Did the Reformers Read the Church Fathers?

Posted on 03/23/2014 by Paul Pavao

This is just a light touch on the subject. I will try to get more specifics about how the Reformers, as well as fathers of denominations such as John Wesley with the Methodists and Alexander Campbell with the Churches of Christ, applied the writings of the early church to their respective movements.

From Reformation scholar David Steinmetz of Duke Divinity school, as cited by ChristianHistoryInstitute.org in an interview:

“The Reformation is an argument not just about the Bible but about the early Christian fathers, whom the Protestants wanted to claim. This is one of those things that is so obvious nobody has paid much attention to it—then you look and you see it everywhere.

“The reformers use the fathers all over the place. We know Calvin read Augustine, and we discovered recently that Luther read Jerome—he had copies annotated in his own hand. The index of Calvin’s Institutes is filled with an enormous number of quotations from the fathers. And in the first preface to that work, addressed to Francis I, Calvin did his best to show his teachings were in complete harmony with the fathers.”

Steinmetz then gives examples, which include John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Jerome. These are all fourth and fifth century fathers, and thus, they are after the great changes under Constantine.

There is a really awesome quote on there. I agree with the Reformers’ sentiment on this:

“The Protestants did this because they were keen to have ancestors. They knew that innovation was another word for heresy.” (ibid.)

If we could just get moderns to believe that! Boy, would there be some massive changes in what we say and, more importantly, do! We have twisted several Reformation ideas into something the Reformers would never recognize.

This quote from John Wesley, founder of the Methodists, is somewhat well-known:

Can any who spend several years in those seats of learning, be excused if they do not add to that reading of the Fathers the most authentic commentators on Scripture, as being both nearest the fountain, eminently endued with that Spirit by whom all Scripture was given. It will be easily perceived, I speak chiefly of those who wrote before the council of Nicea. But who could not likewise desire to have some acquaintance with those that followed them with St. Chrysostom, Basil, Augustine, and above all, the man of a broken heart, Ephraim Syrus. (Cited by Wesley Center Online)

Wesley agrees with me that the pre-Nicene fathers are best, and I agree with him that the fathers of the next century or two are also of benefit.

well, that’s a start. More to find out.

Posted in Protestants | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Far-Fetched

Posted on 03/22/2014 by Paul Pavao

You’re probably explaining away more of the Bible than you realize.

Baptized in Bickering

I became a Christian in northern Florida in 1982. I was excited, filled with joy, and rarin’ to go. I was excited about Jesus, and I wanted everything he had to offer. I went to meetings every night of the week except Saturday, when we would pass out tracts near the beach.

I was saved in an Assembly of God church. My favorite person at the church was Mike, my Sunday School teacher, Friday night Bible study leader, and deacon.

Two months after I was saved, he disappeared.

To make a really interesting story painfully short, bizarre circumstances put me in a pew next to him at an anti-spiritual gifts, eternally secure Baptist church.

He was thrilled to see me. He invited me to talk with the pastor after the service, and I sat in the pastor’s study with the both of them as they explained why the Pentecostal way was false. Gifts had passed away, we are eternally secure, and there is no separate baptism in the Holy Spirit.

It was an evening service that I attended, and I worked a graveyard shift in the military. I was up for hours, had little work that night, and I diligently read the pamphlets they gave me and compared them with Scripture.

My conclusion that night doesn’t matter. I had lost my innocence. I was introduced to the world of denominational bickering, and it took a very long time to leave it.

Note: For the curious, I now hold neither the Pentecostal nor the Baptist view on those subjects.

In order to attend a Bible study or Christian meeting every night of the week, you have to go to several churches and small groups. What great fodder for doctrinal debates! I mostly debated Baptists, but I got a few shots at Jehovah’s Witnesses and quite a bit of time with the Way International.

I will say it enhanced my knowledge of Scripture and sharpened my intellect (#dangerous).

The Blossoms of Bickering

I got seven months of such training, and God saw fit to have the Air Force send me to a tiny village in the middle of Alaska with about 300 military and government workers there. I was looking for action the moment I set foot on Alaskan soil. Where are the Christians? When do they meet? How do we reach the eskimoes and indians?

On that little site, I only found five other avid Christians. They weren’t doing anything. I got them meeting in the chapel on Friday nights and going to the local village to pass out tracts on free days.

Six weeks later none of them would talk to each other.

Let’s see: we had …

  • A charismatic from Arizona
  • A Pentecostal from Arkansas
  • Two young men who had come to Jesus there in Alaska (before I arrived)
  • A Baptist from I don’t remember where.

The Pentecostal man once told me, “Where I’m from, we spit when we hear the word ‘charismatic.’ They’re just Pentecostals who wear pants and drink wine.”

In fact, halfway through my year up there, the Pentecostal came to me and said, “I’m not a Christian. The Bible says that if you hate your brother, you don’t have eternal life, and I hate Mike.”

He repented weeks later.

At the same time as this was happening, a dear friend back in Florida was being kicked out of the Assembly of God. “Cold-shouldered” out would be a better term. Again, the issue was doctrinal.

That was it for me. I sat down, put a Bible in my lap, and told God I needed to start over. I repented of being Assembly of God, and I asked him to show me what to do.

Verses Versus Verses

There’s a lot of places I could go with that story. I could talk about which doctrines matter and which don’t. I could talk about Titus 2 and Paul’s idea of “sound doctrine.”

Instead, I want to tell you about a principle I learned for Bible study.

I learned it from watching Pentecostals (including myself) debate Baptists about eternal security. The Baptist would throw out John 10:27-28. The Pentecostal would reply with 2 Pet. 2:20-21. The Baptist would bring up Eph. 2:8-10. The Pentecostal would fire back with Heb. 6:4-6. Etc., etc., etc.

I always wondered, “Do we think we are correct because we can come up with 15 verses, and the other guy can only come up with 8? If that’s the case, then the Bible contradicts itself. There are 15 correct verses on this subject and 8 that are wrong.”

I saw an astonishing example of this in a systematic theology I read a few years later. A systematic theology is a book that covers a number of doctrines, explaining them thoroughly and going over all the relevant verses.

This one had a chapter on eternal security. It spent several pages arguing that we cannot lose our salvation. Then it concluded the chapter with a list of verses that “seem” to contradict what the chapter had taught.

The list was at least 50 verses long!

Tragic.

So here’s my rule … for me.

Far-Fetched Interpretations

On any given subject I will allow myself one unlikely or far-fetched explanation for a verse that “seems” to disagree with what I’m teaching.

For example, there are hundreds of verses in the apostles’ writings that apply to the topic of salvation. One of them that was really weird, being a good Protestant adherent of salvation by faith alone, was Romans 2:6.

[God] will render to everyone according to their works.

The passage is even weirder when you add verse 7, which says that people who pursue immortality by doing good will be repaid eternal life.

What??

It’s okay, I had an explanation, the same one everyone else had. That passage is hypothetical. If anyone could live a sinless life in pursuit of immortality, then they would reap eternal life. No one can, however, so “faith only” is still intact.

I wasn’t very satisfied giving that explanation, but I had so many verses backing me up! I was able to set Rom. 2:6 aside. For me, however, setting a verse aside meant writing it in a list in the back of my Bible. I put all my troubling verses there.

The list in the back of my Bible began to grow, however.

If you address as Father the one who patiently judges according to each one’s work, then conduct yourself throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear. (1 Pet. 1:17)

There’s more, many more. The final straw was a book I saw in a Church of Christ bookstore. It said, “Martin Luther wrote ‘faith alone’ in the margin of his Bible, and it was the first time the world had every heard of it.”

What?? Ridiculous! Faith alone is all over the Bible.

I couldn’t think of any direct references to faith alone, so I got out my concordance. I looked up every occurrence of “faith” in the Bible, and I looked for “only” or “alone” near it. (We didn’t have home computers in those days to do this for us.)

It is in the Bible!

Once.

So we see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. (Jam. 2:24)

I know the explanation for that verse. It goes like this. “We are saved by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone.”

Ha ha. I feel like a con man when I say those words. Go read the passage. That’s a ridiculous interpretation of James 2, and you know it.

I feel sorry for you if you can’t admit it.

I have more respect for Martin Luther, who simply considered James 2:24 wrong.

The same thing happened with the Trinity, at least with our modern explanation of it. I talked with Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I saw verses I could not explain while believing in a “co-equal” Trinity.

I didn’t switch to the JW view because they were dancing around way more verses than I was.

I hate the “my verses outnumber your verses” thing, so I rejected both my view and theirs.

Two Rules of Scripture Interpretation

I have two rules for Scripture interpretation now:

  1. If I have to explain a verse away, so that it’s left with no real meaning, I write the verse down somewhere and keep it. That way I have the verses I can’t explain listed.
  2. If I find, or am shown, two verses on a subject that require a far-fetched explanation, I change my view on that subject to “I don’t know.”

No more embarrassing explanations, dodging the bullets of Scripture. If I can’t say exactly what the Scripture says, and in the same words, then what I believe is error.

So my rule is, I get one far-fetched interpretation on any doctrine. Once I have to make two far-fetched explanations, I assume I don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe down the road I’ll find a better explanation that makes more sense, but until I do, I’m not risking holding to false doctrine.

Can This Be Done

It’s worked exceptionally well for me. It worked so well that when I ran across David Bercot’s Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, I found nothing surprising in it. In fact, I was thrilled to find out that I wasn’t the only one who believed the things that I had found by simply giving up far-fetched explanations. In the early churches, the things I believed would have been normal.

It is also great for arguments. I am as sure as a human can be that I am not holding any doctrine that requires weak explanations of verses that seem to disagree.

That kind of honesty can be painful, I warn you. We’re 2,000 years from the apostles. A lot is wrong. Be that honest with the Scriptures, and people are going to fight for their precious, but not apostolic, traditions.

Posted in Bible, Evangelicals | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Christian History in a Nutshell

Posted on 03/20/2014 by Paul Pavao

Ready? Let’s go!

The apostles formed churches. Those churches formed churches. These churches had no leadership higher than the local city or town. Nonetheless, they were taught to carefully preserve the apostles’ teaching.

Over time, as the churches grew, some of the more prominent cities had “metropolitans.” These were bishops of major cities who led the churches of their city and surrounding small towns.

By the time of the Council of Nicea in AD 325, about 300 years after Jesus died and rose, the council gave official authority to the bishop of Alexandria over Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis. It then said that the Roman bishop and the bishop of Antioch had similar authority (“the like is customary”; Canon 6). These bishops became known as “patriarchs,” and the bishop of Constantinople was added to them a few years later when Constantinople was built.

At that point, for the sake of such a quick history, all the churches were united (mostly). They were all “catholic,” which means “universal,” but in practice it meant “in communion with one another.”

A lot happened after the Council of Nicea, but let’s limit it to saying that the emperors of Rome got on board with Christianity and most Roman citizens became Christians, at least in name.

In the 5th century, the western Roman empire—all of Europe—fell to Barbarian kings. The other three patriarchs kept working with the Roman emperor in Constantinople. Over the next 300 years the Roman patriarch got the Barbarian kings to look to him as the spiritual leader of all western Christendom. That climaxed with the crowning of Emperor Charlemagne by the pope around 800.

A couple centuries later, in 1054, the patriarch of Rome excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople (very interesting story), and the patriarch of Rome became permanently separated from the other four patriarchs. (Moscow had been added as a fourth patriarch in the East.)

500 years later, around 1500, the Roman Catholic Church, as the western churches were now known, became so corrupt that people were leaving (e.g., Waldensians), being driven out of (e.g., also Waldensians), or being martyred by (e.g., Jan Huss, William Tyndale) the Catholic Church regularly.

Finally, though, they drove out someone with support from lords and nobles. Martin Luther was the first Reformer to gain the support of nobles: German nobles. Many of them stuck with Luther after he was excommunicated by Rome at the Diet of Worms [really].

Luther got the support of many German nobles after his excommunication in 1521. Around the same time, Ulrich Zwingli led a reform movement that was supported by the city council of Zurich, a city-state in Switzerland. About twenty years later, John Calvin gained the support of the Geneva city council.

Reform missionaries also reached England, where King Henry VIII had separated the church of England from Rome because the pope refused to annul a marriage for him so he could marry a second wife. They found great receptivity there to Calvin’s doctrines (“Calvinism“), and to this day many “Reformed” doctrines are part of Church of England theology.

All of these events involving Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and King Henry VIII are known as the Reformation. The Protestants—the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Plymouth Brethren, etc.—are all splits in the Protestant movement that have happened in the last 500 years.

I have painfully left out Anabaptist history for the sake of brevity. Even that link is insufficient. Best of all is Secret of the Strength; highly recommended.

Note: as often is the case, this blog post is an email sent in response to an inquiry. The following paragraphs more directly addressed his question. They seem pertinent to a brief church history, at least here in the western world, so I am including them.

Thus the Roman Catholic Church considers itself the original apostolic Church. I don’t agree because there wasn’t an original apostolic “Church.” There were original apostolic “churches,” and the Roman Catholic churches don’t look anything like what I read about in the apostles memoirs or in writings collected from their churches.

A great example of that wrong kind of thinking is in the very scholarly translation of the writings of Christians from before the Council of Nicea in AD 325 called The Ante-Nicene Fathers. In Volume 3, they title a chapter with “All Doctrine True Which Comes from the Church Through the Apostles,” yet the chapter never uses “Church,” but instead uses “churches” five times.

Yes, the early Christians do use “the Church,” just as Protestants do today. Like the Protestants, however, there was no organization that fit “the Church,” it was simply a general reference to all the churches. (Unlike the Protestants, they were united.)

An organization like the RCC did not exist in the first few centuries of Christianity.

The churches of the East never had a Protestant movement. Those churches are now known as Eastern Orthodox churches, or just Orthodox churches. The missionary movements of the last three or four centuries caused the Protestants and Catholics to reach eastern nations, and the Orthodox churches to reach America. Until the Reformation, however, in most of Asia and the Middle East, there were no churches except the national Orthodox churches.

The Orthodox churches in Syria and Egypt were excommunicated way back in the 5th century, Syria at the Council of Ephesus (432) and Egypt at the Council of Chalcedon (451), even before the Roman Catholics split off. The main Orthodox churches have appointed a new patriarch in Alexandria, but the old excommunicated church of Egypt still exists and is the primary church in Egypt, known as the Coptic Church. The Syrian church is now known by others as the Nestorian Church and by themselves as the Assyrian Orthodox Church of the East. They were the Christians persecuted by Sadam Hussein in Iraq.

One last thing.

The Pope and Roman Catholicism in the Second Century

The Roman Catholics claim that there was a pope from the time the apostle Peter came to Rome until now. The Eastern Orthodox reject that claim, and every non-Catholic historian rejects that claim. I have a great book by a Catholic scholar, a Notre Dame church history professor, rejecting that claim as well.

All the historical issues are addressed at “Is the Roman Catholic Church the One True Church?

Further Information

I have a longer history on a one-hour video on Youtube.

What I would really love is question and answers. Whenever I speak on this subject, whether in informal or formal settings, there are always lots of questions. Almost always, though, if I speak formally, people come up afterwards and ask questions privately rather than publicly. So I end up answering the same questions over and over to two or three people.

So I know people are interested. How did we get from there to here? Leave questions in the comments, and I will use them for future blogs.

Posted in Church, History, History (Stories), missions, Protestants, Roman Catholic & Orthodox | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Obama Tricked Me!

Posted on 03/19/2014 by Paul Pavao

Al Francken’s book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them makes a point about how he was fooled into supporting the Iraq war by George Bush. Boy, was he mad about that, and rightfully so.

I was tricked into voting for Obama in 2008. He’s an excellent con man. I feel no regret for voting for him. I don’t ever want to be politically savvy enough to catch crafty deceivers like him. I want to spend my time in the Word and in the church becoming spiritually savvy enough to ride the waves of doctrine without being tossed and to be unaffected, along with those with whom I am united, by the cunning craftiness of men in which they lie in wait to deceive.

Obama, by my judgment, is a man of cunning craftiness lying in wait to deceive. He’s not my problem, though. My command about him is to pray for him so that we can live a quiet, godly, and peaceful life in holiness. I want to catch the Charles Stanleys, Neil Hendtkes, and David Parkersons. I want to see them coming and make every effort to help them, with my hand always on the spiritual pistol stuck in the back of my pants, allowing them no leeway with the flock of God.

I’m fine with being tricked by Obama. Putting people in office is God’s job. Driving away wolves and seeing them coming is the job of the elders and the spiritually mature.

You’ll find me in that training the next time an Obama comes along, and I will probably be fooled again. I’m inviting others to join me.

This is an email I sent to a friend, (He’ll agree with it; I wasn’t correcting him.) I thought I’d share it with you as well.

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Christ in Us, the Hope of Glory

Posted on 03/18/2014 by Paul Pavao

What does “Christ in us, the hope of glory” mean? We quote it, but do we think about it?

The surface meaning is plain enough. Our hope of glory is the Anointed One living in us. But do we live like that is true?

Paul did.

I am crucified with the King; nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but the King lives in me, and the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)

Note: I often translate the untranslated word “Christ” into “King.” “Christ” actually means anointed (just as “Messiah” does), but the Jews would have understood it to refer to the King that is anointed by God. See here for a longer explanation.

“I am crucified with the King.” That’s somewhat mystical.

God intends for us to receive it as truth, but how do we do that? How do we practically apply “I am crucified with the King”?

Is it simply true, and we get beneficial results whether we realize it is true or not? That would mean there is nothing for us to do but to rest in its truth. Do we try harder in order to prove that we’re really crucified with the King, or, even more so, that we have “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires”? (Gal. 5:24).

I think the key is faith. In that verse, the apostle says, “The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.”

Even that requires explanation. How do I live by faith in the Son of God?

Synergy

There are two verses that I think address that question well:

  • ” … that we may present every man perfect in King Jesus. For this I also labor, striving according to his power, which works in me mightily. (Col. 1:28-29)
  • “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who works in you both to desire and to do his will.” (Php. 2:12-13)

You can see the synergy in these verses. Two things are happening. We are striving, but we are striving using a power that comes from God.

I believe we underestimate both sides of that synergy.

God’s Side

One, we underestimate God’s side. We are people who casually say, “If you’re a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit.” That’s all wrong. It should read, “If you’re a Christian, YOU HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT LIVING IN YOU!”

How can God living in you not be the most amazing thing ever?!

Hebrews tells us that we have entered into a better covenant [WITH GOD!] based on better promises. We are PARTAKERS OF HIS DIVINE NATURE!! (2 Pet. 1:4). How much better can a promise get?

The same verse tells us that we HAVE ALREADY escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

I could go on and on reiterating the promises of God. Sin shall not have power over us! (Rom. 6:14). We can expect to arrive at the judgment seat of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, cleansed of sin by the blood of Jesus, having lived a life in the light by the power of God, blameless and without a single blemish (1 Jn. 1:7-9; Jude 24; etc.).

We vastly underestimate God’s side of the equation. We ought to be in awe every day.

We also vastly understimate our side of the equation.

Our Side

How did the apostles respond to this great gift of God?

  • Paul: “I do not run uncertainly. I do not box like a someone shadow boxing. I discipline my body, and I make it my slave, lest in some way, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.” (1 Cor. 9:26-27)
  • Peter: “Give every effort to make your calling and election sure.” (2 Pet. 1:10)
  • James: “He gives more grace. … Therefore submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners! Purify your hearts, double-minded ones! Be afflicted! Mourn and weep!
  • Hebrews: “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus … Consider him who endured such opposition of sinners toward himself so that you do not become faint and weary in your own minds. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed striving against sin.”

I would say the apostles took their responsibility to use the power of God seriously.

I said at the beginning that this had to do with faith. You will never run the race the way Paul tells you to unless you know with Paul that King Jesus lives in you. You will never obey and tackle the painful, difficult things God calls you to unless you know there is power to overcome.

Let us feed ourselves with faith in the power of God. Let us see ourselves as God sees us. We are not mere humans. The Corinthians were rebuked for behaving like mere humans (1 Cor. 3:3). We are children of God, delivered from the corruption of this world.

Let us believe it and live like it is true.

From out of him you are in King Jesus, who from God has been made wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption to you. (1 Cor. 1:30)

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Divorce and Remarriage in the Church

Posted on 03/17/2014 by Paul Pavao

There is a strong and growing voice against divorce and remarriage in the United States.

The case that Jesus, the apostles, and the early churches all forbad remarriage after a divorce is strong. I won’t bother making a case because earlychristianfellowship.org has done a superb job of making that case.

These people, and many others, argue that even though Jesus and the apostles allowed divorce in the case of adultery, they did not allow remarriage.

This is a strict rule, but it was definitely the practice of the early churches. Again, I’ll leave the proof for that to the earlychristianfellowship.org article.

This rule, however, has led to a practice that I would like to address. I would like to …

Stop the Madness

I have to admit that the case the Early Christian Fellowship makes is solid. Their application of it, however, leaves something to be desired. Despite all those early Christian quotes they provide, they left one out. I have a suspicion they left it out on purpose, since I have discussed the passage a couple of their members on Facebook.

I was mocked like I was on an elementary school playground for doing so.

Here’s the issue.

Twenty-two years ago I met a family with 10 children. The parents had been married 20 years. However, at the age of 17 or 18, the mother had been married for one week on a foolish lark.

They had a private conversation with the leaders of a church that was very strict about divorce and remarriage, asking them if they could stay married and be members of that church. Not only did the leaders turn them down, but their secret was somehow leaked to the congregation, and the family’s children found out for the first time about their mother’s one-week mistake.

I am not making this up. I met the family. I Know the church.

The passage that the earlychurchfellowship.org article left out is in a tract called On Monogamy. Tertullian, the author, is discussing a short passage is 1 Corinthians 7:28. Here is the context of that passage:

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you marry, you have not sinned. (vv. 27-28)

Here is what Tertullian says that means:

“But if you have taken a wife, you have not sinned” because to one who, before believing, had been “loosed from a wife,” she will not be counted a second wife who, subsequently to believing, is the first. For it is from believing that our life itself dates its origin. (On Monogamy 11)

I don’t find this statement very hard to understand. If a wife is the first wife after believing, then she is not regarded by the church as a second wife. In fact, shortly thereafter, Tertullian adds:

And so, “a woman, if she shall have married, will not sin,” because he will not be reckoned a second husband who is, subsequently to her believing, the first … And so truly this is the case, that he adds “only in the Lord” because the question in agitation was about her who was married to a heathen and had believed subsequently to losing him. (ibid.)

The point is obvious, the statement clear: “It is from believing that our life itself dates its origin.” Previous marriages are not regarded as marriages.

Arguments by the Anti-Remarriage Movement

I understand the crusade against remarriage, though the people who are a part of it have been almost exclusively such distasteful Pharisees that it is hard to remain understanding. Nonetheless, I will be more fair than earlychristianfellowship.org chose to be.

In the midst of the playground scoffing, I did get one reasonable argument from them. The argument, however, is double-edged and unconvincing.

Tertullian had become a Montanist by the time he wrote On Monogamy. Montanists were a small sect of of believers in a “new prophecy,” which had come from Montanus and two women prophetesses. The churches rejected their prophecy because they claimed that the Holy Spirit was improving on what the apostles handed down.

Their “improvements” included permanently rejecting Christians guilty of major sins without possibility of repentance. Another improvement, they claimed, was that the Holy Spirit had removed the allowance for remarriage after being widowed. That allowance, which they acknowledged was given by the Holy Spirit through the apostles, was only because the church was young. Now that it was more grown up, more was expected of it, especially in the way of celibacy.

The argument given earlychristianfellowship.org, or at least the members I talked with on Facebook, was that Tertullian was only speaking of a widows and widowers. He was allowing widows and widowers, and only widows and widowers, to remarry if their spouses died before they were baptized.

My Response

If he was only giving liberty to remarry to widows and widowers, then his reason for allowing that liberty seems strange.

She shall not be counted a second wife, who, subsequent to believing, is the first, for it is from believing that our life dates its origin.

My other response is the argument from silence, which drew no response from the anti-remarriage guys except scoffing.

You can see from their article how easy it was to pull quotes concerning remarriage from the writings of the early Christians. Feel free to search all those quotes for a statement that is any way relevant to those who divorced or remarried before their baptism.

Not a word.

Let’s consider one more passage.

Hippolytus, an elder in Rome in the early 3rd century, wrote a church manual known as The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus. Very shortly after he wrote it, he rejected the election of Callistus and bishop and split the church at Rome, forming a congregation with himself as bishop.

In the church manual is a list of questions to be asked of those that wish to be taught and prepared for baptism. The list is extensive; very extensive. “They shall be questioned
concerning their life and occupation, marriage status, and whether they are slave or free” (par. 3).

The questions don’t stop there. They are asked about whether they are a pimp or prostitute. If they are a slave, they need a reference from their masters that they are a good servant. Sculptors, actors, charioteers, those who have a role in the gladiator games, those who are castrated, governors, military men, and several others are questioned about their occupation, and required instructions are given. Military men can’t kill, governors must resign, those involved with the games must quit, sculptors must not make idols, etc.

All of this careful inquiry. What about those who are divorced and remarried? Tertullian tells us this was so common in Rome that “women long for it as though it were the natural consequence of marriage.” Three or four marriages in a lifetime were not uncommon.

Yet where are the questions about whether a married person is previously divorced. Candidates for baptism were asked about whether they were married.

If a man has a wife, or a woman has a husband, let them be taught to be content, the husband with his wife, and the wife with her husband. If there is a man who does not live with a woman, let him be taught not to fornicate, but to either take a wife according to the law, or to remain as is. (par. 15)

There is even instruction about concubines.

If someone’s concubine is a slave, as long as she has raised her children and has clung only to him, let her hear. Otherwise, she shall be rejected. The man who has a concubine must cease and take a wife according to the law. If he will not, he shall be rejected. (par. 16)

If a remarried person, coming to the church for salvation, was considered an adulterer or adulteress, why are there no questions about remarriage in this extensive list? Why is there not a parenthetical comment that being content with your spouse is not an option for those once divorced?

The reason is apparent. To the church, it is from believing that our life has its origin.

The anti-remarriage movement has scoured the writings of the early church for justification for their position. They have done well in that search by obtaining solid evidence that the churches from the very beginning did not allow remarriage for Christians, at least not while the divorced spouse was living.

Yet in all their scouring they have found nothing at all suggesting that the early churches asked the remarried to count themselves adulterers and divorce when they came to the church.

The silence is deafening.

The Ancient Church and the Modern Church

There is another issue that is not being taken into account.

The love of the Christians for each other in the early churches is legend. Even the Romans cried out, “Behold, how they love one another” (Tertullian, Apology 39, c. AD 210). The Christians of the early churches were family. They shared their lives and they shared their possessions (ref).

I know from experience that in real church life, divorce can be avoided with the intervention of the church. In real church life, the saints seek out the faces of the saints every day for exhortation and encouragement (Heb. 3:12-13; Didache 4). In real church life, the saints are shepherded and watched over, not just preached to in a weekly meeting. In real church life, there is openness for the shepherds and other mature saints to enter the home of those in a struggling marriage to train the individuals and save the marriage.

While there are always tares that look like wheat and hypocrites that don’t stealing their way into the church, the churches the apostles left us were filled primarily with disciples. Disciples know that they could not and must not divorce, and they know that marriages are worth working at. Disciples know that when there are relationship problems, the first place to look is at onesself. Disciples know that they must please their King and Master, and they know that the husband is to love his wife and the wife is to respect her husband.

Disciples are determined to be good students. They receive help. They believe that the advice, the correction, and even the rebuke of the righteous bring life.

In that environment, men and women do not have to divorce.

Very few have had that environment since the church gladly received “Constantine’s flock” some 1700 years ago.

Does that mean we should show a bit more mercy to Christians who have been offered nothing more than a chance to listen to a speech on Christian ethics every Sunday morning, along with some additional speeches, seminars, and teachings over the internet or on CD’s and tapes?

I think it does. I don’t know how far that mercy ought to extend because the Scriptures make no real provision for the sort of Christianity that exists today. It is hard to find your way into such a deep Christian life that you know how important it is to obey Jesus in everything. It is hard to find your way into such a deep Christian life that you have the help of others who know how to overcome the tactics of the devil and help save your marriage.

There are teachings, which if we are to obey them across the board and in every case, real churches will be required; real hospitals for sinners.

Weekly lectures, or even daily lectures won’t do it. Weekly or daily shovelfuls of law and condemnation won’t do it, either. Only daily intervention of the saints will do it. We need not only the King’s head, but his entire body.

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Witnesses of the Resurrection

Posted on 03/12/2014 by Paul Pavao

We terribly underestimate the importance of the primary job of the twelve apostles.

In fact, most of us don’t even know what it was.

It is written in the book of the Psalms, “… Let another take position.” Therefore, from among the men who have accompanied us … one must be appointed to be a witness with us of his resurrection. (Acts 1:20-22)

This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. (Acts 2:32)

The God of our father raised up Jesus … and we are his witnesses of these things. (Acts 5:31-32)

God raised him up the third day and displayed him openly, not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen in advance by God, that is, us. (Acts 10:40-41)

God raised him from the dead, and he was seen for many day by those who came with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people. (Acts 14:30-31)

This last quote is from Paul, who did not include himself among those called as witnesses of the resurrection. That was the job of the twelve, those who had been with him from the beginning. (So, if you are among those who have wondered whether Paul was God’s choice for the twelfth apostle, rather than Matthias who was chosen by lot, you are wrong … like I was.)

So What?

Why does this matter? Why is this important?

The apostles were witnesses of the resurrection. Think about it. They were witnesses of the resurrection.

Is that what we think about them? Or do we think that they are explainers of the Jesus’ death?

I know the first time that I went through the book of Acts to compare the Gospel of the apostles to the Gospel of the 20th century church, I was stunned. Where were the explanations that heaven is a free gift? That we are sinners? That we cannot save ourselves? That God wants to forgive us but his justice requires him to punish sin? Where are the explanations that Jesus paid the price for our sins?

They’re not there.

Why?

Because the apostles were witnesses of the resurrection.

They were more than that … to the church. To the church they were shepherds, prophets, and stewards of the mysteries of God. To the lost, however, they were one thing: witnesses of the resurrection.

Why?

Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this same Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:36)

How should the house of Israel know assuredly that Jesus is both Lord and the promised King?

By his resurrection (vv. 32-35).

The God of our father raised up Jesus … God has exalted him as a Prince and Savior. (Acts 5:30-31)

God raised him up the third day … it is he who was ordained by God to judge the living and the dead. (Acts 10:40,42)

King Jesus our Lord … declared to be the Son of God with power … by the resurrection of the dead. (Rom 1:3-4)

[God] has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom he has determined, and he has shown this to everyone by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:31)

The resurrection is the proof that Jesus is God’s chosen king, appointed by him to judge the living and the dead.

The death of Jesus was our purchase price. For Christians, it is the center of our motivation (e.g., 1 Pet 1:18-19). We belong to him. His death also transformed the universe.

But the Good News that the apostles proclaimed to the world was not the mechanism, the death of Jesus. They reported the proof that he was God’s chosen King, his resurrection.

What if we, too, limited our discussion of kind graciousness of our God to those who believed that he is the resurrected King, righful Ruler and Judge of the living and the dead? What if we were to do what the apostles did and proclaim his resurrection, the proof of the that he is King and therefore foundation of the Gospel of the Kingdom?

Posted in Early Christianity, Gospel, History, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Becoming Deceit-Proof

Posted on 03/11/2014 by Paul Pavao

When I wonder if I’m off track, here is a sure-fire test for me.

Hopefully, we all wonder, at least at times, if our faith is fake. It is a command of Scripture to examine ourselves to see whether we are really in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5).

We read about deceived people who worked miracles and cast out demons, yet Jesus rejected them as workers of iniquity. That very passage, however, can be a tremendous source of assurance.

The passage in which Jesus speaks of these powerfully ministering pretenders is Matthew 7:21-23. That passage is almost at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew’s Gospel, chs. 5-7).

“Almost” is crucial. The actual end of the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus telling his disciples that if they do the things he had just taught, then they would be like wise men who built their house on a rock. No storm would take that house down. If they did not listen and do his commands, then they would be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The first storm brought great destruction.

Think of it! Jesus—the Son of God, the Judge of the living and the dead—tells us that if we follow his commands in the Sermon on the Mount, we will be built on a solid foundation, and the storms of life will not overthrow us!

The pretenders were casting out demons; they were working miracles; they were prophesying. Maybe they were pretending even to do that, but Jesus doesn’t say that. He says that they are workers of iniquity. They were not doing the will of his Father in heaven.

The test for us is whether we are turning the other cheek, whether we turning away from hate and anger, whether we are averting our lustful eyes, whether we are loving money, or worrying about tomorrow. These are the things that matter to Jesus. Are we merciful, poor in spirit, pure in heart, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and enduring persecution. Are we peacemakers or trouble makers?

Admittedly and importantly, there is more to the Gospel than the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount is such a powerful and amazing way to live that centuries ago a Jewish man would say, “Your precepts in the so-called Gospel are so wonderful and so great that I suspect no one can keep them” (Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 10).

According to our Gospel, no one can live them. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).

There is, however, a route to keeping the commands of King Jesus. It involved being born again (Jn 3:3-8), being made a new creature (2 Cor 5:17), being freed from sin by grace (Rom 6), When we partake of his divine nature and escape the corruption that is in this world because of the great and precious promises which have been given to us, then we can “do these things” and never stumble (2 Pet 1:5-11). Those who are born of God do not continue sinning (1 Jn 3:9), and the one who walks by the Spirit will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal 5:16).

Great and precious promises.

Deceit-Proof

The issue today is not how to fulfill the commands of the King in the Sermon on the Mount, but I thought it was important to address that. Too many today agree with Trypho, the Jew, that the precepts in the Good News are too wonderful and great to be kept.

If we don’t keep them, we are foolish builders of shacks on sand.

The issue today is becoming deceit-proof.

How do we know that we are not among the deceived, the pretenders who think they are serving God, when really they are workers of iniquity, utterly unknown to him?

The answer is in Jesus’ promise at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. If you are obeying your King’s commands, then you are a wise man building your house on the rock of ages. You are not a deceived man. You are a wise man.

Long ago I was told that if I was struggling with a teaching, with whether it was from God or not, that I should reduce the teaching to one simple point: what is the teacher asking me to do?

Does the teaching exhort me to obey the commands of our King? Does the teaching equip me for every good work? (2 Tim 3:16-17). Does it move me to love from a sincere faith? (1 Tim 1:5).

You don’t have to understand everything the teacher is saying. You can judge a teaching by its goal. If in the end you are moved to obey the King, then you are being helped to be a wise man building his house on the rock. If not, someone is making a foolish man out of you.

“Do not be deceived, the one who practices righteousnness is righteous as he is righteous” (1 Jn 3:7).

Intentions and Repentance

I have a lot of problems with Martin Luther and the life he lived. I cannot justify him. I am convinced he was used by God to transform our western world and that for the most part that transformation was not just good but very good.

Either way, good or bad, I quoted a passage from him yesterday that is true and so well-said that I will not try to improve it with my own words.

Christians also fall into sin and perform the lusts of the flesh. David fell horribly into adultery. … However great these sins were, they were not committed to spite God, but from weakness. When their sins were brought to their attention these men did not obstinately continue in their sin, but repented. Those who sin through weakness are not denied pardon as long as they rise again and cease to sin. There is nothing worse than to continue in sin. If they do not repent, but obstinately continue to fulfill the desires of the flesh, it is a sure sign that they are not sincere.

When I speak of obeying the commands of the King in the Sermon on the Mount, I am not talking about sinless perfection. The apostle John gave us some of the strongest statements about obedience in the entire Bible when he wrote his first epistle. Yet he is careful to pause and tell us that if we say we have no sin, we are liars. He is careful to pause and tell us not only that we can be forgiven, but that when we sin we have an advocate with the Father, King Jesus the righteous one. God longs to forgive us, to cleanse us, and to empower us. We are his workmanship, his project, to be molded for good works that he prepared especially and individually for each of us to do (Eph 2:10).

The point of this post is to give you a lighthouse. A light shining in the distance to let you know you are going the right direction. Are you among the deceived? Look ahead at the light, the light of fellowship with and submission to the King who has made you a son or daughter to the eternal Father and Creator of all. Are you bowing the knee to him. Do you devote your life to him. Is he first and foremost. Do you meditate on his precepts and commands? Are you subjecting yourself to him.

That walk is not and cannot be a deceived one. That walk is a protected one that is not led astray by any storms of life.

Posted in Holiness | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Outing Martin Luther

Posted on 03/09/2014 by Paul Pavao

The outing of Marting Luther is long overdue. Why I have not thought to out him long ago is a mystery to me, but I thought of it today, and I feel I must follow through.

Martin Luther did not believe in eternal security. He did not believe in salvation by faith alone.

At least, he did not believe in eternal security or faith alone in any way that would be recognizable today.

Let’s take a look at the things he wrote.

Commentary on Galatians, in reference to Galatians 5:4:

We can hear [Paul] say, “I do not condemn the Law in itself, what I condemn is that men seek to be justified by the Law … It is this I condemn, because it makes Christ of no effect. It makes you void of Christ so that Christ is not in you, nor can you be partakers of the knowledge, the spirit, the fellowship, the liberty, the life, the achievements of Christ. You are completely separated from him, so much so that he has nothing to do with you any more, or for that matter you with him.”

I should point out here that Martin Luther is not abandoning his stance on faith in Christ alone. He is simply saying that this faith can be abandoned for the Law and result in eternal separation from Jesus. In the same paragraph, he goes on to say …

If you know Christ at all, you know that good works do not serve unto righteousness, nor evil works unto condemnation. I do not want to withhold from good works their due praise, nor do I wish to encourage evil works. But when it comes to justification, I say, we must concentrate upon Christ alone, or else we make him non-effective. … If you choose Christ you are righteous before God. If you stick to the Law, Christ is of no use to you.

Martin Luther then addresses the phrase, “Ye are fallen from grace.”

That means you are no longer in the kingdom or condition of grace. When a person on board ship falls into the sea and is drowned it makes no difference from which end or side of the ship he falls into the water. Those who fall from grace perish no matter how they go about it. Those who seek to justified by the Law are fallen from grace and are in grave danger of eternal death. If this holds true in the case of those who seek to be justified by the moral law, what will become of those … who endeavor to be justified by their own regulations and vows? They will fall to the very bottom of hell. …
   The words, “Ye are fallen from grace,” must not be taken lightly. They are important. To fall from grace means to lose the atonement, the forgiveness of sins, the righteousness, liberty, and life which Jesus has merited for us by his death and resurrection. To lose the grace of God means to gain the wrath and judgment of God, death, the bondage of the devil, and everlasting condemnation.

On Galatians 5:21 …

This is a hard saying, but very necessary for those false Christians and hypocrites who speak much about the Gospel, about faith, and the Spirit, yet live after the flesh. But this hard sentence is directed chiefly at the heretics who are large with their own self-importance, that they may be frightened into take up the fight of the Spirit against the flesh.

It might be said here that Luther is defending our modern version of faith alone, in which what we do does not matter. The saved, we moderns would say, are not being spoken of here.

True enough. However, Martin Luther is pointing out that those who sin without repentance are not among the saved, no matter how much they speak about the Gospel, faith, and the Spirit. Living after the flesh is proof enough that you are a hypocrite or heretic.

A little earlier, addressing veres 19, he writes:

Christians also fall into sin and perform the lusts of the flesh. David fell horribly into adultery. … However great these sins were, they were not committed to spite God, but from weakness. When their sins were brought to their attention these men did not obstinately continue in their sin, but repented. Those who sin through weakness are not denied pardon as long as they rise again and cease to sin. There is nothing worse than to continue in sin. If they do not repent, but obstinately continue to fulfill the desires of the flesh, it is a sure sign that they are not sincere.

Be sure, Martin Luther never justified those who did not repent and turn from sin. On Galatians 5:24, he writes:

True believers are not hypocrites. They crucify the flesh with its evil desires and lusts. Inasmuch as they have not altogether put off the sinful flesh they are inclined to sin. … They are likely to be provoked to anger, to envy, to impatience, to carnal lust, and other emotions. But they will not do the things to which the flesh incites them. They crucify the flesh with its evil desires and lusts by fasting and exercise and above all, by a walk in the Spirit.

Is this the person that we moderns claim is eternally secure?

If this is the person that is eternally secure, then we are agreed. Those who crucify the flesh with its passions and desires, and who do so by the Spirit, these are the children of God, and they will appear before the throne of God without fault and blameless.

Why? Because they have never sinned?

No, but because they walk in the light and thus the blood of King Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses them from every sin (1 Jn. 1:7).

But if you claim that what you do does not matter, you are a hypocrite, and you will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Martin Luther and Galatians 6

It is concerning Galatians 6:6-9 that I received the biggest shock in anything I had read in Martin Luther’s writings.

I regularly reference Galatians 6:9, because there Paul felt free to say doing good—and doing so without growing weary—will result in the reaping of eternal life. I was very curious what Martin Luther would say about that passage. I am finding that Luther was not one to dodge difficult verses, at least not in the letters of Paul.

Luther showed me that I was the one who was missing the context of Galatians 6. I was stunned to read this exposition of sowing to the flesh and sowing to the Spirit in verses 7 and 8:

This simile of sowing and reaping also [like 1 Cor. 9:13-14] refers to the proper support of ministers. “He that soweth to the Spirit,” i.e., he that honors the ministers of God is doing a spiritual thing and will reap everlasting life. “He that soweth to the flesh,” i.e., he that has nothing left for the ministers of God, but only thinks of himself, that person will reap of the flesh corruption, not only in this life, but also in the life to come. The Apostle wants to stir up his readers to be generous to their pastors.

If we don’t give to those who minister to us we will reap corruption, even in the life to come? Surely Martin Luther isn’t tying selfishness to eternal condemnation!

He is.

He pronounces those who sow to the Spirit blessed for this life and the life to come, while those who sow to the flesh are accursed now and forever.

Luther does apologize for how selfish this sounds. He explains that a minister of the Gospel fears to explain passages like this lest he seem to be speaking for his own benefit. Still, he says, the people must be told these things so that they know their duty.

Is Galatians 6:7-8 really talking about supporting the shepherds and servants of the church? I had never considered such a thing! Have you!

Yet Luther is clearly correct. The context is indeed the support of Christian teachers. Verse 6 reads, “Let him who is taught in the Word share in all good things with him who teaches.”

Beyond Galatians

Martin Luther wasn’t suddenly stricken with heresy during the time he was writing the commentary on Galatians. The statements above are consistent with other things he taught. For example:

[The Lord] cautions his Christians against becoming secure, so that the day of his coming might not come upon them unawares. … We must not become like those secure and ungodly people who crowd their hearts with surfeiting [excess] and concerns about earning a livelihood. … When they are at their securest … they will suddenly be laid low and burn with a fire that will never be extinguished. (The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther. Baker Book House:2000. Vol. V, p. 38)

True, it is difficult to do good and in turn receive nothing but ingratitude. Remember, however, that you are a Christian, and if you wish to remain a Christian, you will have to exert yourself more earnestly than the non-Christian, as exemplified by our Father in heaven. That is a promise. If you in your heart forgive him who has offended you, so in turn you will be forgiven by God and men. (ibid., Vol. VI, pp. 273-74)

Whatever you think of Martin Luther and some of the more awful things he said in his lifetime, including his crusade against the Jews and his support—no, his cheering on—of the slaughter of the peasants in the Peasant’s War, he was no supporter of sin. He preached not only an imputed righteousness, but an imparted one, and he took Paul’s warnings more seriously than many of us do.

Posted in Evangelicals, History, Modern Doctrines, Protestants | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Sneering, Honesty, and Homosexuality

Posted on 02/26/2014 by Paul Pavao

Is homosexuality inherited or acquired? This New Scientist article is among the most honest I’ve seen.

WARNING: 1.) This blog post is not suitable for children. 2.) I’d love to say I outlined this and stayed on topic, but this post covers two or three topics at least.

I am not posting this because I want to comment on the new anti-homosexual law in Uganda. I am not posting this because of any political stance. I am posting this for the same reason I usually post things: I crusade for honesty.

I believe that King Jesus, Lord of the universe, is the Truth. I believe that honest seekers of truth will find it, and when they find it, it will be HIM.

Here’s something I read on Facebook today, concerning the creationism/evolution debate, from an unbeliever:

“… they will simply lie about what those theories are, what those theories predict, and what the evidence is supporting them.
“It is thus that they intend to prove that ‘the truth shall set us free’…
“<rolls eyes>”

It is not just in evolution that we present such a face to the world.

Do you believe that homosexuality has no genetic source? Do you believe that all homosexuals choose to be same-sex oriented?

If you do, it is almost certainly because you want to believe that, not for any other reason. You wish it was so, so you believe it is so.

And you use it to justify smugness, sneering, and haughtiness.

I’m not talking about namby-pamby “do whatever you want because Jesus died for you” Christianity. Jesus was very clear about sin. He was loving and filled with compassion, but he was not sweet. If you think he was sweet, you need to pay more attention the next time you read the Gospels.

Jesus was straightforward, bold, and a preacher of righteousness. In fact, he was such a preacher of righteousness that generations of people have wondered if it is even possible to live out just his Sermon on the Mount.

But sinners flocked to him!

He was bold, even blunt. He didn’t let people off the hook. He was straight about God and about judgment.

Sinners flocked to him, anyway … because he never sneered.

He did not trust men because he knew their hearts.

He did not sneer at men because he knew their hearts. He knew what they were up against.

Think about that a bit.

Then, let’s get back to the point of this post.

Is a Tendency to Homosexuality Inherited or Acquired?

Here’s why I think the New Scientist article is a good resource on the topic.

  • The author not only references studies, but the article provides links to them.
  • The author deals honestly with the results of those studies, despite the fact that he reveals his own views in the article.
  • The author acknowledges the limitations of his knowledge, and is careful to limit what conclusions he draws from the studies he references.

You don’t have to wonder why this scientist wrote the article, nor why he gives the answers he gives. You can look at his sources. You can think through the conclusions with him. That is good research writing.

In the article, he gives evidence for a genetic origin for homosexual tendencies. He also lets us know that if one identical twin is homosexual, the other usually is not. That is evidence against a genetic origin for homosexuality, but he does not dodge it. As a person who is ill-informed for a scientist, but very well-informed as a layman, I know that the explanation he gives for that bit of evidence is accurate. Just because a trait is not in the DNA does not mean it was not inherited or that it did not arise apart from choice.

What If Homosexuality Is Inherited?

The question we Christians are faced with is why God condemns homosexuality if it is inherited?

I was glad to see this scientist point out the answer to that question:

Should we make decisions on the acceptability of homosexuality based on the science of sexual orientation causation?
No. The acceptability of human acts should depend on their consequences rather than their causes. (bold in original)

I would go one step further. At the moment, we have only been talking about tendency or desire. Tendency or desire does not equate to action, and God does not judge us on our temptations, but on our actions.

I was born heterosexual. As a teenager, I was the same as most other teenage boys I knew. We had an extremely overactive sex drive. Jesus teaches us to overcome it. He does not only forbid heterosexual activities before marriage, he forbids entertaining them in our minds.

Homosexuality is not the only sinful trait that is inherited. There are many. We are all born selfish, and a great many of us are born with a hot temper. Most of us are born greedy, and the love of the world and its goods is at least as bad a temptation as sexual lust.

Jesus did not come here to make the world nice. He came here to save us from our bodies and the bodies of everyone around us.

Sorry for the strange terminology, but let me justify it. Peter talks about escaping “the corruption that is in the world through desire.” James said, “You ask and you don’t receive, because you ask amiss, wanting to fulfill your own desires.”

Jesus came here to bring the kingdom of God. The benefit of the kingdom is fellowship with God and immortality in his presence. The cost is the fulfillment of your desires, no matter what your desires are. The kingdom of God means obeying God, the King.

Jesus came to give us a new life, not of this earth, so that in rejecting and overcoming the life of this earth, with its passions and desires, we could enter into that new life and never die. The body is now our enemy on that path. Like Paul we have to discipline and subdue it. In fact, he puts it this way, “If you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, then you will live.”

The Church and the World

I’ll keep this part short.

What have I to do with judging those who are outside? (1 Cor. 5:12)

If you want the government to ban homosexuality, then why aren’t you asking the government to ban sex outside of marriage? Why aren’t you demanding that we go back to prosecuting adulterers? Many states in the US used to do that, you know. Adultery is certainly as much an attack on “the institution of marriage” as homosexuality is.

So is divorce? Why aren’t you demanding that divorce be outlawed?

Oh. ‘Cause you’re divorced.

The church is the fellowship of those who have crucified their own body with its passions and desires. We, the family of God, are responsible to give ourselves to purging God’s church and our bodies of sin. Sometimes that means loving, patient, forgiving counsel; sometimes that is help by watching, teaching, and staying close to someone; and sometimes it means harsh rebuke, or even banishment, for the hard-hearted.

Let’s not confuse the church and the United States government.

Posted in Miscellaneous, science | Tagged , , | 2 Comments