Lets Really Give Legislating Morality a Try

This is the second in a series of posts exploring the current debate about the Church and marriage law.
In my previous post Civil Law & The Church I argued that historically the Church only causes damage when we attempt to impose "Christian" moral laws on our society.

**First the ground rules**

I hate being defined by theological litmus tests because I think they miss the mark in so many ways. That does not mean we can’t or shouldn't engage in theological discussions on matters that we feel strongly about. It is just that we should be a little more humble and gracious in how we describe people who differ from our understanding of God and his grace.
 In that vein, this series of blog posts will not even attempt to address or debate the theological issues swirling around marriage rights. We will not be considering whether the fact that Jesus spoke against divorce but was silent on homosexuality is important or not, or what it means that so many in the church are willing to overlook Paul’s teachings on  gender roles and on celibacy but not his teachings on homosexuality. There are a great many other forums offering space to debate these issues so please feel free to use them.Our purpose here then is to look at marriage, equality, and civil rights vs religious rights.**Now the second discussion**

I'd like for us to consider what it would mean if we really attempted to impose such laws in a balanced manner, since it must be observed that all sin, any sin, is a serious matter, because “sin” is “lawlessness” 1 John 3:4

If our goal as Christians is to legislate morality, we should go all the way and really legislate against sin. I know there have been humorous attempts at this before that take scriptures from old testament law and attempt to apply them in todays world.

I stand with many in the Christian tradition that believe many of these texts are cultural and do not apply. Therefore since we have selected certain texts as legitimate for use in this arena let’s just use the scriptures currently sited for keeping gay marriage illegal as a guide for our new laws.

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of the gays right? 

"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” Eze 15:60

First let’s pass a law keeping all stockbrokers, payday loan providers, and pawn shop owners from receiving tax breaks, getting government backed loans (including student loans for their children), and from any type of court protection (sue them all you want since they don't have any standing in court). Ezekiel does say the sin of Sodom was they were greedy and over fed and unconcerned for the poor, and Paul does say the greedy will not inherit the kingdom of God so we are just being helpful and keeping them from an unbiblical lifestyle. If they truly repent and change their lifestyle, sell all their positions and give the money to the poor, then we can consider allowing them to hold "respectable jobs."While we are at it we should also pass laws to keep anyone who is overweight from eating unhealthy food, after all overfed people need to be protected from a lifestyle of gluttony. Let us make sure they can only eat salad when in public.

Paul clearly gives his protegee Timothy direction on what kind of people merit exclusion from the Kingdom.

We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine. 1 Tim 1:9-10

Let’s make sure we honor the whole passage here and pass laws making sure anyone found guilty of being deceitful or committing perjury loses their civil rights that are associated with those sins. Paul does tell Timothy they are the same category as murders and  sexually immoral people. Deceitful people will ruin the sanctity of voting and of our court system. We should keep them from participating in polls or from actually voting and certainly from testifying in court.When Paul wrote the epistle to the Romans he laid out sound doctrine against all sorts of perversions. Lets make sure to not ignore any of this passage.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts … They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Rom 1:24-31 NIV

We need to pass a law to make sure gossips, slanderers, and boastful people are dealt with. Let’s make sure they have no access to newspapers, TV, or any type of social media what so ever since granting them access to these things would only show we are condoning their lifestyle.

This kind of sin runs deep so lets make sure we are clear on whether this includes celebrity gossip magazines, websites, and TV shows or not.

It seems like I read about a society like this before… Oh yes it was the Pharisees and Sadducees and Jesus had some really harsh things to say to them about this kind of behavior.   

You see Jesus really hit the nail on the head when he talked about specks and planks.  The religious leaders of Jesus day were incensed that he accepted people into his circle even though they were sinners. At nearly every interaction Jesus left their heads spinning as He showed them they were just as dirty as those they condemned.

So whether you believe homosexuality is a sin or not, I’m not sure how you can advocate against granting or denying civil rights for a person based on their sinfulness. Since doing so would logically invite legislation against all us for all kinds of sins. 

Let us instead deal with sin on a spiritual level and with civil law on a civil level. 

Civil Law & The Church

First let me be clear on what these posts are and what they are not.

I hate being defined by theological litmus tests because I think they miss the mark in so many ways. That does not mean we can’t or shouldn't engage in theological discussions on matters that we feel strongly about. It is just that we should be a little more humble and gracious in how we describe people who differ from our understanding of God and his grace.

In that vein, this series of blog posts will not even attempt to address or debate the theological issues swirling around marriage rights. We will not be considering whether the fact that Jesus spoke against divorce but was silent on homosexuality is important or not, or what it means that so many in the church are willing to overlook Paul’s teachings on  gender roles and on celibacy but not his teachings on homosexuality. There are a great many other forums offering space to debate these issues so please feel free to use them.

Our purpose here then is to look at marriage, equality, and civil rights vs religious rights.

Let’s start with a simple question.

Should the church be in charge of or even concerned about how marriage is defined in the secular realm?

In the heart of this question, we should consider what kind of reactions the church has evoked in the name of Christ with other attempts to legislate morality.

Much of the church has failed the world on right to life issues, angrily proclaiming that abortion is murder while condemning and attacking women who have abortions. Some ‘Christians’ are downright nasty to anyone who says, ‘hey, hold on, let’s talk about this.”  I have been verbally abused by Christians, some of whom who know me, because I wanted to talk about the issue instead of just covering my mouth with red tape and dutifully standing up with them. I believe that we should value all life, including the mothers who feel trapped with no options.

“I must say that I am still passionately pro-life, I just have a much more holistic sense of what it means to be for life, knowing that life does not just begin at conception and end at birth, and that if I am going to discourage abortion, I had better be ready to adopt some babies and care for some mothers.”  - Shane Claiborne

 Further muddying these waters many Christians who vehemently oppose abortion, because it is the murder of a fellow image bearer, fully support the death penalty, torture, drone strikes, etc and do not see the problem with their own logic. We need to learn how to love EVERYONE, including the mothers, fathers, abortion clinic doctors, criminals, and enemy combatants.

But should the Church be concerned with the kind of reactions people have to our values? Isn't the truth the truth no matter what?

Let us just for a moment consider that this line of argument is valid. Consider the actual outcome of legislating all of our moral values (because the truth is the truth like it or not).

The temperance movement, rooted in America's Protestant churches, first urged moderation in drinking, and ultimately demanded laws prohibiting alcohol. This eventually led to prohibition, which didn't really stop anyone from drinking. Several underground bars or speakeasies could be found in most every city and moonshine, illegal alcohol, could be purchased by anyone who expended any amount of effort to find it. Prohibition only fueled the illicit trade of alcohol which fed organized crime giving people like Al Capone and John Dillinger great wealth and power.  

Similarly attempts at legislating our moral views have done nothing to stem the tide of abortions or show the love of Christ to those who are hurting or lost, they have only shown the world how judgmental and blind a group of people we can be. They have also given rise to groups like Planned Parenthood, which assists in hundreds of thousands of abortions every year. This group now has the power to hold good organizations like Susan G Komen foundation hostage as they co-opt their message in the name of defeating “Christian” moral legislation.

Moral laws did nothing to stop drunkenness and nothing to stop abortion they only helped organize and give power to groups opposed to the church’s stated values.

It is my contention then that the church gains nothing and risks everything by becoming so embroiled in secular politics. We cannot legislate transformation and no matter how many laws we pass we won't change hearts.

Are you without blemish?

Summary Statement: of Ephesians 1:3-5

God finds pleasure in adopting us into His family. He does not see all the ways we fall short or fail to live up to the standards we absorb from the world around us. God sees us as holy and perfect without defect.

Historical Context:

Alexander the Great had conquered vast territories in a shorter time than anyone else in recorded history. One of the reasons he was so successful because imported Greek values to all the areas he concurred. Alexander insisted on making major cities the center for education and philosophy.1 2

Alexander was driven by certain ideals. These ideals are reflected in Greek myths and poetry. The Greeks saw humans as the center of everything. The naked human form was the highest for of beauty and worship. The Greeks were driven by their ideal of beauty, courage, achievement. How good are you , how well can you climb to the top, how good looking are you, how brave are you... So Alexander wants to make the world Greek. He wants to take the Greek world view and wants to make it everyone’s world view everywhere.

He would conquer a city and in the process destroy it and then re-build. He would build a gymnasium A key idea of the Greek worldview is that it is holistic. So you would go the the Gym and you would offer incense to the Gods, you would do all these sports (discus, javelin,) sweat, work out, tone your body. And then along the edge of the gym would be all these classrooms where you would learn to write classical Greek, learn poetry, and philosophy, and the myths of the Gods. So you would send your kids to school each day and he/she would be immersed in the Greek world view. Ephesus had all the conveniences of a modern Roman city: a gymnasium, a stadium, theaters, and a central marketplace.3

The Greeks would build a beautiful temple to the Gods. In Ephesus Alexander would incorporate the Greek goddess Dianna and Artemis. The Greeks restored a huge temple to this goddess and increased its splendor and reputation 4 They made it the banking capitol of Asia minor bringing wealth and success.

The Greeks were masters of using mass media for propaganda. The theater in Ephesus, which had a seating capacity of some twenty-four thousand,5 would put on the stories of the Greek Gods. Often times a Greek theater would have no back and would be built in such a way that the back of the stage would overlook the city. So when you sat in the theater and watched these dramas featuring Greek mythology and philosophy your own city would be the backdrop 6, People would quickly begin to see their stories in the myths they encountered in the theater.

The main street of Ephesus connected the theater with the harbor and was flanked on either side by a colonnade. Another important feature the Greeks added to the the city was the agora, the marketplace, located southeast of the harbor bringing goods from all over the world to their doorstep.7 The people of Ephesus were able to dine on food from far off lands, wear fashions from exotic regions, and read literature from scholars they would never meet in person.

The Greek worldview was designed to just move in and take over. Something happens, however, when you begin to place the worth of a life on how much you achieve and how pretty you are. If your value comes from how pretty you are, if you worth comes from how you do at athletics, if your merit and standing in the community is based on how well you do in class and how clever you are you begin to view others in that same light. What subtly happens is you are going to end up putting worth on human life.

Soranus of Ephesus wrote “a practical guide to gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics.” In it he described a method of assessing the health status of newborns titled “How to recognize the newborn that is worth rearing.” He suggests that the following characteristics are indicative of a worthy infant: “... its mother has spent the period of pregnancy in good health, it has been born at the due time, when put on the earth it immediately cries with proper vigor, it is perfect in all its parts, members and senses, its ducts are free from obstruction and the natural functions of every member are neither sluggish nor weak ... conditions contrary to these indicate the infant not worth rearing.”

Classical Greek literature asserts this same philosophy. Aristotle said “As to the exposure of children, let there be a law that no deformed child shall live.” In his work The Republic Plato writes: “The offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in secret, so that no one will know what has become of them.” A deformed child just doesn’t fit into the Greek world view.

An infant that was deformed or even weak was viewed as a sign of divine displeasure. It was thought to be a curse from the gods. A family with a deformed baby must somehow have a problem with the gods. So they had to get rid of the baby because they didn't want any of that divine displeasure to rest on their household, and they certainly didn't want their neighbors to know, that would be a blow to the status of the whole family.

This gruesome practice, that was perfectly legal under roman law, is sometimes translated as exposure and encouraged throughout ancient Rome. To get rid of an unwanted infant one might resort to abortion (very risky in those days) or drowning, but the preferd method was infant exposure where, “the family would simply take the child out beyond the city and abandon it to die from exposure to the elements.”8

Ephesus had a mountain on the norther edge of the city. This mountain is considered by some scholars to be the sight of the baby dump, others place it closer to the main city gates. If you lived in this city in the ancient world, this is where you would take a deformed, weak, or unwanted child and leave it to die.

Since Ephesus was a large port city with commercial traffic coming and going to both Rome and Asia Minor it also became a slave trade center. A common practice in the ancient world was to raise children into young adulthood to be slaves. People would go up and would sort through the rejected babies looking for ones who might make good slaves. So they would look for deformed babies who still held some potential. They would then bring babies back home and raise them ether as personal slaves or to be sold.

Literary Context:

In Ephesians Paul addresses masters and slaves, so his intended audience is both masters and slaves. The people who first heard this letter would have included folks who had gone up on that mountain and sorted through babies who they thought might make good servants and it would also have included folks who had been raised as slaves, knowing full well their status was because they had been rejected at birth.

I. God sees us with our blemish (1:3-4)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 9

The word for blameless is ἄμωμος^a and it means “without defect, without blemish.’10 God chose you before the creation of the world to be holy and without defect. He looks at you and He doesn't see a long list of how you don't measure up. He sees you as holy and with out defect.

II. God chose us (1:5)

In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will9

This is the verse that cinches it. God chose to go up the mountain and rescue us not to raise as slaves but for adoption into His divine family even before we were born. He did not just do this on a whim it is all part of His eternal rescue plan.

Original meaning:

It is doubtful that the first people who heard this got into a heated discussion about predestination vs freewill. The first people to hear this probably wept. Adoption for them was going up the mountain and taking the abandon babies that were all screwed up and raising them as your own.

Paul begins “in love God decided beforehand to make you His children.” This text calls out the idea that a deformity is a sign of Gods displeasure. This text says God is the God who hikes up on the mountain and brings home the unwanted, the discarded, and makes them part of his family.

Modern meaning:

Think of the messages we are sent about our value, our worth, and how we measure up or more likely all the ways we don't. We live in a culture that constantly reminds us that we are not good enough. If you go through a checkout isle you are confronted by a plethora of magazines telling you are not the right shape, you don't make enough money, you have bad hair... If you turn on the television or radio you are blasted by marketers telling you how bad your life is and how if you just had their product you could finally measure up.

According to this text the gospel is me coming to the place of realizing I was the baby on the hill left for dead and God hiked up there to get me. God created each of us, He chose us to be adopted into His family. He looks at us and does not see all the ways we fail or don't measure up to some standard. He looks at us and loves us, He takes pleasure in bringing us into His family.

If we can live this text it will profoundly effect the way we live. Every time we are reminded about our deformities about all the ways we fall short this text should leap into our hearts and onto our tongue. If we can take this text seriously we must recognize that God has some weird kids and He loves them all, even if we find them strange or even offensive.

Implications for Ministry:

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once said "It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o'clock on Sunday morning.” The Church has a way of becoming a social club. If we are going to take this text seriously we need to accept that we are not called to be tolerant!

The very idea of tolerance implies enduring or putting up with something you don't like or value. Tolerance does not value people but simply puts up with their behaviors or beliefs. We cannot build authentic relationships with each-other on tolerance alone, because tolerance can only look the other way.

Tolerance might deal with differences, but it can't embrace us in full. God far exceeds mere tolerance, He showers all of us with grace. We are to represent God and so we must not just occasionally tolerate people we don't like, we too must show grace and acceptance.

The church should be a gathering of people where we can stand up and say we are wretched, and everyone will nod and agree and then remind us that we are also beautiful...

When we look through the eyes of Jesus, we begin to see new things in people. In the murderers, we see our own hatred. In the addicts, we see our own addictions. In the saints, we catch glimpses of our own holiness. We can see our own brokenness, our own violence, our own ability to destroy, and we can see our own sacredness, our own capacity to love and forgive. When we realize that we are both wretched and beautiful, we are freed up to see others the same way

God loves each of us just as we are, but he loves us so much he doesn't want us to stay that way. We must never confuse acceptance with agreement. Acceptance is not an agreement of people’s choices, beliefs, or behaviors. We must see ourselves as in-process, none of us has arrived or achieved some ultimate level of spiritually superiority. While we must always extend grace and acceptance to everyone, we should always hope and pray that none of us will remain spiritually stagnate.

There is a place for "appropriate judgment," but only among disciples who are in close personal relationships with each-other in which they have invited one another fully into their lives. This kind of judgment is done only in private and it takes the form of discernment and loving feedback. The end goal is for both disciples to be continually transformed by this relationship.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.

The Apostle Paul to the church in Rome 58 A.D. (Rom 7:15-20)

Works cited:

1. Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Ac 18:23). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

2. Discipleship Journal, Issue 32 (March/April 1986). 1986. NavPress.

3. Discipleship Journal, Issue 122 (March/April 2001). 2001. NavPress.

4. Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Ac 19:27). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

5. Myers, A. C. (1987). The Eerdmans Bible dictionary (342). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

6. Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Ac 19:29). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

7. Myers, A. C. (1987). The Eerdmans Bible dictionary (342). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

8. Price, Christopher. 2004. “Pagans, Christianity, and Infanticide.” www.christiancadre.org

/member_contrib/cp_infanticide.html Last accessed August 11, 2012.

9. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Eph 1:3–4). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

10. Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Vol. 1: Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: Based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition.) (699). New York: United Bible Societies.

Jesus and Geography

Robert Pattinson

The Pentagon

Obama

Alaska

Japan

Oval office

Capitol Hill

What do all these have in common?

They give is a concrete picture, an image we can see in our mind.

Names like praetorium Golgotha and Antipas were loaded with meaning in Jesus time.

Who was the king who committed to try to kill baby Jesus?

Herod the Great

Herod Antipas was his son. He came to power when Herod died.

That's when the Angel told Joseph that it was safe to return to Jerusalem with Jesus.

They settled in the town of Nazareth in Galilee.

That is about the time Herod Antipas began his rebuilding and expansion project for the city of Sepphoris...

Sepphoris has been revealed as a cosmopolitan city of great wealth and beauty, the largest and most important city in all Galilee (according to roman historians). Even after Herod built Tiberias and moved his capital and residence there, Sepphoris continued to be a prominent and influential city.

Sepphoris was "perched like a bird" on a four hundred-foot hill. The city commanded a panoramic view of Lower Galilee, including the towns of Cana, and Nazareth, four miles to the south. The Jewish historian Josephus called it "the ornament of Galilee."

Sepphoris boasted a 4,000-seat amphitheater, built into the eastern side of the hill. Its stage was 156 feet wide and 27 feet from front to back. Herod’s rebuilt city included his palace, an upper city and a lower city, a new city walls, an extra large market place, a colonnaded street, and a residential area. Several large cisterns (like water towers of today), one holding a thousand gallons, supplied running water for the city. It was a fancy sophisticated and rich place.

During Jesus’ early years, Herod Antipas was restoring, developing and fortifying Sepphoris. It served as his principle residence and the administrative center of Galilee, until he built Tiberias in A.D. 18-20.

Why are we talking about Sepphoris?

Well it was less than 4 miles from a tiny village named Nazareth.

Jesus father, Joseph, was identified by the word tekton.

This word was used to identify, a carpenter, a builder, or any craftsman.

This would mean that they were construction craftsmen, skilled in wood and or stone work. Since it was the practice of a father to teach his son his trade or skill, and since we don't see Jesus studying under a rabbi (remember he got his authority at his baptism) Joseph probably trained Jesus for this vocation.

Nazareth was a very small village, presumably lacking in the kind of construction projects that would provide sufficient work for skilled builders. With extensive building in progress less than an hour’s walk away, it is likely that Joseph and Jesus would have been employed in Sepphoris.

There is evidence to lend credibility to this theory because Jesus was well acquainted with much of the predominantly Greek and Roman culture.

When He used the word "hypocrite" for instance:

The word Hypocrite means actor or pretender, literally "one acting under a mask," . It is a Greek word, not Jesus native Aramaic, and would be primarily used to speak about the actors in a Greek style theatre. Such as the one built at Sepphoris around when Jesus would have been a teenager.

So Herod the king who's father had committed genocide, and who maintained his power with the roman military muscle ran the kingdom from his fancy city on a hill.

Imagine what it would feel like to look up at the spectacle from the poor little village of Nazareth below it. Only a few hundred people lived in Nazareth, it had no civic structures... People still went to a well for water...

Herod then built another huge town called Tiberius (named after Ceaser and built on a grave yard).

So what does all this mean...

Jesus is recorded as going to Nazerath,Cana, Capernum (a small village next to Tiberius) and all kinds of other places around this great wealth and power. But he never goes to these places during his ministry. He never goes to the capital to lobby or seek an audience with the powerful folks there who were running the day to day political operations of that whole region.

In fact the text is very careful about where he goes and what roads or paths he takes to get there. He always avoids the places of imperial power. Although he does go to the places of religious power (as we have seen at the temple and we will see with pagan temple at cessarea philipi)

By the lake in the area of Zebulun and Nephtali these were land allocations given by God to the former Egyptian slaves (not the fancy Greek names provided by the empire). By using these names the text is underlining the fact that the land is Gods not the empires.

Jesus reminded people why they had come to the desert in the first place. They could gone to Sepphoris the theater... and watched a great play about a girl who meets a boy who happens to be a vampire and who's vampire family takes her in and defends her against other vampires, culminating in a fiery battle inside a dance studio... until she wakes up in the hospital with a broken leg...

Sorry that was totally uncalled for ;-)

Or

They could have gone to tiberous to lobby the rich rulers and advisers to the king to "take their countyr back to its religous roots...

But they came to the desert to seek a new way to live, to seek a truth that was/is deeper than the plastic and fake ways of the world. They came out because they has a sense that a new world was possible and they needed to see/hear that a new world that was emerging.

Luk 7:24
After John's messengers left, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?
Luk 7:25
If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces.
Luk 7:26
But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

This takes place at Capernum just a stones throw away from Tiberius (Herod's new shinier imperial city) where John sets on death row waiting to be beheaded...

Why didn't Jesus rush to save John?

More on that next time...

Shut your mouth...

Paul taught his disciples to shut up about the moral decay in their culture.

The story of the riot in Ephesus: In Ephesus Paul finds disciples who are eager to learn, they receive Christ and are baptized. Paul speaks publicly and from house to house, night and day making disciples and sending them out for perhaps three years . The city is shaken to its foundations as great numbers of people believe and join Paul in the work of making disciples. Many of them burned their books of magic and abandoned idol worship. From Ephesus Paul was able to direct a great disciple making movement and churches were founded in cities for up to 100 miles around. Ephesus rapidly became the leading center of the Christian world. In all respects Paul had a successful public ministry in Ephesus.

But the idol makers, seeing a decline in their business, incite an immense mob to riot against Paul and these new churches. They chant their slogan, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians,” over and over as they drag leaders of the church into a giant arena filled to capacity with idol worshipers. The Mayor then steps in and disbands the crowd by saying “You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess.” The crowd leaves because no one in the crowd can argue with the Mayor’s points.

It is important here to look carefully at what the Mayor said. The words “robbed temples” are the Greek word hierosylos and it means stealer of things from a temple, or one who desecrates and commits sacrilege. The word blaspheme is the Greek word blasphēmeō and it means: to insult, slander, curse, to use malicious talk, or defamation of character. The Mayor challenges the mob to bring one witness who has heard the disciples of the way say anything negative about Artemis, or one person who has witnessed them desecrate an idol. No one from this massive crowd has any evidence that Paul or his fellow Christians have said or done anything slanderous to the local religious traditions.

We know Paul was not shy about his beliefs. All of the evidence tells us that Paul was at the center of this movement writing letters and teaching in public places. Paul is training and sending others out to speak for Christians as well. Scholars believe that several of Paul’s epistles, including a letter to the church at Corinth, were written and sent while Paul was in Ephesus. In many of Paul’s other ministry journeys he is recorded as giving speeches to large crowds. Paul is even anxious to get in front of this huge mob to speak to them.

Paul is not vague, but also not confrontational, about the difference in idol worship and worship of the one true God. In the letter to the Corinthians Paul says, “An idol is nothing at all in the world” he goes on to call them “so called gods.” He does not call on the Corinthian disciples to publically criticize the idol worshipers. In fact, Paul talks about them eating food sacrificed to idols in the idol’s temple. He does not chastise them for associating with the idol worshipers, it even seems expected that they would be in close contact with nonbelievers and new believers. At Mars Hill, Paul uses the idols of the local populace and even quotes one of their poets. He then turns these things on their head to teach the crowd about Yahweh but, he never once insults these cultural icons.

We know that Paul was not quiet about his beliefs regarding idols and idol worship. We know Paul had tremendous influence. We know there were thousands of Christians in and around Ephesus who had regular contact with the Ephesian people. Despite all of this, no one can recall a single time the Church was disrespectful or publically ridiculed the pagan worshipers. Paul never called on the church to make signs and form a protest line at a concert or speech. Paul never called on the church to stage a book burning. Paul never instructed the disciples of the way to pester and ridicule their friends, family and coworkers about the decline of their culture. Paul does not instruct the church to endorse a particular political party or candidate.

Paul is an excellent example of how Christians should carry on in the face of cultural resistance. He knew that to engage in hierosylos and blasphēmeō damages one’s witness. Because we have failed to listen to Paul, the world today knows more about what the church is against than what it is for. How then should we conduct ourselves in a culture of moral decline and idol worship? What should be the churches public response to having less of a cultural influence than other religious traditions or new age spiritual practices? We must find ways to lead people into experiencing redemption in Christ that don’t involve a bullhorn. We must find ways of helping broken lost people find redemptive love without shame and condemnation. We must live amongst the people of our culture and love them as Jesus loves them.

http://www.being-the-body.blogspot.com/

Who's theology?

What is Theology?

The word theos is Greek for “God,” and -ology which is from the Greek word logos meaning study of or “word.” Most literally then the word theology means "study of God" or “words about God” (not to be confused with the words from God). It is the articulation of an individual's or a community’s beliefs about God.

As such theology will always fall short from a complete & accurate description of the God of all creation. Despite the fact that our theology falls short, and sometimes entirely misses the point, it is still a necessary way to provide an anchoring point. When it is done well it is our humble attempt to explain what we mean when we confess that “Jesus is Lord," and when we say that it should subvert and redefine what the we count as “rational.”

Just as a toddler tries to form sentences, and she can’t quite get her mouth around the words, so it is with us trying to communicate who God is and what the kingdom of God is like. But just as we take great delight in hearing our tiny children talk about things they can not yet understand, God takes pleasure in us, with our halted uttering and incomprehension, trying so hard to grasp the infinite mystery with our finite comprehension.

It is destructive then for us to treat out theology as if it is written in stone. We are at our worst when we fail to to leave room for possible errors in our theology, we risk making our theology an idle. When we build our theology up and act as if it is somehow written by God himself, when we fail to see how our theology falls short, we fail to recognize our own humanness. After all our best guess is probably laughable from God's point of view.

How we develop and treat our theology has massive implications for how we live. Theology is a practice and a craft that is rooted in the other practices of the Church (e.g., mission, evangelism, worship, communal prayer, preaching, hospitality to the poor and the stranger, living life together, service to our neighbor, nonviolent encounter/witness to our enemies...). Our theology should help us to be the church, and it should push us to more faithfully be a community of disciples of the way of Jesus in our time and in this place.

When we as the church are at our best, we recognize that people will always be in process and no one individual's theology will completely line up with our communal theology. We celebrate this diversity as a strength that brings a balance to our understanding of God. Our tradition is a wide stream that allows much room for how we try to articulate our understanding of God.

As such we should constantly be on the look out for new and different ways to speak the message that has been entrusted to us. We should pull words and phrases from our culture and turn their meaning on its head, just as Jesus and the early Church did.

Blessed are the...

We would like invite you to take a fresh look at the beatitudes with us in the hopes that they will lead us to be the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world".

“(the beatitudes) give us not only a way to see God, but a way to see our world, and they give us something concrete to do about what we see, as they call us to participate in God's kingdom.” -Anne Howard

"Blessed are the..."

Lets stop right there. It is easy to read into something a meaning that is not there, without a proper understanding of the context in which it is said. Or we could say we cannot get a proper understanding of Jesus message if we do not understand what exactly he is saying.

The word Blessed is the Greek word makarios, and it means blessed or happy.

However this makarios is not a word used in asking for or even invoking blessings, such as "Lord I ask that you bless this person," or "We ask God to bless this ministry." That word would be eulogeō, and it (eulogeō) does not appear anywhere in the beatitudes.

Raymond Brown describes makarios as "not part of a wish list and not to invoke a blessing. Rather it is to recognize an existing state of happiness or good fortune."

Kenneth Bailey further adds "We could say it affirms a present reality or it points out a state of spirituality that is already present."

The beatitudes are the first and longest message of Jesus that we have a record of. Up until this point, Jesus has been announcing that the kingdom of heaven was, near and at hand, He had been calling for people to repent to re-orientate their lives. Now, in what could be described as a manifesto of His kingdom, Jesus unveils the foundations and character of life in that kingdom. Here He teaches the ethical guidelines for life in His kingdom; and the guidelines point to the quality of righteousness that characterizes life in the kingdom, here and now as a present reality not as something God left us longing for.

It is not asking for a blessing but neither is the second line a reward for the first line. "Jesus does not say you will be blessed if you..." We could say it like this: "Joyful is my friend Neil because he will inherit his family's business." Neil is already joyful and will eventually inherit the business. There is nothing for him to do. The first statement affirms his joyful state and the second presents a future that allows him to even now to live a life of joy.

Jesus goes on to affirm that these makarios blessed ones make up the membership of the kingdom of heaven, which is already theirs.

With this firmly in hand let us gather together and read Jesus words with a fresh understanding of what kind of blessings we have and what kind of lives we are called to live.

What you look for you will find (or where is heaven?)

When you picture heaven what do you picture?

Go ahead and close your eyes and try to visualize it now...

You may think of Angels floating on clouds playing on harps (because everyone loves harp music). Or you may think of a place where dis-embodied spirits float to and fro, perhaps you envision mansions and streets of gold. But these fanciful images are placed into our collective mind by culture not by scripture.

"Think of all the jokes that begin with someone showing up at the gates of heaven, and st. Peter is there, like a bouncer at a club, deciding who does and who doesn't get to enter. For all of the questions and confusion about just what heaven is and who will be there, the one thing that is the generally agreed-upon notion that heaven is, obviously, somewhere else. And so the questions about heaven often have an otherworldly air to them."-Rob Bell

Where and how you begin the story, and where and how you end the story, shapes and determines the story you’re telling.

One way to look at the big picture of the Bible is to see how scripture follows a story-arc, we call this narrative theology. It traces through the bible building as it tells the story of God and his creation which was broken and he how seeks to restore it. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is one story of the Kingdom of God coming near and it culminates with Heaven and Earth merging into one when God and humanity dwell together in the Resurrection.

But this is not how we tend to tell God's story. We tell a story of brokenness and sin. We talk about how this world is broken and marred by this "original sin." We tell our story of being "born into" this sin. This has become the dominate way to tell the "Christian" story.

There is nothing wrong with telling the story of how sin entered the picture, and how it effected all of creation. Indeed it is important to acknowledge the fact that sin still infects creation to this very day. But, when we begin with sin when the fall is the starting place, and the death of Jesus on the cross is the ending, then our story becomes one of escape instead of restoration.

The story begins in Genesis 1 NOT in Genesis 3. The story begins with a good and loving God creating and stepping back and declaring "it is good." And then this good and loving God then creating us in his image. Our story starts in the Garden, with everything just as God intended it to be, with God walking with the man and woman...

And

The story does not end in some sort of tribulation period and great climatic battles...

The story ends in Revelation 21

"Then I saw 'a new heaven and a new earth,'for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.”

If you took out sin from the Bible you’d have a four page pamphlet, kinda like a Gospel tract. But, unlike a tract it would be a story we would want to read. You’d begin with Genesis 1 and 2 and end with Revelation 21 and 22. You begin with a perfect garden and end with a perfect city. Genesis 1 and 2 paints a picture of a participatory lifestyle where God and man co-habitate the same time and space.

Revelation 21 and 22 paints a picture of a participatory lifestyle where man engages with God and they co-habitate the same time and space. There’s no distinction between heaven and earth in Genesis and the fusion of heaven and earth at the end of Revelation leaves no distinction between the two.

All things have been made new, and the story ends here….on earth, the same place it began.

A story that begins with Genesis 3 begins with sin, and if you start with this premise in your story then your goal is the removal of sin. To get rid of the problem. But a story that begins at Genesis 1 the goal is “how do we get back” to shalom and restoration and peace. What is the larger story that you are telling? Is it just how to get rid of sin?

"A proper view of heaven leads not to escape from the world, but to full engagement with it, all with the anticipation of a coming day when things are on earth as they currently are in heaven." - Rob Bell

Heaven is where God is storing Earth’s future, bringing hope not rooted in escape but engagement, not evacuation but reclamation, not in leaving but in staying and overcoming.

Or to put it another way materiality is not the issue, rebellion is the issue.

"When Isaiah predicted that spears would become pruning hooks, that's a reference to cultivating. Pruning and trimming and growing and paying close attention to the plants and weather they're getting enough water and if their roots are deep enough. Soil under the fingernails, grapes being trampled under bare feet, fingers sticky from handling fresh fruit... For there to be new wine someone has to crush the grapes. For their to be no more war someone has to take the sword and get it hot enough in the fire to hammer it into the shape of the plow." - Rob Bell

So go back and read Genesis 1 and 2 and then read Revelation 21 and 22 and think of what heaven will be like. Read the prophets when they reveal glimpses of what God has in store for the world:

Isaiah 2 & Isaiah 11 & Isaiah 25 & Amos 9 ...

"By the way when the writer John in the book of Revelation gets a current glimpse of the heavens, one detail he mentions about crowns is that people are taking them off, chapter 4. Apparently, in the unvarnished presence of the divine a lot of things that we consider significant turn out to be, much like wearing a crown, quite absurd." - Rob Bell

Now what do you think heaven will be like?

Final note

"On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there." Revelation 21:25 .

What are gates for? Gates are for keeping people in and/or out... Hmmm

Also check out my "official" review here.