It's All About Jesus-- Isn't It?

When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  Paul the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 2:1-2.

Paul preached and taught that Christianity is all about Jesus.  And Jesus's teachings are centered around the "kingdom of God" with Himself as its inauguration.  When Jesus first came preaching the gospel at the beginning of Mark, He said, “The time has come, [and] the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:14-15. 

"The time has come" was shorthand in Israel for "The Messiah has arrived."  Jesus was saying that He was the Messiah, and because He had arrived, the kingdom ruled by God, rather than men, was near us, right here on earth.  This was the good news that people were to believe.  In Luke 4:14-19 He proclaimed in the synagogue that the verses about God's anointed coming with good news for the poor, healing for the blind and freedom for the oppressed, were fulfilled right then and there.

As N. T. Wright puts it in Simply Jesus:

Jesus behaves from the start both with the sovereign authority of one who knows himself charged with the responsibility to inaugurate God's kingdom and with the recognition that this task will only be completed through his suffering and death.   [Emphasis in original.]

And in the next chapter he says that after the Resurrection:

A new power is let loose in the world, the power to remake what was broken, to heal what was diseased, to restore what was lost. . . Jesus's risen person-- body, mind, heart and soul-- is the prototype of the new creation. . . The thing about the new creation is that it simply overflows with the power of love. . . [t]his love is strong, powerful, life-changing, life directing.  New creation has begun; and its motivating power is love.  [Emphasis in original.]

In Christian churches everywhere this weekend, the death and resurrection of Christ will be celebrated, because Christ is the center of Christianity. 

Isn't He?

Why does it seem so often like Christ is only the center of Christianity on Easter weekend?

Certainly if you asked average people on the street what Christianity was, what Christians were all about, "A bunch of people following Christ" would probably not be what they would say.  They'd be more likely to talk about stopping gays from marrying and women from having abortions, fighting for prayer and against evolution in the schools, and trying to keep crosses, manger scenes and copies of the Ten Commandments on display in public places.

Most people have no quarrel with Jesus-- in fact, they rather admire Him.  But a large number of people have real problems with the way we Christians talk and act.  And maybe it's because Jesus really doesn't seem to be at the heart of our religion at all.

The old creation lives by pride and retribution: I stand up for myself, and if someone gets in my way I try to get even.  We've been there, done that, and got the scars to prove it.  Now there is a completely different way to live, a way of love and reconciliation and healing and hope.  It's a way . . . that is as unthinkable to most human beings and societies as-- well, as resurrection itself.  That's the point.  Welcome to Jesus's new world.  N. T. Wright, Simply Jesus.

I think Dr. Wright is right (no pun intended) that the way Jesus lived, the way He taught us to live, is "unthinkable to most human beings and societies."  Maybe that's why we're so bad at living it.  Maybe that's why it seems so much easier to fight culture wars.  Maybe that's why it's easier to think of ourselves as "Bible-believing Christians" than "Jesus-following Christians."  The Bible is concrete: a book we can hold in our hands.  We can look inside its pages for instructions on how we and everyone else are supposed to behave and think, and we can try to enforce that in our world.

But Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." John 5:39.

The Bible was meant to point us to Jesus.  We Christians often act as if we think it's the other way around.

And we turn the New Testament-- a set of books made up of narratives, prophecies, explanations to Gentiles of what "the time is come and the kingdom of God is near" means in their own mindset, and letters of encouragement and advice to young churches, into a book of rules and new law.  And then we try to get our governments to enforce it.

I want to dedicate my Easter this year to returning to Jesus as the center of my faith.  I want to learn once again to follow Him, and no merely human agenda-- not even that of a church or churches in my country.

I want to recognize that trying to impose my morality on others from the government down (instead of trying to love them and come underneath them to lift them up, to meet their spiritual and physical needs), isn't what Jesus was talking about when He said "Follow Me."  I want to understand that it's not about just living my life as usual, either-- just going to work and coming home and cooking dinner and watching TV.  I don't know exactly how He wants me to do as He did-- I don't know exactly what that is going to look like in my life-- but I want to do what that beautiful song by Gene MacLellan from the early 1970s said:

Put your hand in the hand of the man

Who stilled the water . . .

Put your hand in the hand of the man

Who calmed the sea . . .

Take a look at yourself,

And you can look at others differently,

By puttin’ your hand in the hand of the man

From Galilee!

This Easter I want to fall in love all over again with the One who said "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom."  Luke 12:32.  The One who said, "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." John 3:17.

Fellow Christians, I'm coming to realize that before we can change the world, our own world has got to change.  We have to abide in the Vine first, for apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:4).  And if we do change the world, what we change it into needs to look a lot more like Him and a lot less like us.  And we need to do it according to His way of doing things, not ours.

And to my readers who aren't Christians-- I'm sorry.  I'm sorry that what you've been feeling from us has had so very little to do with what Jesus came to bring.

Maybe lately it hasn't been all about Jesus, for a lot of us.

But maybe it can be.

For I believe He is Risen.  He is Risen indeed.

The Message of God's Kingdom: Foundational Equality

Luke 3:4-6 tells of how the ministry of Jesus began with the appearance of John the Baptist, preaching a message from Isaiah 40:4:

A voice of one calling in the desert,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God’s salvation.'

This passage speaks in terms of land, roads and paths as a metaphor for God's salvation. God will fill up the low places and bring down the high places, straighten the crooked and smooth the rough. It envisions the coming God's salvation (the coming of the Messiah which John was proclaiming) in terms of a great leveling. Applying the metaphor to humanity, then:  the message is that human differences in status, one higher and one lower, will no longer matter. Paul speaks of the same sort of thing in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29: "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."

And this isn't just about everyone being the same in what we call "spiritual salvation" -- being saved by grace through faith. Joel prophesied this in Joel 2:28-29 (which Peter then preached in Acts 2:16-21 as having been fulfilled):

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

Not just in salvation, but in the pouring out of the Spirit, God promises to bless all His people.  "There is no favoritism with God," says Ephesians 6:9 (which, as Retha over at Biblical Personhood so beautifully points out, is the concluding sentence of Paul's household codes in Ephesians, showing us that Paul was teaching his readers how to work within a human system of favoritism, not God's).

In the Old Covenant, God set aside one people, then one family out of one tribe of those people for priesthood, and another family out of another tribe of those people for kingship.  But now we are in the New Covenant.  Members of every tribe and language and people and nation are made into "a kingdom and priests to serve our God."  Revelation 5:9-10.  Peter said in Acts 10:34, after God had poured out His Spirit on Gentiles, "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts those from every nation who fear him and do what is right."

Paul states this as a foundational truth of the Kingdom of God in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17: "So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view [other translations say, "according to the flesh"].  Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.  The old is gone, the new is here!"  Paul tells the Galatians that he "opposed [Peter] to his face. . . for before certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles.  But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles. . . ." (Galatians 2:11-12).  Peter was regarding both the Gentiles and himself from a worldly point of view, or according to the flesh.

But Paul explains later in the same letter, "So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. . . there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. . . . [W]hen the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship."  Galatians 3:28-4:5  A footnote in my Bible adds, "The Greek word for adoption to sonship is a legal term referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture."  Paul is saying that all who are in Christ Jesus-- Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female-- have received the same promise of the adoption to sonship.  No one who has faith in Christ has any lesser legal standing, powers or privileges than anyone else. 

This is why Paul counsels the believers in Philippians 2:3, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves." Jesus had taught in Matthew 18:2-4, Mark 10:15 and Luke 18:7 that everyone who wants to enter the Kingdom of God must do it as a little child.  Little children had no status, powers or privileges in that day, so Jesus' words amounted to a statement that we all must lay down our earthly status, powers and privileges in order to enter the new creation Kingdom.

The essence of the Kingdom message is this:  "Stop looking at yourself in terms of status, or lack thereof.  Stop regarding others in terms of their power or position.  Stop expecting to be treated with respect based on your status in the world, and learn to treat all others with respect-- regardless of their status in the world." Paul made it especially clear that he understood this when he refused to have followers who said, "I am of Paul," stating that those who insisted on distinguishing leaders or having jealousy of place or position were "mere infants" and "still worldly."  This idea is so pervasive throughout the entire New Testament that it must be regarded as one of its foundational teachings.

But many Christians believe that God, universally and timelessly, has chosen men to have leadership authority in the church and home, and women to be followers under that authority.   Some even consider it an essential tenet of Christianity that men are meant to lead and women are meant to follow-- so much so that they question whether those who disagree are truly committed to biblical Christianity.  They base this doctrine on a few short texts: 1 Timothy 2:12-15, 1 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, Ephesians 5:22-23, Colossians 3:18, Titus 2:4-5 and 1 Peter 3:1-6.  They believe these seven texts create an exception to the Kingdom message of no favoritism: that in this one area, we are to view certain believers according to the flesh.   They say that Galatians 3:28 refers only to spiritual salvation.  They say that Joel 2:28-29 and Acts 2:16-21 restrict the outpouring of the Spirit to only what is mentioned in those verses: prophecy, visions and dreams.  They say that God does not and will not pour out any spiritual leadership gifts upon women, except so that they may lead other women.

Apparently the idea is that though we must become as little children to enter the Kingdom, the Kingdom itself then confers upon men, based on their maleness alone, new powers, privileges and status that women cannot have.

What we tend to forget is that we're in a completely different situation than the original readers of the New Testament.  We live in a society where men no longer are considered to have primacy and power, and where women are no longer relegated to the home and children.   It's easy, therefore, to read these verses as if they were against the mutuality of our culture: as if they were counter-cultural statements about God's divine plan for the Kingdom-- statements that place male authority firmly within the Kingdom, to be held against all modern cultural changes.

But how would these passages read if you had always lived in a society where women were required to be not just submissive, but obedient to their husbands?  Where freeborn little boys grew up knowing they would one day become masters of their homes, wives, children and slaves?  Where women were not only forbidden to teach (except in the temples of their goddesses), but viewed as less than fully virtuous if they spoke in public at all?

I think if we lived in those days, it would be much clearer that in light of the Kingdom principle that all believers have the same status before God, the New Testament writers were teaching believers to make necessary concessions for the sake of the church's reputation in the cultures they lived in, and yet without compromising new-creation mutuality.   If you were a new believer in the early 1st century, might you not be saying, "My husband/master has become a believer and has laid down his earthly status.  Does this mean I still have to follow the Emperor's law and obey him?"  Peter's words in 1 Peter 2:12-13 encapsulate the New Testament response: "Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds. . . Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human authority."  

As I look back upon history, it seems to me that the Kingdom principle of the equality of believers has had a profound effect, over time, on the notion of the equality of all human beings.  It is not that our modern culture, by insisting on the full, functional equality of women, has somehow corrupted the Kingdom message as it should be understood in the church.  On the contrary-- the church, ever since the passing of the first Apostles, has been finding ways to exclude women from Kingdom equality.  But our Western cultures today, having imbibed deeply of the Kingdom teaching of equality and applied it to all humanity, are now calling out the church on her hypocrisy.

Maybe it's time we listened.

The Bible and Human Authority, Part 3: The Great Chain of Being

In Parts 1 and 2 we examined what the Bible actually teaches about human authority. God in the Old Testament simply does not appear to be interested in setting up human authority structures, but rather prefers to raise up individual, Spirit-led leaders who act in God’s authority, not as part of a top-down chain of command. And though the New Testament teaches submission to earthly institutions of human authority, its focus is on the new kingdom of God, in which hierarchies of human authority are eliminated in favor of equal brother-sister relationships.

So where did the idea come from, that there is top-down chain of command from God, both in earthly and in spiritual relationships, with human authority structures in every area of life?

Plato (429-347 BC) was possibly the greatest of the Greek philosophers. He conceived of the nature of reality to consist first of ideal “Forms,” and then objects/beings which were types of each ideal. Plato conceived of the Form of Absolute Good as the ultimate, universal object of human desire, and this Idea of the Good became synonymous with God in the writings of his student, Aristotle. In order to be the ultimate Good, God would, in Absolute generosity, also give existence to every other possible good thing. Aristotle then arranged all creatures into a graded scale according to how closely they approached “perfection.” The Neo-Platonists, a group of Greek philosophers in the 3rd-5th centuries AD, who expanded Plato and Aristotle’s ideas, particularly in terms of religion and spirituality, developed this notion further. Macrobius, a Neo-Platonist writing in the early fifth century AD, wrote:

“[T]he attentive observer will discover a connection of parts, from the Supreme God down to the last dregs of things, mutually linked together and without a break. And this is Homer’s golden chain, which God, he says, bade hang down from heaven to earth.” (Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, Harper & Brothers (1936) p. 63.)

This idea of a graded, hierarchical creation came to be known as the “Great Chain of Being.” Alan Myatt, in his paper “On the Compatibility of Ontological Equality, Hierarchy and Functional Distinctions,” writes:

“As Greek philosophical notions were appropriated by early Christian apologists in their defense of the faith, it [the idea of the Great Chain of Being] eventually became entwined with the theology of the church and set the agenda for its theory of society. . . In the Middle Ages, this concept translated into the division of society into ‘Three Estates,’ each stratified according to the Chain of Being. The first estate consisted of church officials beginning with the pope. . . The second estate included the ruling classes of kings, nobility and knights, while the peasants and merchants made up the third estate. Any violation of the established authority within each estate was seen as a threat to the creation order, and subversive to the state and to the stability of Christian culture. Any attempt to leave one’s place in the chain was therefore an act of rebellion. It is critical to note that in the family, there was a hierarchical ordering of husband, wife, children and servants. Each was subordinate to the previous due to their immutable places in the Chain of Being.”

By Elizabethan times (1500s), the Chain of Being had become “one of those accepted commonplaces, more often hinted at or taken for granted than set forth.” (Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture, Vintage Books, page 26.) The Elizabethan philosophers and theologians envisioned not just a hierarchical gradation of beings, but a “primacy” within each specific class of beings, such as “the dolphin among fishes, the eagle among birds, the lion among beasts, the emperor among men.” Ibid, p. 29-30. This conception of hierarchy among the animals is never hinted at in the biblical creation story— but it became part of Christian/Western thought through the infusion of pagan philosophy. Even now we still think of the lion as “the king of beasts.”

Another “commonplace” assumption of Elizabethan times was that “the order in the state duplicates the order of the macrocosm.” Ibid, p. 88. The Homily of Obedience written in 1547 stated,

“In the earth God has assigned kings, princes with other governors under them, all in good and necessary order. The water above is kept and raineth down in due time and season. The sun, moon, stars, rainbow, thunder, lightening, clouds, and all birds of the air do keep their order.” Ibid, p. 88.

Thus, building upon Greek pagan thought, the idea of a hierarchical order of authority in every strata of human relations, based upon the order of creation, became infused with Christianity to the point where no one even thought to question it. This legacy became part of our Western conception of the universe, which still exists today. Alan Myatt notes that a hierarchical understanding of the universe is the tendency in eastern systems of thought as well, “so universal in human society that it could be said to be the default mode of human existence.” He adds that in our churches today, “Traditional hierarchical biblical interpretation has been filtered through the lens of a cultural vision of human relations compromised by a pagan worldview [which] effectively blinded it to the egalitarian implications of the biblical text.” In other words, hierarchical thinking is so natural for humans, and so much a part of our Western mentality, that we have been reading it back into the biblical texts ever since the end of the Age of the Apostles.

With regards, then, to Jesus’ submission to the Father as a justification for hierarchy in human relationships (and particularly in marriage)— it seems apparent that the notion of the Trinity as a hierarchy of authority between Father, Son and Holy Spirit is a continuation of this notion of the Great Chain of Being into the Godhead Itself. But is this the way the Bible actually describes the submission of the Son to the Father? Or to put it another way, is the submission of the Son to the authority of the Father shown by the Bible to be an eternal, divine absolute? Or was the submission of the Son to the Father a temporary matter, tied to the Son’s taking on of human nature and walking on earth as an example of human obedience? Is Jesus’ submission to the Father’s authority human and temporal, or divine and eternal?

Philippians 2:6-9 says that Jesus was “in the form of God, [and] thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” And Hebrews 2:9 says, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”

These verses show that Jesus laid down His complete equality with the Father in order to take on human nature and become an obedient servant. There is no indication that Jesus was subject to the Father, or under the Father’s authority, prior to this event, or that it continued after He had “tasted death” and then been “crowned with glory and honor.” It was only for a little while, during His time on earth, that He was made “ a little lower than the angels,” which according to Hebrews 2:6-7 is the nature of humanity. The state of the Son now, according to Phil. 2:9, is that “God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name.” There is no indication that a state of authority and subordination continues to exist at the present time between the Father and the Son.

In fact, the very idea of authority and subordination within the Godhead in Its eternal divinity is actually incoherent. The triune God is One—three Persons, distinguishable but not divisible, Who in eternity are completely of one Will. Authority makes no sense unless there is a need for obedience; and there can be no need for obedience when there is no difference in wills. The Father did not want to send the Son to earth more than the Son wanted to go. The only time during which the wills of the Father and the Son could diverge, was when the human needs and desires of the incarnated, human Christ conflicted with His divine purpose. This is why Hebrews 5:8 says He “learned obedience by the things which he suffered.” Obedience was something the Son needed to learn on earth, because it could not have had any existence or meaning in the divine eternity of the Trinity, where there was nothing the Son wanted that the Father and the Spirit did not also want.

Even during Jesus’ time on earth we see incidents where Their divine mutuality shows. When soldiers come to arrest Jesus in Matthew 26:53, Jesus says, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently [at once] give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be [that the Christ must die]?” Jesus was confident that the Father would do whatever Jesus wanted— but Jesus Himself was choosing to do what needed to be done.

In John 5:19, Jesus explains, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” He does not say that the Son does what the Father tells Him to do, but what He sees the Father doing. The Son is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15) and “the express image of his person” (Heb. 1:3). This is an aspect of the divine mystery of the Trinity, and because of this, it isn’t really a good idea to try to compare human relationships, such as husbands and wives, to the interrelationships of the infinite Godhead. In any event, this comparison seems largely to be done as a justification of male authority over the female in marriage, rather than because the Bible itself makes any such comparison.

What, then can we say about 1 Cor 11:3: “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God”? As I have explained in detail elsewhere, the context surrounding 1 Corinthians 11:3 leads to understanding the word “head” in that verse as meaning “origin” or “source.” And what the passage actually says is that God is the “head” of “Christ,” not of “the Son.” “Christ means “the Anointed One/Messiah,” and refers specifically to the Son in His relations to humanity. He is the “Lamb, slain from the Foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8), which means that since the Creation Jesus has, first by anticipation and then by actuality, been the “Christ.” “God is the head [origin] of Christ” because it was from God that Christ came into the world. “Christ is the head [origin] of man” because, according to 1 Cor. 8:6 and Col 1:15, all things, including man, were created by and through Christ. “Man is the head [origin] of woman” because the first woman was taken out of the man’s side; but Paul goes on to say that even as the woman came from the man (at creation), so man comes from woman (in childbirth), and all things come from God (1 Cor. 11:12). This passage is not setting up a hierarchy: God-Christ-man-woman— because it is not stated in that order; instead, it is given in chronological order according to when each came into the world: the man, created by and through Christ; then the woman, taken out of the man; then the Christ, sent by God.

The last passage to address is 1 Cor. 15:28, the main passage used to support the idea that the Son is meant to be eternally, divinely under the authority of the Father: “And when all things shall be subdued to him [the Christ], then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” The context of this passage is the final redemption of the creation and the resurrection of the dead. Christ, being the first resurrected, is called the “firstfruits” of the resurrection (verse 20). Verse 21 points out that the verse is specifically about Christ as “man,” undoing the death that came through the first man, Adam, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (verse 22). Verse 24 says that the end will be consummated when Christ “delivers up the kingdom to God, even the Father.” Verses 26 and 27 speak of how “all things” (the entire creation) shall be put under Christ’s feet, with death the last enemy to be conquered. This shows a dynamic movement of authority between the Father and Jesus as the Christ, so that it is Christ, being Himself part of the creation in His humanity, who is in authority over the creation at this present time. The Father is not under Christ’s authority (“he is excepted, which did put all things under him”), but neither is the Father in authority over the creation: He has given that to Christ. In the end, then, Christ, now spoken of as “the Son” shall “also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him.” If anything, this speaks against the idea of eternal, divine subordination of the Son, for if there is going to come a time when the Son becomes subject to the Father, the fact is that He is not subject now, or there would be no point of speaking of a future time.

Greek scholar Philip Payne, in his book Man and Woman, One in Christ, points out that a distinction is being made between “God the Father" in verse 24, and “God” (“the God” in the original language, with definite article “the”) in verse 28. Verse 24 speaks of Christ as Man, Himself partaking of the nature of created things, Who will as the Ruler of the creation, give it up to the Father at the end. Verse 28 then says that as the Son, he will be subjected (or possibly, "subject Himself”) to the Father, that “the God” will be “all in all.” As Payne says, “Accordingly, 1 Cor 15:28 . . . may be better translated, ‘so that the Godhead may be all in all.’” The form of future tense used for “will be subject” does not, according to Payne, indicate that the thing being done “will be the condition forever thereafter.” (Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ, Zondervan (2009), p. 134-135.) If it did, it would contradict Ephesians 1:21, which says that God has placed Christ above all rule and power and “every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the one to come.” (Emphasis added.) Rather, this passage may be seen as a one-time event at the end of this creation, that lays to rest the issue of authority as it exists in this creation, by placing it all under the Christ as Man (a Creature of this creation)— and then Jesus as the Son, with all the rule and authority He has as Christ-Man, placed under the Father, that the divine Godhead (Father, Son and Spirit) may be “all in all.”

In other words, the New Testament shows God the Father and God the Son sharing authority over the creation, so that it moves back and forth between them depending on times and circumstances. Authority of the Father over the Son only makes sense within the human nature of the Son, not in His divine eternity with the Father and the Spirit. We cannot, then, use the submission of the Son to the Father at certain times and events as an indication that the nature of the Godhead is a divine hierarchy. In fact, if we view the Trinity as a permanent hierarchy within Its divine essence, then we must view the nature of the Father as essentially different from that of the Son, in that the Father is eternally suited to rule the Son and the Son is eternally suited to be ruled by the Father. However, for the Persons of the Trinity to be different in essence, contradicts the very nature of the Trinity, rendering them separate gods instead of One God.

To sum up, then: The Bible does not actually teach that God has a divine plan for authority such that there is a hierarchically ordered chain of command in every area of life, extending top-down from a hierarchical Trinity. The Bible teaches that in the New Creation, equality of status is the plan of God, with servanthood replacing authority, and those who lead, leading by example rather than by right. Jesus was quite accurate when He said that hierarchies of authority and rule were of the “Gentiles” in Matthew 20:25, because the concept known as the “Great Chain of Being” was formed in Greek thought and was never taught by our Savior. We are Gentiles also, and we have taken hierarchy for granted, missing the impact of Christ’s words that it is to be “not so among you,” for too long.

Is the Bible a "Toxic" Book?

As I mentioned in my last post on the doctrine of accommodation, I find it very interesting how often non-Christians and strict literalist Christians agree on what the Christian Bible (Old and New Testaments) actually says-- and how often I disagree with both of them.

I have heard atheists often talk about how the Bible is an abysmal failure when it comes to morality and ethics-- particularly when it comes to issues like slavery, tribalism and patriarchy, all of which they say the Bible supports.

I have seen Bible literalists live lives of rigid, spiritually abusive dysfunction-- and heard them claim that the only reason I’m not living like they do is that I’m “lukewarm,” that I only want “Christianity lite” and am unwilling to take the Bible seriously.

And I have had people who were once strict literalist Bible followers but have become atheists, tell me that the basic teachings of the Bible are destructive and harmful. They have told me that the reason they had to leave Christianity is that they followed the teachings of the Bible to their logical conclusions. Christianity, they say, is a toxic religion, and the only way to practice it without toxicity is to ignore the toxic teachings of the Bible.

And yet (once I left behind the strict Christian sect I was once part of) I have found it possible to remain a Christian and to continue to take the Bible seriously-- and I don’t believe it’s by ignoring the parts of it I don’t like. I have found peace and strength in Christ and healing in the pages of the Bible. Perhaps I should be mistrusting my own experience? And yet it is my experience, and no less valid than anyone else’s.

So here’s the question:

Are those of us who follow a gentler version of Christianity really just deceiving ourselves about the real truth of what our religion is about? Are we not following Christ’s instructions wholeheartedly, and thus escaping the destructiveness of our religion by not “doing it properly”? Is the Bible, when it is taken seriously and followed as Christians believe (or should believe) it is meant to be followed, really a toxic book that will lead inexorably to either a life of misery and fear, or to self-preservation through ultimately rejecting the whole faith package?

In answer, I’d like to look first at two underlying assumptions made by non-Christians and by strict “purist” Christians, that are at their roots basically the same foundational idea. This is the basic window through which many people see Christianity and the Bible, without in fact noticing the window at all. We don’t tend to notice the things we look through-- we notice what we’re looking at. Because of this, Christians and non-Christians alike end up with the same idea of what the Bible is about-- and following the Bible in this way is seen as the obvious and only way to practice serious Christianity.

So here are the two related assumptions:

Non-Christian Assumption: If there were a God and the Bible were really God‘s book, God would have made sure the people He spoke to in the Bible understood that slavery, tribalism, patriarchy and so on are wrong. The Bible would, in effect, have taught the original peoples who received the writings, to think the way we do now about morality and social ethics.

Christian Assumption: The Bible tells us about Jesus, of course, and how He died for our sins-- but the main point of the Bible is to be a guidebook on how best to live. Jesus is our perfect example of obedience to God, and the Bible, if we read it carefully, will reveal to us God’s instructions for how to live in every area of life.

But are these correct assumption to make?

I’m not going to tackle the question of whether there is a God or not, here. But from the perspective of belief in God-- is it appropriate to say that the nature of the Biblical revelation is an impartation of morality and social ethics, and that since it doesn’t impart these things as we think it should, it cannot be anything other than a primitive, human book?

Is it appropriate to say that the basic nature of the Bible is to be a divine guidebook of instructions on how to live in each area of our lives?

What if the Bible is, fundamentally, neither of these things?

Theologian N.T. Wright, in his sermon-essay “How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?” puts it like this:

“[W]e have come to the whole Bible, looking for particular answers to particular questions. And we have thereby made the Bible into something which it basically is not. . . . . People treat it as an unsorted edition of Calvin’s Institutes, the Westminster Confession, the UCCF Basis of Faith, or the so-called ‘Four Spiritual Laws’. But to treat the Bible like that is, in fact, simply to take your place in a very long tradition of Christians who have tried to make the Bible into a set of abstract truths and rules . . . .

“If we are not careful, the appeal to ‘timeless truths’ . . . distorts the Bible itself, making it into the sort of book it manifestly is not. . . . My conclusion, then, is this: that the regular views of scripture and its authority which we find not only outside but also inside evangelicalism fail to do justice to what the Bible actually is—a book, an ancient book, an ancient narrative book. They function by tuning that book into something else, and by implying thereby that God has, after all, given us the wrong sort of book. This is a low doctrine of inspiration, whatever heights are claimed for it. . . .

“The writings written by these people, thus led by the Spirit, are . . . mostly narrative; and we have already run up against the problem how can a story, a narrative, be authoritative? Somehow, the authority which God has invested in this book is an authority that is wielded and exercised through the people of God telling and retelling their story as the story of the world, telling the covenant story as the true story of creation. Somehow, this authority is also wielded through his people singing psalms. Somehow, it is wielded (it seems) in particular through God’s people telling the story of Jesus.”
[Emphases in original.]


This change in approach to Biblical understanding is about more than just making sure to read the Bible according to historical and literary context; I have talked to ex-Christians who told me that they did do careful research to find the original authorial intent-- but still found themselves in a misery-inducing way of practicing their faith that they eventually had to abandon or be destroyed by.

It’s also more than just avoiding legalism. I have talked to ex-Christians who told me that they understood completely that they were saved by grace, through faith; that they never felt the need to prove their devotion to God by following the Bible in terms of rules; and yet still, as they sought to practice their faith as they believed the Bible taught, they were tossed onto the shoals of an utter exhaustion of self-sacrifice and self-denial. In short, at the end of the day they felt as if they had no “self” left. And this, they are still sure, is what Christianity and following the Bible are all about; and why they ended up leaving.

What this is, is like taking off one pair of glasses and putting on another, or changing the kind of glass in the windows you look out of. Through different windows, everything looks different.

The difference is narrative theology over systematic theology.

In systematic theology, all the things in the Bible are categorized systematically to make up a set of principles and rules for living. There is nothing wrong with categorizing and systematizing the Bible; systematic theology has its uses. It can be very helpful, for instance, to look at every place where the Bible mentions one specific subject, to get an overview of how the Bible as a whole treats that subject. But I believe narrative theology should come first, as it yields a better Christian understanding of the whole of the faith. Narrative theology should govern systematic theology, and not the other way around.

Narrative theology recognizes that taken as a whole, the Bible is primarily a story: the story of God's interactions with humanity, with the story of Christ in the center as the focal point. Looking at it as a story means that you interpret each thing in terms of where it belongs in the plot; and you see a progression in the human understanding of the nature of God from the earlier to the later books.

Viewed as a story-- a collection of ancient books written at different times, but all centering around God’s ongoing actions in the redemption of humanity-- the differences in ethics and moral values, as understood by the various cultures in which the books arose, becomes less troubling. If God was primarily interested in coming in to us in human flesh, in order to restore us to unity with one another and with God-- then God might choose to work within human cultural systems to effect gradual change, and to gradually change human values to come more into line with the ideal of universal human love-- but that would not need to be God’s highest priority. Accommodation in this sense might, in fact, be seen as a better way to effect real ethical change over the long run.

When the viewpoint is that the Bible is primarily a way to find God’s will and obey it, then in any particular passage, the question is, "what is the God-endorsed best way of living, and how am I to follow it?" Or perhaps (in the Old Testament particularly) "Does this rule apply to me; is it ok if I don't follow it?" (And it is possible, even if we believe we’re living in grace, to still approach the Bible primarily in this mindset.)

The other viewpoint focuses on God's plan: "What was God trying to accomplish in this particular part of the Story? How did people understand God then? How did Jesus change that understanding of God, and how can I be part of what God is doing now?"

The first way values obedience for its own sake, and self-sacrificial obedience especially. But to see this other way is to see obedience only as a means to an end. If God wants us to do something, why does God want us to do it? This view says that though Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross was certainly in obedience to the Father, the bigger picture for Jesus was the “new covenant in my blood” which was what he was doing it for. And the point of the New Covenant is that it brings us into the New Creation, in which we are united with Christ and our hearts become a home for the Father; where we are no longer led by the law, but by the Spirit. Self-sacrifice must have a redemptive reason: it doesn’t exist for its own sake. If self-sacrifice for the sake of another is not helping either us or them, then it’s the wrong solution.

The systematic way tends to sum up Christianity in terms of two words: “Yes, Lord.” The narrative way uses a different two words: “Christ rose.” That’s the point of the Story. Christ identified with me in death so that I could identify with him in life. I’m putting my trust in him and am becoming part of the New Creation. It’s not that I don’t obey God-- but I believe God is only interested in our obedience in so far as it leads to the higher goal of bringing humans into harmony with the life and love of God. What God wants-- God’s ultimate goal-- is to love and be loved by us, and that we would love one another.

This change in viewpoint also changes the way we interpret the texts. Instead of seeing each bit of scripture as a command or principle that reveals God’s will for how we should live, we look at each bit of scripture first in terms of where it fits into the whole plot-- and only afterwards do we ascertain how to apply its principles in our own lives. And because Christ’s coming is central, and central to Christ’s teachings are the commandments “love God with all your being/love your neighbor as yourself” -- we look at Christian practice primarily in terms of whether it helps us to better love God, others and ourselves. Practices that are harmful and destructive to ourselves or to others, then, cannot be the intention of the text and should be jettisoned.

Christ’s coming brings the New Creation, and the New Creation changes the way we are to relate to one another. 2 Corinthians 5:16 says we are no longer to look at one another “according to the flesh.” If any interpretation of Scripture results in our focusing on the flesh in the way we view one another-- for example, granting privileges or making restrictions based on race, sex or economic status-- then it doesn’t fit the big picture, or the direction in which God is leading humanity, and we need to examine our interpretation. Contrary to what many Christians will tell us, changing the way we see and follow these sorts of texts is not disrespecting the Bible-- in fact, it is treating the Bible with more respect. If the Bible really is mainly the Story of how God created humanity, prepared the world for the coming of the Christ, then came, died and rose again so that we could walk in new life-- then it is when we see things in terms of that new life that we are really following the Bible.

But to those looking through the old glasses, all they can see is what looks like disobedience and blatant disregard for what they see as God’s revealed will for how we are to live. If the Bible says, “wives be submissive to your husbands,” it has to be because God’s will for marriage has to do with husbands being in charge and wives following their lead. It can’t be because husband-rule was part of the way life was at that time, and that women had no power to fight it and would only damage their own freedom and the message of the New Creation, if they fought it. It can’t be that the passage was telling the husbands, who alone had any power to change things, that it was their responsibility to lay down their power as Christ laid down his, in order to raise up their wives as Christ raised up the church. But through the new glasses, that passage is about a Spirit-led change of direction for first-century marriage so that Christians could begin to realize the New Creation in their family relationships.

For non-Christians and ex-Christians-- I can understand why you think the Bible supports slavery, tribalism and patriarchy. But perhaps you can also understand my perspective as to why I think those were incidental to, and not part and parcel of, the Bible’s message.

And I do think my new glasses fit me rather well.

Thoughts on the "Quiverfull" Movement

A grass-roots movement has been growing for the last 20 years among evangelical/fundamentalist Christian families. Using a literalistic approach to the Bible, these families withdraw from modern culture into a strict patriarchal structure where birth control of any kind is eschewed and fathers control an ever-growing brood of children, home-schooled by a submissive wife. Considering children to be a “quiver of arrows” in the culture-wars over “family values,” people in this movement describe themselves in many terms. “Quiverfull” is perhaps the most convenient.

This movement defines Christianity largely in terms of the raising up of “godly families” to lift up God’s standards to the surrounding culture. Women are asked to lay down any individual hopes and dreams, for the sake of motherhood as their “highest calling.” The wife is there to support the vision and calling of the father, and the children are to do the same until (if they are boys) they become fathers themselves, or (if they are girls) they are given by their father to a husband, so that they can fulfill their own call to motherhood. Women can also have a ministry in this movement of teaching other women to be good wives and mothers-- but all of a woman’s existence revolves around these roles.

But as we look at Jesus’ practices and teachings, and the practices and teachings of the apostles, we simply don’t find anything to indicate that the kingdom of God that they preached about consists of, or is to be ushered in by, the raising up of “godly” families-- or any evidence that this is what the kingdom consists of for women.

The best way to determine the main message Jesus preached is to look at His words at the beginning and the end of each gospel: the words that set up and wrap up His earthly ministry. Matthew 4:17 encapsulates Jesus’ basic message like this: “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” In a nutshell, Jesus taught that His listeners should listen to His message and change their ways, for a new kingdom was coming and was already among them. Most of the rest of what He taught was either a fleshing out of what He meant by “repent,” or of what He meant by “the kingdom of heaven” -- or both.

Luke’s gospel sums it up best. Jesus began His ministry by teaching that the Scriptures about the coming of the Messiah had been fulfilled in Him (Luke 4:18), and wrapped it up by saying that He had completed “what was written” about Him, and that “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations. . . and ye are witnesses of these things.” Luke 24:47-48.

Jesus’ message was that He was bringing in the kingdom of heaven through His life, death and resurrection. The kingdom, He taught, was a new way of simply being in harmony with God, a new way of living in God’s abiding presence (John 15:10) which would grow and mix with all of life until it had changed everything. (Matt 13:31-33) The kingdom is characterized by loving our enemies (Matt 5:44), laying down power and authority (Matt. 20:25-28), and putting our trust in Christ (John 3:15). Jesus said nothing whatsoever to His disciples or to the people along the lines of “Now go and marry godly women and raise up children to be arrows for the kingdom of heaven, to raise up God’s standard in the culture around you.” He said instead that His followers were to “go and make disciples” to follow Him as he had taught them. Matt. 28:19. In a patriarchal society that was very focused on fatherhood, Jesus consistently taught that human fatherhood was not to be the focus of His disciples: “And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” Matt. 23:9.

Paul showed throughout his ministry that he had dedicated himself to this message and no other. 2 Cor. 5:20; Gal. 1:8. The only other injunction that was laid on Paul (besides being an ambassador calling, “be reconciled with God”) was that he should “remember the poor.” Gal. 2:10. And though Paul taught principles for the conduct of marriage and family, he did not treat marriage or family as anyone’s “high calling” -- rather, he taught that marriage was one option only, for both men and women: “I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I.” 1 Cor. 7:8.

If the calling of women as Christ’s followers is a call to homemaking, marriage and motherhood-- if women’s place is to serve their families and support their husbands in their callings-- then what can we say about Christ’s words to Martha in Luke 11:38-42? Martha was working in the kitchen to prepare a meal for the men while Mary joined the other disciples and sat “at Jesus’ feet” (which meant to be taught as a disciple -- see Acts 22:3). Martha was fulfilling everything this teaching says it is a woman’s role to do-- but it was Martha, not Mary, whom Jesus rebuked for focusing on what was not “needful.” And it was Mary whom He defended as having chosen “the good part.” Jesus said nothing to either of them about getting married, having children, and supporting their husbands’ callings. Instead He commended Mary for choosing to sit with the other disciples and be a disciple herself.

Homemaking, marriage and family are simply not held up in the Scriptures as the focus of the kingdom of heaven for anyone-- and women as well as men can be co-workers in the gospel (see Phil. 4:3). Many women traveled with Jesus in His earthly ministry (Luke 8:2-3), and Paul commended many women in Romans 16 for their discipleship. Neither Paul nor Jesus ever told these women that they should be home having children and taking care of the house.*

I believe the idea that Christianity is about getting married and raising up children to be “godly arrows” in warfare against worldly cultures, is a distortion of the gospel that Jesus brought, and of everything He came to do. In Him men and women alike are set free. I would encourage anyone who wants to follow Jesus, to stick with what Jesus actually taught, and not to be distracted by what Paul would have called “another gospel.”

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*Paul did tell Titus that younger women should be taught to love their husbands and children and be "keepers" of the home-- but that word was the same word used for the "keeper" of the garden where Jesus was buried. It did not mean "homemaker" or "housekeeper," but "guard/watcher." And he said this should be done so that the gospel movement would not get a bad reputation in the surrounding (patriarchal) culture they were trying to reach-- not so that women would be restricted to "keeping the home" and nothing else. Titus 2:4-5 (compare with Romans 16:1-15).

How Can I Keep From Singing?

My life flows on in endless song:
Above earth's lamentation,
I catch the sweet, tho' far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul--
How can I keep from singing?

- Robert Wadsworth Lowry, 1868

I've wanted to start off this blog with a few posts that express where I'm coming from, where my roots and foundations are, and where my passion lies. If you wanted to put labels on me (labels can be useful but also limiting, so I wear them only loosely), you could say I'm an idealist and a synthesist. I look at life not so much in terms of the way things are, but in terms of the way things ought to be: the ideal. At the same time, I have a fundamental urge to bring disparate or conflicting things/people together, to find ways they can relate, things they have in common. Sometimes the two work together: in an ideal world, opposition would not mean conflict, but mutual appreciation and harmony. Sometimes, though, my idealism and my synthesism are actually in opposition to one another. I can't bring something that I feel deeply is fundamentally wrong, into harmony with the good which it opposes. I can only hope that someday the wrong will be made right.

The old song lyrics above represent my basic attitude towards life: a vision of the ideal carries me through opposition to ultimate harmony. My vision strives to be the vision of Jesus: the new creation, the kingdom of heaven, which has come, is coming, and will someday come in completion. The new creation is inaugurated through the New Covenant that Christ ratified with his sacrifice. In the new creation, we "no longer view anyone according to the flesh." 2 Cor. 5:16-17. The new creation destroys the dividing lines of race, gender, class and economic status. The new creation is where idealism and synthesism meet and join hands forever.

This, then, is the light in which I try to live. This is the way I read the Bible: in terms of the grand sweep of God's redemption through human history. God created humankind in God's image-- but humankind, given a choice whether or not to trust God, chose not. God established first an Old Covenant kingdom based on being led by law, into which to bring the Christ. Christ's coming brought a New Covenant based on being led by the Spirit. Gal. 5:18. The New Covenant began to bring in the new creation, the kingdom of God-- and I look at all of the Bible in terms of where each book and passage fits within that grand sweep. Galatians 3:28-4:7 are about far more than our equality in salvation. That passage is one of the central descriptions of what the new creation is all about. We are all "sons of God," because we have all received the "adoption as sons." That phrase "adoption as sons" (Gal 4:5) was understood by the original, ancient Greek audience to mean something special and specific-- and what God inspired is the message that the original author wrote, as the original audience would have understood it. We can't understand what it means to us, until we see what it meant to them. And what they understood was that to be "adopted as a son" meant the granting to an adoptee of full status as a male free-born citizen, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto. Paul did not say we were adopted as "sons and daughters," because daughters had far less status, rights and privileges in that society-- and Paul intended to convey that everyone in the groups he mentioned had the same status, the same rights and privileges. And what they all had -- Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female-- was "adoption as sons." That's what the original audience would have understood, and that's what we should understand now.

For too long some Christians have said to others, "We are the ones with the powers and privileges, the spiritual gifts and callings to leadership. You have salvation in Christ, and we are all equal in that-- but if you desire the leadership gifts that belong to us, you're out of your proper place; you're overstepping your bounds. Be content with your salvation and don't sin by thinking you can do what we do in the kingdom." But this is not what the new creation, the kingdom of God, is about. Any interpretation of Scripture that contradicts the essence of the new creation, cannot be correct.

Much of the church is in conflict over this issue as it relates to women's place in the church and home. My synthesistic heart grieves and wants us all brought together. But my idealistic heart will not rest until the kingdom comes as it was meant to be. "Through all the tumult and the strife" -- and believe me, I have been attacked and opposed-- I still hear the music ringing. The sweet, far-off hymn hails the new creation, and someday it will end the strife. But for now, we who desire the new-creation kingdom must stand (in love and a spirit of gentleness, but confidently) against all views that are according to the flesh-- according to race, economic status or gender. And we will succeed.

How can I keep from singing?