Saying What the Apostles Say

Posted on 04/27/2013 by Paul Pavao

I’ve talked about this on the blog before, but this is worth talking about over and over. Here’s the issue I’m asserting:

  1. If the apostles said something that you can’t repeat without explanation or caveat, it is because your theology is wrong.
  2. If you will say what the apostles said, even if you don’t understand it, the apostles’ sayings will correct your theology.

Here’s some examples of things the apostles—or worse, Jesus—said that conservative Evangelicals can’t or won’t repeat, at least not without explaining the verses away. Something to be said on behalf of the Roman Catholics, since I’m usually opposing some claim of theirs on this blog, is that I could make no such list for them.

These are all from the World English Bible. I like the translation, but I use it primarily because it is in the public domain.

  • You see then that by works, a man is justified, and not only by faith. (Jam. 2:24)
  • Having been made perfect, [Jesus] became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation. (Heb. 5:9)
  • “We are His witnesses of these things; and so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” (Acts 5:32)
  • God … "will pay back to everyone according to their works": to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life; but to those who are self-seeking, and don’t obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath and indignation … (Rom 2:5b-8)
  • Yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him. (1 Cor. 8:6)
  • "This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ." (Jn. 17:3)
  • "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38)
  • Be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. For thus you will be richly supplied with the entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. (2 Pet. 1:10-11)
  • If you call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man’s work, pass the time of your living as foreigners here in reverent fear. (1 Pet. 1:17)
  • For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (Gal. 3:27)
  • "I … declared … that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance (Acts 26:20)

I could add at least 20 verses to that list, probably 100.

I know that conservative Evangelicals would all claim to be able to explain these verses. They would argue that they believe all these verses if they are properly explained.

I ask, however, whether a conservative Evangelical would say any of these things. It’s one thing to agree with a statement if you can put your own spin on it. It’s quite another to believe in such a way that you would say the same thing yourself.

Let’s not be general. Try walking into a Southern Baptist church, the largest denomination in the USA with over 40 million members, and telling your Sunday School class that you’ve been out telling people that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.

Let’s go one step further into “heresy.” Try walking into that same Southern Baptist church and saying that you believe that a person is justified by works and not only by faith.

Unless you’ve never spent much time in a Baptist church, you know exactly what kind of response you will get, and will not be praise for having memorized Acts 26:20 and James 2:24.

You won’t do any better with those other verses, either.

I suggest that the reason there are so many Scriptures we Evangelicals cannot quote is because our theology is faulty.

Let me put that in different words so it’s more persuasive: I suggest that the reason that we don’t speak like the apostles is because we don’t believe what the apostles believed. We don’t say what they say because we don’t believe what they believed.

I wish I could convince every Christian to speak scripturally. I wish I could persuade every Christian to know the apostles writings, and to purposely say the same things they say. I am convinced that if we did so, we would—slowly and over time—find our theology, our beliefs, transforming into apostolic beliefs.

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Mark 13: The End of the World, Part 3

Posted on 04/24/2013 by Paul Pavao

Okay, just one more thing I want to cover:

In those days there will be oppression, such as there has not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be. Unless the Lord had shortened the days, no flesh would have been saved; but for the sake of the chosen ones, whom he picked out, he shortened the days. … In those days, after that oppression, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken. (Mark 13:19-20,24-25)

What I’m about to say could be very offensive. I am about to say really terrible things about religious organizations, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. What I’m saying, however, is simple history.

The Oppression

Let’s address the beginning of that passage of Scripture first.

I am somewhat influenced by the book A World Lit Only by Fire. William Manchester did an excellent job of pulling me into the superstitious, quasi-Christian world of late medieval Europe.

I’ve read Martyr’s Mirror, and I’ve read the stories of men like Jan Huss and John Wycliffe. Huss was burned for his devotion to the Scriptures, and Wycliffe’s bones were exhumed and burned posthumously because he translated the Bible for others.

Recently, I was looking up information on Pope Alexander VI. I was reading a discussion of whether he was a good or bad pope. At the end of it, after the discussion, the history then described his succession of mistresses. That didn’t play into whether he was a good pope or not???

Knowing these things, I believe this description of sixteenth-century Europe by John Calvin:

Those who were regarded as the leaders of faith, neither understood Thy Word, nor greatly cared for it. They only drove unhappy people to and fro with strange doctrines, and deluded them with I know not what follies. Among the people themselves, the highest veneration paid to Thy Word was to revere it at a distance, as a thing inaccessible, and abstain from all investigation of it.
   … every place was filled with pernicious errors, falsehoods, and superstition. They, indeed, called Thee the only God, but it was while transferring to others the glory which thou hast claimed for Thy Majesty. They figured and had for themselves as many gods as they had saints, whom they chose to worship. Thy Christ was indeed worshipped as God, and retained the name of Saviour; but where He ought to have been honored, He was left almost without honor. For, spoiled of His own virtue, He passed unnoticed among the crowd of saints, like one of the meanest of them. There was none who duly considered that one sacrifice which He offered on the cross, and by which He reconciled us to Thyself … none who trusted in His righteousness only. That confident hope of salvation which is both enjoined by Thy Word, and founded upon it, had almost vanished. (translated by Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, references here; emphasis mine)

How close is this description to “unless the Lord had shortened the days, no flesh would have been saved”?

I’d like to suggest that the shortening of those days was the overthrow of the secular authority of the Roman Catholic Church by the Renaissance and Reformation, a process that took centuries.

The Sun Will Be Darkened

Let’s look around at what we’ve replaced superstitious, hybrid Christianity with. Here I won’t bother to quote history because we can look around us and see it happening. Protestant Christianity is not just a divided, disagreeable mess. Division and being disagreeable is the most notable feature of Protestant Christianity.

When I read Genesis, one of the interpretations I give to the “greater light” and “lesser light” that God created is that the greater light is Christ, the Son who shines over the whole world like the sun, and the lesser light is the Church, which has no light of its own, but reflects the light of Christ.

Jesus said that after the oppression of those days, the sun would be darkened and the moon would not give its light.

There is little doubt, I think, that a central presentation of division dims the light of the Son to the world. Jesus once prayed:

Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me. (Jn. 17:20-22)

If unity lets the world believe, or see the light of the Son, then surely when division is our most notable feature, then the sun has been darkened.

Further, when the sun is darkened, the moon cannot give its light because it has no light of its own.

We can see from John 17:20-22 that the light of the church is unity. That light is worse than dimmed. It is lost behind our divisiveness, and that is as true between Catholic and Protestant as it is within the Protestant denominations and the bickering factions of Catholicism.

I would add that the situation is exacerbated by the fact that almost all of Christianity—western and eastern, with few exceptions—has lost any concept of the church.

Where is the church like Philippi, where Paul was confident that God was doing a good and growing work in every or almost every person? (Php. 1:6). Such churches are almost unheard of. Where is the church that loves Jesus more than father or mother, so that the destitute in the church find themselves living in the homes of their brothers and sisters in Christ rather than the homes of their parents and siblings in the flesh?

The sort of unity that makes the members of a church significantly closer to one another than they are to the members of the their biological families is unusual, even “cultish,” now, but it was simply typical in the early churches. As late as the early third century, one Christian wrote:

It is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to label us. “See,” they say, “How they love one another!” … “How they are ready even to die for one another!” … no tragedy causes dissension in our brotherhood. … the family possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. (Tertullian, Apology 39)

Almost none of us know anything about this kind of unity. Almost none of us have seen or experienced this kind of Christian life, of real church.

I’m going to tell you that I have, and I do, so that you know it is possible. Otherwise, most of you will find it impossible to believe because you’ve never seen it.

Jesus said, “The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light.” We can see that it is happening.

The Stars Will Fall from Heaven

I believe the stars represent the saints in Mark 13, not angels, as they may in the Book of the Revelation. We are compared to stars in 1 Corinthians 15, or at least the glory which will be revealed in us is compared to the differing glory of the stars of heaven.

Are the stars falling from heaven?

Charles Hacket, the national director of the Division of Home Ministries for the Assembly of God, said:

A soul at the altar does not generate much excitement in some circles because we realize approximately ninety-five out of every hundred will not become integrated into the church. In fact, most of them will not return for a second visit. (cited by Kirk Cameron & Ray Comfort, The Way of the Master [Wheaton, IL:Tyndale House Publishers, 2004] p. 61)

And so the stars fall from heaven as well.

The result is that the powers of heaven are shaken, not just because the sun is darkened, the moon is not giving its light, and the stars are falling from heaven, but also because we have lost our power with our light, an inevitable occurrence. Part of the reason that we fall away so rapidly is because we no longer know “the powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:1-6).

That’s probably enough said. My hope is that looking at the situation around us might stir us to action.

The Good News

The good news comes after Jesus warns of the darkness of the sun and moon, the falling of the stars, and the loss of power. The key word in the following passage is “then”:

Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Then he will send out his angels, and will gather together his chosen ones from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the sky. (Mark 13:26-27)

Let us make good use of the time we have. Let us prepare ourselves, and let us rescue our fellow householders, that they would not fall, but would devote themselves to the One who will come, and who will have his reward with him.

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Mark 13: The End of the World, Part 2

Posted on 04/23/2013 by Paul Pavao

Well, I used up all my confident interpretations yesterday. Today, just some food for thought (I hope).

In Mark 13, the apostles do not specifically ask about the end of the age. They asked about when the temple would be destroyed (Mark 13:1-3). (That one we can predict because it already happened: A.D. 70.) However, Jesus does address the issue: “Those [things] must happen, but the end is not yet” (v. 7).

Again, these things are addressed in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 as well. In fact, the end of Luke 17 has a paragraph that is on the same subject.

I can’t put together a series of events from Jesus’ statements, but here are some things I think are either probably true or at least worth considering:

Fulfilled in A.D. 70?

When Jesus begins, it sure sounds like he’s talking about more than 40 years (the time from A.D. 30 or so when he’s talking until A.D. 70 when the temple was destroyed). He says:

When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don’t be troubled. For these must happen, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines and troubles. These things are the beginning of birth pains.

That seems like a lot more long-term prophecy than 40 years.

I want to point out here something a friend pointed out to me. These things—things like wars and rumors of wars—are not evidence of the end, but evidence that “the end is not yet.”

At Least One Thing Was Fulfilled in A.D. 70

When you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not (let the reader understand), then let those in Judea flee to the mountains. (v. 14, parentheses original)</blockquote)

There may be—in my opinion, will be and has been—a future abomination of desolation standing where it shouldn't. However, I'm pretty convinced there is not going to be another abomination of desolation standing where it should not that is a sign to flee Judea.

In A.D. 70, when the Roman general Titus came to Israel, it was to desolate. Gavin Finley, M.D. cites Josephus, the Jewish historian, as saying that Titus did not want the temple destroyed. Rogue soldiers did that.

Whether that is true or not, Titus desolated Jerusalem, and his soldiers swarmed the temple. This qualifies as an abomination of desolation in my eyes. More importantly, it qualified as an abomination of desolation in the eyes of the Christians who were in Judea in A.D. 70, and they did exactly what Jesus said. They fled to the mountains. All of them survived.

That part of Mark 13 was very literal to the Christians of that generation. They acted on it, and it had practical benefit.

We can be confident that part of Jesus’ prophecy was at least partially fulfilled in A.D. 70. Personally, I think his prophecy also applies to the fall of the western Roman empire in A.D. 476, but that sort of thing is speculative enough that it does not belong with the rest of the things I am posting about Mark 13.

I have one more interpretation I want to throw out concerning Mark 13. We’ve done enough today, however. I’ll cover that tomorrow.

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Mark 13: The End of the World & False Prophets

Posted on 04/22/2013 by Paul Pavao

Mark chapter 13 is one of three chapters, one in each of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, & Luke) that gives Jesus’ description of the “end times.”

I am only going to give one definitive, “on this I take a stand” interpretation today. When Jesus said, “But of that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son” (v. 32), he meant that no one knows the day or the hour or the year or even the century, not even Harold Camping, Hal Lindsey, Ellen G. White, Charles Taze Russel, William Miller, nor any of the three million or so of you who were foolish enough to believe 88 Reasons Jesus Is Coming Back in ’88.

One of the embarrassing Christian stories I like to tell is about listening a Christian program I watched about 20 years ago. The guest on the program was Hal Lindsey, who was introduced as “an expert on prophecy and the author of The Late, Great Planet Earth.”

Here’s reality. In 1992 or 1994, when I saw the program, it was impossible to be an expert on prophecy and the author of The Late Great Planet Earth because The Late, Great Planet Earth says that the rapture will happen by 1981, and the end of the world would come by 1988. Since 1981, Hal Lindsey has been a foolish false prophet, not an expert on prophecy, because he tried to predict something that Jesus said could not be predicted.

I’d say nicer things about Hal Lindsey if he and his fellow kooks were repenting over their now obviously false interpretations of Scripture, but neither he nor they have done so. They just press on, throwing out the same ideas, already proven false, and the vast majority of fundamentalist evangelicals go on assuming that their ideas are, at least in general, correct.

They’re not. Jack Van Impe has an incredible memory. I am impressed. But every time he gets on the TV trying to figure out how to make the 10 horns in the Book of Revelation apply to the European Economic Community, he is being silly. (I’ll avoid the word foolish in this case, but I will say it is a case of the blind leading the blind.)

It was one thing to throw out some speculation about the 10 horns when the EEC had 10 nations. It’s quite another to start changing the wording of Daniel and the Revelation so that you can create 12 horns, three of which are uprooted by a new one, producing 10 in the end.

We don’t know; The angels don’t know; Jesus doesn’t know; and all our evangelical heroes especially don’t know. They are embarrassed failures who don’t know to be embarrassed, and we need to leave them behind.

More on Mark 13 tomorrow.

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Wrestling with Reformation

Posted on 04/16/2013 by Paul Pavao

A friend of mine—I hope “friend” is acceptable, as I don’t know him real well—for whom I have immense respect wrote the following in an email:

I have stayed involved in traditional churches with the belief that God uses me there to equip, encourage, and intercede despite the fact that there are shortcomings with the model.

I mention how much I respect this person because I do not want to disagree with him. I want to think aloud on this blog, knowing people like Restless Pilgrim, an Orthodox Christian, tend to read it. I may not even be able to draw a conclusion, and I may be stuck doing what I feel is best, being unable to do otherwise.

I have tried my friend’s model, and usually I have gotten in so much trouble that I was no longer welcome.

The reason is that I see the traditional church model as a direct competitor with the apostles’ church model. That’s not completely true in practice, but it is definitely true at the idea level.

Let me explain.

The apostles’ model is that the church is a family. The traditional model is that the church is an institution, owning a building and holding events at that building.

In the traditional model, we can make announcements about people needing help and pray for them. Some members of traditional churches are truly godly Christians, and they act on those needs. They share their possessions and volunteer their time. Overall, though, most members “go” to church. They are partaking in the institution as members.

In the apostles’ model, there is an obligation. It’s not an authoritative, ordered-from-the-leaders obligation. It’s a family obligation, the same way that I feel obligated to help my children, parents, or siblings with their needs. In fact, in the apostolic model (I’m basing the following on Jesus’ words), the church family is more important than our biological family.

The two models are incompatible. The one is different from the other, and they cannot be made one.

You can do both. You can attend a Christian institution, join in falsely calling it a church, and then be a part of the real church by your fellowship with the local saints. You can even do it the other way and be a part of a family of believers and attend an institution on the side as a means of outreach.

Maybe that’s even what my friend is doing.

But what about me? Do I be silent about things I know in order not to become slowly shunned as has been the norm in the past?

How important is the truth about the Trinity, for which some men fought so fervently in the early days of the church and at Nicea? Western Christians, even the ones who have studied Nicea, usually have never even heard of the doctrine of the Trinity as it was taught at Nicea. Even in churches that repeat the Nicene Creed, or the very similar Apostles Creed, every week, we have no idea that it contradicts our co-equal, “Athanasian Creed” version of the Trinity. All it takes is someone to point out its wording, then explain that wording.

Should I ignore that for the sake of peace?

Faith alone & the judgment: just as difficult an issue. The evangelical version of those issues are so crucial to evangelicals that it qualifies as a superstition. The evangelical version of salvation by faith alone not only violates everything the church believed for its first 15 centuries, but it is a clear contradiction of James 2 and numerous passages in Paul, whether evangelicals want to admit it or not.

I guess the question is whether it is possible to “contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints” and “stay involved with traditional churches” because my idea of discipleship includes teaching the apostles’ soteriology and overthrowing what has become of Reformation soteriology. My experience has been that this ends my involvement in traditional churches no matter how gently or surreptitiously I try to bring up the historic Christian faith.

Maybe times have changed. In fact, times have changed. I’m convinced evangelicals are less tradition-bound than ever.

Maybe the best thing is not to plan. However, I am certain that if I try just to “be” who I am, God is not going to let me avoid controversy. He never has.

Another friend I respect very much wrote me recently and said, “I’ll be the first to admit that ironically Shammah is sometimes guilty of defining too much and taking a dogmatic stand on certain issues.”

Yeah, I don’t know that I’m going to be able to agree, even with friends I respect, on which issues deserve a dogmatic stand.

And my experience is that it is God who will not give me peace if I make too much room for peace.

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God and the Brain

Posted on 04/04/2013 by Paul Pavao

Today’s blog is about this TED Talk video by Jill Bolte Taylor. I recommend watching it, but you don’t actually have to watch it to read this blog.

Dr. Taylor’s video talks about her experience with the right hemisphere of her brain when the left half of her brain was shut down by a stroke. It has affected the rest of her life.

The best summation I can give you of the video as an introduction to this blog post comes from the very end of the video.

I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere, where … I am the life force of the universe. I am the life force of the fifty trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make my form; at one with all that is. Or, I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the we inside of me. Which would you choose?

The right hemisphere of the brain is like that. It is the part of the brain where we touch God.

I use the word “touch” purposely. In Acts 17:26-27, the apostle Paul says:

He made from one blood every nation of men … that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

How do we “reach out” for the Lord?

The Greek word used there is pselaphao. According to Strong’s (and to most Bible translations) it means, “to handle, touch, and feel.”

Paul talks about our seeking the Lord by handling, touching, or feeling for him.

How do we do that?

I want to suggest that we do that with something God has equipped us with just for doing that. I want to suggest that at least one way we seek for him is with the right side of our brain.

Our experience of the world comes through body parts. We touch things around us with our hands. We feel the ground with our feet. We see with our eyes, and we hear with our ears.

Even what we call our “soul” uses body parts. Our emotions raise and lower our blood pressure, cause us to wrinkle our faces, and even cause uncontrollable, subconscious adjustments in the lens and pupils of our eyes as well as in many muscles of our face. Concentration and worry can easily be read by others in our face and in the way we stand or sit.

It should not surprise us that our spirit either works through or touches parts of our brain and body as well.

Training Our Right Hemisphere

The right hemisphere of our brain is not honored in American society.

Admittedly, I’m speaking generally. Artists and poets use the right side of our brains. We are all aware of that, and we think it’s great.

However, in confronting the great truths of life, we prefer what can be analyzed and deduced in an orderly, step-by-step manner by the left side of our brains. If an argument or conclusion is too complicated to be examined in this way, we refuse to trust it.

The right brain is not just the artistic and spiritual side of the brain, allowing us to be creative and to have transcendent, spiritual experiences. It is also the intuitive part of our brain, allowing us to examine and consider topics too complex for our logical, analytical left brain to handle.

Probably because of the incredible success of the scientific method, we westerners trust the logical side of our brain. In fact, I heard another TED Talk once in which a professional educator said we westerners live “in our heads and a little to the left.”

The intuitive part of our brain is incredible, however. We should not be so quick to dismiss it.

The intuitive part of our brain thinks in pictures and feelings, which are must faster than words. It’s processes unlimited amounts of facts, fitting them together into a model that becomes more reliable the longer the right side of our brain is given to work.

Eventually, the right hemisphere feeds its conclusions back to us in “gut feelings,” “hunches,” pictures, and dreams.

It all seems mystical to us logical, clear-thinking, half-brained westerners.

Because we’re not balanced, because we don’t trust intuition, but only the deduction that our limited left brain can handle, we are not skilled at accessing the intuitive part of our brain. Some of us almost literally have, on a practical basis, half a brain.

Because we are not skilled at accessing the intuitive part of our brain, we are not skilled at accessing the spiritual part of our brain.

I sometimes wonder if that’s why our old men dream so few dreams and our young men see so few visions (cf. Acts 2:17).

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and Spirituality

Dr. Taylor and many others have experienced a feeling of oneness with the universe when they were given full exposure to the right hemisphere of their brain.

Dr. Taylor described it as nirvana, and she found it so pleasant that it’s clear from the video that she wants everyone else to experience nirvana.

Nirvana is not a Christian concept. It is a Hindu concept. I agree that nirvana is not something Christians are pursuing.

However, just as we should not cut off our nose just because it has been put somewhere that it shouldn’t be, so we should not cut ourselves off from our right brain because we don’t like the wording that someone applied to their experience with a very useful part of their body.

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This is the most interesting, captivating book I’ve read on the power of intuition.

None of us, I think, have given up on using the left side of our brain just because many Americans have used the logical left side of their brain to conclude that God does not or may not exist.

Paul suggested, as part of the Gospel, that the Athenians “handle, touch, and feel” after God.

You cannot do that with your fingers.

You cannot do that with your feet, or even with the left side of your brain.

If you are going to feel after God, you are going to have to use your spirit, and I want to suggest that if you have an atrophied right brain, barely used, then you are going to have trouble using your spirit.

That may seem sacrilegious to some of you, but how many of you would think it is sacrilegious for me to suggest that if you’re a lazy thinker, very poor at organizing your thoughts and considering conclusions, then you’ll not be very good at understanding the Bible? If your left brain is atrophied from disuse, you are going to have problems understanding the Gospel and the will of God, and it’s going to be easy for false teachers to lead you astray.

It’s no different for those whose right brains are atrophied. Your intuition and your “feeling” for God are going to be damaged, and you are going to be more easily led astray.

A lot of what the Scriptures have to say have to do with “feelings.” Those feelings are spiritual feelings, not emotions.

For example, Paul tells us in Romans 8:14 that it is those who are “led” by the Spirit of God who are the sons of God. That word “led” implies feelings, and I’d like to suggest that those feelings are communicated through the right hemisphere of the brain, just as anger or love are communicated through a specific part of our brain.

As another example, David says in Psalm 16:11 that “fullness of joy” is in God’s presence and “pleasures forevermore” are at his right hand.

Those are real feelings, not logically deduced conclusions that are to be talked about.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is calling for people to live more in their right brain, to access their connection with the oneness of the cosmos and with the consciousness of the universe.

I say, try the spirits. Don’t believe every spirit. However, if you are not aware of spirits at all because your right hemisphere, and thus your spirit as well, are shut down or atrophied, then you are going to be subconsciously moved by those spirits. Your right hemisphere is not really shut down. We westerners have simply ignored it so much that we are egregiously unaware of what it’s doing and saying most of the time.

As Christians we can’t let that happen because we are supposed to be a spiritual people.

This post, I’m guessing, raises as many questions and arguments as it answers, though I guess whether it answers any questions or arguments is arguable in itself. I’m going to quit here anyway and go off and think about all this a bit more.

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This Shall Please the Lord More Than Sacrifice

Posted on 03/31/2013 by Paul Pavao

I heard the title line in a song this more. “This shall please the Lord more than sacrifice.”

What will please the Lord more than sacrifice?

I knew the song was taken almost directly from Scripture, so I googled those words. They’re from Psalm 69:31, though in the Psalm the sacrifice is specified (ox or bull).

So what does Psalm 69 say will please the Lord more than sacrifice?

Praising his name with a song and magnifying him with thanksgiving (v. 30).

That was interesting to me, as I’ve always considered Old Covenant animal sacrifices as typifying praise and thanksgiving (as well as other things). Here, though, the psalmist talks about both and says praise and thanksgiving please the Lord more.

There are other things that please God more than sacrifice. We all know the verse that says that obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22). We are not always so aware, however, of how thorough a picture Psalm 51 gives us of God’s view of sacrifice.

Psalm 51 and Sacrifice

Psalm 51 was David’s psalm of repentance for the incident with Uriah and Bathsheba. (We usually only mention Bathsheba, but David murdered her husband Uriah as well.)

David had sinned, but he tells us that God did not want sacrifice. Offering a sacrifice would have been no problem, but God wanted something more.

What did he want?

First, he wanted “truth in the inward parts” (v. 6). I take this to mean honesty down inside. “Don’t fool around with me, David; I am God. Tell the truth, and make your wickedness known because I know it anyway.”

Second, he wanted brokenness and sorrow over the sin honestly acknowledged. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and contrite heart” (v. 17).

All these are priorities to God over sacrifice.

Why am I writing this on Passover (“Easter”)?

Actually, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that this was Passover when I wrote the above. It just came up because of a song.

Now that my mind has returned to what day it is, I do want to use the above to talk about today.

The sacrifices of the Old Covenant are typical of many things, including the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to deliver us from sin, from death, from the world, from the powers of darkness, and from ourselves.

If we make the connection between the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of animals under the Old Covenant, then we need to make the connection between the relative importance of sacrifice for sin as well.

Today, we have an absolute emphasis on the death of Jesus as it applies to the forgiveness of sin. If you were to ask a Christian what the Bible says about the death of Christ, he would tell you that the Bible constantly says that Jesus died for the forgiveness of sins.

The problem is, that’s only partially true. Romans 8:3-4 says that Jesus died to deliver us from Romans 7, the slavery to sin that Paul calls “the law of sin and death.” Romans 14:9 says that Jesus died so that he might be our Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:15 says that Jesus died so that we would not live for ourselves but for him. 1 Peter 1:18-19 says that he died to purchase us. 2 Peter 2:1 says that Jesus died to purchase the false teachers, though it does them no good because they “deny the Lord who bought them.”

Finally, and more to the point, 1 Corinthians 5:7 says that Jesus died to be our Passover.

If you remember, the Passover lamb was not sacrificed for sins. He was sacrificed to deliver entire households from the messenger of death.

Note: Please don’t read all this wrong. The apostles do tell us repeatedly that Jesus died for our sins (e.g. Eph. 1:7) and even that our sins are still cleansed by his blood (1 Jn. 1:7). I’m just trying in a small way to display more the facets of the multifaceted diamond that is the Atonement, the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the center of time and history.

The Passover meal was eaten with staff in hand, shoes on, and robe pulled up and cinched (“loins gird”). It was the last step in the deliverance from Egypt, and it was followed by a long trek through the desert that ended with entrance into a promised land that had to be slowly cleansed and overcome.

If we are aware of what we are entering into when we partake of the Passover lamb, then let us rejoice! A promise awaits us of a land flowing with milk and honey, and today we are delivered from bondage so that we may enter into it! We are not going to be transported there, and even when we get there, there is work to do. This is not bad news. This is good news! We are given a land to possess, and we will plant our fields, build our cities and houses, plant our vineyards, and we will create a place upon which the glory of the Lord shall shine. The Passover is a day of great dread and importance, but it is a day of great triumph over the mighty kingdom that has held us in bondage!

But don’t be fooled. Many who survived Passover by the blood of the lamb were slain in the wilderness by God himself. They received no promised land, and it is not just the writer of Hebrews, but Paul—the writer of Romans—who tells us that we should pay attention to their example (Rom.10:5-6).

Now all these things happened to them for examples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the end of the age has come. Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. (Rom. 10:11-12)

Side Note

I’m traveling today. I got up this morning, and I went to the hotel’s breakfast. The news was on. After writing about Passover earlier in the week, it was fascinating to me the first things I heard on the news.

First, I was told that the pope got up and conducted an Easter service. He spoke about the resurrection, then moved on to other things. After that news announcement, they brought on a theologian. I don’t know what denomination he was from, but he sounded Protestant. He talked about Easter, and said it was a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, while Good Friday was the celebration of his death.

Yes, that is how it is now, but it was not always so. In the early days of the church, this was simply Passover, whether celebrated on Sunday or on the exact day of the Jewish Passover.

And, since I was asked earlier in the week, yes, it’s not simply Passover. Christ is our Passover, the fulfillment and fullness of the lamb and feast of Passover.

Posted in History, Modern Doctrines, Roman Catholic & Orthodox | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Easter or Resurrection Day? … Or Neither?

Posted on 03/29/2013 by Paul Pavao

It doesn’t take much insight to realize that colored eggs and the Easter bunny have nothing to do with the original reason for “Easter.”

It takes a little research to find out that the word Easter comes from the name of a pagan god, though which pagan god seems to me to be disputed.

Either way, many Christians, trying to return to the original meaning of, uh, the day, have rejected both the name and the traditions of Easter and begun to call it “Resurrection Day”; a celebration of the day on which Jesus rose.

It takes a significant amount of research to find out that “Easter” was not Resurrection Day to the apostles or their churches.

The word “Easter” is found once in the King James Version of the Bible, in Acts 12:4, a mistake that would be embarrassing if any of the translators were still alive. Virtually all modern Bibles correct the translation of πασχα, rendering it “Passover.”

Passover was a feast of the Jews. It celebrated the day that the people of Israel were delivered from the tenth plague with which God, through Moses, struck Egypt. The messenger of death swept through the land of Egypt, killing the firstborn of both animals and humans. The only ones spared were those that had put the blood of a sacrificial lamb, in accordance with the instructions of God, on the pillars and lintels of their doors.

Jesus was crucified on Passover, and 1 Cor. 5:7 says that he is our Passover. He is the Lamb slain since the foundation of the world, the true “paschal” lamb.

The term “paschal” comes from the Greek word pascha, which means Passover.

Somewhere in history, pascha began to be translated as Easter, and because it was celebrated by Christians on Sunday, it came to be associated with Jesus’ resurrection rather than with his death as the paschal lamb.

The Quartodeciman Controversy

It was not always so.

Christians were celebrating Passover every year at least as early as A.D. 160. In fact, they were already disputing about Passover then. The dispute is known as the Quartodeciman (Latin for fourteen) Controversy, and it was not settled for 200 years, when the bishops at the Council of Nicea ruled that Passover should always be celebrated on Sunday rather than on whatever day of the week Nisan 14 fell on.

Nisan 14 is the day on the Jewish calendar that is prescribed in the Law of Moses for celebrating Passover, and it can fall on any day of the week. The Christians in Asia Minor, in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, celebrated Passover every year on Nisan 14. Rome and the churches of the west, however, always celebrated Passover on the Sunday nearest Nisan 14.

Around A.D. 160 Rome’s bishop, Anicetus, demanded that the Eastern churches celebrate Passover on Sunday like the western churches. The venerable bishop of Smyrna, probably appointed to his position by apostles, being around 80 years old, traveled to Rome to discuss the issue with Anicetus. Peace was brought, Anicetus withdrew his demand, and the churches decided to continue in their own traditions, which the western churches claimed came from the apostle John and which Rome ascribed to Peter and Paul.

Thirty years later, another bishop of Rome, Victor, threatened to excommunicate all the churches of Asia Minor over the issue. Polycrates, one of the eastern bishops, wrote back to tell Victor he was out of his mind. The eastern churches would stick to the traditions they had received from the apostles and the apostles’ companions.

Irenaeus, who was also from the east but who was living in Gaul (modern Germany) as a missionary, wrote a calmer letter to Victor. Irenaeus had sat under Polycarp’s teaching as a young man, and he reminded Victor of the agreement between Polycarp and Anicetus.

Victor yielded, and peace was restored again.

There’s not much mention of the Quartodeciman Controversy again until the Council of Nicea, which was dramatically anti-semitic. They determined that every church would celebrate Passover on the Sunday after Nisan 14 rather than on Nisan 14 itself so that they would not be like the wicked Jews who killed Christ.

Getting It Backwards

Because all Christians celebrate Passover on Sunday, and because we don’t call it Passover anymore, it has come to be associated with the resurrection.

What is ironic, is that the day that the apostolic churches celebrated the resurrection every Sunday. It was a tradition of the churches that since Jesus rose on a Sunday, it should be a day of rejoicing. On that day, Christians would not kneel because the resurrection was something to celebrate, not mourn.

The death of Christ was celebrated annually, on Passover, when he was remembered as the true Passover Lamb. In preparation Christians would fast, some for just a couple days, and others for as many as 40 days.

It is this tradition that gives us Lent in modern times.

Note: Early Christians did not fast as we think of fasting. Their fasting was only during the hours of sunlight. Once the sun set, they would eat dinner. As an additional note, my wife and I did such a fast twice weekly with a church in the 1990’s. At dinner, we would have only bread, which was usually bran muffins served with butter. Since we always ate those bran muffins hungry, they quickly became a delicacy for us, and we love them to this day.

In modern times, we celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection exactly backward from the early Christians. Once a year we celebrate the resurrection, and every week we focus on Jesus’ death, preaching the atoning death of Christ week after week in some churches.

This is not to say there is a problem with remembering the death of Christ each week. The early Christians took communion each week (or “Eucharist,” a Greek word that means “Thanksgiving”; “communion” is just another word for “fellowship” from 1 Cor. 10:16). The communion bread and wine were, as Jesus said, for the remembrance of him, the breaking of his body, and the shedding of his blood.

Thus, the early Christians, too, remembered Jesus’ death each week as they gathered together, but the day, Sunday, was honored because of the resurrection every week, not just once a year. It was Passover that was celebrated yearly.

Notes

There is no record that the early Christians celebrated any other feast days.

There is clear record that the early Christians did not celebrate a weekly Sabbath or meet on the Jewish Sabbath day unless they were actually Jews, in which case Scripture makes it clear that they did not work on the Sabbath day. Jewish Christians, including the apostles, also attended the synagogue, not the church’s meeting, which was on Sunday (and often other days as well).

The early Christians discussed their view of the Sabbath often. They believed that like all other Old Covenant laws, Jesus had fulfilled, filled up, and expanded the Sabbath. Under the Old Covenant, the people of Israel were a fleshly, earthly people with a bodily, earthly rest. Under the New Covenant, the new Israel was a spiritual people with a spiritual rest that could be kept perpetually, a rest we must labor to enter into (Heb. 4).

See my fuller explanation of the Sabbath, with references, at “http://www.christian-history.org/sabbath.html.

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Psalm 9: Set to “The Death of the Son”

Posted on 03/24/2013 by Paul Pavao

I guess I’ve been reading the Bible for 30 years now, and I’ve never noticed that Psalm 9 is “set to ‘The Death of the Son.'”

When I did notice, however, I read through the psalm as though it were the consequences of the death of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It made Psalm 9 a fascinating read:

  • My enemies stumble and perish in God’s presence.
  • God maintains my cause and rules, judging righteously.
  • The name of the wicked is blotted out forever
  • God has prepared his throne for judgment, to judge the world in righteousness.
  • God will be a high tower for the oppressed, those who know him will trust in him, and he will not forsake those who seek him.

That’s not all that’s there. Towards the end, there is a four-verse description of the judgment of the nations.

I really recommend reading through Psalm 9, thinking about the fact that it is “set to ‘The Death of the Son.'” I hope you get as much out of it as I did.

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Psalm 11: If the Foundations Are Destroyed

Posted on 03/23/2013 by Paul Pavao
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible

If the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do? (Ps. 11:3)

What are the foundations whose destruction leaves the righteous wondering what they can do?

Psalm 11 is a short psalm. It focuses on two things only: wickedness and righteousness. “The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence his soul hates. On the wicked he will rain he will rain blazing coals; fire, sulfur, and scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness. The upright shall see his face” (vs. 5-7).

The foundation of God is simple. The apostle Paul describes it in 2 Tim. 2:19 as well:

God’s firm foundation stands, having this seal, “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let every one who names the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.”

Today, many things other than righteousness are offered as a foundation, while the true foundation of God is being wrecked by false doctrines.

The most frightening doctrine of all is our modern view of the atonement, for several reasons:

  1. It is close to the truth.
  2. It has an emotional appeal and an almost universal acceptance that makes it hard to assail.
  3. It makes an easily acceptable alternative to the apostles’ Gospel.
  4. It destroys the foundation of God by teaching people that they do not need to depart from unrighteousness.

The Atonement and Righteousness

Is it not common in Christian churches to reference the atonement of Christ and announce that our works don’t matter?

One of the most important verses in the Bible for the church today is 1 John 3:7: “Little children, let no one lead you astray. He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.”

Our understanding of faith and works is clearly skewed. Because of our interpretation of Paul, we contradict Paul. Because of our understanding of faith, works, and the atonement, we announce that the unrighteous, who are not really unrighteous because of the atonement, will surely inherit the kingdom of God. Paul tells us …

Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Don’t be deceived. (1 Cor. 6:9)

The Apostles’ Gospel and the Atonement

Every major evangelism program that has spread through Evangelical churches, such as Dr. D. James Kennedy’s Evangelism Explosion and the Southern Baptists’ “Continuing Witness Training,” has substituted inaccurate teaching on the atonement for the apostolic Gospel.

Apparently, very few people have thought about reading through the Book of Acts to find out what the apostles preached to the lost. Instead, we study the letters to the churches, letters in which the apostles are talking to already saved Christians, and we teach theology meant for Christians to the lost.

A trip through Acts gives a much different outline of the Gospel than is given by Evangelism Explosion and “Continuing Witness Training.” The Apostles Gospel, which ought not to be reduced to an outline, can be summed up in one nonetheless:

  • Jesus came to the earth working miracles.
  • He was crucified by his own people.
  • God raised him from the dead, thus proving him to be the Messiah (Christ), the Son of God, and the Judge of all the earth.
  • God chose and sent the apostles to be witnesses of this resurrection.
  • All who believe, repent, and are baptized can have their sins forgiven and receive the Holy Spirit.

This Gospel of the apostles produces actual righteousness that was lived out. Paul described his Gospel as being:

I … declared first to them of Damascus, at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance. (Acts 26:19-20)

If the Foundations Be Destroyed …

If the foundations are destroyed, what are the righteous to do?

The answer is that many of them are perishing. Peter tells us that it is hard for the righteous to be saved (1 Pet. 4:18) and that it requires us to “be more diligent to make our calling and election sure” (2 Pet. 1:10).

If we do not give that diligence, Peter warns that we will be “blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from [our] old sins” (2 Pet. 1:9).

We will give that diligence if we know to give it. In fact, we will give that diligence only if we are exhorted and encouraged to give it. Otherwise, we face the danger of being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin:

Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God; but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called “today”; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end. (Heb. 3:12-14)

The foundations are being openly attacked. The attack is veiled, hidden behind a doctrine of the atonement that sounds so good and so loving.

Any doctrine, however, that teaches the saints of God that they need not depart from iniquity is an attack on the foundation of God, and if the foundations be destroyed, what are the righteous to do?

Posted in Gospel, Holiness, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments