My name used to be Matt, but people kept walking all over me, so I changed it

The Western world is gradually stripping away the last vestiges of its Judeo-Christian heritage, including Christian influence in the legal system. Christians who hold to the classical definition of marriage, family, gender, and other contentious issues are frequently facing legal action from other parties who find these views objectionable, and out of step with modern societal norms. In a recent debate on social media, we were discussing the question of whether or not Christians have a right to recourse through the legal system in these situations.

One person replied to me by quoting Romans 13, claiming that this passage commands Christians to unquestionably obey all the laws of the land.

A superficial reading of the text supports this interpretation. This is a quote directly from the ESV Study Bible text notes on Romans 13:1-7. "This passage addresses the responsibility of Christians to the governing authorities. They are to "be subject to" (which generally means to obey, cf 1 Peter 3: 5-6) the government because it has been ordained by God. Paul is speaking here of the general principle of submission to government. Several other passages show that God approves of Christians disobeying government, but only when obedience to government would mean disobeying God (see Exodus 1:17, 21; 1 Kings 18:4-16, Esther 4:16, Daniel 3:12-18; 6:10, Matthew 2:12, Acts 5:29, Hebrews 11:23). There were even times when God raised up leader to rebel against the government and deliver his people from evil rulers (Exodus 1-14, Judges 2:16, Hebrews 11:32-24).

You can see this principle in action in the lives of people such as the 19th century abolitionists, Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church movement in Nazi Germany, as well as the Scholl siblings and the White Rose resistance movement, Martin Luther King in the 1950s and 1960s in the United States, Archbishop Romero in San Salvador during the 1979-1982 military dictatorship, and plenty of Christian groups who support asylum seekers.

Not to mention the millions of Christians in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East whose governments persecute them just because of their religious faith.

https://www.commongrace.org.au/organisations_supporting_asylum_seekers

More spiritual snakeoil

Via Facebook, a past acquaintance of mine invited me to an event with American televangelist, Jesse Duplantis. I strongly but politely declined the invitation. There's no way known I'm going to see him. Let me explain why.

Firstly, I have a big problem with his hyper spirituality. These evangelists who claim to have special teaching or extra-biblical revelations trouble me. Duplantis claims that he was caught up in the Spirit and visited heaven, where he met Abraham, King David, Jesus himself, and the apostle Paul. It's interesting that he should meet Paul, because Paul also had a vision of heaven. Does Duplantis see himself as being a modern day version of Paul? Unlike Duplantis, Paul didn't share his vision of heaven to make himself look good. When he described his apostolic credentials in his letters, it wasn't to impress people, but to defend himself against his opponents, the so called super apostles, who undermined him.

Secondly, Duplantis is a well known prosperity preacher. He lives in a lavish mansion, and earlier in the year, made headlines when he allegedly asked his supporters to help him buy a private jet, to be used for ministry purposes. Again, he says that God wanted him to have it, but on the face of it, it looks like he's manipulating people, and that he thinks that travelling around on commercial flights is beneath him.

That Duplantis has such a huge following shows a lack of discernment amongst Christians. I'm disappointed that an Australian church is directly supporting his work. Count me out. So many of these celebrity pastors eventually fall off the pedestals their followers put them on.

Where's the beef?

Sometimes I turn on my television or radio to have some background noise whilst getting ready to go out somewhere. Yesterday morning I was channel surfing when I came across a sermon from Texan pastor Joel Osteen. Osteen is a preacher, author, televangelist and senior pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, which is believed to be the largest church in the United States.

There is plenty of critical comment online about Osteen. Many of these critics raise valid concerns about Osteen's teachings. For me to add to them I would be saying the same thing as them but in different words.

The gist of Sunday's message as I understood it was this. God wants Christians to live full and effective lives. This is their destiny and purpose. Often they're not living out this destiny because influential figures in their lives, such as parents, teachers, sports coaches, and the like have spoken negativity into their lives, telling them that they will never amount to anything. Because they don't know any different, so this is how they live. To this we can add the schemes of the devil, who uses these things as part of his strategy to nobble Christians and keep them weak, timid, and fearful.

Some Christians struggle in their faith because their image of God has been distorted by poor relationships with God or other male authority figures in their life. Even though they may understand intellectually that God is a God of love, justice, and holiness, who wants all of humanity to be reconciled to Him, they may perceive Him to be cold, distant, and capricious, who will only accept them if they measure up to His impossible standards. It seems valid to say that there may also be an element of spiritual warfare in these struggles.

To be generous to Osteen, his positive messages offer a corrective to these incorrect views of God. Some Christians do need to hear that God loves and cares for them, as he so strongly emphasizes. Having said that, in his messages there never seems to be any acknowledgement that millions of faithful Christians around the world are suffering hardship and persecution for their faith. 

Instead, he talked about success. When Osteen took over from his late father as pastor of Lakewood Church, people told him that he couldn't do it. If the size of his congregation and his following is any indication, it would appear that he has proven them wrong. He also mentioned the former drug dealer whose life turned around when somebody told him that he could leave his life of crime and use his sales skills in a legitimate job. That was actually an uplifting story.

Osteen lost me thereafter. He talked about how you can have a nicer house if you want it. This almost sounds like the erroneous "name it and claim it" prosperity teaching that other televangelists propagate.

Then he quoted the words of the apostle Paul in Philippians 4:13; "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

This verse is not a promise. It has nothing to do with God empowering you to succeed in life and live out your potential. In context, Paul meant to say that the grace of God sustained and enabled him to serve Him faithfully in spite of his very difficult circumstances. He suffered much for the gospel, and knew that one day it would cost him his life. It should not be read or used as some sort of positive thinking affirmation as Osteen seems to think.

Osteen isn't my cup of tea. Yes, God is a God of love, but that's not the whole picture. From what I have seen and heard of Osteen there is no mention in his messages of sin, the cross, the holiness of God, repentance, the need for forgiveness, and the consequences for anyone who rejects Him.

Encouraging messages have their place and are probably needed sometimes, but not all the time. God is loving, but He is also just. Any preacher or teacher of the word must remember that. To emphasize one side of His character at the expense of the other gives a skewed picture of Him, which can potentially be very damaging spiritually. We need to know God as He really is, and not as we perceive Him to be. 

All things being unequal

The reader of this blog would have seen my earlier post about poor hermeneutics. Here is yet another example. In his second letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul warns his recipients against being "unequally yoked." (2 Corinthians 6:14)

This time, the individual concerned attempted to assert that this verse forbids Christians from socializing with Christians from other churches. This means that if you're a single Christian who is marriage minded, but cannot find any suitable prospects in their own congregation, is not allowed to widen his or her social circle and seek out opportunities to meet other Christians elsewhere. Wow, it's pretty impressive of Paul to speak into the situation of single, marriage minded Christians in 21st century suburban Melbourne.

Sarcasm aside, what did Paul actually mean by being "unequally yoked?"

The text notes in the Life Application Study Bible say that Paul was urging believers not to form binding relationships with non believers, because this "might weaken their Christian commitment, integrity, or standards," specifically in business or personal relationships, particularly in the context of marriage. Compromise is a real danger. It brings to mind the image of trying to yoke two different breeds of cattle to plough a field. One would pull the other off course. They wouldn't be able to plough in a straight line.

The ESV Study Bible goes into greater detail:

To be "unequally yoked" is to be "hitched up" or even crossbred with another animal who is not the same (Gk heterozygeo)...It is thus an image for being allied or identified wrongly with unbelievers. In context, it refers especially to those who are still rebelling against Paul within the church, whom Paul now shockingly labels as unbelievers. (He clearly thinks that some are [2 Corinthians 13:5], though he hopes not), but the principle has wider applications to other situations where (as with animals yoked together)one person's conduct and direction of life strongly influences or controls the other other's.

Paul doesn't go as far as telling believers to isolate themselves from non believers (1 Corinthians 5:9, 10).  These unbelievers may either be untrustworthy persons in contrast to Paul, Gentile Christians who did not observe the Mosaic Law, the immoral within the church, and the false apostles, whose attempts to undermine Paul's work in Corinth prompted his writing of this letter.

There's nothing worse than being a Christian whose only friendships are with other Christians, and who seeing it as irredeemably evil, deliberately cloisters themselves from the outside world to avoid being contaminated. but  the clear application is to exercise wisdom and discernment. as this passage says nothing about relationships or involvements with other believers, there is no possible way to interpret this passage as the unnamed individual asserted.

Reams of ink have been used on explaining what this passage actually means and how to apply it. In the English speaking world, we're pretty much spoiled for choice when it comes to the wide availability and accessibility of Bible commentaries, dictionaries, atlases, sermon pod casts, not to mention other study helps.

"Lone ranger" Christians who disregard this material and come up with their own unique interpretations are trouble makers who need to pull their heads in, and be disciplined firmly, but fairly.

Circa 62 AD

"I can do all things through him who strengthens me"

Philippians 4:13

Or can I? Enough frivolity and time to get back to writing about the Bible and attempting some exegesis. The above verse is often claimed as a promise for individual Christians to claim and live out. Sometimes it's also used as an affirmation or motivational statement. The promise is that somehow God will bless the Christian in every aspect of his or her life, and that they will be spiritually empowered to succeed in any goal they wish to achieve. This is supposed to imply that Christians have unlimited potential in life.

In the context of this letter, the apostle Paul was writing from prison, and facing possible death (Philippians 1:20). Even so, because he trusted in God and obeyed Him, despite great hardships, Paul endured in serving God and others. This was the secret to his resilience, and why he was able to continue the work that he was called to do. In this context, it is correct to read this verse as an encouragement that it is possible to persevere when life becomes difficult, following Paul's example.

He of all people knew that being a Christian isn't easy. Just as it was in his time, any Christian today whose faith isn't tested in some way during their life, either for a season or continually, is definitely in the minority.

Tea for the tillerman

This is my final post on my visit late last year to a mosque to hear a talk by former Christian turned Muslim cleric Yusha Evans. In this post I want to respond to his comments about the apostle Paul. He raised what experts tell me is a common Islamic objection to Paul. They seek to discredit him and his considerable contribution to the New Testament canon because, as he was spectacularly converted after Jesus's resurrection and ascension, he never met or personally knew him. He probably had more to say on this subject, and refrained from saying what he really thought, but knowing there were Christians present, chose his words carefully.

An entry on the Answering Islam website answers this objection as follows: 

"Muslims tend to regard Paul as the person who corrupted Christianity and usually reject the epistles of Paul as authoritative scripture. Many Muslims have charged that Paul's original name was Saul (of Tarsus), and that he changed his name to Paul after his conversion, and that he had never met Jesus. Though that name change theory is relatively popular, it isn't probably what happened. Saul was a Jew and a Roman citizen, and thus would have two names. Saul was his Hebrew name and Paulus was his Latin name. The first reports about him in the Bible are when he is in Israel and neighboring countries and there he certainly uses his Hebrew name. Later on in his missionary travels in Asia minor and Europe, he uses his Latin name, which is perfectly in harmony with his status and the places he visited. Moreover, since Paulus means "the little one," he might have seen it to be more appropriate and humble as he became a Christian instead of a name after King Saul.

And he did meet Jesus. He saw him in a vision on his way to Damascus. He might not have met Jesus while Jesus walked on this earth, but he met him after his resurrection, where he saw and heard Jesus in this incident.

Interestingly, the Muslim at-Tabari said, "Among the apostles and those disciples around them, whom Jesus sent out, there were Peter and his companion Paul." (A history of the Christian Church, Thalabii. Qisas al-Anbiyaa, pp. 389-90. Tabarii. Taarikh al-umam wa-l-muluuk II/II, 1560).

This is how Paul saw himself:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed (1 Corinthians 15:3-11)."

I also put the question of how to answer Paul's critics to theologian Dr James F. McGrath of Butler University. Head over to his blog for his answer.

I would add that the other apostles accepted Paul as one of their own, and his writings as Scripture (Galatians 2:1-10, 2 Peter 3:16). In one sense this objection is nothing new. Paul had to defend his apostolic credentials against his opponents in his second letter to the Corinthian church (2 Corinthians 11 & 12). By nature, Paul was a humble man, but was forced to boast because of his opponents undermining his work. Muslims believe that their holy book, the Koran, was imparted to the prophet Muhammad by supernatural means. Yet, when it comes to the apostle Paul and his writings, there is no room for the supernatural in their hermeneutics. I cannot accept that Paul was anything other than the apostle he rightly claimed to be, and unquestioningly accept his contribution to Christian thought and considerable contribution to the New Testament canon at face value.