Tag: Christian Church

My First Book, “Feeling Like God”, is Now Back in Print

I am happy to announce that the publisher Wipf & Stock has agreed to reprint my book, Feeling Like God: A Spiritual Journey to Emotional Wholeness.

The original publisher, a small Canadian press, went out of business years ago, so the book has been unavailable for some time.

In my humble opinion, it’s a great book well worth reading!

I tackle the ancient theological question of whether or not God has passions, emotions, feelings that are part and parcel of his sovereign plans for the world.

My answer to that question is a resounding YES, in contrast to much of the orthodox, theological tradition which said NO. I approach this answer through a brilliantly composed (LOL!) integration of biblical theology,  an examination of Greek philosophy, a look at the early Church Fathers, illustrative  stories,and personal application.

What more could you ask for?

Publisher’s Description – “An engaging blend of biblical study, historical theology, and personal testimony, Feeling like God takes the reader on a journey to understand God as revealed in Scripture. It shows that following Jesus Christ necessarily means bringing our feelings to God, rather than trying to suppress them, and shows how expressing emotion is something central to what it means to be created in the image of God.”

Solving a Problem Begins with a Correct Diagnosis

Christian denominational leaders continue to fret over how to recoup the attendance losses suffered during the covid shutdowns.  Church attendance has not rebounded to its pre-covid levels, making sociologists and church-growing afficionados eager to offer their professional analysis, complete with recipes for reinvigorating local church life.

As I read such articles I am continually amazed at how many of them never bother to touch on the basic question of what a church is supposed to be. They never mention Jesus or the gospel message or worship or what it means to be the Body of Christ in a fallen world. [For one recent, woeful example, see this article in Christianity Today.]

Thankfully, today I came across the most perceptively biblical account of this issue I have yet seen. Dr. Kirsten Sanders offers an acute analysis of both the problems and the “solutions” that must be understood by anyone hoping to “restore” their local church.

Her article, addressing the question of “Why I should be a part of a local church?”, is titled “Why Church is the Wrong Question“. I highly recommend it, especially if you are asking similar questions yourself.

It is also found in Christianity Today.

Here is an excerpt:

One question I encounter regularly these days is why the local church matters. This, I think, is the wrong question.

Disaffected Christians want to know why they should attend church when it has sheltered so much harm. Pastors and leaders want to know how to communicate to others, especially young adults, what good the church has to offer.

We are in a crucible that should burn off wrong answers about the church. Two years of pandemic-related church shutdowns has led many congregations to move their worship online. Church services were livestreamed and accessed in people’s living rooms. Communion was sometimes taken at the kitchen table, or not at all. Music was streamed virtually. And Christians gathered—or didn’t—with their immediate families to worship.

It would be misguided to suggest that such arrangements are not worship. Indeed, the psalmist says, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and the Lord himself says, “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I” (Ps. 19:1; Matt. 18:20). The instinct that God can be encountered in living rooms, in nature, and even on a TV is not wrong. The entire Christian tradition insists that God is not hindered by anything and can be near people through matter—even when conveyed by data packets to a screen. God indeed dwells with his people, gathered in homes across the world.

Yet it would be incorrect also to call such a presence “church.” The church is not God’s guiding, consoling presence in one’s heart or the very real consolation and correction that can come when a group of Christians meets to pray. Nor is it what we name the occasional gathering of Christians to sing and study in homes or around tables worldwide.

In the Bible, the concern of God in creating the church is not to form persons but to form a people. . .

. . .What God called for, however, was not a moral or powerful people, but a peculiar one. Now it is true that part of the church’s peculiarity should exhibit itself in a certain morality. But morality itself is not peculiar in this particular way. What makes the church peculiar is its knowledge of itself as called by God to be his representative on the earth, to be marked by unwieldy and inconvenient practices like forgiveness, hospitality, humility, and repentance. It is marked in such a way by its common gathering, in baptism and Communion, remembering the Lord’s death and proclaiming it until he comes.

A peculiar church is one that realizes that its existence is to witness to another world, one where the Ascension is not a sorrow alone but an invitation to live into a new moment when the Son is indeed seated at the right hand of the Father. Its witness to another kingdom, a commonwealth in heaven (Phil. 3:20–21), is what justifies its existence.

This is not to say that churches should become internally preoccupied and aloof from their communities. The church has an implicit social ethic, as Hauerwas discusses, and is guided by Jesus’ call to imitate him in love for neighbor and sacrificial concern.

But the church’s reshaped community is formed out of its worship, which witnesses to another world where the Lord is King. The authors conclude, “The church, as those called out by God, embodies a social alternative that the world cannot on its own terms know.”

You can read the entire article here.

“To lose a friendship over politics suggests that something is deeply disordered in our souls”

David Corey is a professor at Baylor University. He has a fine article on the Comment website discussing the divisive role played by politics in the fractious life of the American church.

He does not address the spiritual disease at play when so-called Christians prioritize political agreement over and above shared devotion to Jesus Christ.

But he does offer an excellent analysis of the spiritual dimension of true friendship and what our divisive politics tells us about the absence of true friendship in American life.

The article is titled “Politics, Friendship, and the Search for Meaning.”

Below is an excerpt:

All around us, friendships old and new are coming to grief over politics. What is the cause of this? Part of the problem relates to how we practice politics today: we have become more warlike and tribal. Another part of the problem stems from our contemporary understanding of friendship. Genuine friendship places weighty demands on us, and most of us prefer relationships that are quicker and easier, and thus less enduring.

Politics and friendship are deeply connected. As strange as it sounds, how we understand what politics is has an effect on the kinds of friendships we are likely to enjoy. And, conversely, how we understand friendship will affect our practice of politics.

What exactly is the connection between politics and friendship, and how should we assess the relative value of each when they come into conflict?

Click here to read the entire piece.

How Do You Identify a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? The Bling.

I’d say that $1 million in jewelry is the modern-day equivalent of a good sheep’s skin.

Any preacher wearing this much bling while delivering a Sunday sermon is not only flashing his wolfish fangs, he is begging for lightning to strike.

Well, lightning struck a few weeks ago for New York City’s Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead and his wife Asia, pastors of a Brooklyn City church, when several thieves invaded the Sunday morning service and relieved the two church leaders of their jewelry — all $1 million dollars worth.

There truly is no honor among thieves as the gold chains, diamond rings, and jeweled necklaces were quietly transferred from one pair of thieves to another.

(It reminds me of the time a Mormon bishop believed he could relieve me of my soul as I prayed for his salvation. But that is another story for another posting.)

Don’t worry about the Bishop or his wife, however, since they undoubtedly have millions worth of additional jewelry stashed away in their safe at home.

As the Bishop told the Religious News Service, “It’s not about me being flashy,” Miller-Whitehead said. “It’s about me, purchasing what I want to purchase. And it’s my prerogative to purchase what I want to purchase.”

Ok then. I feel so much better now about their so-called ministry.

At least we know where their hearts are really at. As Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and money. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Below is an excerpt of the article, “NYPD: Preacher, Wife Robbed of $1 Million in Jewelry During Sermon,” by Michael R. Sisak:

NEW YORK (AP) — A preacher known for his close friendship with New York City’s mayor was robbed of more than $1 million worth of jewelry Sunday by armed bandits who crashed his Brooklyn church service, just as he was sermonizing about keeping faith in the face of grave adversity, police said.

Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead, who embraces his flashy lifestyle and can often be seen driving around the Big Apple in his Rolls Royce, was delivering a sermon at his Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries when police say three robbers walked in. They showed guns and demanded property from Miller-Whitehead and his wife, Asia K. DosReis-Whitehead, police said. . . .

. . . In a video posted to Instagram, Miller-Whitehead said he felt a “demonic force” enter the church and wasn’t sure if the gunmen “wanted to shoot the church up or if they were just coming for a robbery.” . . . 

Of all people, the good Bishop ought to be intimately familiar with the feel of an approaching demonic force.

Click here to read the complete article.

 

“False Presence of the Kingdom”, by Jacques Ellul

In 1963, Jacques Ellul published a sequel to his earlier work, The Presence of the Kingdom. Ellul’s second discussion of the nature and significance of the

Jacques Ellul

kingdom of God was titled, False Presence of the Kingdom.

Having used the earlier book to lay out his understanding of what the kingdom of God is and how the Christian church ought to be living within that kingdom, Ellul now goes on to diagnose what he believes are the most common misunderstandings and misappropriations of the New Testament kingdom theology.

As always, Ellul gives today’s reader a lot to think about and to digest, most of it rather uncomfortable but absolutely necessary and, hopefully, not entirely indigestible.

Below is today’s excerpt from Jacques Ellul’s False Presence of the Kingdom (all emphasis mine). I quote a section where Ellul focuses on the classic distinction between fact and value and the modern error of assuming that facts have a self-evident, intrinsic value of their own.

By the way, as I write this, I am thinking of several recent conversations with fellow Christians who said things to me that are perfect examples of the problem Ellul is critiquing:

If one attributes inherent value to fact, and if the moment the fact exists it is useless to bring an ethical or spiritual judgment to bear upon it, then I say that this should be carried to its logical conclusion. Capitalism? It’s a fact. War? It’s a fact. Parachutists? It’s a fact. Torture? That’s a gross fact. . . One is quite simply hypocritical and dishonest in advancing the argument that one is faced with a fact, and that moral judgment is to be avoided on that account.

 There remains, moreover, the question why one employs that argument. The answer, alas, is easy. . . one avoids debate by eliminating the moral problem on the ground that facts elude such judgment. . . (If) a fact is a final value, one yields to the fact. Nothing can be done about it. Whenever, in an ordinary argument, one person is able to say to the other: “First of all, it’s a fact,” there is nothing to be said in reply.

 To give up passing judgment on a fact, to assume that all one can do from then on is to yield to it, to adjust to it, that is precisely and totally to abandon the Christian life in its entirety. There is no position more radically anti-Christian than to give way to a fact. It is to accept fate. It is to agree that the material factor is the determining one. It is to agree that the Christian life is nothing but a morality. At the same time, it is a renunciation of spiritual discernment, and of the possibility of injecting truth into the context of reality.

 That entails enormous consequences, which, to be sure, are never foreseen by those Christians who think they are realists because they announce: “It’s a fact.” . . . (Such) Christians obey the world’s logical inconsistencies. Their thinking is so unstable that the very ones who accept fact as final judgment in matters of technology, progress, mass culture, economic growth, urbanization, etc., are the same ones who reject fact in the case of colonialism or of the present government. But perhaps, again, this is nothing but a conformism . . .

 Once again, let’s make it clear that it is no part of our thinking to deny the facts, or to say that they do not have to be taken into account. What we are saying is simply that it is a gross intellectual error to transform fact into a value, to conceive of fact as being or as containing a value in and of itself. We are saying it is a gross moral error to renounce judging a fact, that is a gross spiritual error to urge man to bow before fact, that is to say, before the fatality of whatever exists.

I used to have a personal mantra that I would repeat to myself in times of difficulty. I’d say too myself:

I will only deal with what’s real in order to strive for God’s ideal.

That’s what Ellul is talking about. What’s your kingdom mantra?

“The Presence of the Kingdom” by Jacques Ellul

I visited Grand Rapids, Michigan last month, and I did what I always do when I travel; I checked out the used bookstores!

This trip, I picked up two books by the French, Christian thinker, professor, philosopher, Jacques Ellul which were new to me.

Jacques Ellul (1912 – 1994)

If you’ve never read Ellul, you need to begin today.

You’ll find few Christian writers as thoughtful and penetrating in his deconstruction of the modern world, its technological idols, and what it means for a Christian to follow Jesus faithfully through the maze of an ever evolving and broken society.

Rather than write up two book reviews for my readers, I decided to post a few excerpts to give you the flavor of each book, both about the kingdom of God.

Naturally, I never agree with everything Ellul says. I don’t even agree with myself much of the time! But I am always challenged and stimulated, often in a surprising, back-handed way, to think about the issues more deeply.

I hope you will be challenged too.

The first book I am excerpting today is Ellul’s 1948 publication titled, The Presence of the Kingdom (all emphasis is mine):

. . . The Christian is constantly obliged to reiterate the claims of God, to re-establish this God-willed ‘order,’ in presence of an order which constantly tends towards disorder. In consequence of the claims which God is always making on the world the Christian finds himself (sic), by that very fact, involved in a state of permanent revolution. Even when the institutions, the laws, the reforms which he has advocated have been achieved, even if society be re-organized according to his suggestions, he still has to be in opposition, he still must exact more, for the claim of God is a infinite as His forgiveness. Thus, the Christian is called to question unceasingly all that man calls progress, discovery, facts, established results, reality, etc. He can never be satisfied with all this human labour, and in consequence he is always claiming that it should be transcended, or replaced by something else.

 In his judgment he is guided by the Holy Spirit – he is making an essentially revolutionary act. If the Christian is not being revolutionary, then in some way or another he has been unfaithful to his calling in the world. . .

 . . . Thus, one who knows that he has been saved by Christ is not a man jealously and timidly attached to a past, however glorious it may be. He does not cling to the past of his Church (tradition), nor even to the past life of Jesus Christ (on which, however, the certainty of his faith depends) – but he is a man of the future…of the eschaton, of the coming break with this present world…All facts acquire their value in the light of the coming Kingdom of God, in the light of the Judgment, and the victory of God. . .

 . . . This theological truth also applies to social and political facts. The actual events of our world only acquire their value in the light of the coming Kingdom of God. It is the imminent return of Christ which gives genuine seriousness to each actual event . . . Without this direction history is an outbreak of madness. Now in this matter the Christian has no right to keep this truth to himself; by his action and by his thought it is his duty to bring the ‘coming event’ into the life of this present world. . . Every Christian who has received the Holy Spirit is now a prophet of the Return of Christ, and by this very fact he has a revolutionary mission in politics. . .

 . . . To be revolutionary is to judge the world by its present state, by actual facts, in the name of a truth which does not yet exist (but which is coming) – and it is to do so because we believe this truth to be more genuine and more real than the reality which surrounds us. Consequently, it means bringing the future into the present as an explosive force. . .

What Would Jesus Say to a Football Coach Who Goes to Court Over His “Right” to Kneel in Prayer on the Fifty Yard Line?

I suspect that my readers are familiar with the Supreme Court case brought by football coach Joseph Kennedy of Bremerton, WA.

He was suspended from his job in 2015 for refusing to abide by the school’s  request that he stop kneeling in prayer on the football field during games.

After all, he insists, it is his right under America’s religious liberty provisions to pray in public whenever he wishes.

But quite apart from whether or not Mr. Kennedy has a legal right to behave this way, what does Jesus say about such public displays of prayer?

Especially as Kennedy’s actions become another salvo in this country’s culture wars?

Well, Jesus has already told us. His opinion about such public displays is clear:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:5-8)

Cheap Grace, Judgment, and the Glory of God

Yep, this is a long one. But I hope you will read it in stages, if not all in one sitting, and seriously consider the Biblical evidence undergirding my argument.

Thanks for your patience. I pray that my readers will be challenged and edified, to use an old fashioned word. And share this with your church leaders, if need be.

Now, let’s think about Cheap Grace, Judgment, and the Glory of God.

This past Tuesday provided an opportunity for me to reflect on the all-too-common tendency within the American church for teachers to avoid any mention of divine judgment with the same determination exhibited by a maniacal, bug-eyed cat as it panics at the sight of a soapy bathtub.

Yet, for anyone who pays attention to Scripture, it should be clear that acknowledging the looming inevitability of God’s condemnation of the sin in our lives – yes, a final judgment for every follower of Jesus Christ as well as for the rest of humanity – is the only way forward for anyone hoping to grasp the magnitude and meaning of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross.

If there is no threat of judgment, then why must Jesus die? That is the heart of the issue.

Without a straightforward explanation of why God judges universal human rebellion, a rebelliousness which everyone must own up to eventually, whether in this life or the next, it is impossible to understand the blood-curdling “injustice” of the Father’s holy judgment executed against an innocent, sinless Galilean at Calvary.

Far too many church-goers are suckled at the teats of cheap grace, even as they speak admiringly of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s heroism and pass around lightly worn, rarely read copies of his masterwork, The Cost of Discipleship. But the fact is, a cheap misappropriation of God’s grace – if God’s grace is ever truly appropriated at all – is the only brand of faith available when its significance is divorced from the holiness of God and the imperative of judgment.

The reason for the Western church’s love affair with cheap grace is simple.

The Impostor of Therapeutic Religion

American Christianity has become a mercilessly cheerful, feel-good brand of therapeutic religion. The average church service is meticulously orchestrated and stage managed as a place where no one should ever be made to feel uncomfortable, for any reason at all. The projection of a unilateral, universal standard of approval – not of appropriate acceptance, mind you, but of blanket approval – is a therapeutic demand of the many professional pastor/therapists teaching from our pulpits.

Philip Rieff explained America’s new religious reality years ago in his prescient book, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud. Exploring the rising dominance of psychotherapy in Western society, Rieff observes the West’s thorough-going rejection of such ancient religious values as self-denial, sacrificial obedience, acts of penance, and the confession of true guilt born of personal sin. As a result:

“Western man [sic] could be free at last from an authority [i.e., the historic Christian church and the biblical gospel of Christ] depending upon (the individual’s) sense of sin. Even now, sin is all but incomprehensible to [Western society] inasmuch as the moral demand system [that is, Western culture] no longer generates powerful inclinations toward obedience or faith, nor feelings of guilt when those inclinations are over-ridden by others for which sin is the ancient name” (209-210).

Tragically, in a vain attempt to maintain its “relevance” and attract new members, the Christian church drinks deeply from the same therapeutic fountains and then goes skinny dipping with the same therapeutic sharks that are drugging and devouring the rest of Western society. Rather than behave as the gatekeepers they are called to be, too many church leaders make themselves indistinguishable from the practical atheists (whether religious or not) who trace their therapeutic, or “pastoral,” credentials back to Freud.

As I observe the consistently glib presentation of the Lord’s Supper in our Protestant churches – and no, I am not referring to an absence of “liturgy,” however one defines it, but to the remarkably unserious way in which the sacrament is typically wedged into a tight service schedule and then presented in a manner that barely touches upon the terrible redemptive drama of sin, judgment, and grace found at its heart – I am reminded of Rieff’s summary of another churchman’s defense of therapeutic Christianity:

“Any religious exercise is justified only by being something men do for themselves, that is, for the enrichment of their own experience…What then should churchmen do? Become, avowedly, therapists, administrating a therapeutic institution – under the justificatory mandate that Jesus himself was the first therapeutic” (215).

Rieff concludes, “Both East and West are now committed, culturally as well as economically, to the gospel of self-fulfillment.”

Before leaving this issue, I recently attended a communion service in a mid-western Reformed church. As the pastor offered the two elements to his congregants, no mention was made of the broken body or the shed blood of Jesus. Instead, the bread and the wine were described as the beneficial products, the fruit, of God’s good creation, given to us by the Creator to sustain our lives.

I seriously considered walking out rather than listen to such pretentious, blasphemous, therapeutic drivel.

Naturally, many will object to being tarred with the therapeutic brush. But I will return to the opening of this article and submit as exhibit A in my defense of Rieff’s argument the simple fact that precious few congregations are ever made to confront these two essential, Biblical truths: 1) that divine judgment lies at the heart of the New Testament gospel (for without divine judgment there is no gospel), and 2) that the ultimate purpose for every believer’s redemption is not the forgiveness of his or her sins but the magnification of God’s glory.

In other words, the New Testament gospel of Jesus Christ is, in fact, the most anti-Western, anti-cultural, anti-therapeutic (in the contemporary sense of the word) message in the world. And it always has been.

No, Christians Are Not Delivered from Divine Judgment

First, every Christian must rid him/herself of the pervasive misconception that faith in Jesus’ sacrificial work on the cross will deliver us from eventual judgement. It won’t.

Jesus himself warns the disciples, and anyone else listening, that public shame and embarrassment, that is, future judgment, awaits us all when God eventually reveals our secret, hidden acts of wickedness for all to see and to hear:

For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Therefore, consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them. (Luke 8:17-18)

Consider carefully, indeed. I don’t know how else to read Jesus’ words except to understand that all of my sin, beginning with my many secret sins, will be publicly exposed on Judgment Day. Everyone will know the full measure of my guilt.

No sinful act, malicious thought, or evil intention will remain hidden when God’s righteous eternity finally swallows up our fallen temporality. For our holy God intends one day to lay it all bare for public viewing. And He has an important reason for doing this, which I will explore below.

The apostle Paul also anticipates “the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares” (Romans 2:16). Notice that the assurance of future judgment is an integral feature of Paul’s gospel! (For example, see Acts 17:30-31; 28:25-27; Rom 2:1-12). Paul also repeats Jesus’ warning about supposedly “secret” sins never remaining secret before God. Furthermore, the context of Paul’s statement offers no room for distinctions between believers vs. unbelievers. No. The Father’s impending judgment will apply to everyone, equally. No exceptions. And anyone who imagines they are explaining the gospel of Christ while failing to explain the inevitable judgment of God is not sharing Paul’s gospel. Period. Full stop.

Paul also compares that Day of Judgment to a house fire that will burn through everyone’s home, revealing the truth about everyone’s life. Every secret is revealed:

…their 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 person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Corinthians 3:13-15)

I will have more to say about this passage before I conclude.

And finally, we have 2 Corinthians 5:10:

For we must ALL appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good OR BAD.

The Books Will Be Opened

A common theme in ancient Jewish literature depicts the Last Judgment as the final balancing of God’s heavenly account books. “The books” are opened. God has been keeping an exhaustive record, throughout all of human history, preserving a heavenly balance sheet of every righteous and unrighteous act or thought performed or harbored by every human being who has ever lived.

No one is exempt.

Recall the New Testament’s lengthiest description of Judgment Day in the book of Revelation 20:11-15:

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

We must honestly confront the words in this text.

Each and every person, without exception, will be judged by God according to “what they had done.” Of course, everyone’s account will fall short. When judged according to “what we have done,” no one’s life proves satisfactory or acceptable to the Holy One.

This reckoning with the heavenly books proves once and for all that everyone falls short of God’s righteous expectations. No one is righteous, no not one. Everyone deserves eternal punishment in the lake of fire, including those who have cast their lot with the crucified, resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ.

Even the faithful who receive some measure of reward for their episodic obedience to Jesus – remember Paul’s words about the rewards for obedience surviving the fire of judgment in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 – still deserve to be separated from God. For no human accomplishments, not even the most righteous acts of the saintliest of saints, can outweigh the overwhelming, immoral landslide of selfish, wicked decisions made by fallen people. And that includes you and me.

But there is a ray of hope.

For there is another book on display – the Book of Life. The pages of this book are not filled with lists of human actions but only with lists of names. And these names are written not with ink but with the shed blood of the crucified, resurrected Lamb of God.

This contrast between the multiple books issuing unremitting, universal judgment vs. the one book securing eternal redemption for everyone whose name is written in the blood of the Lamb is an extraordinarily powerful image. We must interpret this image clearly. Observe that even the redeemed, whose names are inscribed by Christ’s own steady, nail-pierced hand into the Lamb’s book of life, have been judged as deserving eternal damnation by the biographies of wickedness recorded in the previously opened books of works.

But the appearance of the Book of Life explains the difference between judgment and condemnation, for while everyone is judged to be a failure, not everyone is condemned to eternal punishment.

It does not matter how many rewards a Christian eventually receives from the Father. A towering mountain of glittering rewards would never be meritorious enough to rescue a guilty sinner, however saintly, from the lake of fire. No one will ever stand before Christ and say, “I deserve to be here with you because of the many good things I did in your name. Look here, don’t these rewards – from you, by the way! – prove it?” But, then, that is surely one of the damnable thoughts already judged when the multiple books of works were first opened!

I suspect that this very thought is harbored by many of us church-goers because we are all sinners and this is the way sinners think, even if only intermittently. After all, isn’t it a modern, therapeutic mandate to believe in ourselves, to love ourselves, to pump ourselves up by imagining that we can achieve anything when we put our mind to it? Isn’t self-actualization the result of forgiveness?

Insights Brought Only by God’s Judgment

Our heavenly Father, however, appears to be fully intent upon using His Day of Final Judgment to drive home the divine perspective on Christ’s crucifixion, and to make it apparent before the angels, demons, and all humanity.

I cannot point to any one Biblical text that draws together these various streams of theology and puts them all together coherently. But I do believe that my following conclusions are the necessary results of various lines of teaching scattered throughout the Old and New Testaments:

This heavenly moment of moral unmasking and divine accounting will, for the very first time, open the eyes of all humanity to see the Truth of Christ’s sacrifice as the Father had always intended.

For the first time, I will see, feel, and own for myself the full weight, ugliness, destructive power, and wretched blasphemy of the parasitic, destructive thing called SIN as it infects God’s creation and my personal life

For the first time, I will thoroughly understand how horribly deserving I am of God’s condemnation and unending punishment for my sinfulness. I will finally see how deeply offensive, even repulsive, my wickedness has always been to the Holy One enthroned in heaven.

I will finally understand the magnitude of God’s unending grace and mercy as He patiently withheld his judgment from me throughout a frequently rebellious lifetime that so richly deserved His daily condemnation. I will finally begin to appreciate the magnitude of God’s love, care, and patience.

I will finally know something of the full measure of guilt, shame, and condemnation that Christ took onto his own shoulders as he hung from that cross at Calvary. I will begin to see the horror that must have erupted within Jesus’ own being as the perfect, sinless Son of God not only experienced the penalty of his Father’s judgment on human sin but also appropriated the guilt and shame of wicked, human rebellion as his very own, causing the Father to turned his back on His one and only Son.

I will finally understand how and why the crucified, resurrected Jesus is the only mediator between myself and the Father, and how absolutely naïve, ignorant, rebellious, and repugnant is every alternative proposal for a “meaningful religious experience.”

I will finally grasp the incomparable sacrifice made by our heavenly Father when He devised this plan to execute his perfect, eternal Son in order to expiate, to propitiate, the raging, rebellious, blasphemies emanating from the noxious disobedience of every sinner who has ever lived.

The long-suffering patience, care, concern, mercy, devotion, commitment, fidelity, love, and grace of God the Father will finally become apparent to all, blinding the legions of fallen humanity with the brilliance God’s true glory. And all of humanity, including me, will finally give this Savior God the full measure of praise, adoration, and glory that He has always deserved, but never received…until now.

Even condemned unbelievers will glorify God for his righteousness and the fairness of his judgments as they are taken away into the lake of fire. And the demons in hell will welcome them as they all praise the goodness and justice of God together.

God Saves Us to Glorify Himself

Now we are finally at a place where we can appreciate the second biblical truth I promised above as a prerequisite for uprooting the Western malaise of popular, therapeutic religion.

The ultimate purpose of the Father’s gift of salvation in Christ is not the forgiveness of our sins but God’s glorification of Himself. Human redemption is first and foremost about the majesty of the Redeemer, not the good fortune of the redeemed.

Yes, guilty sinners find cleansing and reconciliation through God’s gift of grace available in Jesus. The forgiveness of sin is obviously an important priority in the plan of salvation. But ultimately even this gracious benefit of salvation finally works to recruit us into the army of saved sinners who will spend eternity exalting the glory of their Savior God.

The Old Testament, specifically the book of Exodus, begins this important theme as Israel’s Holy, Redeemer God, Yahweh, rescues His chosen people from their Egyptian slavery. Even as Yahweh promises to rescue Israel, He warns that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart, ensuring that Pharaoh will fight against Israel’s release. In other words, God deliberately creates obstacles to obstruct the accomplishment of His own redemptive plan!

Why would God do such a thing?

The answer: In order to make room for God’s glorification of Himself.

Pharaoh’s hardheartedness gives Yahweh the opportunity to perform His ten mighty acts, beginning with the Nile River turning to blood and finishing with the deaths of the first born on Passover night. Yahweh explains Himself by saying: I will harden Pharaoh’s heart…so that I gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD (Exod. 14:4); I will gain glory through Pharaoh (Exod. 14:17); The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh (Exod. 14:18).

Yes, God dearly wants to rescue his suffering people. But beyond that, redemption’s ultimate goal is the fulfilment of God’s holy desire to “gain glory for Himself.”

No prophet explores this theme more thoroughly than Ezekiel.

Ezekiel proclaimed God’s message to the scattered people of southern Israel, known as Judah, explaining to them why they had been destroyed by the Babylonians and why God was going to restore their fortunes by returning them to their homeland. God’s explanations are not what we would expect:

I had concern for my holy name (says the LORD), which the people of Israel profaned among the nations where they had gone. Therefore, say to the Israelites, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes. (Ezek. 36:21-23)

Similar explanations recur throughout the book. I urge you to read the prophet Ezekiel and look for them sometime.

God punished Judah for its rebellion and sent the people into Babylonian exile in order to protect the “holiness of His name.” Now, God says that He will soon rescue Judah from their captivity, but their coming deliverance is not something He is doing for them as much as it is something that God is doing for Himself.

“I am not saving you for your sake, people of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name,” says the LORD.

In other words, our Savior God keeps his promises, first and foremost, so everyone can know that God always keeps his promises. And, oh yes, by the way, we get the added benefit of knowing that we can trust in God’s faithfulness as a result, BUT that is a secondary benefit of God’s faithfulness. The primary benefit is God’s final exaltation, his glorification by all of creation as The Supreme, Holy Promise Keeper.

Personal Salvation is Intended to Glorify God

Ezekiel’s theological evaluation of Israel’s deliverance from Babylonian exile is no less true for the gift of God’s one and only Son and the final revelation of God’s holiness and justice at the Final Judgment. Our heavenly Father sacrificed his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, in order to glorify himself as the one and only merciful, gracious, redeemer God who willingly suffered on behalf of his people.

The fact that all those who have faith in Jesus will receive the forgiveness of their sins is gravy, folks. Pure, gracious gravy dripping over the edges of God’s spacious banqueting table. But the main meal is God’s exaltation.

We are not the centerpiece of God’s story. God is. And ALL of God’s works, but especially Jesus’ suffering on the cross, eventually point back to the Father and find their fulfilment in him as they glorify HIM.

But, of course, none of this is particularly therapeutic.

In fact, many find it deeply offensive. Doesn’t this perspective paint God as the supreme ego-maniac, a heavenly narcissist sitting on his preposterously ostentatious throne demanding that everyone kiss his ring? What type of God stages history in such a way as to make everything point back to him as some kind of heavenly hotshot?

Alternatively, we have the people, including Christians, who make jokes about how boring heaven will be if we are expected to sing never-ending praises to God for all eternity. How mind-numbingly inconceivable that would be!

In fact, such unimaginative, banal, and ultimately ego-centric protests – for they really are protests against God’s nature, not questions in search of clarification – reveal several things:

that we have no concept of what it means for God to be God;

that we have no concept of what it means for God to be Holy;

that we have no concept of what it means for us to be guilty sinners;

that we have no concept of what it meant for Jesus to suffer and die as our substitute on the cross;

that we have no concept of what it means to be a sinner saved by God’s gift of grace.

For only on the day of Final Judgment will all these pressing, existential, spiritual concerns be made clear. And only then will we all sing with full-throated adoration that it is only right, and true, and just, that the ultimate goal of our salvation has never been the forgiveness of our sins, but has always been the magnification of the glory, honor, worship, and praise of the eternal, holy Savior God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who devoted themselves to the redemption, not only of humanity, but of the entire creation.

In that moment, we will praise God for issuing his judgment over our fallen lives because it was only through his revelation of judgment that the scales fell from our eyes, allowing us to see the Truth of who we are in the presence of the Holy One.

Only then will we be equipped enthusiastically to join with the angels in singing:

“‘Holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God Almighty,’

who was, and is, and is to come.”

“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.”

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”

Are You Being Tempted by Satan? I Doubt It.

I recently had coffee with a new friend from church who listens to the podcasts of a well-known, influential mega-church pastor.

My friend began to tell me about this pastor’s latest sermon on temptation and the role of wicked thoughts in the Christian life. The preacher’s main point was calling people to recognize that evil thoughts or fantasies are never my own. Rather, such temptations are planted in my mind by the devil.

He urged his listeners to tell themselves, “These aren’t my thoughts; they are the devil’s thoughts. So, devil, get away from me!” That was his recipe for dealing with temptation.

I hear this kind of thing a lot in Christian circles. You have probably heard it, too. I sometimes get the impression that a certain brand of church-goer imagines a demon lurking behind every bush, waiting for another opportunity to harass the hapless Christian and sabotage her life.

Don’t misunderstand me.

I believe in a personal Satan. Defeating demonic powers was an important aspect of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Such work was central to Jesus’ message about the coming kingdom of God.

The question is, what does that mean for Christians today?

When I told my friend that I thought the radio pastor was wrong and that he was giving his listeners very bad advice, his reaction was predictable. He immediately quoted 1 Peter 5:8b, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Don’t Peter’s words prove the pastor’s point?

The answer depends on what we take Peter’s words actually to describe. What specifically does he mean? I don’t believe he means that every individual’s struggle with sin and temptation is the direct result of personal demonic interference.

My first problem with this popular misunderstanding is that it lets the Christian off the hook. In other words, we shift the responsibility for sin and temptation in our lives away from ourselves and onto an invisible, (apparently) ever-present force we call the devil. As the comedian Flip Wilson used to say, “The devil made me do it!”

Or, at the very least, the devil made me think about it!

Not only is this mantra that way too easy, but it also underestimates the significance of my own personal sinfulness.

Blaming the devil for my personal temptation and sin creates a serious spiritual hazard because it fails to take my “sinful nature” as seriously as it deserves. I am a sinner. So are you. I am born into this world as a fallen creature with a predisposition to disobey God and rebel. I don’t need to face demonic temptation in order to consider evil and to do wrong.

I am very good at tempting myself and embracing wickedness all by myself, thank you very much. I don’t need the devil’s help to be a sinner. It comes naturally to me, as it does to you. The world has been this way ever since our first parents rebelled against the Creator in the Garden.

Yes, Genesis 3 gives us a story about a personal Satan personally tempting Adam and Eve. But the result of their first rebellion was the thoroughgoing corruption of all creation, including every human being. At that point, Satan’s goals had been accomplished. He didn’t need to tempt each and every individual personally for the rest of history. The sinful inclination had taken up residence within us just as Adam and Eve’s failure had thrown a monkey wrench into God’s original design for the world.

Satan was free to sit back, sip a martini, and watch human history fall apart all on its own.

****

Furthermore, I can’t help but notice the absence of any clear, New Testament evidence instructing Christians to view their lives as an ongoing contest against the devil.

Two New Testament passages explicitly discuss the inner turmoil caused by temptation. They are Romans 7:7-25 and James 1:12-15. Both passages have at least two points in common.

First, neither text says anything about the devil even though both of them offer a perfect opportunity to do so had the apostles imagined that the devil played a significant role in personal temptation.

Second, both texts place the blame for temptation and sin squarely onto the sinful inclinations that dwell within us all. Again, the devil is most noticeable by his absence.

Paul exclaims, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” He does not say, “Who will rescue me from this demonic harassment?”

James explains, “Everyone is tempted when, by his/her own [fleshly] desires, he/she is dragged away and enticed.” Again, I can’t imagine a better context for making the devil’s role in temptation clear, if indeed he has any role at all. Yet, that’s not what James says, either.

Both apostles tell us to focus upon ourselves. We are the problem, not the devil.

****

What about Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness? Isn’t this story the final proof that Satan does attack Christians individually?

I am not arguing that personal demonic temptation may never happen. But can we really compare ourselves to Jesus? Are any of us as important to God’s work of redemption as he is? I think that Christian humility demands that we recognize that I am not the most important component in God’s cosmic plan. Many others are more important than I am. Personal attacks may happen at times to some. But it is certainly not the normative experience that so many make it out to be.

It’s also important to understand that when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, he confronted Satan as the new Adam – an important New Testament theme.

Jesus had to succeed where the first Adam had failed.

If Satan could derail Jesus’ mission and personal identity before it even got started – as he managed to do with Adam and Eve – then perhaps he could once again sit back and sip another martini for the rest of time. God’s plans for recreation would be as hamstrung as were God’s intentions for the initial creation.

Particularly important, I think, is the explanation Satan offers to Jesus for why he is able to tempt Jesus as he does. In the gospel of Luke, Satan shows Jesus “in an instant all the kingdoms of the world” and then explains, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me.”

In some mysterious transaction that is not explained, Satan’s victory over Adam and Eve allowed him to go on to dominate every human society throughout history. The devil’s power to pervert has permeated “all the kingdoms of the world” such that “their authority and splendor” are all his.

Evangelicals have traditionally limited their public concern for this demonic dominance to three areas: sex (read pornography), money (read tithing to the church), and alcohol (read tea-totaling). But these individual concerns only scratch the surface of our larger social problems, in ways that are not always helpful.

Satan’s boastful words open the door on how God’s people confront demonic temptation on a daily basis, in the all-pervasive authority structures of our dazzling but corrupted societies and cultures.

When wickedness is made normative, it becomes normal to accept wickedness as, well, normal. So normal, in fact, that it is not recognized for what it truly is.

For American Christians – at least for those who fail to take seriously their proper place as citizens in the kingdom of God – such wicked abominations as manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, nationalism (especially religious nationalism), militarism, white privilege, systemic racism, neo-liberal economics, commercialism, consumerism, competitiveness, multi-generational poverty, a growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots, and a host of other structural, authoritative networks of evil influence, all conspire to deform God’s purposes in our world.

When we cooperate, we surrender to sin and incur guilt.

We “give in” to these degenerate forces because it’s all so normal. It’s what everyone else does and believes. The devil doesn’t need to do a thing to any of us personally, or individually, because he has already done the greatest part of his evil work corporately, collectively.

He has succeeded in making evil look normal. And if it’s normal, it can’t be evil. Right? After all, it’s the way the world works. It’s the air we breathe. It generates the system that sustains us as Americans in our Americanisms.

One of our problems in this country is that we are far too individualistic and melodramatic. I suspect that these, too, are wicked features of the way Satan has structured American culture.

The Christian love of melodrama habituates us to the excitement of fighting as “warriors,” typically as “prayer warriors,” in the cosmic battle of righteousness against wickedness.

Personally defeating, whether by calling out, or standing against, or binding, or exorcising, or naming, the demonic powers attacking me makes me a “victorious” Christian.

Aside from the fact that I am convinced this is rarely an accurate description of a Christian’s struggles in life, such a focus on personal, spiritual melodrama effectively blinds the Christian to the real, overwhelming, systemic dangers that have entangled us all in their web of corruption and deceit.

So, we bow to the authority of our preferred political party and behave accordingly, treating others as the enemy because that’s what politics does to us nowadays.

We approve of another US military intervention, and cheer on American forces as they slaughter foreigners who also are made as the image of God.

We look forward to buying the bigger, better, shinier, more expensive, upgraded model of whatever it is we want because that’s the normative behavior for an American consumer. Never mind the corrosive, personal, spiritual effects of our habitual, often addictive, acquisitiveness.

We stand with everyone else in opposing low-income people of color moving into our neighborhoods because it will lower property values. It’s only the wise, economic thing to do.

The examples and illustrations are endless. And through all of it we are  blissfully obtuse to the multitude of ways that we remain spiritually stunted, immature, and overwhelmingly guilty of normalized sins that contradict everything we ought to understand about life in the kingdom of God.

Yet, we never consider these types of behaviors as demonic. They aren’t wicked temptations, we tell ourselves; they are opportunities that smart people take advantage of. Or they are responsibilities that every good citizen must fulfil.

Yep, the devil has us exactly where he wants us, behind the spiritual eight-ball, when we behave “normally” like the average, civil, well-behaved, successful, patriotic American.

I can see Satan now, sitting back, legs up, taking long sips on another big American martini.

Who are the Sheep and the Goats on Judgment Day? Reading Matthew 25:31-46 in Context

In a previous post, I reviewed the book, Decolonizing Christianity. I mentioned that the author, Dr. de la Torre, roots his critique of “white Christianity” in an ancient, but completely erroneous, interpretation of Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31-46).

Here is the follow-up post that I promised where I will explain the proper interpretation of Jesus’ parable. Yes, there are right and wrong ways to read scripture.

According to the interpretive tradition of the sheep and the goats followed by Dr. de la Torre, the exalted Jesus will determine who is and who is not received into his eternal kingdom according to the good works they performed for the poor, the needy, and the imprisoned (see verses 35-36). Here Jesus identifies himself with the disenfranchised:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

The sheep respond by asking, “When did we ever do such things for you, Lord?” (verses 37-39).

Jesus offers this famous response:

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

The message is clear, or so it appears: the resurrected Jesus identifies himself so completely with those who suffer in this world that whatever we do for them we also do for Jesus.

Jesus frequently taught that his true followers will be recognized “by their fruit” (Matt. 3:10; 7:16-20; 12:33); that is, the obedience they demonstrate to Jesus’ teachings (the parable about judgment in Matt. 7:24-27 is comparable to Matt. 25 in this way). So, it is conceivable that the message of Matthew 25:40 could be integrated into this “faith without works is dead” perspective that characterizes Jesus’ teaching.

However, when taken on its own – which is typically what happens when people read the gospels – this interpretation suggests that the major criteria for eternal judgment are our works of charity. Period.

This conclusion is curious, however, since there is nothing else comparable to it in the gospel of Matthew. Furthermore, nowhere else does Jesus make such an immediate, personal identification with the poor qua poor.

What should we make of this?

If we read the entire gospel of Matthew attentively and consider this parable in Matthew 25 as part of the book’s concluding episode, then several items will catch our attention and resonate with earlier episodes.

[Sadly, too many Christians read the Bible as if it were a collection of Hallmark greeting cards. When we do that, we blind ourselves to understanding the Bible correctly and grasping the depth of any book’s intended message. We must learn to read each book as a whole, literary unit. Every passage must be interpreted within its larger context.]

The key phrases and issues to notice are:

Who are the “brothers (and sisters) of mine” with whom Jesus identifies?

Where else has Jesus suggested that doing things for someone else is the same as doing things for him?

Are there other places where Jesus identifies with people who are imprisoned, are strangers, or hungry and thirsty?

I will give you a hint about where this is going. In Matthew’s gospel all of these traits and relationships apply only to Jesus’ disciples. Jesus is telling us that he will eventually judge the world on the basis of how it has treated his followers, the church.

Note that this outcome is the very opposite of the way Mother Teresa, de la Torre, and many others have read the parable.

Here are the crucial observations to make while reading Matthew’s gospel:

First, Jesus radically redefines family relationships. His brothers, sisters, mother, and family members are exclusively those who accept and follow him as their messiah. No one else is ever called a brother or sister in Matthew. Jesus explains this shocking redefinition of family in 12:46-50 where the context makes it clear that “doing the will of the Father” means allegiance to Jesus (also see 28:10):

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Second, when Jesus commissions the Twelve to preach his gospel to others throughout Israel, he warns them that many will treat them with hostility. In fact, he admits that he is sending them out “as sheep among wolves” (10:16). Righteous people will open their doors, receive the gospel, and care for the needy disciples. But many others will reject them and even ensure that they are imprisoned (10:11-20).

By implication, only those who received Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom, and have become disciples themselves, will be interested in helping Jesus’ missionaries by feeding them and visiting them in jail.

In fact, while warning his missionary-followers about the rigors of discipleship, Jesus also comforts them by describing his essential, intimate identification with those who suffer on his behalf:

Whoever acknowledges me before others [while on trial], I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others [to save their own skin], I will disown before my Father in heaven. (10:32-33)

Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” (10:40-42)

On the basis of this literary evidence, I am convinced that the long-standing interpretation promoted by Dr. de la Torre and many others, including Mother Teresa, is the last thing in the world this parable could mean. It is wrong because it does not read Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats in its literary context.

Jesus’ parable envisions the Final Judgment when all humanity is called before God’s throne. The goats are all those who ranged from politely indifferent to openly hostile to the gospel of Jesus. Their antagonism was expressed by failing to assist Jesus’ disciples when they needed help in fulfilling their mission.

The sheep, on the other hand, are all those who opened their doors, hosted, believed, and assisted Jesus’ disciples as they endured the hardships of testifying to the gospel in this hostile world.

Typically, it is only fellow believers who are willing to visit their imprisoned brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. I have heard more than one story about entire churches ending up in prison together as members persisted in visiting those who had been arrested.

When read within its Matthean context “the least of these brothers and sisters of mine” can only refer to one group of people: the disciples of Jesus who are suffering for their faithful witness.

I realize that those who embrace the “social gospel” alternative interpretation of this parable are likely to be offended by the church-community reading I am advancing here. They will see it as an abandonment of the church’s calling to care for society’s poor and needy. They will see it as an expression of privileged and chauvinistic religion, promoting in-group, religious believers above all others.

But then, a great deal of Jesus’ teaching is rejected by people for one reason or another – even by those who profess to be disciples. It is not my place, or anyone else’s, to rewrite Jesus’ teaching. Allow me to make a few counter arguments:

  1. Matthew 25 is not the sole basis of the Christian church’s teaching on social responsibility. This is a prominent theme throughout all of scripture which does not stand or fall on the basis of this one passage alone.
  2. The need for Christians to prioritize their care and concern for fellow believers is another important theme throughout the New Testament. Jesus is beginning an emphasis that will be continued by the apostle Paul (Gal. 6:10; 1 Tim. 5:17).
  3. Jesus assumes that suffering for the cause of the gospel, and finding oneself in need of kindness and generosity from others, will be a common experience for his disciples. Reflecting of this issue and its relevance to our own lives is an ever-present challenge for anyone calling him/herself a Christian.
  4. Nothing in this alternative reading limits the scope or the diversity of those who become Jesus’ brothers and sisters. By the time a reader gets to Matthew 25, the gospel mission has opened up to include those Gentiles and Samaritans who were previously excluded. In fact, Jesus’ final words in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-25) anticipate an inter-racial, multi-ethnic, international community of brothers and sisters from all classes and walks of life prioritizing their devotion to each other as Jesus’ exemplary New Humanity.