Category: stuff I think about

Is Jesus soft?

I saw this tweet a while ago:

Apparently, the devil makes men soft and the gospel makes them hard. However, it didn’t define what is meant by those two words. Perhaps hard is further qualified by “strong, lean, loving, and ferocious.” This doesn’t help me much; are the opposites “weak, fat, hateful, and mild?”

Here are some passages from the life of Jesus in Matthew, in which Jesus could be perceived as displaying weakness and mildness:

Jesus describes himself: Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Mt 11.28

Description of Jesus: He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory. Mt 12.19-20

Jesus describes the ideal follower: At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Mt 18.1-3

Jesus identifies with the weak, marginalized, and oppressed: Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” Mt 25.34-36

Jesus shares his negative emotions: And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” Mt 26.37-38

Lastly, consider the narrative in Mt 1-2: Jesus’ mother faces shame as a result of her pregnancy, Jesus’ father contemplates divorce, the young family flees (at night!) to avoid a murderous king, and finally returns but to a different region out of fear of the new ruler.

So is Jesus being soft? Is that a bad thing?

Hitching up to the Old Testament, part 2

In part 1, I pointed out that not only did the apostles not “unhitch” their new faith from the Old Testament, but they looked to the OT to explain and inform their actions. But just what did happen in Acts 15? Did the apostles really change the law? Continue reading “Hitching up to the Old Testament, part 2”

Hitching up to the Old Testament, part 1

I know I’m late to the game here, but I was recently made aware of Andy Stanley’s recommendation that we unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament. I haven’t listened to his sermon, but according to this article, Stanley taught from Acts 15 and claimed,

“Peter, James, Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures, and my friends, we must as well.”

This bothered me, but something which bothered me just as much was a panel discussion from a few months ago, featuring Dr. William Lane Craig. I respect both men, but I really do think they both got it wrong. Continue reading “Hitching up to the Old Testament, part 1”

Old and young

We went to a baptism celebration yesterday. The vast majority of attenders at our church are in their 20s, which makes for a very dynamic group of people eager to know more about God and follow him. It also makes for some goofy displays.

The baptism was held at a local park which has a large lake. It was a great setting, and about a dozen 20somethings were being baptized, with a hundred more of us standing on the beach to watch. As each person was baptized, their friends gathered around them in the water to pray and rejoice. It was excellent…until it got goofy.

When one young man came up out of the water, someone in the group around him started chanting his name (“Jamie! Jamie!”), and the crowd in the water picked up on it. You know what it reminded me of? It seemed EXACTLY like a frat party, where Jamie would be trying to down as much beer as he could at one go.

This display became contagious, and was repeated after every other person being baptized. (“Lacey! Lacey!”)

I couldn’t decide whether I was feeling like:

  1. an old fogey who didn’t understand today’s youth
  2. a tolerant dad watching his kids do their best
  3. a disappointed prophet watching an immature display by people who don’t know any better.

Actually, it reminded me of how Moses might have felt when he came down from the mountain and saw the children of Israel dancing around the golden calf. Were they really all that much to blame? As far as I can tell, here’s what happened: Moses went up on the mountain and received the 10 commandments. He came down, wrote them in a book and read them to the people. They agreed to obey, and Moses threw blood on them. (Glad we haven’t kept THAT ritual around.) Then Moses went back up the mountain to talk to God again.

What I didn’t see is him hanging around to give the people guidance on how to follow the commandments, or even explanation of what they mean. So with a list of commands but no leadership or guidance, should we really have been surprised at the result?

So, back to the beach. Am I an old fogey? Am I a benevolent dad? Am I a disgruntled prophet? Yeah, maybe a little of each.

What is knowledge?

I’ve heard two different definitions of the spiritual gift of knowledge from Paul’s letter to Corinth (1 Cor 12.8), and one of them just doesn’t make sense. I saw it again yesterday in a post from Mark Driscoll.

Mark defines this spiritual gift as “the ability to research, remember, and make effective use of a variety of information on a number of diverse subjects”. He then gives examples of where he sees this gift in operation in various Bible characters, including Jesus.

Mark points out that Jesus studied and memorized the Old Testament, saying this is an example of the gift of knowledge in operation. If this is the case, though, then didn’t the majority of Jesus’ peers also have this gift? The memorization of the Torah was a common feat among the scribes and Pharisees of his day, and even his own disciples had memorized large portions of Scripture. To say that memorizing a huge text is an example of this gift seems to be a reading into the phrase “word of knowledge”. (Oh, and did Jesus have knowledge of “a number of diverse subjects”, as in Mark’s definition? If so, he apparently kept it to himself, and focused on a few narrow subjects, namely Israel and his own role.)

Mark had a couple of other examples in the Bible. He points out Timothy because of a line in Paul’s letter to him (2 Tim 2.15). To state that “rightly handling the word of truth” is an example of the spiritual gift of knowledge is a stretch I cannot make.

The alternative definition of this gift is something like this: information revealed to a person by the Holy Spirit, which the person would not otherwise know. This is more palatable to me for a couple of reasons. The first is that Paul is describing spiritual gifts, which I take to be abilities given by the Holy Spirit. They aren’t enhanced natural abilities, and they aren’t commonly seen in people who do not have the Spirit. (Again, if the ability to memorize and make use of large amounts of Scripture is indicative of this gift, then my atheist religion professors in college were all gifted by the Holy Spirit.)

The second reason I prefer this definition is that it helps explain what we already have seen in the Bible. There are a number of times when Jesus or someone else knows things that they have no earthly way of knowing (Jn 1.47-48, Lk 11.17, Acts 8.20-23, etc).

The third reason I prefer this definition is it makes more sense with the rest of the gifts listed in the Corinthian letter. If we go with Mark’s definition, for consistency it would seem to me that the gifts of healing that Paul mentions must refer to physicians, and tongues must mean those who excel in learning foreign languages.

Not to knock the people who love knowledge, researching, learning and sharing new things (I am one of them), but this desire and ability doesn’t strike me as a spiritual gift…at least not the one mentioned by Paul.