the light of conscience; let me enjoy the result of my sin without having to think of the corruption that brought it about." The Roman poet Juvenal called petitions like these "enormous prayers which heaven in anger grants."
I would love to leave the matter there, but there remains the difficulty of reconciling the ideas offered above with St. Paul's treatment of Pharaoh's hardened heart in Romans 9:17-21. There Paul writes:
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. 19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
There does not seem to be any wiggle room in that passage that allows for human freedom, does there? God shapes Pharaoh's heart like a potter shapes a lump of clay, and in the context of the metaphor it is hard to imagine the clay saying, "Mr. Potter, please shape me this way," and the potter responding, "Sure, I'd be happy to. Your will be done." Paul anticipates the very natural question my friend posted above: "If God hardened Pharaoh's heart, how could Pharaoh be blamed for his actions?" See verse 19: "One of you will say to me: 'Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?'". This strikes me as such a good question that I cannot help but feel some frustration that Paul bats it away with "Who are you, o man, to talk back to God?" (verse 20). Is the person really "talking back to God," or, like my friend, seeking a true understanding of God's ways with men?
My answer to this difficulty is to say that in the context of Romans 9 Paul presupposes a corrupt human will. While in another context Jesus may speak of a good man ("The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him" - Matthew 12:35), in Paul's argument there are no good men: "There are none righteous, no not one...All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:10,23). Here, man's will is neither morally neutral (seeing if it will be softened into obedience or hardened into rebellion), nor morally good (hoping God will not twist it into something bad), but morally depraved from the start. God's hardening then is not a matter of taking a good will and corrupting it but giving strength to a will that already opposes him. Perhaps this explains why, in verse 18, Paul does not set in opposition to the word "harden" its natural opposite "soften" but rather "have mercy on." All those who bow the knee to God are not, in the final analysis, good people whom God has rewarded, but sinners to whom he has shown mercy. May God be merciful to us sinners.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Did Tom White Go To Heaven Or Hell?
On the morning of April 18 the body of Tom White, executive director of The Voice of the Martyrs, was found at his ministry's headquarters in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He had committed suicide while under investigation for having molested a 10-year-old girl.
A couple weeks ago Tom White was known as a fine Christian man in charge of an international Christian ministry that was doing great good in the world. Now he is known as a pedophile, the scum of the earth, the kind of man who, if he said aloud, "I want to kill myself," would quickly be handed a gun by some eager volunteer who would tell him, "Do it, you bastard."
Tom White has slipped the court of human justice and has now stood before the God to whom we will all render account. Did God take him home to heaven or send him away to hell?
I'm not going to answer that question. It is not for me to answer. But I would like to mention some relevant Scripture texts. In bold print below are Bible verses that might indicate to some Christian believers that Tom and people like him go to hell. In italics are other Bible verses that might indicate to some Christian believers that Tom and people like him go to heaven. I post these verses without further comment, and leave the question hanging in the air.
Mark 9:42:
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."
Romans 10:13:
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Matthew 7:21-23:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Romans 2:13:
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
Titus 3:5:
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
1 Corinthians 6:9-10:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Luke 23:41-43:
41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Galatians 5:19-21:
19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 3:13-15:
13 His work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
Ephesians 5:5-6:
5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
Luke 18:13-14:
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Revelation 21:8:
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.
Romans 10:9-10:
9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved
John 5:28-29:
28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.
John 5:24:
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
1 John 3:15:
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
John 6:37:
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
Matthew 13:49-50:
49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Romans 4:5:
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
A couple weeks ago Tom White was known as a fine Christian man in charge of an international Christian ministry that was doing great good in the world. Now he is known as a pedophile, the scum of the earth, the kind of man who, if he said aloud, "I want to kill myself," would quickly be handed a gun by some eager volunteer who would tell him, "Do it, you bastard."
Tom White has slipped the court of human justice and has now stood before the God to whom we will all render account. Did God take him home to heaven or send him away to hell?
I'm not going to answer that question. It is not for me to answer. But I would like to mention some relevant Scripture texts. In bold print below are Bible verses that might indicate to some Christian believers that Tom and people like him go to hell. In italics are other Bible verses that might indicate to some Christian believers that Tom and people like him go to heaven. I post these verses without further comment, and leave the question hanging in the air.
Mark 9:42:
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."
Romans 10:13:
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Matthew 7:21-23:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Romans 2:13:
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
Titus 3:5:
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
1 Corinthians 6:9-10:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Luke 23:41-43:
41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Galatians 5:19-21:
19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 3:13-15:
13 His work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
Ephesians 5:5-6:
5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
Luke 18:13-14:
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Revelation 21:8:
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.
Romans 10:9-10:
9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved
John 5:28-29:
28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.
John 5:24:
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
1 John 3:15:
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
John 6:37:
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
Matthew 13:49-50:
49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Romans 4:5:
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Can We Thank God For Cake When Others Have No Bread?
Years ago when I was at the University of Illinois I took my friend Nordin out for a cup of coffee and dessert. Nordin, a fellow linguistics student and devout Muslim, grew up in Malaysia in circumstances you might consider poverty-stricken. He told me for example that when he came to America he had to teach his children how to flush a toilet.
When the waitress brought us our desserts - huge mounds of chocolate cake topped with ice cream and dripping with hot fudge - Nordin smiled and said, eyes shining, "Oh Paul. Who can look at this and not be thankful?"
I have quoted Nordin many times since. Though he meant his question to be rhetorical, I can think of some answers to it. Here are three kinds of people who can receive chocolate cake and not be thankful:
(1) Small-minded ingrates who think they deserve such luxuries. They complain when they don't get them but are not grateful when they receive them.
(2) Atheists who sincerely believe there is No One to thank. (They might thank the person who bought the cake, but not the Creator of Reality in which cake is enjoyed.)
(3) People who may or may not believe in God, but who deem it unseemly in any event to thank such a Being for trifles and luxuries while others are denied basic necessities.
I am not interested in the people in category 1. They are bad and should repent and learn to give thanks so that they will be less bad. As for the people in category 2, while I disagree with their premise I respect their intellectual consistency. For a response to the curious phenomenon of atheists who like to give thanks anyways (just whom are they thanking?), please see the February 3, 2009 essay, "I Need Somebody To Thank."
It is the people in category (3) who interest me the most and with whom I actually have some sympathy, despite the fact that (as my experience suggests) they tend to find gratitude like mine offensive, and sometimes they even respond to it with expressions of outrage that border on ill will. Their anger is understandable, since in their view my thankfulness is unseemly, and all unseemly behavior is wrong.
I recently saw an example of category 3 opposition to gratitude on the Facebook page of an old college friend who is now a professor of philosophy. He uploaded a poster with three panels. The first panel showed Britanny Spears receiving an award, and the caption read, "Thank you God for helping me win this award." The second panel showed Green Bay Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings kneeling on a football field and the caption read, "Thank you God for helping me score this touchdown." The third panel showed starving children in Africa. There was no caption.
I cannot say I know for certain what was the precise message that the creator of the poster wanted to convey. It may have been
(1) "God doesn't care about your Grammy awards and touchdowns. Look at these starving children! They are the ones God cares about. Rather than invoking the name of God in your victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers or Christina Aguilera you should devote yourself to God's true priorities: ministry to those who are desperately poor and needy."
Or,
(2) "How silly of you to think that there is a God who enables you to make millions catching a football or singing a song. Isn't it obvious that God does not exist? All that is necessary to demolish your Grammy-and-touchdown God is to take one good look at these starving children. If there were a loving Sky Fairy, certainly he would give these hungry children a sandwich before he would give you success in music or sports."
It was just such a photograph of African starvation that proved pivotal in Charles Templeton's departure from Christian faith. Templeton was an evangelist and pastor, and a colleague and friend of Billy Graham. He converted to atheism in the mid 1950s, citing among other things a picture in Life Magazine of a mother in Africa with her starving child. Long story short, Templeton concluded, "There is no God."
I have written lengthy responses to such standard challenges to theism (See "The Tsunmai and Faith," parts 1 and 2, January 4 and 9, 2005; "The Goodness of God and the Horror of Haiti," January 19, 2010; and "Why I Believe in the Goodness of God," January 26, 2010). I will not repeat those points here. My focus is more narrow. If there is a God, and all the wretched suffering in the world has not caused us to disbelieve his existence, should it at least give us pause with regard to thanking him? Is it right to thank God for cake while others die for lack of bread?
Yes, I think you should still thank God for cake. And for touchdowns, Grammys, and whatever else brings you joy that is neither ill-gotten nor perverse. Free yourself from the inhibition that would stifle your instinct to say "Oh, thank you GOD!" whenever you get something nice. That restraint and its puritanical enforcers among the category 3 non-thankers exude an air of righteousness dignity, but it's all just smoke and fog. Indulge. Give thanks. Rejoice in the Lord.
If you are tempted to pull back from giving thanks because of the indignation and intimidation of category 3 non-thankers, I should warn you that their objections to your thanksgiving will probably not stop at trifles. I have seen it extend all the way to life itself. For example, in a January 4, 2005 Chicago Tribune column Eric Zorn confessed his impatience with a friend who thanked God for answered prayer that his loved ones in Sri Lanka survived the great tsunami. This gratitude, Zorn explained, implied a judgment on those who suffered: clearly they did not praise and beg God sufficiently. Zorn took a similar shot at "civic and religious leaders [who] thank God for steering tornadoes around their little towns." Do you see? In order to satisfy a category 3 non-thanker you would have to stifle your gratitude not only for touchdowns and Grammys but for the simple fact that you're still alive. That pretty well covers the range from trivial to vital, doesn't it. If you asked a category 3 non-thanker, "Is there anything I could thank God for where it wouldn't bother you?" I believe the honest answer would be "No. Anything you thank God for is something that somebody somewhere in the world didn't get. That makes your thanksgiving immoral. So stop offending me with it."
Category 3 restraint on gratitude conceals at its a core a massive black hole which, unchecked, consumes all gratitude, and with it, the joy and goodwill that appreciation creates within us. The danger is real. But spontaneous thankers know something that the enemies of gratitude do not: Today, I have a joy where you have a lament, and tomorrow, you will have a joy that I have lost or can never achieve. In the meantime let us all give thanks for whatever we can whenever we can. When I cry out in pain or mourn a great loss you can cry with me; when you give thanks for some delight that I can never experience maybe I can be a little happy for you. There's no point in all of us crying all the time.
The ad campaign for St. Jude Children's Hospital gets it right. I used to see their commercials in movie theaters: "Give thanks for the healthy children in your life, and give to those who are not." Give thanks...and give. Gratitude spurs charity in ways that self-righteous ingratitude never seems to match. For anecdotal proof, look up Greg Jennings, the football player whose devotion to God is lampooned in the poster that shows his kneeling form next to starving children. I just googled him. Yes, Jennings has the gall to say "Glory to God" after his team wins the Super Bowl despite the fact that children are simultaneously dropping dead of starvation in Africa. He is also, the news reports say, a classy guy with a great attitude who is devoted to his family and very actively involved in charity. Among other things he donates $1,000 to a shelter for women and single mothers every time he catches a touchdown pass. Score one for an uninhibited thanker of God.
When the waitress brought us our desserts - huge mounds of chocolate cake topped with ice cream and dripping with hot fudge - Nordin smiled and said, eyes shining, "Oh Paul. Who can look at this and not be thankful?"
I have quoted Nordin many times since. Though he meant his question to be rhetorical, I can think of some answers to it. Here are three kinds of people who can receive chocolate cake and not be thankful:
(1) Small-minded ingrates who think they deserve such luxuries. They complain when they don't get them but are not grateful when they receive them.
(2) Atheists who sincerely believe there is No One to thank. (They might thank the person who bought the cake, but not the Creator of Reality in which cake is enjoyed.)
(3) People who may or may not believe in God, but who deem it unseemly in any event to thank such a Being for trifles and luxuries while others are denied basic necessities.
I am not interested in the people in category 1. They are bad and should repent and learn to give thanks so that they will be less bad. As for the people in category 2, while I disagree with their premise I respect their intellectual consistency. For a response to the curious phenomenon of atheists who like to give thanks anyways (just whom are they thanking?), please see the February 3, 2009 essay, "I Need Somebody To Thank."
It is the people in category (3) who interest me the most and with whom I actually have some sympathy, despite the fact that (as my experience suggests) they tend to find gratitude like mine offensive, and sometimes they even respond to it with expressions of outrage that border on ill will. Their anger is understandable, since in their view my thankfulness is unseemly, and all unseemly behavior is wrong.
I recently saw an example of category 3 opposition to gratitude on the Facebook page of an old college friend who is now a professor of philosophy. He uploaded a poster with three panels. The first panel showed Britanny Spears receiving an award, and the caption read, "Thank you God for helping me win this award." The second panel showed Green Bay Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings kneeling on a football field and the caption read, "Thank you God for helping me score this touchdown." The third panel showed starving children in Africa. There was no caption.
I cannot say I know for certain what was the precise message that the creator of the poster wanted to convey. It may have been
(1) "God doesn't care about your Grammy awards and touchdowns. Look at these starving children! They are the ones God cares about. Rather than invoking the name of God in your victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers or Christina Aguilera you should devote yourself to God's true priorities: ministry to those who are desperately poor and needy."
Or,
(2) "How silly of you to think that there is a God who enables you to make millions catching a football or singing a song. Isn't it obvious that God does not exist? All that is necessary to demolish your Grammy-and-touchdown God is to take one good look at these starving children. If there were a loving Sky Fairy, certainly he would give these hungry children a sandwich before he would give you success in music or sports."
It was just such a photograph of African starvation that proved pivotal in Charles Templeton's departure from Christian faith. Templeton was an evangelist and pastor, and a colleague and friend of Billy Graham. He converted to atheism in the mid 1950s, citing among other things a picture in Life Magazine of a mother in Africa with her starving child. Long story short, Templeton concluded, "There is no God."
I have written lengthy responses to such standard challenges to theism (See "The Tsunmai and Faith," parts 1 and 2, January 4 and 9, 2005; "The Goodness of God and the Horror of Haiti," January 19, 2010; and "Why I Believe in the Goodness of God," January 26, 2010). I will not repeat those points here. My focus is more narrow. If there is a God, and all the wretched suffering in the world has not caused us to disbelieve his existence, should it at least give us pause with regard to thanking him? Is it right to thank God for cake while others die for lack of bread?
Yes, I think you should still thank God for cake. And for touchdowns, Grammys, and whatever else brings you joy that is neither ill-gotten nor perverse. Free yourself from the inhibition that would stifle your instinct to say "Oh, thank you GOD!" whenever you get something nice. That restraint and its puritanical enforcers among the category 3 non-thankers exude an air of righteousness dignity, but it's all just smoke and fog. Indulge. Give thanks. Rejoice in the Lord.
If you are tempted to pull back from giving thanks because of the indignation and intimidation of category 3 non-thankers, I should warn you that their objections to your thanksgiving will probably not stop at trifles. I have seen it extend all the way to life itself. For example, in a January 4, 2005 Chicago Tribune column Eric Zorn confessed his impatience with a friend who thanked God for answered prayer that his loved ones in Sri Lanka survived the great tsunami. This gratitude, Zorn explained, implied a judgment on those who suffered: clearly they did not praise and beg God sufficiently. Zorn took a similar shot at "civic and religious leaders [who] thank God for steering tornadoes around their little towns." Do you see? In order to satisfy a category 3 non-thanker you would have to stifle your gratitude not only for touchdowns and Grammys but for the simple fact that you're still alive. That pretty well covers the range from trivial to vital, doesn't it. If you asked a category 3 non-thanker, "Is there anything I could thank God for where it wouldn't bother you?" I believe the honest answer would be "No. Anything you thank God for is something that somebody somewhere in the world didn't get. That makes your thanksgiving immoral. So stop offending me with it."
Category 3 restraint on gratitude conceals at its a core a massive black hole which, unchecked, consumes all gratitude, and with it, the joy and goodwill that appreciation creates within us. The danger is real. But spontaneous thankers know something that the enemies of gratitude do not: Today, I have a joy where you have a lament, and tomorrow, you will have a joy that I have lost or can never achieve. In the meantime let us all give thanks for whatever we can whenever we can. When I cry out in pain or mourn a great loss you can cry with me; when you give thanks for some delight that I can never experience maybe I can be a little happy for you. There's no point in all of us crying all the time.
The ad campaign for St. Jude Children's Hospital gets it right. I used to see their commercials in movie theaters: "Give thanks for the healthy children in your life, and give to those who are not." Give thanks...and give. Gratitude spurs charity in ways that self-righteous ingratitude never seems to match. For anecdotal proof, look up Greg Jennings, the football player whose devotion to God is lampooned in the poster that shows his kneeling form next to starving children. I just googled him. Yes, Jennings has the gall to say "Glory to God" after his team wins the Super Bowl despite the fact that children are simultaneously dropping dead of starvation in Africa. He is also, the news reports say, a classy guy with a great attitude who is devoted to his family and very actively involved in charity. Among other things he donates $1,000 to a shelter for women and single mothers every time he catches a touchdown pass. Score one for an uninhibited thanker of God.
Friday, April 20, 2012
What Is Jesus Doing Now?
I received the following question:
The Bible is very clear about Jesus' role in NT times: He came to earth to sacrifice Himself to pay the penalty for sin that we all owed. It is also clear about his role in the end times: He will come again and gather all the faithful to heaven.
I have a hard time relating to Jesus' role today. When he went to heaven He sent the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us. So, what is Jesus doing before the end times?
What a wonderful question! I have never been asked it before. It has caused me to think very hard about how the Bible describes the functioning of the various Persons of the Trinity.
One simple answer is to say that Jesus (now, in the present tense) intercedes for us. At least three texts indicate this:
Romans 8:34:
Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Hebrews 7:24-25:
Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
1 John 2:1:
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
A second simple answer is to say that he is with us:
Matthew 18:20:
"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
Matthew 28:20b:
"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
There is a wrinkle, however, that opens up a whole Pandora's box of issues. The Holy Spirit is also said to intercede for us, and he is also said to be present with us:
Intercession of the Spirit: Romans 8:26-27:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
Presence of the Spirit: John 14:16-17,26:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you...But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
It seems that the work of the risen Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit dovetail and overlap. They are both with us and they both intercede for us. Consider the following sequence of verses, and see if by them you can answer the question, "Who lives in the Christian, the Holy Spirit or Jesus?"
Romans 8:9-11:
9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Verses 9 and 11 say that the Spirit lives in you, but sandwiched between those statements verse 10 says "Christ is in you"! It makes one wonder, is "Christ" just another word for "Spirit"? Is everything we say about Christ equally true of the Holy Spirit?
Sabellius thought so. He was a third century priest who simply denied that God was triune. Jesus is God who is the Holy Spirit, and the only distinction between "them" is modal: God reveals himself in various modes of fatherhood, sonship and spirit nature depending on time, circumstances, and the purpose at hand.
But Sabellianism doesn't work. Among its many weird entailments is the conclusion that when Jesus prayed he was really carrying on a soliloquy; that the Father died on the cross ("Patripassionism"); that, when God died briefly at the crucifixion, somehow the universe kept going on its own. Also, Sabellianism cannot make convincing sense of texts that speak, for example, of God raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:24) or sending the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). The Church fathers condemned Sabellianism as heresy, and it is rarely seen today except in Oneness (or "Jesus Only") Pentecostalism.(Well-known preacher T.D. Jakes, who came from the Oneness tradition, has had his orthodoxy called into question and in response has publicly affirmed his belief in the Trinity.)
A different way of handling Trinitarian complexity is to deny that the Holy Spirit exists at all. That is, whenever Scripture speaks of the "Holy Spirit," (or "the Spirit of God" or "the Spirit of Christ," or whatever) we should understand that in exactly the same way as when we speak of our own spirits. For example, when the Virgin Mary says in Luke 1:47, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior," or when St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:18, "For they refreshed my spirit and yours also," they were certainly not thinking that their spirits were distinct from themselves. A text that might lend support to this view is 1 Corinthians 2:11: "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God." A parallel is drawn in this verse between God's Spirit knowing God and our own spirits knowing us.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe in the exactness of this parallel, and so their New World Translation of the Bible never capitalizes the word "spirit." God's spirit, in this view, is like God's breath or power or force or will or thought or mindset. Trinitarians err, they teach, in personifying this power and treating it like something separate from God the Father, calling it "He" and regarding it as a Person. (Orthodox Christians raise a similar objection to the gnostic personification of Sophia, "Wisdom," wherein the wisdom of God is spelled with a capital W and regarded as a goddess of some sort. We think that that "Wisdom" should have a small "w.")
If the Jehovah's Witnesses are right, then the question posed at the top of this essay dissolves completely. Whatever the Bible says the spirit is doing now is what Jesus is doing now, and our confusion about their contrasting or overlapping roles is due to a total misunderstanding of Jesus' Personhood.
But I'm afraid Jehovah's Witness Arianism doesn't work any better than Sabellianism. The biblical case for the Holy Spirit's personhood is simply too strong. In Acts 5:3 St. Peter condemns Ananias for lying to the Holy Spirit. How can you lie to a personified abstraction? In Ephesians 4:30 St. Paul commands us not to grieve the Holy Spirit, and I would argue that only a person can be grieved. In John 16:7 Jesus insists on such an exclusivity between himself and the Spirit that the Spirit cannot come to the disciples unless he (Jesus) goes away first!
So that leaves us with the difficulty suggested in my friend's question: What is Jesus, as distinct from the Holy Spirit, doing in the present age?
I would suggest two things.
First, we simply have to grant some overlap (duplication? redundancy?) in the roles of the three Persons of the Trinity. This is biblical. Texts cited above demonstrate that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit intercede for us and are present with us. In addition, Jesus says in John 5:19, "Whatever the Father does the Son also does." The picture Jesus develops in John 5:17-20 is that of a son in his father's workshop imitating and duplicating his father's craft. So at least part of the answer to the question "What is Jesus doing now?" is "whatever God the Father is doing." If this was true in his earthly incarnation, how much more true is it in his glorified state!
Second, if I had to describe the current role of Jesus as distinct from that of the Father and the Spirit, I think it would have much to do with his position, more a matter of where he is rather than what acts he is performing.
The Bible says repeatedly that Jesus is "at the right hand" of God the Father. Jesus himself, and Peter, and Paul, and the writer of Hebrews all mention this. Some examples:
Luke 22:69:
"But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God."
Colossians 3:1:
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
1 Peter 3:22:
[Jesus] has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand — with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
Hebrews 12:2:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
The Holy Spirit is never said to be at the Father's right hand, and it goes without saying that the Father cannot be at his own right hand. The position appears unique to Jesus. Does it have anything to say about his role?
I believe it does. In some mystical, metaphorical fashion, we can "see" Jesus in a way that we cannot see God the Father or the Holy Spirit. Of course you can't see the Spirit - he's a spirit! And the Bible affirms that no one has ever seen God the Father. John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God." But then the same verse continues, "but God the One and Only [Jesus], who is at the Father’s side, [the right side!] has made him known."
I think we can say, reverently, that Jesus gives us someone to focus on. That is (part of) his role now. We have a hard time fixing our eyes on God the Father or God the Holy Spirit, but we are commanded to "fix our eyes on Jesus" in Hebrews 12:2. Of all the members of the Trinity, only Jesus became (and remains) a man, and for that reason our minds can get a better grasp on "seeing him" up above and ahead of us. I look forward to seeing Jesus face to face, and bowing before him, but I don't know if I'll ever see the Holy Spirit. It has long intrigued me that the Objects of worship in the book of Revelation are always the first and second Persons of the Trinity, never the third. (See for example Revelation 5:13: Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"). Where is the Holy Spirit in this verse? Don't we worship a Triune God? Why is the Holy Spirit not receiving song and praise in these verses along with the Father and the Son? I think the best answer is that He is the one inspiring it. He is behind us, beside us and inside us, urging us to glorify Christ. I think it is the Spirit's role, now and forever, to move us to worship Jesus, and it is Jesus' role, now and forever, to receive that worship.
I must stress though that these are at best some preliminary thoughts on a difficult question, and I would gladly submit to instruction from minds that are theologically more astute and biblically better informed than mine.
The Bible is very clear about Jesus' role in NT times: He came to earth to sacrifice Himself to pay the penalty for sin that we all owed. It is also clear about his role in the end times: He will come again and gather all the faithful to heaven.
I have a hard time relating to Jesus' role today. When he went to heaven He sent the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us. So, what is Jesus doing before the end times?
What a wonderful question! I have never been asked it before. It has caused me to think very hard about how the Bible describes the functioning of the various Persons of the Trinity.
One simple answer is to say that Jesus (now, in the present tense) intercedes for us. At least three texts indicate this:
Romans 8:34:
Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Hebrews 7:24-25:
Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
1 John 2:1:
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
A second simple answer is to say that he is with us:
Matthew 18:20:
"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
Matthew 28:20b:
"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
There is a wrinkle, however, that opens up a whole Pandora's box of issues. The Holy Spirit is also said to intercede for us, and he is also said to be present with us:
Intercession of the Spirit: Romans 8:26-27:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
Presence of the Spirit: John 14:16-17,26:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you...But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
It seems that the work of the risen Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit dovetail and overlap. They are both with us and they both intercede for us. Consider the following sequence of verses, and see if by them you can answer the question, "Who lives in the Christian, the Holy Spirit or Jesus?"
Romans 8:9-11:
9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Verses 9 and 11 say that the Spirit lives in you, but sandwiched between those statements verse 10 says "Christ is in you"! It makes one wonder, is "Christ" just another word for "Spirit"? Is everything we say about Christ equally true of the Holy Spirit?
Sabellius thought so. He was a third century priest who simply denied that God was triune. Jesus is God who is the Holy Spirit, and the only distinction between "them" is modal: God reveals himself in various modes of fatherhood, sonship and spirit nature depending on time, circumstances, and the purpose at hand.
But Sabellianism doesn't work. Among its many weird entailments is the conclusion that when Jesus prayed he was really carrying on a soliloquy; that the Father died on the cross ("Patripassionism"); that, when God died briefly at the crucifixion, somehow the universe kept going on its own. Also, Sabellianism cannot make convincing sense of texts that speak, for example, of God raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:24) or sending the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). The Church fathers condemned Sabellianism as heresy, and it is rarely seen today except in Oneness (or "Jesus Only") Pentecostalism.(Well-known preacher T.D. Jakes, who came from the Oneness tradition, has had his orthodoxy called into question and in response has publicly affirmed his belief in the Trinity.)
A different way of handling Trinitarian complexity is to deny that the Holy Spirit exists at all. That is, whenever Scripture speaks of the "Holy Spirit," (or "the Spirit of God" or "the Spirit of Christ," or whatever) we should understand that in exactly the same way as when we speak of our own spirits. For example, when the Virgin Mary says in Luke 1:47, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior," or when St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:18, "For they refreshed my spirit and yours also," they were certainly not thinking that their spirits were distinct from themselves. A text that might lend support to this view is 1 Corinthians 2:11: "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God." A parallel is drawn in this verse between God's Spirit knowing God and our own spirits knowing us.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe in the exactness of this parallel, and so their New World Translation of the Bible never capitalizes the word "spirit." God's spirit, in this view, is like God's breath or power or force or will or thought or mindset. Trinitarians err, they teach, in personifying this power and treating it like something separate from God the Father, calling it "He" and regarding it as a Person. (Orthodox Christians raise a similar objection to the gnostic personification of Sophia, "Wisdom," wherein the wisdom of God is spelled with a capital W and regarded as a goddess of some sort. We think that that "Wisdom" should have a small "w.")
If the Jehovah's Witnesses are right, then the question posed at the top of this essay dissolves completely. Whatever the Bible says the spirit is doing now is what Jesus is doing now, and our confusion about their contrasting or overlapping roles is due to a total misunderstanding of Jesus' Personhood.
But I'm afraid Jehovah's Witness Arianism doesn't work any better than Sabellianism. The biblical case for the Holy Spirit's personhood is simply too strong. In Acts 5:3 St. Peter condemns Ananias for lying to the Holy Spirit. How can you lie to a personified abstraction? In Ephesians 4:30 St. Paul commands us not to grieve the Holy Spirit, and I would argue that only a person can be grieved. In John 16:7 Jesus insists on such an exclusivity between himself and the Spirit that the Spirit cannot come to the disciples unless he (Jesus) goes away first!
So that leaves us with the difficulty suggested in my friend's question: What is Jesus, as distinct from the Holy Spirit, doing in the present age?
I would suggest two things.
First, we simply have to grant some overlap (duplication? redundancy?) in the roles of the three Persons of the Trinity. This is biblical. Texts cited above demonstrate that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit intercede for us and are present with us. In addition, Jesus says in John 5:19, "Whatever the Father does the Son also does." The picture Jesus develops in John 5:17-20 is that of a son in his father's workshop imitating and duplicating his father's craft. So at least part of the answer to the question "What is Jesus doing now?" is "whatever God the Father is doing." If this was true in his earthly incarnation, how much more true is it in his glorified state!
Second, if I had to describe the current role of Jesus as distinct from that of the Father and the Spirit, I think it would have much to do with his position, more a matter of where he is rather than what acts he is performing.
The Bible says repeatedly that Jesus is "at the right hand" of God the Father. Jesus himself, and Peter, and Paul, and the writer of Hebrews all mention this. Some examples:
Luke 22:69:
"But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God."
Colossians 3:1:
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
1 Peter 3:22:
[Jesus] has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand — with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
Hebrews 12:2:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
The Holy Spirit is never said to be at the Father's right hand, and it goes without saying that the Father cannot be at his own right hand. The position appears unique to Jesus. Does it have anything to say about his role?
I believe it does. In some mystical, metaphorical fashion, we can "see" Jesus in a way that we cannot see God the Father or the Holy Spirit. Of course you can't see the Spirit - he's a spirit! And the Bible affirms that no one has ever seen God the Father. John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God." But then the same verse continues, "but God the One and Only [Jesus], who is at the Father’s side, [the right side!] has made him known."
I think we can say, reverently, that Jesus gives us someone to focus on. That is (part of) his role now. We have a hard time fixing our eyes on God the Father or God the Holy Spirit, but we are commanded to "fix our eyes on Jesus" in Hebrews 12:2. Of all the members of the Trinity, only Jesus became (and remains) a man, and for that reason our minds can get a better grasp on "seeing him" up above and ahead of us. I look forward to seeing Jesus face to face, and bowing before him, but I don't know if I'll ever see the Holy Spirit. It has long intrigued me that the Objects of worship in the book of Revelation are always the first and second Persons of the Trinity, never the third. (See for example Revelation 5:13: Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"). Where is the Holy Spirit in this verse? Don't we worship a Triune God? Why is the Holy Spirit not receiving song and praise in these verses along with the Father and the Son? I think the best answer is that He is the one inspiring it. He is behind us, beside us and inside us, urging us to glorify Christ. I think it is the Spirit's role, now and forever, to move us to worship Jesus, and it is Jesus' role, now and forever, to receive that worship.
I must stress though that these are at best some preliminary thoughts on a difficult question, and I would gladly submit to instruction from minds that are theologically more astute and biblically better informed than mine.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
What Is The Kingdom Of God?
A couple friends recently asked me what the kingdom of God is. The phrase "kingdom of God" (or "kingdom of heaven") appears dozens of times in the gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke (usually on the lips of Jesus), twice in John, and a handful of times in the rest of the New Testament. What (and where and when) is the kingdom of God?
Two preliminary comments:
1) The phrases "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" mean exactly the same thing. Only Matthew uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven;" elsewhere it is always "kingdom of God." If you look up the two phrases in a concordance you will see many parallels where only the one word is different. The reason for the difference is that Matthew often followed the Jewish tradition of substituting "heaven" for "God" so as to avoid the possibility of blaspheming God's Name. (Like the time the prodigal son said to his father in Luke 15:21: "I have sinned against heaven and against you." Against heaven? He meant he had sinned against God.)
Classic Dispensationalism regrettably distinguishes between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. (At the dispensationalist church my family attended when I was a child, one of the awards I received for memorizing Bible verses was the book "The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven," which explained the differences in excruciating, imaginative, and utterly futile detail.) The Scofield Reference Bible famously outlined five differences between the two kingdoms, indoctrinating (and confusing) generations of dispensationalists. This distinction between "two kingdoms" must be judged a failure and discarded.
2) The kingdom of God has so many features that it can be difficult, when focusing on one aspect, to connect it to all the rest. It is the proverbial elephant described by six blind men: one man says an elephant is like a tree (he has grasped a leg), another: a wall (the side), a rope (the tail), a branch (the trunk), a leaf (the ear), and a spear (the tusk). All the blind men are correct, but their individual descriptions baffle each other. When Jesus asked, "To what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use to describe it?" (Mark 4:30), he gave, in the course of his ministry, various answers according to the kingdom's varied aspects. I will start with a general description of the kingdom at a distance (the whole elephant, so to speak), which hopefully will help make sense of some of the particulars.
I define the kingdom of God as that realm where God reigns and his kingship is recognized, or - since the kingdom belongs to Jesus - the place where Jesus is Lord and is obeyed as Lord. (Certainly there are other definitions, and probably better ones. I haven't looked up any. Maybe the definition above is one I've borrowed from someone else but can't remember having done so.)
It is not enough merely to say that the kingdom is wherever God reigns, because God reigns everywhere already. All reality, visible and invisible, is his domain and his subject. But the Bible teaches that while God's sovereignty is universal, his kingdom is exclusive: some people are in it and some people are outside of it. You cannot be outside of God's creation, but you can be outside of his kingdom. In fact, one of the more constantly emphasized features of the kingdom is its exclusivity. For example, in Matthew 13:47-50 Jesus says that the kingdom is like a group of fishermen separating good fish from bad: the good fish get collected in baskets while the bad get tossed away. He explains that this segregation is like that of the righteous and the wicked - the righteous get in the kingdom while the wicked are thrown into a fiery furnace. Many other parables make the same point. For a list of sins whose indulgence without repentance will exclude you from the kingdom of God, read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Galatians 5:19-21.
In addition to exclusivity, a second regularly emphasized feature of the kingdom is its nearness. It is "at hand," "about to happen," "just around the corner." See for example Mark 1:14-15: "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'" John the Baptist had said the same thing (Matthew 3:1-2), and Jesus taught his disciples to preach the same message: "And proclaim as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" (Matthew 10:7).
But what does "near" or "at hand" mean?
It turns out that trying to pin down a precise space-time reference for "near" in these texts is like trying to pin down the speed and the location of an electron, which is something that physicists tell us we can never do. (Or maybe it is like trying to determine whether a photon is exclusively a wave or a particle!). These are not easy questions.
On the one hand, "near" might naturally be construed as "arriving within the next few weeks or months at most." On the other hand, in Luke 19:11-27 Jesus tells the parable of silver units given to servants to invest for the sake of those who "supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately" (verse 11). Essentially he tells them they are wrong, and that they must go about their business faithfully until the kingdom comes at some future time. On the other hand (you'll need at least three hands!), Jesus says in Matthew 12:28 and Luke 11:20 that the kingdom has already come: "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." Amazingly, the Greek tense of the verb "to come" in these two verses is aorist, which is usually translated into English as a simple past.
So which is it? In Jesus' teaching, is the kingdom about to arrive in a few weeks? Is it a long way off? Or has it already started? The answers are yes. In seems that the "nearness" of the kingdom of God must not to be measured merely along the axis of time as we experience it. There are other kinds of "near."
This seeming ambiguity about the kingdom's nearness finds at least some resolution in a third feature: the spiritual nature of God's kingdom. In Mark 12:34 Jesus tells a wise scribe, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." How can one man (as opposed to his colleagues) be "not far" from the kingdom? If the kingdom is strictly a physical entity that appears on a given date in history, then all of Jesus' listeners would be equidistant from it. While it is true that some would get in and some would be barred (the principle of exclusivity), everyone alike would be 5 days or 5 months or 5,000 years away from it. But by affirming that the scribe was "not far" from the kingdom, Jesus was implying a spiritual dimension to kingdom proximity that is taught explicitly in Luke 17:20-21. There, when Pharisees ask him when the kingdom of God would come, he said, "The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
The realm where Jesus is king and is submitted to as Lord was right there in front of the Pharisees, loud and close, but they could not see it. As Jesus said to another Pharisee, Nicodemus, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3:3). In this sense, the kingdom is like that battalion of warrior angels in 2 Kings 6 that was visible to Elisha but not to his servant. To see the angels all around him, the spiritual eyes of Elisha's servant had to be opened: to see the kingdom of God in their midst, the Pharisees would have to be born again.
But then Jesus seems to contradict himself. (The word "seems" in that sentence is important.) While in Luke 17:20 he says that the kingdom is not coming in ways that can be observed, in Luke 21:31, after giving a series of signs that will be observed, he says, "So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near." Does Jesus teach two kingdoms - one that is present without observable signs and another that will only arrive after certain signs are fulfilled?
I do not think so. One simple way to reconcile the invisible, signless, present kingdom with the visible, signful, future kingdom is to meditate a little on the word "power."
In Mark 9:1 Jesus makes a fascinating promise to his disciples: "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." "With power" is the key qualification. In one sense, they had already seen the kingdom of God - the one that was in their midst, the one that was invisible to the Pharisees. By recognizing Jesus' true nature and submitting to his rule they were inside that kingdom, and could see things others could not see.
But beyond that, a few of the disciples would get to observe, before their deaths, a sight that the rest would only experience after their deaths: the kingdom with power. That is, they would see Jesus not in the guise of a homely weak Jewish carpenter but - as he is in truth - the Glorified Divine King. This prediction was fulfilled six days later when Peter, James and John saw Jesus transfigured before them on a mountain. Even his clothes became dazzling white - see Mark 9:2-8. In the aura of that shining, dead men live, and so Moses and Elijah put in a unique pre-resurrection appearance. Then God spoke, honoring his Son. The powerful realities of the future kingdom made a momentary intrusion in the lives of three disciples, giving them a foretaste, a preview, of glories that some day all the righteous will experience.
Jesus' spiritual kingdom is always near, and has been for 2,000 years. One word from the Father, and the spiritual will be rendered physical, and the divine glory and power will shine from the face of Jesus as it did ever so briefly to Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. But this time the glory will remain, and every eye will see him.
Till that day, a fourth feature characterizes the kingdom of God: its growth. In Matthew 13:31-33 Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which, though tiny, grows into a bush so large that birds can perch in its branches. Or it is like a tiny bit of yeast that is worked into a whole lump of dough. A little yeast expands a big mound of bread.
More than 500 years before Jesus, the prophet Daniel made the same point about the kingdom of God: it would start very small but then get so big as to be practically global. This prophecy is in Daniel 2 where Daniel interprets a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar about a statue whose levels represent a succession of earthly kingdoms. In the dream, "a rock was cut out, but not by human hands" (verse 34), and it knocked down the statue, and afterward it "became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth." (verse 35). Later Daniel explains that "in the time of those kings [the Roman emperors], the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed," and that "this is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands" (verses 44-45).
The kingdom of God is like a rock that becomes a mountain, a seed that becomes a bush, a dash of yeast that expands a loaf. I believe that that is the growth we have seen over the last 2,000 years and that continues to this day. On every continent as the gospel is preached, the kingdom of God grows as people acknowledge Jesus as king and bow the knee in subjection to him. In Jesus' day, the kingdom was quite small, a mere mustard seed, just a handful of people who knew who Jesus was and who followed him as their Lord. Now there are many, and the kingdom, though weak and invisible, fills the earth. There is coming a day, however, when Jesus will return and reign in power, and then, as Revelation 11:15 prophesies, the angels will say, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."
Two preliminary comments:
1) The phrases "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" mean exactly the same thing. Only Matthew uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven;" elsewhere it is always "kingdom of God." If you look up the two phrases in a concordance you will see many parallels where only the one word is different. The reason for the difference is that Matthew often followed the Jewish tradition of substituting "heaven" for "God" so as to avoid the possibility of blaspheming God's Name. (Like the time the prodigal son said to his father in Luke 15:21: "I have sinned against heaven and against you." Against heaven? He meant he had sinned against God.)
Classic Dispensationalism regrettably distinguishes between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. (At the dispensationalist church my family attended when I was a child, one of the awards I received for memorizing Bible verses was the book "The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven," which explained the differences in excruciating, imaginative, and utterly futile detail.) The Scofield Reference Bible famously outlined five differences between the two kingdoms, indoctrinating (and confusing) generations of dispensationalists. This distinction between "two kingdoms" must be judged a failure and discarded.
2) The kingdom of God has so many features that it can be difficult, when focusing on one aspect, to connect it to all the rest. It is the proverbial elephant described by six blind men: one man says an elephant is like a tree (he has grasped a leg), another: a wall (the side), a rope (the tail), a branch (the trunk), a leaf (the ear), and a spear (the tusk). All the blind men are correct, but their individual descriptions baffle each other. When Jesus asked, "To what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use to describe it?" (Mark 4:30), he gave, in the course of his ministry, various answers according to the kingdom's varied aspects. I will start with a general description of the kingdom at a distance (the whole elephant, so to speak), which hopefully will help make sense of some of the particulars.
I define the kingdom of God as that realm where God reigns and his kingship is recognized, or - since the kingdom belongs to Jesus - the place where Jesus is Lord and is obeyed as Lord. (Certainly there are other definitions, and probably better ones. I haven't looked up any. Maybe the definition above is one I've borrowed from someone else but can't remember having done so.)
It is not enough merely to say that the kingdom is wherever God reigns, because God reigns everywhere already. All reality, visible and invisible, is his domain and his subject. But the Bible teaches that while God's sovereignty is universal, his kingdom is exclusive: some people are in it and some people are outside of it. You cannot be outside of God's creation, but you can be outside of his kingdom. In fact, one of the more constantly emphasized features of the kingdom is its exclusivity. For example, in Matthew 13:47-50 Jesus says that the kingdom is like a group of fishermen separating good fish from bad: the good fish get collected in baskets while the bad get tossed away. He explains that this segregation is like that of the righteous and the wicked - the righteous get in the kingdom while the wicked are thrown into a fiery furnace. Many other parables make the same point. For a list of sins whose indulgence without repentance will exclude you from the kingdom of God, read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Galatians 5:19-21.
In addition to exclusivity, a second regularly emphasized feature of the kingdom is its nearness. It is "at hand," "about to happen," "just around the corner." See for example Mark 1:14-15: "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'" John the Baptist had said the same thing (Matthew 3:1-2), and Jesus taught his disciples to preach the same message: "And proclaim as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" (Matthew 10:7).
But what does "near" or "at hand" mean?
It turns out that trying to pin down a precise space-time reference for "near" in these texts is like trying to pin down the speed and the location of an electron, which is something that physicists tell us we can never do. (Or maybe it is like trying to determine whether a photon is exclusively a wave or a particle!). These are not easy questions.
On the one hand, "near" might naturally be construed as "arriving within the next few weeks or months at most." On the other hand, in Luke 19:11-27 Jesus tells the parable of silver units given to servants to invest for the sake of those who "supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately" (verse 11). Essentially he tells them they are wrong, and that they must go about their business faithfully until the kingdom comes at some future time. On the other hand (you'll need at least three hands!), Jesus says in Matthew 12:28 and Luke 11:20 that the kingdom has already come: "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." Amazingly, the Greek tense of the verb "to come" in these two verses is aorist, which is usually translated into English as a simple past.
So which is it? In Jesus' teaching, is the kingdom about to arrive in a few weeks? Is it a long way off? Or has it already started? The answers are yes. In seems that the "nearness" of the kingdom of God must not to be measured merely along the axis of time as we experience it. There are other kinds of "near."
This seeming ambiguity about the kingdom's nearness finds at least some resolution in a third feature: the spiritual nature of God's kingdom. In Mark 12:34 Jesus tells a wise scribe, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." How can one man (as opposed to his colleagues) be "not far" from the kingdom? If the kingdom is strictly a physical entity that appears on a given date in history, then all of Jesus' listeners would be equidistant from it. While it is true that some would get in and some would be barred (the principle of exclusivity), everyone alike would be 5 days or 5 months or 5,000 years away from it. But by affirming that the scribe was "not far" from the kingdom, Jesus was implying a spiritual dimension to kingdom proximity that is taught explicitly in Luke 17:20-21. There, when Pharisees ask him when the kingdom of God would come, he said, "The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
The realm where Jesus is king and is submitted to as Lord was right there in front of the Pharisees, loud and close, but they could not see it. As Jesus said to another Pharisee, Nicodemus, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3:3). In this sense, the kingdom is like that battalion of warrior angels in 2 Kings 6 that was visible to Elisha but not to his servant. To see the angels all around him, the spiritual eyes of Elisha's servant had to be opened: to see the kingdom of God in their midst, the Pharisees would have to be born again.
But then Jesus seems to contradict himself. (The word "seems" in that sentence is important.) While in Luke 17:20 he says that the kingdom is not coming in ways that can be observed, in Luke 21:31, after giving a series of signs that will be observed, he says, "So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near." Does Jesus teach two kingdoms - one that is present without observable signs and another that will only arrive after certain signs are fulfilled?
I do not think so. One simple way to reconcile the invisible, signless, present kingdom with the visible, signful, future kingdom is to meditate a little on the word "power."
In Mark 9:1 Jesus makes a fascinating promise to his disciples: "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." "With power" is the key qualification. In one sense, they had already seen the kingdom of God - the one that was in their midst, the one that was invisible to the Pharisees. By recognizing Jesus' true nature and submitting to his rule they were inside that kingdom, and could see things others could not see.
But beyond that, a few of the disciples would get to observe, before their deaths, a sight that the rest would only experience after their deaths: the kingdom with power. That is, they would see Jesus not in the guise of a homely weak Jewish carpenter but - as he is in truth - the Glorified Divine King. This prediction was fulfilled six days later when Peter, James and John saw Jesus transfigured before them on a mountain. Even his clothes became dazzling white - see Mark 9:2-8. In the aura of that shining, dead men live, and so Moses and Elijah put in a unique pre-resurrection appearance. Then God spoke, honoring his Son. The powerful realities of the future kingdom made a momentary intrusion in the lives of three disciples, giving them a foretaste, a preview, of glories that some day all the righteous will experience.
Jesus' spiritual kingdom is always near, and has been for 2,000 years. One word from the Father, and the spiritual will be rendered physical, and the divine glory and power will shine from the face of Jesus as it did ever so briefly to Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. But this time the glory will remain, and every eye will see him.
Till that day, a fourth feature characterizes the kingdom of God: its growth. In Matthew 13:31-33 Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which, though tiny, grows into a bush so large that birds can perch in its branches. Or it is like a tiny bit of yeast that is worked into a whole lump of dough. A little yeast expands a big mound of bread.
More than 500 years before Jesus, the prophet Daniel made the same point about the kingdom of God: it would start very small but then get so big as to be practically global. This prophecy is in Daniel 2 where Daniel interprets a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar about a statue whose levels represent a succession of earthly kingdoms. In the dream, "a rock was cut out, but not by human hands" (verse 34), and it knocked down the statue, and afterward it "became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth." (verse 35). Later Daniel explains that "in the time of those kings [the Roman emperors], the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed," and that "this is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands" (verses 44-45).
The kingdom of God is like a rock that becomes a mountain, a seed that becomes a bush, a dash of yeast that expands a loaf. I believe that that is the growth we have seen over the last 2,000 years and that continues to this day. On every continent as the gospel is preached, the kingdom of God grows as people acknowledge Jesus as king and bow the knee in subjection to him. In Jesus' day, the kingdom was quite small, a mere mustard seed, just a handful of people who knew who Jesus was and who followed him as their Lord. Now there are many, and the kingdom, though weak and invisible, fills the earth. There is coming a day, however, when Jesus will return and reign in power, and then, as Revelation 11:15 prophesies, the angels will say, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."
Friday, March 30, 2012
Reflections On Covetousness: "Why Not Me?"
You shall not covet (Exodus 20:17)
I commiserated the other day with my Catholic friend Tom, a man who is so devout in his faith that he once tried to get me to convert to Catholicism so I could be a priest.
Tom goes to Mass faithfully, but he goes alone. His wife ridicules church attendance, which she assumes is an attempt to earn brownie points with God. She blames God for screwing up her life. Tom's daughter says, "If Mom's not going I'm not going either!" and he figures it's futile to try to force them.
"Don't misunderstand me," Tom says, "I love my wife" - and then he does what I always used to do with my first wife: he lists the things he's grateful for. "She doesn't cheat on me. She's not an alcoholic." (I used to say, "She doesn't nag me. She doesn't spend wildly.")
"But," Tom says, and then he tells me his marital sorrows. She rarely has sex with him. Though she does not have a paying job she refuses to do any housework like cooking or cleaning or laundry. (When Tom comes home from work his daughter is waiting for him to make them something to eat.) Meanwhile his wife devotes enormous amounts of time and energy to a charity that is costly to run but that brings no money into their financially troubled household.
Tom loves God, and he knows that he must do his Christian duties in the context of a marriage that is less than satisfying. I sent him this quote from C. S. Lewis: "[A man's marital headship] is most fully embodied...in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is - in her own mere nature - least lovable. For the Church has no beauty but what the Bride-groom gives her; he does not find, but makes her, lovely. The chrism of this terrible coronation is to be seen not in the joys of any man's marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and sufferings of a good wife or the faults of a bad one, in his unwearying (never paraded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness."
One of my greatest pleasures is boasting about the delightful woman I am married to now, but I try to be careful about indulging this pleasure before Tom. I know how it hurts to hear of others' exaltation in areas where we have pain. I have felt that hurt, even though I know that it is wrong to begrudge another man his happiness, and that Christians must obey the commandment "rejoice with those who rejoice." (Romans 12:15). But I am weak, and prone to covetousness, and am capable of asking ungodly questions like "How come he's got such a good wife?"
Some years ago after the fourth or fifth Harry Potter book came out I heard about a writer of children's fantasy literature who addressed a conference of librarians. He said, "We who write in this genre are asked all the time what we think of J. K. Rowling and Potter mania. I can sum up my response in three words." He paused, stepped to the side of the podium, raised his eyes and hands heavenward and shouted, "WHY NOT ME??????"
The "Why not me?" question is a natural one and occurs to us in all kinds of circumstances. A pastor friend of mine was enduring hostile opposition from his congregation some years ago, and he confided to me (in good humor, but showing some wistfulness), "Why are they doing this to me? There are pastors out there who are lazy or dishonest or addicted to porn but they get love and loyalty from their congregations. I'm running a clean program and get all this nastiness!"
I used to ask the "Why not me?" question a lot in my first marriage, though never aloud, and never even verbalized internally quite that way. But the thought was there. Countless times I turned off Christian radio in anger as some fool (yes, some fool) told me how I could have a new wife by Friday, or how my wife would be transformed if only I would learn to speak her love language, or how if I would only do this one thing my wife would loooovvvve me. Morons. Bunch of morons.
Compounding my grief was the fact that perhaps the happiest marriage I knew was two people who married many years ago at 17 because the young woman was pregnant. Wait a minute - they're supposed to be broken up by now, whereas I, who prayed for my future spouse, who sought the Lord's leading, who asked others to pray, who maintained my virginity, who got pre-marital counseling and who married a godly missionary - I'm supposed to be the one with a model marriage! How in the world did I wind up with the apostate lesbian? And what am I supposed to tell young people about what I've learned from my experience? "Well, kids, don't expect great results from the 'prayer and purity' route. Tried it. Who knows, I might have been better off getting some girl pregnant when I was a junior in high school like my friend over there."
I know that's wrong of course. That's the cynicism talking. And what fuels such cynicism is not mere reality but reality plus covetousness - the sin of desiring what others have, and thinking, "That really should belong to me rather than them."
Covetousness is an evil way of thought that often grips people who by God's grace are able to sidestep most other sins. It afflicted St. Paul more than any other temptation. In Romans 7 Paul bemoans his spiritual indiscipline, saying, "I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do... I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing." (Romans 7:14-15, 18-19). What sin had Paul been committing? The only sin he actually refers to in this text is that of covetousness: "I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, 'Do not covet.' But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire." (Verses 7-8).
I think I know why Paul pinpointed covetousness as his spiritual bane rather than some other disobedience. The fact is he was innocent regarding nine of the ten commandments! He never committed adultery, or testified falsely, or stole anything. As a good Pharisee he never took God's name in vain, or made graven images, or violated the Sabbath. As for murder, though he did persecute Christians before he became one himself, that was more a matter of fatally misguided zeal than homicide per se.
But he was a coveter (im)pure and simple, and he couldn't shake it. A drunk can give up liquor and a rogue can give up seduction and a thief can give up greed, but it takes a profound work of grace for an envious man to give up asking "Why not me???" St. Peter himself had to learn not to ask that question when it appeared his fellow apostle St. John would not get his life cut cruelly short by martyrdom (John 21:18-22). "Hey - how come I get crucified while he gets to lounge on a beach sipping tequila?" Don't even ask, Peter.
The tendency in Paul to reflect on unworthy people getting better treatment than he (a reflection which, if indulged and cultivated, becomes covetousness) shows up in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12. There Paul vents frustration over the fact that some Corinthian parishioners seemed to dismiss him contemptuously while they bowed in servile humility to pompous jerks who exploited them. He writes, "You tolerate it if anyone enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face. To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that! ...I have not been a burden to you...Did I exploit you through any of the men I sent you? I urged Titus to go to you and I sent our brother with him. Titus did not exploit you, did he? Did we not act in the same spirit and follow the same course?" (2 Corinthians 11:20-21; 12:16-18)
You can see Paul's outrage over the unfairness of it, and how easily he might take the next step saying, "Give me the esteem you give to him! It's only right that I get what he's got. And I won't be happy till I get it!" That's covetousness.
By God's grace I no longer covet other men's marital happiness. How can I? I have the best wife in the world. But the deep-rooted sin of covetousness has not left me any more than it left my apostolic namesake in Romans 7 - it has just found other opportunities to glow red. I'll confess to you how I failed in that just this past week.
My younger son is an atheist comedian who occasionally writes things that show contempt for the sermons I have preached, the churches I have pastored, the upbringing I gave him, and the Christian faith in general. My sorrows about that know no bounds. Last week he published something that, thankfully, had no shots at Jesus or the Church or me. But he did link to the atheist website of his "fantastic" and "one-and-only" speech coach. My son extols his atheist mentor - but uses me as fodder for jokes that crack up people who do not fear God.
Of course I pray for my son all the time. But that is not what this is about - I'm writing about covetousness. Shall I tell you the thought that hijacked my mind for hours this week while I stood at my packing station at the warehouse putting things in bags and boxes? Here is what I thought about:
Some years ago I became acquainted with Simon (not his real name - I'm careful about things revealed to me in confession). Simon was a divorced single man, like myself, and involved in Christian ministry though never himself pastor. Unlike me, though, Simon had a charismatic personality, and he caught everyone's eye.
Simon's problem was that he had trouble keeping his pants on when with a woman. He'd feel bad about it though, "repent," dump the woman cold, and then go back and do it again. Among the things that distress me about this individual is that he has a lovely grown daughter who raves about what a godly father she has. She does not know what I know, has no clue what a skunk her father has been. And actually that is all for the best - if by now he is truly and conclusively repentant. Let her continue to honor him for all the good that she does know about him.
But you see where I covet. It is hard for me to dismiss the thought, Why is this man honored and I am not? How dare he garnish praise he has not earned! I have neither money nor influence nor a ministry nor esteem in the eyes of men - can't I at least be extolled by my son the way this creep is extolled by his daughter?
That is my confession to you. Yes, I am capable of thinking that way, I am still held captive at times by sinfully covetous thoughts that I know I must discard. I speak this frankly to you for two reasons: to inspire your prayers, and to awaken your conscience to a sin that might plague you too, if your nature is anything like mine. I know to my shame that the sin I have succumbed to this week will probably not be overcome on that great day when this particular temptation is removed. Though I will stop coveting the praise another man receives from his children on the day my son bows the knee to Jesus Christ and values me as he did his atheist mentor, the truth is, unless I repent, I will simply find something else about which to ask that infernal, self-absorbed, God-neglecting, God-forsaken question: "Why not me?"
I commiserated the other day with my Catholic friend Tom, a man who is so devout in his faith that he once tried to get me to convert to Catholicism so I could be a priest.
Tom goes to Mass faithfully, but he goes alone. His wife ridicules church attendance, which she assumes is an attempt to earn brownie points with God. She blames God for screwing up her life. Tom's daughter says, "If Mom's not going I'm not going either!" and he figures it's futile to try to force them.
"Don't misunderstand me," Tom says, "I love my wife" - and then he does what I always used to do with my first wife: he lists the things he's grateful for. "She doesn't cheat on me. She's not an alcoholic." (I used to say, "She doesn't nag me. She doesn't spend wildly.")
"But," Tom says, and then he tells me his marital sorrows. She rarely has sex with him. Though she does not have a paying job she refuses to do any housework like cooking or cleaning or laundry. (When Tom comes home from work his daughter is waiting for him to make them something to eat.) Meanwhile his wife devotes enormous amounts of time and energy to a charity that is costly to run but that brings no money into their financially troubled household.
Tom loves God, and he knows that he must do his Christian duties in the context of a marriage that is less than satisfying. I sent him this quote from C. S. Lewis: "[A man's marital headship] is most fully embodied...in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is - in her own mere nature - least lovable. For the Church has no beauty but what the Bride-groom gives her; he does not find, but makes her, lovely. The chrism of this terrible coronation is to be seen not in the joys of any man's marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and sufferings of a good wife or the faults of a bad one, in his unwearying (never paraded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness."
One of my greatest pleasures is boasting about the delightful woman I am married to now, but I try to be careful about indulging this pleasure before Tom. I know how it hurts to hear of others' exaltation in areas where we have pain. I have felt that hurt, even though I know that it is wrong to begrudge another man his happiness, and that Christians must obey the commandment "rejoice with those who rejoice." (Romans 12:15). But I am weak, and prone to covetousness, and am capable of asking ungodly questions like "How come he's got such a good wife?"
Some years ago after the fourth or fifth Harry Potter book came out I heard about a writer of children's fantasy literature who addressed a conference of librarians. He said, "We who write in this genre are asked all the time what we think of J. K. Rowling and Potter mania. I can sum up my response in three words." He paused, stepped to the side of the podium, raised his eyes and hands heavenward and shouted, "WHY NOT ME??????"
The "Why not me?" question is a natural one and occurs to us in all kinds of circumstances. A pastor friend of mine was enduring hostile opposition from his congregation some years ago, and he confided to me (in good humor, but showing some wistfulness), "Why are they doing this to me? There are pastors out there who are lazy or dishonest or addicted to porn but they get love and loyalty from their congregations. I'm running a clean program and get all this nastiness!"
I used to ask the "Why not me?" question a lot in my first marriage, though never aloud, and never even verbalized internally quite that way. But the thought was there. Countless times I turned off Christian radio in anger as some fool (yes, some fool) told me how I could have a new wife by Friday, or how my wife would be transformed if only I would learn to speak her love language, or how if I would only do this one thing my wife would loooovvvve me. Morons. Bunch of morons.
Compounding my grief was the fact that perhaps the happiest marriage I knew was two people who married many years ago at 17 because the young woman was pregnant. Wait a minute - they're supposed to be broken up by now, whereas I, who prayed for my future spouse, who sought the Lord's leading, who asked others to pray, who maintained my virginity, who got pre-marital counseling and who married a godly missionary - I'm supposed to be the one with a model marriage! How in the world did I wind up with the apostate lesbian? And what am I supposed to tell young people about what I've learned from my experience? "Well, kids, don't expect great results from the 'prayer and purity' route. Tried it. Who knows, I might have been better off getting some girl pregnant when I was a junior in high school like my friend over there."
I know that's wrong of course. That's the cynicism talking. And what fuels such cynicism is not mere reality but reality plus covetousness - the sin of desiring what others have, and thinking, "That really should belong to me rather than them."
Covetousness is an evil way of thought that often grips people who by God's grace are able to sidestep most other sins. It afflicted St. Paul more than any other temptation. In Romans 7 Paul bemoans his spiritual indiscipline, saying, "I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do... I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing." (Romans 7:14-15, 18-19). What sin had Paul been committing? The only sin he actually refers to in this text is that of covetousness: "I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, 'Do not covet.' But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire." (Verses 7-8).
I think I know why Paul pinpointed covetousness as his spiritual bane rather than some other disobedience. The fact is he was innocent regarding nine of the ten commandments! He never committed adultery, or testified falsely, or stole anything. As a good Pharisee he never took God's name in vain, or made graven images, or violated the Sabbath. As for murder, though he did persecute Christians before he became one himself, that was more a matter of fatally misguided zeal than homicide per se.
But he was a coveter (im)pure and simple, and he couldn't shake it. A drunk can give up liquor and a rogue can give up seduction and a thief can give up greed, but it takes a profound work of grace for an envious man to give up asking "Why not me???" St. Peter himself had to learn not to ask that question when it appeared his fellow apostle St. John would not get his life cut cruelly short by martyrdom (John 21:18-22). "Hey - how come I get crucified while he gets to lounge on a beach sipping tequila?" Don't even ask, Peter.
The tendency in Paul to reflect on unworthy people getting better treatment than he (a reflection which, if indulged and cultivated, becomes covetousness) shows up in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12. There Paul vents frustration over the fact that some Corinthian parishioners seemed to dismiss him contemptuously while they bowed in servile humility to pompous jerks who exploited them. He writes, "You tolerate it if anyone enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face. To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that! ...I have not been a burden to you...Did I exploit you through any of the men I sent you? I urged Titus to go to you and I sent our brother with him. Titus did not exploit you, did he? Did we not act in the same spirit and follow the same course?" (2 Corinthians 11:20-21; 12:16-18)
You can see Paul's outrage over the unfairness of it, and how easily he might take the next step saying, "Give me the esteem you give to him! It's only right that I get what he's got. And I won't be happy till I get it!" That's covetousness.
By God's grace I no longer covet other men's marital happiness. How can I? I have the best wife in the world. But the deep-rooted sin of covetousness has not left me any more than it left my apostolic namesake in Romans 7 - it has just found other opportunities to glow red. I'll confess to you how I failed in that just this past week.
My younger son is an atheist comedian who occasionally writes things that show contempt for the sermons I have preached, the churches I have pastored, the upbringing I gave him, and the Christian faith in general. My sorrows about that know no bounds. Last week he published something that, thankfully, had no shots at Jesus or the Church or me. But he did link to the atheist website of his "fantastic" and "one-and-only" speech coach. My son extols his atheist mentor - but uses me as fodder for jokes that crack up people who do not fear God.
Of course I pray for my son all the time. But that is not what this is about - I'm writing about covetousness. Shall I tell you the thought that hijacked my mind for hours this week while I stood at my packing station at the warehouse putting things in bags and boxes? Here is what I thought about:
Some years ago I became acquainted with Simon (not his real name - I'm careful about things revealed to me in confession). Simon was a divorced single man, like myself, and involved in Christian ministry though never himself pastor. Unlike me, though, Simon had a charismatic personality, and he caught everyone's eye.
Simon's problem was that he had trouble keeping his pants on when with a woman. He'd feel bad about it though, "repent," dump the woman cold, and then go back and do it again. Among the things that distress me about this individual is that he has a lovely grown daughter who raves about what a godly father she has. She does not know what I know, has no clue what a skunk her father has been. And actually that is all for the best - if by now he is truly and conclusively repentant. Let her continue to honor him for all the good that she does know about him.
But you see where I covet. It is hard for me to dismiss the thought, Why is this man honored and I am not? How dare he garnish praise he has not earned! I have neither money nor influence nor a ministry nor esteem in the eyes of men - can't I at least be extolled by my son the way this creep is extolled by his daughter?
That is my confession to you. Yes, I am capable of thinking that way, I am still held captive at times by sinfully covetous thoughts that I know I must discard. I speak this frankly to you for two reasons: to inspire your prayers, and to awaken your conscience to a sin that might plague you too, if your nature is anything like mine. I know to my shame that the sin I have succumbed to this week will probably not be overcome on that great day when this particular temptation is removed. Though I will stop coveting the praise another man receives from his children on the day my son bows the knee to Jesus Christ and values me as he did his atheist mentor, the truth is, unless I repent, I will simply find something else about which to ask that infernal, self-absorbed, God-neglecting, God-forsaken question: "Why not me?"
Sunday, January 22, 2012
January 27, 2012: Pulpit Plagiarism
Twelve years ago I visited a church and heard a bad sermon, and when I told a friend about it he said he had visited a different church that Sunday and heard the same sermon! We compared notes and found too many parallels for coincidence. It turns out both ministers had lifted their sermons, without attribution, from Bruce Wilkinson's The Prayer of Jabez, which went on to become a bestseller.
Another time I heard a minister relate an incident from his life and thought, "That's odd - I read the account of another minister who had practically the same thing happen to him." I thought no more of the coincidence until later when this pastor told a funny story from the early days of his ministry - and this time I knew for a fact that it had happened to someone else. My blood ran cold. "How many of his personal stories," I wondered, "are lifted from the lives of others?"
It is not wrong to use other people's words, outlines, stories or illustrations in your sermons. It is wrong to pass them off as your own. To do so is dishonest and reveals a corruption of spirit incompatible with proclamation of truth. Plagiarism cannot be tolerated in the church.
Last week I watched online a sermon from a preacher whose honesty had been called into question by a relative of mine. The preacher developed a catch-line phrase from a cartoon which I knew originated from a nationally known speaker, but which had supposedly come to him from videos he got for his son on a family trip. Investigating further I found I could discover the source material for virtually all his messages (always unattributed) simply by googling the sermon titles. His plagiarism extended even to the use of parenthetical comments, wisecracks and weak jokes.
I asked my lovely wife if she would watch a couple five-minute clips from two sermons and give me her response. I played a clip from this pastor and then one from what was obviously his source material. She sat stunned and said to me, "It makes me think he is not a man of God." She's right, of course, and that is what is so scary. When - and with what devastating consequences - will this pastor's lack of integrity be made manifest in the church that now (outwardly) thrives under his leadership?
If you are a pastor and a plagiarist, you have two options:
(1) Repent, come clean, confess to your congregation, let them handle the response, and never do it again. From now on, when you use others' ideas, say things like "Bill Hybels calls this a 'Popeye Moment,'" rather than, "I like to call this a 'Popeye Moment.'" Or, "This morning I'll be borrowing extensively from a message by Mark Driscoll," or, "I found a helpful outline for this text in a book by John Piper."
Or,
(2) Resign from the ministry, acknowledging that you are not worthy of the pulpit and do not have the gifts that a pulpit ministry demands.
If your pastor is a plagiarist, I think you also have two options:
(1) Confront him in love. Tell him precisely how you are aware that he is using others' words and ideas and experiences but passing them off as his own. An excellent template for such a confrontation may be found in George MacDonald's novel The Curate's Awakening. There an educated parishioner gently and tactfully informs an inexperienced young minister that a sermon of his was lifted directly from the works of Jeremy Taylor. The young pastor is distraught. He humbly acknowledges that he does not really know what he is doing - he had been reading sermons bequeathed to him by an uncle in the ministry who, he now finds out, was a plagiarist himself. He contemplates resignation, but instead, submitting to the wise layman's tutoring and direction, develops into a mature man of God capable of feeding his congregation without relying on corrupt practice. If your pastor is humble enough to turn from his dishonesty once confronted with it, then there may lie in his future a blessed redemption like this.
Or,
(2) If you are certain that your pastor lacks the humility of spirit necessary for such personal reformation, go find another church.
Twelve years ago I visited a church and heard a bad sermon, and when I told a friend about it he said he had visited a different church that Sunday and heard the same sermon! We compared notes and found too many parallels for coincidence. It turns out both ministers had lifted their sermons, without attribution, from Bruce Wilkinson's The Prayer of Jabez, which went on to become a bestseller.
Another time I heard a minister relate an incident from his life and thought, "That's odd - I read the account of another minister who had practically the same thing happen to him." I thought no more of the coincidence until later when this pastor told a funny story from the early days of his ministry - and this time I knew for a fact that it had happened to someone else. My blood ran cold. "How many of his personal stories," I wondered, "are lifted from the lives of others?"
It is not wrong to use other people's words, outlines, stories or illustrations in your sermons. It is wrong to pass them off as your own. To do so is dishonest and reveals a corruption of spirit incompatible with proclamation of truth. Plagiarism cannot be tolerated in the church.
Last week I watched online a sermon from a preacher whose honesty had been called into question by a relative of mine. The preacher developed a catch-line phrase from a cartoon which I knew originated from a nationally known speaker, but which had supposedly come to him from videos he got for his son on a family trip. Investigating further I found I could discover the source material for virtually all his messages (always unattributed) simply by googling the sermon titles. His plagiarism extended even to the use of parenthetical comments, wisecracks and weak jokes.
I asked my lovely wife if she would watch a couple five-minute clips from two sermons and give me her response. I played a clip from this pastor and then one from what was obviously his source material. She sat stunned and said to me, "It makes me think he is not a man of God." She's right, of course, and that is what is so scary. When - and with what devastating consequences - will this pastor's lack of integrity be made manifest in the church that now (outwardly) thrives under his leadership?
If you are a pastor and a plagiarist, you have two options:
(1) Repent, come clean, confess to your congregation, let them handle the response, and never do it again. From now on, when you use others' ideas, say things like "Bill Hybels calls this a 'Popeye Moment,'" rather than, "I like to call this a 'Popeye Moment.'" Or, "This morning I'll be borrowing extensively from a message by Mark Driscoll," or, "I found a helpful outline for this text in a book by John Piper."
Or,
(2) Resign from the ministry, acknowledging that you are not worthy of the pulpit and do not have the gifts that a pulpit ministry demands.
If your pastor is a plagiarist, I think you also have two options:
(1) Confront him in love. Tell him precisely how you are aware that he is using others' words and ideas and experiences but passing them off as his own. An excellent template for such a confrontation may be found in George MacDonald's novel The Curate's Awakening. There an educated parishioner gently and tactfully informs an inexperienced young minister that a sermon of his was lifted directly from the works of Jeremy Taylor. The young pastor is distraught. He humbly acknowledges that he does not really know what he is doing - he had been reading sermons bequeathed to him by an uncle in the ministry who, he now finds out, was a plagiarist himself. He contemplates resignation, but instead, submitting to the wise layman's tutoring and direction, develops into a mature man of God capable of feeding his congregation without relying on corrupt practice. If your pastor is humble enough to turn from his dishonesty once confronted with it, then there may lie in his future a blessed redemption like this.
Or,
(2) If you are certain that your pastor lacks the humility of spirit necessary for such personal reformation, go find another church.
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