Tag: Bible

What is Christian Worship? Part 4

Thus far we have made several important, and unexpected, discoveries as we studied New Testament worship vocabulary.

First, we discovered that the New Testament never describes Christian gatherings as “worship services.”  New Testament believers didn’t “worship” when they gathered together.  Rather, they created group opportunities for edification and upbuilding of the Body of Christ.  Disciples use their spiritual gifts, confess their sins, sing new songs, praise and glorify God, encourage each other and meet one another’s physical and spiritual needs.

And, believe it or not, the New Testament does not call that “worship.”

Second, we found that the New Testament insists that Christian worship is the stuff believers do in their day-to-day lives as they obediently follow Jesus.  We worship God when we do the things Jesus has called us to do as members of his upside-down, counter-intuitive kingdom.
Worship is a lifestyle not because we sing praise songs and lift our hands while driving, but because we make the radically hard choices of actually being like Jesus and obeying his not-of-this-world teaching in our daily lives with others.

This is the point where I frequently hear an objection: If worship is an everyday affair, aren’t I minimizing the idea of worship as a “sacred/special” activity? 

To put the question more negatively, people sometimes object, “If everything is worship, then nothing is worship.”  (One of my former colleagues used to say this regularly).

“There must be something unique or ‘special’ about worshiping God,” they insist.  “Otherwise giving God our focused attention simply melts away into the repetitious fabric of mundane existence, and it will never really happen at all!”

This worry arises from a legitimate concern, but I believe that its impulses are misguided.  My response to this objection has two parts.   Here I will offer part one.  Part two must wait for the next post.

 First, the New Testament has dramatically eliminated the Old Testament distinction between the sacred & the profane within the Christian life.

In the Old Testament, the “sacred” was conceived of in terms of proximity to God.  God’s presence appeared at certain shrines, in the Tabernacle or in the Temple.  These places involved sacred locations (like altars), sacred personnel (priests), sacred objects (vestments, incense burners) and sacred acts (sacrifices, offerings).

The profane, on the other hand, was excluded from the sacred.  Profane things involved the mundane, day-to-day, worldly affairs of normal life, normal places and normal people.

Old Testament saints lived within two different sets of distinctions:

One was the sacred/profane distinction described above.

The second was the covenantal distinction between Israel’s membership in the Abrahamic & Sinai covenants, compared with everyone else in the world who lived outside of God’s covenants.  Israel and Israel alone were the Lord’s covenant people.

These two dimensions of (a) sacred/profane and (b) inside the covenant/outside the covenant intersected Israel’s existence in significant ways.

All those living inside the covenant were God’s chosen people.  As God’s covenant people, Israel was commanded to maintain the distinction between the sacred – i.e. they went to the Temple, offered sacrifices and understood God’s presence to be centered in the Holy of Holies – and the profane – i.e. they believed that God always saw them and heard their prayers, but they never entered into God’s presence at home as they did when they entered into the Temple.

All of Israel’s life was lived within the covenant, but covenant life was not identical with the sacred way of life.  Even Israel’s priests – who were always members of the covenant – moved  back and forth between the sacred and profane, depending on their times of temple service.

With the coming of Christ, however, God instituted a radical change of affairs.  The Lord Jesus inaugurated the NEW Covenant, or the New Testament.

With the coming of God’s New Covenant, what had previously been two different distinctions (sacred/profane and in covenant/out of covenant) are now fused into one.  In other words, every member of the New Covenant is always living a sacred existence in sacred space. Those outside the New Covenant, because they do not know Jesus, live a profane life in profane space.

Anyone participating in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ can know that the previously profane has been transformed into the perpetually sacred.  The covenantal distinction is now identical with the sacred/profane distinction.  All disciples of Jesus are holy people.  Every Christian is a priest.  Every act of obedience is a sacred act, an offering of praise, a sacrifice acceptable to God.

I am convinced that this New Testament “universalizing” of the sacred, scattering sacredness throughout all of the Christian life, is a sign of Christ’s intention to restore the universe to God’s original design.

When Adam and Eve walked through the Garden of Eden, all of life was sacred.  The entire cosmos was sacred.  Sacred space was everywhere.  There was no place that was not a sacred place.  The Creator walked and talked with the first man and woman as they strolled through the aspen groves and smelled wild roses in the overgrown thickets along the bubbling stream.

Sacred space was all there was.

So now, since the coming of Jesus, the apostle Paul can describe his lifestyle of obedient discipleship as “his priestly service” (note the language of a sacred person offering a sacred activity – i.e. worship) given up to Jesus Christ from the dirty streets and dark alleyways of every Greco-Roman city where the apostle sets the light of the Good News ablaze.

Worship becomes a lifestyle of faithful kingdom citizenship, first and foremost, because of who we are.

Jesus makes us saints and priests whose every breath drawn in thanksgiving, every thought of God’s glory, every word spoken in the light of Christ’s presence, every decision made in accordance with God’s intention, becomes a moment of worship offered up by a sacred individual inhabiting God’s new world.

Now, is that amazing, or what?

Praise be to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ for His indescribable gifts to us all!

What is Christian Worship? Part 3

In part one of our exploration into the meaning of New Testament worship, we did a few word studies of the Greek vocabulary translated by the English word “worship.”  We made an interesting discovery.  The New Testament writers do not like to describe the things that Christians do together in groups as “worship.”

Part two then asked the obvious follow-up question: If Christian gatherings are not described as times of worship in the New Testament, then when and where does worship happen?  We discovered that the New Testament consistently uses worship vocabulary to describe the daily life of obedient discipleship.  Christians worship God as they fulfill the Lord’s calling in their day-to-day lives, doing the things Jesus has sent them into the world to do.

But these observations raise another question.  If Christian gatherings are not “times of worship,” then what are they?  What are New Testament Christians doing when they gather together in groups, large or small?

The answer:  group meetings provide opportunities for mutual encouragement and building up the Body of Christ.

David Peterson hits the perfect note in his excellent book, Engaging with God:

“It is misleading to think of church services as occasions for worship in the sense of prayer and praise.  Paul’s teaching requires us to also recognize the central importance of the concept of edification for the meeting of God’s people…Paul uses the terminology of upbuilding or edification rather than the language worship to indicate the purpose and function of Christian gatherings.” (pages 195-96, 206; emphasis mine)

We shouldn’t miss this important point.  The language of “upbuilding” or “edification” is Paul’s favorite way of describing the different things that happen when followers of Jesus come together.  Here is a selection of New Testament texts describing the wide variety of activities typical of such group meetings.  Check them out and note what is happening in each instance:

  1. Matthew 18:15-20
  2. Acts 2:42-47; 4:24-31; 13:1-3; 20:7-12
  3. I Corinthians 11; 12; 14
  4. Galatians 3:5 (maybe)
  5. Ephesians 5:15-20
  6. Colossians 3:12-17
  7. I Thessalonians 5:16-22
  8. I Timothy 2:1-3:15
  9. Titus 1:7-2:15
  10. Hebrews 10:19-25
  11. James 5:14-18

Let me offer a few general observations:

  • As I mentioned in part one, explicit “worship” vocabulary only occurs in Acts 13.
  • Activities that we would normally associate with “worship” are certainly described; for instance:praise
    adoration
    singing
    hymns
    “spiritual songs”
    corporate prayer
    preaching
    the Lord’s Supper (but, notice, never baptism)

BUT the primary focus of these descriptions is “Body Life” (to use Ray Stedman’s terminology from the 1970s).  In other words, the goal of corporate gatherings is the health of the body of believers in all of its various dimensions

Note the lengthy discussion that Paul gives to the collective operation of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 – 14.  Paul is very clear – without the full-fledged functioning of spiritual gifts, in some way, shape or form, there can be no healthy collection of God’s people.

It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the primary purpose of New Testament gatherings was NOT, first of all, to deepen one’s own personal experience of intimacy with God (even though that may well happen).  Rather, the principle objective is to further develop the overall health and well-being of others believers.

In other words, we come together in order to give ourselves away in service to each other.

Of course, that may happen when a gifted music team leads a time of praise and adoration in song.  But that is only the tip of the iceberg.
Authentically “New Testament-type” gatherings also require intentional moments where people are able to:

  •  share prayer requests
  • hear one another’s stories, both good and bad
  • confess their sins and ask for forgiveness
  • offer personal words of correction
  • teach a lesson from God’s word
  • correct a brother or sister who has gone astray
  • challenge those who have become lackadaisical
  • facilitate personal reconciliation
  • become vulnerable enough to know how to meet each other’s personal needs

Fortunately, the New Testament is not overly rigorous or unbending in requiring a specific model of organizational planning or group structure to accommodate this kind of Body Life.  As long as the leadership ensures that there is always room somewhere for these crucial, communal activities to be happening, the upbuilding and edification of the church will unfold.

And that is the main purpose for gathering together with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Of course, several questions remain to be answered, but I will wait to answer them, as well as offer a few practical suggestions for real-world implementation, in upcoming posts.  Stay tuned!

Check Out the Work of Abby Martin

In my opinion, Abby Martin is one of the most significant independent journalists working today.

Abby Martin

I invite you to set aside some time and listen to this interview discussing media censorship, US imperialism, ongoing coup attempts in South America, and more.  Hopefully, this brief sampling will introduce a new perspective or two for those who take the time to listen.

I have become a regular follower of Ms. Martin’s work, especially the documentary program “The Empire Files” on Telesur English.  Previously, you could find her TV program “Breaking the Set” on RT.

Intelligent, educated people who want to remain life-long learners never stop reading and listening to new voices, especially voices with whom they think they disagree.  Sometime, those are the voices that become most illuminating to us.

Furthermore, I am absolutely convinced that Christian discipleship requires us to live as citizens of the world.  The international Body of Christ commands my first loyalty in this life, not my country, not my ethnicity, not my gender.  I believe this fact requires me to become reasonably well informed

Perhaps the most famous image from the Viet Nam war. A child flees her village after it was bombed with napalm.

about world  affairs.  More than that, as a citizen of the most powerful country in the world with a long history of treating other nations as its servants, I am required to speak out against American injustice and to defend those who suffer from US dominance.

The traditional conservative Christian social critique of “us against them” has never been a sound theology or a helpful way to engage the world.  For far too many, secular humanism and its adherents have been the “enemy,” opposing the things of God.  So these so-called secularists were to be shunned, criticized and displaced whenever, wherever possible.

Please don’t think that way.  And stop now if you have in the past.

The creation story in the book of Genesis makes two very important points about God’s world….and, yes, this is still God’s world, lock, stock and barrel.

First, the entire creation, including human beings, were declared to be “good.”  In fact, human beings are much more than good,  we are the best of the best,  the cherry on top of God’s creation.  God judged everything else to be “good,” but people are “very good.”

The entire universe is good, but people are fantastic in God’s eyes.

Extolling the virtues of intolerance. Her shirt says Intolerance is a Beautiful Thing. Sadly, for many, their intolerance extends beyond ideas or actions to include people.

Second, all human beings are created as “the image of God.”  We won’t go into the meaning of that designation here, but whatever the details, it means nothing less than the fact that if you want to find an approximation of God on earth, stare long and hard at the next person you see.  That’s the best God-approximation you’ll see this side of heaven.

The intrusion of sin into the creation did not change any of this.  That, too, is a discussion for another day.  But its true.

So, why in the world would anyone who loves God and His works ever imagine that it would be a fine idea to wall themselves off from the largest portion of His Very Best Creation, their thoughts, insights, artistry or alternative ways of thinking?

Oh my goodness, how incredibly knuckle-headed Christians can be.

I thank God for Abby Martin and her work.  I pray that she will come to know Jesus one day.  I have written to her on Twitter, letting her know that there  are thoughtful Christians in America.  In the meantime, she continues to teach me a tremendous amount about this broken world.

The image of God shines brightly in Ms. Martin. In certain respects, she reflects the ethics of Jesus and his kingdom more clearly than a good many Christians I know.

Kierkegaard on Reading Scripture

Had I ever become a seminary professor, I would have made all my students read For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself! by Sǿren Kierkegaard.  Either book is a good place to begin for anyone who is unfamiliar with my favorite “melancholy Dane” and wants to start reading Kierkegaard on their own.

Both books, published in 1851, only 4 years before his death at age 42, are a clarion call to genuine Christian living.  Kierkegaard particularly focuses on the centrality of Scripture, not simply as a book to be read or studied, nor as a source for Sunday sermons, but as a compelling Word from God that must be obeyed.

The only sufficient goal of all Bible-reading is personal transformation, and transformation only happens for those who surrender to God’s instructions by DOING what scripture says.  Reading without response is like a single person pretending to be married while eating alone every night.

Here is Kierkegaard’s advice (from For Self-Examination) for anyone whose Bible-reading has stalled because of its many difficult, hard to understand passages:

“…perhaps you say, ‘there are so many obscure passages in the Bible, whole books that are practically riddles.’ To that I would answer: Before I have anything to do with this objection, it must be made by someone whose life manifests that he/she has scrupulously complied with all the passages that are easy to understand; is this the case with you?…

 “In other words, when you are reading God’s Word, it is not the obscure passages that bind you but what you understand, and with that you are to comply at once.  If you understood only one single passage in all of Holy Scripture, well, then you must do that first of all, but you do not first have to sit down and ponder the obscure passages.  God’s Word is given in order that you shall act according to it, not that you shall practice interpreting obscure passages.  If you do not read God’s Word in such a way that you consider that the least little bit you do understand instantly binds you to do accordingly, then you are reading God’s Word.”

What Is Christian Worship?  Part 1

This post revisits one of my pet peeves:  the misunderstanding and misuse of Biblical vocabulary.  Today I want to begin looking at how we commonly misuse the word “worship.”

OK, I may be a bit like Scrooge, but I wish that Christians would use Biblical language the same way it’s used in the Bible.  Doesn’t that sound sensible to you?  Instead, we often redefine Biblical vocabulary (without realizing it) and then use it in ways that are totally disconnected from its original meaning.

For example, in a previous post I explained how we do this with the word “praise.”  Christians commonly talk about “praising God” when their actions, whether it be clapping and raising their hands, or repeating the words “praise God” over and over again, actually have no connection at all to the Biblical notion of praise.

Language certainly can evolve and change over time.  That is natural.  But for Christians – who have an unchanging, authoritative Book taken as “normative” (in one way or another) in its descriptions of God and human existence – using words from that Book in ways that are unrelated to their original significance becomes very misleading.  It is far too easy for us to import our modern (mis)understanding of those words back into the Bible without understanding the mistake we are making.  Such unconscious habits all but guarantee that we will misunderstand the Scriptures whenever we encounter those misunderstood words.

No one is thinking clearly or understanding Scripture accurately when that sort of linguistic confusion is going on.  Our modern use of worship vocabulary is one more pesky example of this common, Christianese word mangling.

So, I had been planning to write a series of posts about Christian worship for some time, but I was finally pushed over the edge last Sunday morning at church.  The congregation was coming to the end of the final song when the music leader shouted out, “Come on.  Let’s give God some worship.”

The crowd burst into applause.

Oh, my goodness.  I had to pick my eyeballs up off the floor.  I hope I didn’t groan too loudly.

So, let’s begin with a few word studies.  The word study is an important research method that every serious Bible reader needs to keep in his/her tool box, for one simple reason:  Words do not have meanings as much as they have uses.  Words mean what we use them to mean.  And word usage changes over time.  That is why dictionaries are regularly reissued in new, updated editions, because we don’t use all of our words the same way today as we did yesterday.

Ponder the very different ways we have used the English word “gay,” for example.  In 1934, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made a movie called “The Gay Divorcee.”  Astaire played a randy, young heterosexual male who spends most of the movie chasing after a lovely, young lady – certainly not the plot-line this movie title congers up for theater-goers today.

So, the question becomes:  whose understanding of a word is being read into a text?  And is it an appropriate understanding or not?

Now we need to do something called a word study.  Open a good concordance.  Your concordance will list every appearance of every word in the Bible, verse by verse.  A good English concordance (like the NIV Exhaustive Concordance) has sections to help you deal with the complications created by the different English translations of the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

Now, open your Bible and read every instance of the word(s) you want to understand.  Look at the wider context of each sentence.  This may take some time.

Look at how the word is used in its literary context.  As you progress in your research, you will notice that the same word is often used in different ways in different contexts.  That is why dictionaries can often list several different definitions for a single word.  You will also notice that a variety of Greek and Hebrew words can be translated by the same English word.  (This may sound confusing, but it will sort itself out as you become more familiar with your chosen vocabulary.)

The New Testament uses 4 different Greek word groups that can be translated into the English word worship.

First, proskunien/proskunētēs – to bow down, prostrate oneself; to kiss; to do obeisance.

Originally, this word meant to show submission or respect to a superior.  The precise significance of the homage rendered depended upon the status of the one being honored.  For example, at numerous points in the synoptic gospels various people “bow down” before Jesus, not to worship him as divine but to honor him as someone able to do great things (like heal their leprosy, Matthew 8:2).

When the object of such homage is divine, then giving appropriate honor becomes “worship,” as people acknowledge God’s worthiness of honor, submission and obedience (John 4:23; Revelation 7:11).

But, there is something very interesting about this word:  with the sole exception of John 4, the New Testament never uses this particular word to describe what Christians do for God, whether individually or collectively.  In other words, New Testament believers are never described as giving worship (proskunien) to the Lord.  Odd, but true.

The ONE place where Paul uses this word in connection with an earthly gathering of Christians, it describes the response of a visiting unbeliever who is convicted of God’s presence by observing the spiritual gift of prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:25).

We will come back to the importance of this observation later.

Second, latreuein/latreia – to serve.

Originally, in the Greek Old Testament (called the Septuagint, abbreviated as LXX), this word was used as a synonym for the “service” rendered to a master by a servant or slave – service of any sort at all.  Eventually, it became more narrowly applied to “one’s service of God.”  Most often it described the specifically sacrificial service offered by an Israelite worshiper in the temple cult where gifts, offerings, prayers and sacrifices were made.  Such temple service was an act of obedient sacrifice (Luke 2:37; Romans 9:4).

St. Francis worshiping with a congregation of birds.

Let’s note a few developments in this piece of vocabulary.  Worship is made an act of service offered in obedience; to worship God and to serve God become synonymous activities.  Worship is an obedient service, and obedient service can be worship.  Thus, the word could be extended to include the broader life of obedience.  For instance, see Deuteronomy 10:12 (in the Greek text), where the Israelites are told “to serve (latreuein) the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.”  Here latreuein/worship becomes a lifestyle of faithfulness.

An especially interesting aspect of this particular word in the New Testament, is that – unlike proskunein – latreuein is frequently used to describe Christian activities, but never to describe what Christians do when gathered together.  Hmmmm…

We will need to revisit this important fact about New Testament worship/latreuein before we finish.

Third, leitourgein/leitourgia/leitourgikos/leitourgos – to serve (a particular constituency).  The English word “liturgy” is derived from this Greek word.

Originally, in the Greek Old Testament, it meant “to offer a service” (similar to latreuein), but leitourgein quickly became more specifically applied to the cultic services of the priesthood.  For the Old Testament, leitourgia is the specifically ritual-oriented tasks performed exclusively by priests.

The New Testament retains this sense, for example, in Luke 1:23, “When Zechariah’s time of service/worship was completed, he returned home [from the temple].”  Also, check out Hebrews 10:11, “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties/worship/service.”

Two important points call for our attention in summarizing the New Testament’s use of the leitourgia word group.

One: it is never used for any particular Christian “office” such as apostles, bishops, elders, etc.  In this New Testament era, offering up leitourgia to the Lord is every believer’s privilege.  There is no such thing as a special Christian priesthood, because the New Testament insists on the priesthood of ALL believers.  Everyone who follows Jesus is now a genuine priest standing before God’s throne.  You don’t have to wear a dog collar or fancy vestments.

A Quaker “worship” service

Two:  this word group is often applied to the whole of the Christian life, much like latreuein.   Only once does it (feasibly) describe what Christians do when they are gathered together in a group.  This single exception appears in Acts 13:2, “While they [the church at Antioch] were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’”

Otherwise, the leitourgia word group never describes what Christians do when they gather together in groups.  At the fear of sounding like a broken record (does anyone use that metaphor nowadays?), this is another curious observation that will demand more attention before we finish this study.

Fourth, thrēskeia – religious service, religion, worship.

For the NT, this is the word used when debating the differences between true and/or false religion.  It is most often used to describe false religion (see Acts 26:5, “the strictest sect of our religion”; Colossians 2:18, “the worship of angels”; Colossians 2:23, “self-imposed worship”; James 1:26, “his religion is worthless”).

On one occasion thrēskeia describes true worship in James 1:27, “Religion/worship that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  This single exception is most likely explained by the context of debate and the word’s previous appearance in verse 26.

So, one last time…let’s notice something very interesting about this word.  As we have noted elsewhere, thrēskeia is never used to describe the things that Christians do together when they gather collectively.  In the only instance where this word is used positively, thrēskeia describes an obedient, holy lifestyle demonstrated by generosity to the poor.

These are the essential puzzle pieces necessary for understanding how the New Testament uses the vocabulary of “worship.”  Now that they are all out on the table, see what you can make of trying to fit them together.

Next time we will begin the process of fitting it all together and synthesizing the New Testament sense of what it means to “worship the Lord Jesus Christ.”

What Readers are Saying about My Book I Pledge Allegiance

Not long ago a good friend and former colleague sent me a message with encouraging words about my new book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America (Eerdmans, 2018). 

She unexpectedly bumped into another friend while they both were marching in a local protest demonstrating against president Trump’s immigration policies.

She passed along these kind remarks:

“…(my friend) mentioned that the men’s book club had finished reading I Pledge Allegiance this morning, and found it really good and deeply challenging in all the right ways – and also that he had been in touch with you to say how superb he finds the book. I’m really glad that he took the initiative to contact you!! He and I have been talking a lot about it recently, and how we need to keep it close by to help us to navigate the insanity.”

I could not be more pleased.  She describes everything I hope would happen when disciples wrestle with God’s word while considering the arguments found in my book.

I am pleased as punch.

If you haven’t yet read I Pledge Allegiance, please join the crowd of those who have and ask the Holy Spirit what He wants you to be doing for the kingdom of God in this world right now.

Reading Religion Reviews My Book, “I Pledge Allegiance” #readingreligion # americanacademyofreligion

Eerdmans Publishers recently notified me of the first (to my knowledge) online review of my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.  You can find the review here at the Reading Religion website (an outlet of the American Academy of Religion).

Jacob Alan Cook, an Adjunct Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Friends University, is very kind in offering a positive review of my latest book.  He is both a thoughtful reader and reviewer, qualities not as common as you might think.

In the spirit of continuing the conversation – a conversation I believe is the most important contribution the Christian church can make to America’s public life at this moment in our history – I want to offer a few responses to Professor Cook’s observations.

Towards the end of his review, Cook suggests that “the root of the problem [i.e. the church’s abandonment of Jesus’ kingdom ethics] lies deeper than Crump’s analysis.”  He points to Bonhoeffer’s suggestion that the basis of every ethical problem is the human tendency to think that we already know what God wants of us, thereby conforming God’s will to our personal preferences.

I agree with Cook’s assessment of our ethical dilemma.  But I also think that I make this point several times myself, although I may not have been as thorough or as explicit as I should have been.  I will keep this in mind for the future.

Professor Cook also dabbles in a bit of theological archaeology as he muses on the possible connections between my evangelical upbringing and my book’s emphasis on the place of evangelism within the ethics of God’s kingdom.

I think he is right to highlight this connection, but not for the reason he implies.

Yes, evangelicalism has traditionally distinguished itself by emphasizing the importance of personal evangelism in the Christian life.  But I would argue that the tenor of I Pledge Allegiance is due to an entirely different evangelical characteristic — namely, taking the Bible seriously.

I hope that my book’s analysis of the Synoptic Gospels makes it clear that sharing the good news of the gospel is an essential ingredient of Jesus’ kingdom ethic.  My goal in I Pledge Allegiance is to describe a Biblical theology, not an evangelical theology…in fact, just typing out those final, two words has stretched my attention span to the breaking point.  Yikes!

If there are any similarities between my arguments in I Pledge Allegiance and the work of Carl F. H. Henry (a godfather of American evangelicalism), as Professor Cook suggests, then it is because we both have read the same Bible and drawn similar conclusions.

So, thank you again, Professor Cook.

And if you subscribe to this blog but have not yet read I Pledge Allegiance yourself, I hope that this helpful review at Reading Religion will motivate you to do so.  What are you waiting for?

Yes, Virginia, You Can Make Sense of the Bible

 

The recent brouhaha stirred up by Jeff Session’s reference to Romans 13, in defense of Trump’s policy of separating immigrant children from their

St. Jerome studying scripture

parents, has irritated another of my pet peeves. (Check out my explanation of Romans 13, lifted from my book I Pledge Allegiance, here and here).

So, I have decided to chime in on the latest Bible reading controversy.

First, let me say that I have been upset with Jeff Sessions for a long time, beginning with his record of refusing to enforce Alabama’s civil rights laws.  Concerning his comments on illegal immigrants, I found his earlier public statement on Trump’s policy most mind-numbingly dystopian when he referred to parents illegally bringing their children across the border as “smugglers.”

What?  Yes, loving parents who risk everything they have trying to get their children someplace where they can try for a better, longer and safer life, suddenly become child smugglers in Sessions’ view.  Oh boy.  George Orwell would have a field day with Mr. Sessions’ use of the English language.

Most recently, Christian and secular media alike are up in arms about Sessions’ reference to Romans 13:1-7, a New Testament text that mentions “submission” to government authority.  Both he and Sarah Sanders have cited the Bible’s apparent emphasis on law-keeping as somehow a universally applicable word from God on following orders.

Apparently, no one in the Trump administration has heard of the Nuremburg defense, which is, in fact, no defense at all.  And we all should beware of politicians citing Bible verses!

Inevitably, as the ruckus brews the media chimes in on the dubious citation of Christian scripture in arbitrating American public policy.  Next, we have the unavoidable influx of historians dispassionately describing the various ways that the Bible has been interpreted and (mis)applied in the past.

This historical overview typically provides a very unsavory retelling of humanity’s worst impulses justified by assorted Bible verses wrenched from their contexts.  Or are they?  How can we know?  Helpful guidance on answering these questions is rarely a part of the historians’ contribution.

Prepare yourself for the onslaught of historical references to slavery, South African apartheid, western colonialism, southern opposition to desegregation, and any number of atrocious actions, all of which were once defended by “good Christians” standing on the supposedly solid rock of Romans 13.

By the time this public furor has run its course, the only thing most people are sure of – including the Christian historians with their scurrilous illustrations and the run-of-the-mill believer with a now dented faith in scripture – is that the Bible makes a handy club for battering the less fortunate.  It is subject to so many different, competing, even contradictory readings that it is impossible for anyone – except, perhaps, for a few ivory pillar, egg-head scholars, who can’t even agree among themselves – to know what the Bible may actually mean.

Eventually, the controversy dies down.  Everyone returns to their own corner, while the general public is confirmed in its long-held suspicion that the Bible is, in fact, just as inscrutable as they had always suspected.  No one can say for sure what any part of it actually means.  There are as many possible interpretations as there are readers.  All interpretations are equally plausible, it seems.  There is no way to sort out the preposterous from the compelling.

Thus, most folks continue along the road of least resistance.  The majority continue to ignore the Bible altogether.  Why not?  Those who bother to read it at all are confirmed in reading the Bible as they wish.  We interpret it as we wish. We apply it as we wish.  And we castigate our opponents for being wrong as we wish.

This is the point where I begin to scream, jump up and down, and pull out my hair.  (Luckily, I have a lot of it. I need every last strand.)

I watched a good many of these “the futility of turning to scripture” cycles when I taught at Calvin College.  I heard students and faculty alike conclude, with a greater or lesser – often a much lesser, even diffident – sense of disappointment, that the Bible offered no help at all in adjudicating our ethical debates. So, let’s forget about Bible reading and move on to the more substantive matters of general morality with the infusion of “Christian values” into public policy.

I sometimes quizzed people at this point in the conversation.

I asked a few simple questions. I initially asked because I was genuinely curious about the answers. But eventually I asked because it was a good way to make an important point. Here are my questions:

  • What parts of the relevant Biblical passage(s) do you find most difficult to understand? Why?
  • Which commentaries have you consulted as you have tried to resolve your questions?
  • Which commentaries were most helpful to you? Why?
  • Among the different possible interpretations that you have discovered, which one(s) do you find most convincing? Why?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the different interpretive options?
  • What are the different, possible social applications arising from these various interpretations? How has your preferred application influenced your choice of preferred interpretation?

Actually, believe it or not, I never got further than the second question.  The reason is simple:  I never encountered anyone who invested that much energy into finding answers to their questions.  I am not surprised when the general public knows so little about reading scripture, but I was asking my questions of faculty and staff members at a Christian college with a sizeable theological library available to anyone.  Oi vey…

Yep, sometimes understanding the Bible takes a bit of work.  But discussions that leave us believing that scripture is hopelessly inscrutable are irksomely lazy, misleading and just plain wrong.

First, I believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God.  If a person doesn’t believe that statement, then they are off the hook when it comes to the work of interpretation, but they should also stop pontificating about the Bible’s usefulness/uselessness in today’s world.

Second, if a person does share my belief in Biblical inspiration, then it should follow that expending a bit of effort in the task of rightly understanding a Word from God is no big deal.  So, get to work.

Third, every Christian ought to read and study scripture regularly, even daily, with the help of (at least) a good single-volume Bible commentary and a Bible dictionary.

Fourth, yes, there are many multi-volume Bible commentary sets available.  But I will let you in on a little secret: a good many of the modern series are not saying anything particularly new about the Bible.  Most of them exist because today’s publishing houses all want to market their own set of books.  Yes, you will find some variations in interpretation.  There are some choices to be made, but not nearly as many as there are commentaries to buy.  Don’t be fooled by the abundance of books available.

Fifth, a good commentary will survey the interpretive options available whenever a text has been read in different ways throughout church history.  It will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each interpretation, concluding with the commentator’s own preference and the reasons for that selection.  Don’t rely on commentaries where the author only pushes his own views without explanation or looking at the alternatives.  (Note: there are far fewer alternatives than the pundits want you to believe).

Sixth, notice how much of the Bible is actually rather straight-forward.  Yes, historical background is a big help here and there, but most of scripture’s pages will speak to you very simply and straightforwardly.  And remember, the Spirit is always calling us to respond.

So ask yourself: How does this reading want to change me?

Following the Messiah-No-One-Expected and Very Few Want Today

Carlo Corretto

I have been busy enjoying a visit from some dear, long-time friends this past week, hence my brief vacation from blogging.  But I am back today with this excerpt from the book Why, O Lord? by Carlo Carretto.

The tremendous life-altering challenge of following the real, historical, Biblical Jesus rather than the convenient, sanitized, nationalized Jesus of American evangelicalism is a contemporary version of the New Testament call to discipleship that has confronted every generation (in its own, unique way) throughout church history.

It is no easier today than it was 2,000 years ago.

I have described what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah-no-one-expected (or much wanted) in my book, Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture.

My new book, I Pledge Allegiance, describes the life-or-death struggle facing the American church right now in this age of Trump .

Carlo Carretto eloquently makes the same point in his book, and I believe it is well worth sharing.  I do not know Mr. Carretto, but he writes like a man who knows the real Jesus:

“Goodness! How difficult it is to believe in the sort of Messiah that Jesus of Nazareth represents!

 To believe that we win by losing our very selves!

To believe that love is everything.

To believe that power is a great danger, wealth slavery, comfortable life a misfortune.

 It is not easy.

 This is why you hear [people] in the street say, ‘If there was a God there would not be all this suffering.’

 Two thousand years have gone, and there are still Christians whose doctrinal notions belong to those ancient days when the power and existence of God was revealed by displays of strength and the victory of armies. And especially by wealth and having more possessions.

 The real secret had not then been received.

Nor is it received very easily even today.

Hence the blasphemy in general circulation denying the kingdom’s visibility, given the ordeal of suffering and death.

 The old teaching that we, the Church, must be strong still feeds our determination to possess the land and dominate the world.

 We must make ourselves felt. We must keep our enemies down. We must scowl. We must win, and to win we need money, money, money. And to have money we need banks, we need the means and we need clever bankers. How can we do good without means, without money? Let’s have a big meeting, and then any opposition will be shamed into silence. Well, we must defend our rights, the rights of the Church. We must defeat our enemies.

 Enemies, always enemies on the Church’s horizon!

 Yet Jesus has told us in no uncertain terms that we no longer have any enemies, since they are the same people we are supposed to love, and love specially.

 Can it be that we have not understood?

 Don’t we read the Gospel in our churches?

 How long shall we wait before following the teaching of Jesus?”

Indeed…how long?

A Look at Romans 13:1-7, Must Christians ‘Obey’ the Government? Part 1 #christianityandpolitics

Vice-President Mike Pence’s speech at the Southern Baptist Convention, thankfully, sparked a debate over whether he should be welcomed or disinvited.  Pence’s defenders predictably quote Romans 13:1 as their argument for welcoming a political speech at the convention.

In Romans 13 the apostle Paul says:  “let everyone submit to the governing authorities.”  So, that means Pence needs to be given the time normally allotted for group prayer in order to deliver a partisan, political speech?

In light of this current debate, I thought I’d post a few serialized excerpts from my book, I Pledge Allegiance, that looks carefully at what Paul actually says in Romans 13:1-7.  The complete excerpt is from pages 56-62.  Here goes:

“Paul had specific concerns in mind as he wrote his letter to the Roman church and describing a comprehensive political theology of church-state relations was not one of them. Recalling the church’s precarious standing with the local government in a time of tax revolt is far more illuminating of Paul’s argument in this chapter. The early church lived within an authoritarian state. There was no expectation that the average person could exert any meaningful influence in bringing about broad-based, systemic social or political change. Neither Paul nor his readers had any conception of participatory democracy. Modern strategies for popular political and social transformation through civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance were inconceivable at the time. Naturally, this does not mean that Paul was devoid of political opinions or that he might not write something of universal political significance for the church, regardless of its particular location in time and space, but it does mean that properly understanding Romans 13:1–7 requires that we keep the actual historical situation foremost in our mind.

Observing God’s Order

“Several details in Romans 13 need elaboration for Paul’s ethical instruction to become clear for the modern reader. The chapter’s opening sentences twice affirm that government authority is put in place by God (v. 1). God has established a hierarchy of civil authority to regulate the otherwise strong tendency toward unruliness in human society. Anyone who rebels against this ordering of authority, therefore, is rebelling against God’s design (v. 2). Two details of Paul’s vocabulary clarify his point.

“First, Paul describes civil authority as part of the way God “orders” the world. This idea of God’s ordering, organizing, appointing or arranging is central to the passage, with several derivatives of the verbal root “to order” appearing five times in three verses (vv. 1 [twice], 2 [twice], 5 [once]). It is clearly Paul’s key concept. God “establishes/orders/institutes governing authorities” (v. 1) not by bringing any particular leader to power—though he may at times also do that—but by providentially creating structures of governing authority that exercise responsibilities delegated by God. When Paul says that “there is no authority except that which God has established” (v. 1), he is not claiming that divine providence places all rulers in their specific positions of power. He is saying that the various stations of authority that make up civil government are put in place by God’s providential ordering of human society.

“Understanding Paul’s use of “ordering” vocabulary helps to answer long- standing questions about Christian obedience to tyrannical rulers. The problematic logic, based on Romans 13, usually goes like this: If every governing authority is put in place by God, so that disobeying the authority is the equivalent of disobeying God, then even a man like Adolf Hitler must have been put in place by God, and disobeying even Hitler becomes the equivalent of disobeying God. This was, in fact, the logic used by many German Christians who swore allegiance to Hitler, the “divinely appointed” Führer.

“Though some additional arguments will be advanced below for addressing the question of obeying Hitler, Paul’s emphasis on ordering rather than personnel makes it clear that God establishes positions of authority, positions that are occupied at different times by different leaders of greater or lesser ability, wisdom, and moral fiber. Paul does not make God responsible for ordaining every leader who ever fills an office. Christians are obligated to respect the role of government per se in their lives, but that is a far cry from being obligated to obey, much less enthusiastically endorse, every wretched leader braying for national allegiance to his every foolish decision.

Subordination vs. Obedience

“A second—equally important—matter of vocabulary arises once we notice that Paul does not command believers always “to obey” the governing authorities (Rom.13:1). Translations that render Romans 13:1 along the lines of “obey the government” (Living Bible, Contemporary English Version, Good News Translation, Worldwide English) seriously misrepresent Paul’s words. Instead of commanding obedience, Paul tells the church “to be subject/to submit” to the way God has “ordered” governing authority. If Paul had intended for the church always to obey the government, he could have used the common word hupokouō (obey) to make his point. But he doesn’t do that; instead, Paul stays with the “order” word group and directs believers to be “subordinate (vv. 1, 5) to the authorities that “have been ordered” by God. In effect, he is reiterating the need for believers to cooperate with God’s design in ordering human society.

“Following the logic of verse 3 is crucial for understanding the full significance of Paul’s refusal to tell the church that they must always obey the government. Notice that Paul’s description of civil authority is utterly idealistic, in so far as he assumes that the church can always count on the government to faithfully enforce God’s expectations. “Rulers are not a terror to those who do what is right but to those who do wrong. If you don’t want to be afraid of the one in authority, do what is right and the authority will praise you” (my translation). Had Paul intended to deliver a lesson on Christian obedience, he missed a perfect opportunity to do so. Notice that he does not say, “Shed your fear of authority by doing what you are told; be obedient.” Instead, Paul counsels the church to free itself from any fear of authority by always “doing what is right.”

“At least two assumptions are at work in this statement. First, Paul’s argument assumes that government authorities will never be corrupt. Their judgments will always faithfully reflect God’s judgments concerning what is good and bad, right and wrong, just and unjust. But we all know better. The claim that “rulers are not a terror to those who do what is right but to those who do wrong” is not always true, and Paul knew it. The civil rights demonstrators who walked across the bridge in Selma, Alabama, with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1965 were excoriated by the state’s governor, condemned by the local sheriff, and beaten with clubs by the local police. It is no secret to us or to Paul that rulers can easily reward those who do wrong and become a terror to those who do what is right, but Paul is describing the ideal, the way things are supposed to be, for the sake of his argument.

“Paul’s second assumption is that when government functions as it should, citizens never need to be afraid about doing what is right because “the right” is always what governing authorities will want from their citizens. Those who do what is right can be confident in their Christian obedience because they are simultaneously being submissive to authority, as God requires. In an ideal world, a believer’s act of submission will be synonymous with obedience because the perfect, incorruptible government will never ask its citizens to disobey God.

“Unpacking these assumptions at the root of Paul’s idealization of earthly authority also exposes the prick hidden in his argument. Paul knows that the Roman government does not measure up to this ideal. He cannot possibly in- struct the Roman church always to obey a government that made public sacrifice

Roman Christians were thrown to the lions for refusing to obey the law

to the Roman pantheon a civic responsibility; but he can tell them always to do what is right. When Christians act on what they know is right and those actions coincide with the government’s expectations, Paul’s argument predicts the happy outcome—“do what is right and the authorities will praise you.” But when doing what is right puts the believer on a collision course with government expectations, Paul’s instructions take on even greater significance: “Still do what is right.”

“God’s own perfect government awaits the coming age, when Christ is seated on his earthly throne. As long as Jesus’s disciples live in this world, however, they must anticipate times when the governing authorities will not praise them for doing what they believe is right in the sight of God. So Paul diplomatically commends the Roman government as much as he is able to in his description of the ideal, but he also assiduously avoids giving the church advice that could eventually lead it to compromise with the ungodly designs of a government that is out of step with God’s vision of truth and justice.

“Christians are not commanded always to obey their government or its laws. The church is told to be submissive and always do what is right. Obedience is one way of showing submission to authority, but submission and obedience are not synonymous. In some circumstances the submission God requires will work itself out as disobedience to governing authority. When a government expects believers to do things that the latter believe are wrong, things that will compromise their relationship with Christ, things that will violate their kingdom citizenship, then godly adherence to what is right demands conscientious disobedience against the government. At that point, faithful disciples remain submissive to misguided governmental authority, not by compromising their Christian conscience, but by freely submitting themselves to whatever punishment the authorities threaten to impose for disobedience. Living out the values of the kingdom of God always comes first for the followers of Jesus.”