A message for those with low self-esteem

This is a sermon that I wrote this past year, based on Jeremiah 1:4-10. In it, God declares that He has known Jeremiah and accepts Him, faults and all. God tells Jeremiah that He created him for a specific purpose, and that He will support Jeremiah and empower him to fulfill everything that He's called him to. Overcoming Low Self-Esteem - Jeremiah 1:4-10 (Sermon)

How God works in a sick and broken world

Matthew 5:13-16

    13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

   14 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

We all see symptoms of a sick and broken world around us. Eighteen people pass by a toddler bleeding in the middle of the street. Evil people enslave young girls to make money and gratify the lusts of perverse men. And, just like in ancient Israel, the richand powerful “grind the faces of the poor” and “covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them” from the weak and vulnerable.

It’s no wonder that Paul says that all creation is groaning as though in the pains of childbirth. What is the solution? Why doesn’t God do anything?

Read what Jesus said to His followers in His Sermon on the Mount. “You are the salt of the earth,” He said. “You are the light of the world.” Jesus called his followers to preserve, flavor, and give light to a dark and decaying world.

The name Christian means “little Christ.” When we follow our Master, our 師父, we become part of His solution. Definitely, there is a heaven and hell where God will balance the scales. But we still have a job to do while we are here on earth. We are to be salt and light.

What good is it if salt loses its saltiness? What good his a lamp kept under a bowl? How can we be a solution for the world if we think and act the same as everyone else does? “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”

No, we are to love our enemies and bless those who persecute us. If someone who has power over you abuses that power, willingly submit to them. God makes the rain fall on the righteous and unrighteous both because He cares for them. He wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

Why is it that so many who are not believers reject God? Isn’t it because His followers are no better—in some cases, worse—than these unbelievers? If salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?

God wants us to be perfect, just as He is perfect. In this way, His light will shine through us before men, just as a lamp gives light to everyone in a house. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Social justice in the Old Testament: God's justice for day laborers

[This is an exerpt from a book I'm writing on social justice in the Old Testament.]

Compared to our modern economy of global corporations and labor markets, the economy of biblical times was relatively simple. The Law of Moses anticipated four economic classes of people among the Israelites once they settled in the Promised Land: estate owners and their families, servants who lacked freedom but were considered to be part of the family, hired workers who retained their freedom and lived on a wage, and finally foreigners who had made their home among the Israelites.[1] In Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the Mosaic Law prohibits employers from delaying the payment of wages due to hired workers. Lacking the property and equipment needed to operate their own enterprise, these poor but free men hired themselves out to estate owners who needed help working their land.

References in Job and Isaiah indicate that hired workers agreed to contracts as short as one day or as long as one year.[2] Genesis records that Jacob agreed to seven-year labor contracts with his rich uncle, Laban. However, the provisions in Leviticus and Deuteronomy aim at protecting the former class of hired workers—the day laborers who lived a hand-to-mouth existence and who counted on their daily wage for sustenance. These men, and perhaps women, lived on the fringes of society and, lacking the security of property or stored wealth, suffered the most in times of national duress, such as famine or war.

Though a New Testament example, the Prodigal Son described by Jesus in Luke 15:11-32 provides an excellent picture of this type of worker. Alone in a foreign land, his money exhausted, the son hires himself out to a local landowner as a swineherd. His position is so low and precarious that he envies the pigs for being able to fill their bellies. Another apt New Testament example is another of Jesus’ parables: the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16. In that parable, the owner of a vineyard hires day laborers from the marketplace and agrees to pay them a denarius (a day’s wages) for their work at the end of the twelfth hour, or six o’clock in the evening.

Indeed, nearly every society since biblical times has included some people without the property, equipment, or trade skills needed to employ themselves. In economic terms, these people lack the capital required to start their own business. Serfs in mediaeval times or Irish peasants under the English aristocracy had no access to land of their own. Instead, they worked the land of other men in exchange for a share of the harvest. Currently in the developing world, large numbers of workers from rural areas continue to flock to cities where they manufacture or assemble goods for large overseas corporations. Depressed wages and weak or unenforced labor laws make the situation of these hired workers precarious, and they are compensated only a small fraction of the value of the goods they produce.

Even today in the United States, many people work to receive an hourly wage without any capital share in the company they work for. Labor-friendly laws and an economy that is driven by specialized skills and knowledge put most hired workers in the United States on equal footing with even the most powerful employers. To find people in the United States facing similar circumstances to the hired workers in Jesus’ parables, do not look for office-park cubicle farms. Instead, line up early in the morning at temporary employment agencies. Or, they wait in groups at the edge of the parking lots at home improvement stores. There, you’ll find desperate people hoping construction contractors or homeowners will hire them to work at low-skill tasks such as painting, fence repair, or landscaping. Or, look to the fields during harvest time, when entire families in agricultural areas will hire themselves out to farmers for long days of picking fruits or vegetables. Or, look in the homes of the wealthy where immigrant women work as nannies and maids. None of these people are slaves, but they are poor and desperately need work. The money they earn that day will mostly be spent within days on food, shelter, and clothing.

It is about these types of people that Leviticus 19:13 says, “Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight.” Moses expands on the same command in Deuteronomy 24:14-15:

Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns. Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and counting on it. Otherwise he may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

First, Moses clarifies that to hold back wages from a hired man is to take advantage of him. Without collective bargaining and all other things being equal, employers hold an advantage over employees, especially those who have little financial or social influence and who depend on their daily wages for basic necessities. Moses indicates these people have no other support or recourse except to cry out to God. They have no money saved up, no patrons in the community to champion their cause, and would be powerless to demand justice themselves. It is for the sake of these powerless and vulnerable people that God gives the command to the Israelites. Although there is no specifically prescribed penalty for an infraction of this law, God Himself will bring retributive justice against the unjust employer.

Jacob’s service to his uncle Laban reveals something about unequal relationships between employer and employee. Although Jacob enjoyed some advantages compared with the day laborers referred to in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, Laban had become a powerful landowner who considered everything Jacob earned as belonging to himself. Laban took advantage of his more powerful position to unscrupulously lessen his compensation ten times over twenty years. Finally, Jacob had had enough and decided to flee back to his father’s country and out of under his oppressive employment to Laban. When Laban pursues and overtakes him, Jacob finally pleads his case:

I have been with you for twenty years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks. I did not bring you animals torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for whatever was stolen by day or night. This was my situation: The heat consumed me in the daytime and the cold at night, and sleep fled from my eyes. It was like this for the twenty years I was in your household. I worked for you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands, and last night he rebuked you.[3] 

God’s intervention and family ties kept Laban from taking from Jacob twenty years’ worth of labor. Many centuries later, God tells the Israelites that He will similarly intervene on behalf of oppressed workers. Where we are left to infer a moral standard in Genesis, here God makes it clear: He ardently desires just employment practices where employer and employee negotiate on equal terms.

Jesus’ Parable of the Great Banquet, told in Luke 14, emphasizes God’s special grace extended to those on the lowest rungs of the societal ladder. The master in that parable, his invitation having been rejected by those of means, commands his servant, “Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.” As the commentator Matthew Henry notes, these people are “the vagrants, or those that are returning now in the evening from their work in the field, from hedging and ditching there.” In other words, Jesus implies that God’s grace is effectual for those who, because of their desperate situation, would welcome it as a day laborer would welcome a rich and free banquet at the end of the day. Jesus’ message reaffirmed that those who are powerful and rich in this world, as a result of their self-absorption and self-importance, will not receive God’s grace though it is equally extended to them. Those who have little in this world, as a result of their desperate need for salvation, will receive God’s help.

With this same idea in mind, James the brother of Jesus writes: “The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.” But, James scathingly rebukes the rich landowners who have forgotten God’s defense of the needy. Recalling the provision for day laborers in Deuteronomy, he writes:

Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.[4] 

[This post is an excerpt of my work-in-progress book on social justice in the Old Testament. Feedback is welcome! More on Learning to Do Right.] 

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[1] This list is taken from Leviticus 25:6.

[2] Job 7:1-2, 14:6; Isaiah 16:14, 21:16

[3] Genesis 31:38-42

[4] James 5:4

God’s sovereign choice

At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:25-30

 

Over the last couple years, my writing energies have gone into sermons, Bible study lessons, and my book. I haven’t had much creative juice left over for this blog, but today’s going to be different. I’d like to share something that has helped clarify my understanding of God’s sovereign choice and who is the “elect.”

Recently, I taught from Matthew 11:25-30, quoted above, and it seems to me to perfectly encapsulate the Bible’s seemingly paradoxical teaching about who God calls and to whom He reveals Himself. This passage teaches three things:

1. Jesus says that divine revelation (“these things”) is hidden from a certain group of people but graciously revealed to another group. He then says that this is God’s sovereign choice.
2. Jesus emphasizes that the only way to know God is through grace. Specifically, the people who know God must be chosen by Him.
3. Jesus gives an open call to everyone who suffers from the burden of sin and desires His rest. The solution is a servant-master relationship with God, and an infilling of the Holy Spirit that will enable people to fulfill the requirements of God joyfully.

Going back to the first point, there are two groups of people. One group cannot receive God’s revelation—it is hidden from them. The other group receives God’s revelation graciously. In both cases, this is God’s sovereign will. The second point emphasizes the first. Who are those from whom God hides divine revelation? It is the “wise and learned,” probably in the same sense that Paul uses those words when describing how people received the scandalous message of the cross: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20) Both Jesus and Paul said that God’s revelation is hidden from people who will not receive it because of their self-sufficiency.

 

Who does God choose to reveal the divine message to? To “little children,” or those who receive from God as a little child trustingly receives from his or her father. This is God’s sovereign choice. God does not choose to hide and reveal the gospel message arbitrarily. No, but He hides it from those who will not receive it, and He reveals it to those who will receive it. Before the creation of the world, God foreknew those who would willingly receive the gospel message by faith. He chose, elected, and predestined these people “for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.” (Ephesians 1:5)

 

If you’re confused at this point about whether God has chosen you, there’s one way to find out. Read the next verses in Matthew 11. After emphasizing God’s sovereign choice, Jesus calls out to everyone who carries the burden of sin and seeks relief: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Your response to this call will tell you whether you are God’s chosen or not.

 

Some Christians get so caught up in God’s sovereignty that they miss the point. They are so concerned with God being in control that they think He arbitrarily predestined some to salvation and others to damnation. That’s wrong because Jesus says that we can know who God hides the message from and who God reveals it to. Basically, God gives to those who will receive. The way that they receive is not through any learning or merit, but simply by childlike faith. This is His good pleasure.

The role of government and Its limitations

Today, the Christian church still struggles to reclaim the uniqueness that differentiated the Jesus, his disciples, and the early church from the society they lived in. Jesus warned against salt that lost its flavor and against light hidden under bowls. When Christians cannot distinguish between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world then they mistakenly believe that God favors one nation over another, or one political party over another. They compromise their unique message by thinking “It’s my country, wrong or right” or otherwise excusing the ways in which their nation or party deviates from God’s standard of righteousness and justice. They self-servingly highlight scriptures from the Bible that support their partisan viewpoints while ignoring or misinterpreting those that might undermine their ideology. Moreover, they see the success of their nation or party as the success of God’s kingdom—and see their rivals as opposed to God’s kingdom. This view leads Christians to label nations or political opponents as “heathen” or as opposed to the kingdom of God. But, if they do that, then they misidentify their enemy. As Paul wrote, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”[1] Like Jesus, Paul emphasized the otherworldliness of God’s kingdom—that it was not set up in opposition to earthly kingdoms, but rather existed on a completely different plane over and above them. In fact, Paul taught that all earthly governments are established by God and that earthly rulers wield authority as God’s servants.[2]

Earthly government has a proper place, according to Paul’s writings and life example. Paul taught that God establishes governments to maintain peace and order, and to enforce justice. Even though he was frequently jailed for the practice of his faith and eventually martyred under a cruel tyrant, Paul understood and respected government authority. Paul instructed the churches under his care to offer prayers for government leaders so that they could live peacefully.[3] He insisted on his rights as a Roman citizen, such as the right to a trial before flogging and an appeal to Caesar, a right he exercised when the Jewish leaders accused him before the Roman Governor Porcius Festus.[4]

In general, governments, political leaders, and nations can be relatively good or evil—that is, they can be relatively good or evil compared with one another. However, no earthly government can be measured as absolutely good compared against God’s absolute standard of justice and righteousness. And, contrary to Jesus’ teaching and example of submission and service, all worldly governments rely on subjugation and coercion to restrain evil. As Paul wrote:

“For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”[5]

According to Paul, earthly governments wield authority punish wrong or immoral actions and can commend righteous actions, but they have no power to change people’s hearts for good. Indeed, capitalist, democratic forms of government tend to succeed because they do not rely on people’s better natures, but instead assume people’s self-interestedness, both as individuals and as groups of like interest. Capitalism harnesses people’s greed and selfish ambition to make society more productive. Much in the same way, modern democracy contains harmful natural tendencies through elaborate checks and balances in government, but does nothing to erase those tendencies. Politicians understandably pander to voters’ self-interest. After all, no one expects people to vote according to what is right for all mankind, especially when that might mean losing benefits for themselves. Winston Churchill famously summed up the advantages and deficiencies of democracy by saying, “Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Christians must understand the proper role of government and its inherent limitations. When an earthly government takes up Christianity as its own cause, it still operates according to the principles of this world, which are subjugation and coercion. This does not change even if Christians control the government and dictate all its policies. Certainly, Christians play a preserving role by advocating laws and policies that align with God’s standard, as shown in the next chapter, but they must not put their faith in these imperfect and temporary kingdoms. Instead, Christians must put their faith in God’s heavenly kingdom, which is established as believers yield their lives to God, operate according to His kingdom’s principles, and shine as examples of His righteousness and justice. One day, Jesus will return and replace all earthly governments with His eternal government. Till that day, Christians live as sojourners here on earth, act as salt and light to society, and secure their victory through submission and service, not subjugation and coercion.

[This post is an excerpt of my work-in-progress book on social justice in the Old Testament. Feedback is welcome! More on Learning to Do Right.]

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[1] Ephesians 6:12

[2] Romans 13:1-7

[3] 1 Timothy 2:1-4

[4] Acts 16:37, 22:25 and 25:10-11, respectively

[5] Romans 13:3-4

An alternative example: Celtic Christianity

[Continued from How Christianity became aligned with politics under Constantine.]

Perhaps things could have gone differently. Saint Patrick’s mission to the Irish in the fifth century gives a glimpse into what might have been possible had Christians under the Roman Empire resisted the temptation to align themselves with an earthly government and operate according to the principles of the world. A Celt who lived under Roman rule in Britain, Patrick was abducted by marauders as a youth and spent years as a slave swineherd in the fields of Ireland. In his solitude, he formed a close fellowship with God through constant prayer. Eventually, he escaped and found passage back to Britain, became a priest, and returned to Ireland on a holy mission to spread the gospel in that land. Thomas Cahill, in his How the Irish Saved Civilization, writes how he and his converts helped to transform Irish society:

With the Irish—even with the kings—he succeeded beyond measure. Within his lifetime or soon after his death, the Irish slave trade came to a halt, and other forms of violence, such as murder and intertribal warfare, decreased. In reforming Irish sexual mores, he was rather less successful, though he established indigenous monasteries and convents, whose inmates by their way of life reminded the Irish that the virtues of lifelong faithfulness, courage, and generosity were actually attainable by ordinary human beings and that the sword was not the only instrument for structuring society.[1]

Patrick’s non-violent, politically unadulterated, and courageously resolute message subdued the wild, warlike, and druidic Irish who the Romans could not conquer. Cahill compares the conversion of Ireland with that of the Roman Empire and argues that while Christianity transformed Irish society, Roman society transformed Christianity:

Through the Edict of Milan, which had legalized the new religion in 313 and made it the new emperor’s pet, Christianity had been received into Rome, not Rome into Christianity! Roman culture was little altered by the exchange, and it is arguable that Christianity lost much of its distinctiveness. But in the Patrician exchange, Ireland, lacking the power and implacable traditions of Rome, had been received into Christianity, which transformed Ireland into Something New, something never seen before—a Christian culture, where slavery and human sacrifice became unthinkable, and warfare, though impossible for humans to eradicate, diminished markedly. The Irish, in any case, loved physical combat too much for inter-tribal warfare to disappear entirely. But new laws, influenced by Gospel norms, inhibited such conflicts severely by requiring that arms be taken up only for a weighty cause. Ireland would not again see a battle on the scale of the Tain till Brian Boru would rout the Vikings in the eleventh century.[2]

Roughly a century after the death of Patrick, Ireland had been conquered by Christianity operating according to principles of submission and service and Irish monks began spreading peaceful, apolitical, and non-conformist Christianity in a Europe.[3] For several centuries, these monks infiltrated the barbarian tribes that had overrun the Roman Empire. The growing number of monasteries they established confounded regular church authorities with the number of converts that flocked to them. In these places of refuge, converts found a Christianity that was not only unique from the old order of Roman culture and political power but also radically different than the Germanic paganism of tribal kings. These monasteries were truly “cities on hills which could not be hidden.” Sadly, by the seventh century, unorganized Celtic Christianity was nearly entirely subsumed into the hierarchical Roman church.[4]

[This post is an excerpt of my work-in-progress book on social justice in the Old Testament. Feedback is welcome! More on Learning to Do Right.]

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[1] Thomas Cahill, pg. 110, How the Irish Saved Civilization

[2] Cahill, pg. 148

[3] Cahill, pg. 151, “Ireland is unique in religious history for being the only land into which Christianity was introduced without bloodshed.”

[4] Nora Chadwick, in her history The Celts, eulogizes: “The disappearance of the idiosyncratic Christianity of the Celtic Church was inevitable, owing to the absence of central organization; but it is impossible to reach the end without a feeling of regret. A Christianity so pure and serene as that of the age of saints could hardly be equaled and never repeated.”

How Christianity became aligned with politics under Constantine

In 313 A.D., the role of Christians in society started to change. In that year, the Roman Emperor Constantine gave official sanction to Christianity for the first time and afterwards gradually added official state support, including building churches and sponsoring the production of biblical books. While Christians saw this turn of events as miraculous, especially as it came on the heels of one of the most brutal persecutions in history, it may have simply been a shrewd political move on the part of Constantine to secure support from the growing number of believers as he struggled to gain sole control of the empire. Whatever his motives, the official sanction of Christianity changed the dynamic between Christians and society. Whereas before, becoming a Christian meant ridicule, suspicion, and the potential for real harm, it now meant gaining not only an acceptable but even favored status. The change of status for Christian bishops was even more extreme—their position, once fraught with danger, began to entail power and authority in the secular realm.

One of the adverse effects of this conjoining of church and state was that it became difficult to distinguish between political and spiritual authority. Church leaders sometimes wielded political power, and sometimes political leaders exercised power over the church. Once he gained control of the empire, Constantine convened church councils deciding major theological doctrines, including the council of Nicaea in 323 A.D. Eventually, in 381 A.D., the Emperor Theodosius made “Catholic Christianity” the official religion of the Roman empire and aligned bishoporics with political territories in the Roman empire so that there was one governor and one bishop for the province of Asia, for example. Soon after, pagan worship was suppressed, and in 385 A.D., the newly Christian government for the first time executed Christians that deviated from the government-endorsed orthodoxy.

Roman coin (c. 350 A.D.) showing the military standard first adopted by Emperor Constantine containing the Chi-Rho, or the first two Greek letters of Christ.

In less than 80 years, the church persecuted by the state morphed into the state-sponsored persecuting church. How could such a thing happen? The Christians who experienced Constantine’s Edict of Milan and those who came after forgot that God’s kingdom and earthly kingdoms exist on two separate planes. Though an earthly government is hostile to Christianity, it cannot hinder the advancement of God’s kingdom as long as the church operates according to the principles of the kingdom. By following the commands of Jesus to submit and serve, Christians can overcome every obstacle. In his first epistle, Peter wrote to the persecuted church in the Roman province of Asia, telling them: “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men, whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right … However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”[1] Christians in the early church understood that when they submitted to earthly authorities, they were in fact submitting to God who instituted those authorities, and that they would overcome even as they suffered persecution.

In the euphoria following the Edict of Milan, faithful and well-intentioned Christians such as Eusebius of Caesarea hailed Emperor Constantine as a savior. At the very end of his Ecclesiastical History, finished in 324 A.D., Eusebius describes the consolidation of the Empire under Constantine and the resulting elevation of the Christian religion:

But the mighty and victorious Constantine adorned with every virtue of religion, with his most pious son, Crispus Caesar, resembling in all things his father, recovered the East as his own, and thus restored the Roman Empire to its ancient state of one united body. … All fear, therefore, of those who had previously afflicted the Christians was wholly removed. They celebrated splendid and festive days with joy and hilarity. All things were filled with light, and all who before were sunk in sorrow, beheld each other with smiling and cheerful faces. With choirs and hymns, in the cities and villages, they celebrated and extolled first of all God the universal King, because they thus were taught, then they also celebrated the praises of the pious emperor and with him all his divinely favored children. There was perfect oblivion of past evils, and the past wickedness was buried in forgetfulness. There was nothing but enjoyment of the present blessings and expectation of those yet to come. Edicts were published and issued by the victorious emperor, full of clemency, and laws were enacted indicative of munificence and genuine religion.[2]

Official support from the most powerful empire in the world led believers to believe that the cause of Christ had won a tremendous victory. Certainly, Christians could be excused some relief and even elation that the Roman Empire which crucified Jesus now claimed to submit to him. However, these Christians could not foresee the ramifications of aligning their faith with a particular political identity (in this case the Roman Empire). They could not foresee how the state church would create official dogma out of simple creeds stating apostolic faith, or how the church would eventually burn heretics who refused to submit to that dogma. When bishops of apostolic churches agreed to align their sees with political jurisdictions, they failed to understand how that would one day give rise to hierarchical church leadership headed by patriarchs in Rome and Constantinople. The apostolic churches that served together as stewards of tradition and orthodoxy could not imagine that consensus and appeal to Scripture would one day yield to monarchal rule by church patriarchs—that the term “catholic” would no longer denote allegiance to universally accepted doctrine but instead allegiance to doctrine promulgated by the bishop of Rome. The Christians who won converts through their bravery in martyrdom would have recoiled at the thought of crusades against infidels claiming hundreds of thousands of lives.

Despite their good intentions, the Christians who celebrated Emperor Constantine’s support identified the kingdom of God with an earthly government and thereby lost the uniqueness that distinguished them from the rest of society. Instead of living as though they looked forward to the coming of God’s kingdom, they started living as though that kingdom was already established here on earth. Using its unprecedented freedom and power, the church began subjugating pagan religions and eventually coercing allegiance to the Christian faith.

[This post is an excerpt of my work-in-progress book on social justice in the Old Testament. Feedback is welcome! More on Learning to Do Right.]

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[1] 1 Peter 2:13-14, 4:16

[2] Eusebius of Caesarea as translated by C.F. Cruse, Ecclesiastical History, Book 10, Chapter 9:6-8 

How the early church related to society

The early Christians who lived before Emperor Constantine understood what it meant to be salt and light and to operate according the principles of God’s kingdom. They stood in stark contrast to the rest of Roman society. Whereas it was common practice for pagans to abandon their unwanted infant children, leaving them to die in the wilderness or trash heaps, or to take strong drugs to abort their unwanted unborn babies, Christians not only disapproved of such practices but even actively rescued abandoned children and took them into their homes. They refused to take part in public celebrations of cruelty and debauchery. The Epistle to Diognetus, a Christian apology written sometime toward the end of the second century, describes the unique role of Christians in society in dramatic terms:[1]

For Christians are no different from other people in terms of their country, language, or customs. Nowhere do they inhabit cities of their own, use a strange dialect, or live life out of the ordinary. They have not discovered this teaching of theirs through reflection or through the thought of meddlesome people, nor do they set forth any human doctrine, as some do. They inhabit both Greek and barbarian cities, according to the lot assigned to each. And they show forth the character of their own citizenship in a marvelous and admittedly paradoxical way by following local customs in what they wear and what they eat and in the rest of their lives. They live in their respective countries, but only as resident aliens; they participate in all things as citizens, and they endure all things as foreigners. Every foreign territory is a homeland for them, every homeland foreign territory. They marry like everyone else and have children, but they do not expose them once they are born. They share their meals but not their sexual partners. They are found in the flesh but do not live according to the flesh. They live on earth but participate in the life of heaven. They are obedient to the laws that have been made, and by their own lives they supersede the laws. They love everyone and are persecuted by all. They are not understood and they are condemned. They are put to death and made alive. They are impoverished and make many rich. They lack all things and abound in everything. They are dishonored and they are exalted in their dishonors. They are slandered and they are acquitted. They are reviled and they bless, mistreated and they bestow honor. They do good and are punished as evil; when they are punished they rejoice as those who have been made alive. They are attacked by Jews as foreigners and persecuted by Greeks. And those who hate them cannot explain the cause of their enmity.[2]

To use Jesus’ analogy, the Christians described in this passage were like a city on a hill that could not be hidden. To society, the way in which they lived seemed paradoxical. They lived peaceably everywhere, following local customs and laws, but refusing to murder their children or participate in licentious behavior. They fulfilled all their civic duties, but remembered that they were foreigners in this world and citizens of the God’s kingdom. Moreover, as representatives of the kingdom of God, they operated according to the principles of submission and service—even if it meant death. Because of their unique message and shining examples, an increasing number of people from across all spectra of society came to have a transforming relationship with Jesus.[3]

Following the example of Jesus, these early believers avoided identifying the Christian faith with political movements and nations. In 66 A.D., possibly just several years after the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome and before the close of the New Testament canon, Jews in and around Jerusalem rebelled against Roman authority, provoked by the sacrilegious actions of the procurator Florus. Jewish Christians refused to join in the rebellion and fled the city before Roman legions under Vespasian and Titus besieged and finally destroyed it in 70 A.D. These Christians followed the teachings of Jesus, who taught that the kingdom of God was established through submission and service, not by subjugation and coercion. They remembered Jesus’ words recorded in the gospel, “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

Throughout the second and third centuries, Christian apologists reasoned with Roman authorities that Christianity taught people to live as peaceable, submissive, and even patriotic citizens, and therefore posed no threat their rule. These Christians understood that God’s kingdom is not established in opposition to earthly kingdoms. Sometime around 150 A.D., Justin Martyr appealed to Emperor Antoninus Pius:

And everywhere we, more readily than all men, endeavor to pay to those appointed by you the taxes both ordinary and extraordinary, as we have been taught by Him; for at that time some came to Him and asked Him, if one ought to pay tribute to Caesar; and He answered, ‘Tell Me, whose image does the coin bear?’ And they said, ‘Caesar's.’ And again He answered them, ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.’ Whence to God alone we render worship, but in other things we gladly serve you, acknowledging you as kings and rulers of men, and praying that with your kingly power you be found to possess also sound judgment.[4]

Again, in 176 A.D. or 177 A.D., Athenagoras wrote to Emperor Marcus Aurelius:

For who are more deserving to obtain the things they ask, than those who, like us, pray for your government, that you may, as is most equitable, receive the kingdom, son from father, and that your empire may receive increase and addition, all men becoming subject to your sway? And this is also for our advantage, that we may lead a peaceable and quiet life, and may ourselves readily perform all that is commanded us.[5]

Tertullian, writing in 197 A.D., described the prayers offered for the empire:

Without ceasing, for all our emperors we offer prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest, whatever, as man or Caesar, an emperor would wish.[6] [7]

Even as they grew more numerous, Christians refused to operate according to the principles of subjugation and coercion by seeking political power. Later in the same apology cited above, Tertullian said that Christians were by then numerous enough to topple the Roman government that persecuted them simply by withdrawing from society, but that they instead helped to maintain Roman rule:

We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you—cities, islands, fortresses, towns, marketplaces, the very camp, tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum—we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods. For what wars should we not be fit, not eager, even with unequal forces, we who so willingly yield ourselves to the sword, if in our religion it were not counted better to be slain than to slay? Without arms even, and raising no insurrectionary banner, but simply in enmity to you, we could carry on the contest with you by an ill-willed severance alone. For if such multitudes of men were to break away from you, and betake themselves to some remote corner of the world, why, the very loss of so many citizens, whatever sort they were, would cover the empire with shame; nay, in the very forsaking, vengeance would be inflicted. Why, you would be horror-struck at the solitude in which you would find yourselves, at such an all-prevailing silence, and that stupor as of a dead world. You would have to seek subjects to govern. You would have more enemies than citizens remaining. For now it is the immense number of Christians which makes your enemies so few—almost all the inhabitants of your various cities being followers of Christ.[8]

These examples shed some light on how Christians in the first three centuries practiced a peaceful type of insurrection, one not directed against the Roman empire but against sin and rebellion in the human heart. They corrected identified their enemy, which was not flesh and blood, but rather evil spiritual powers and sin that held people captive. By following the principles of submission and service they overcame their true enemy while winning over their human persecutors. As Tertullian wrote at the end of his apology, “The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.”[9]

By living as illuminating examples of God’s righteousness and justice, these Christians helped to preserve society. Again, Tertullian argued that Christians acted as mediators between God and society by the virtue of their lives and their prayers. He wrote: “And, for all that is said, if we compare the calamities of former times, they fall on us more lightly now, since God gave Christians to the world; for from that time virtue put some restraint on the world's wickedness, and men began to pray for the averting of God's wrath.”[10]

[This post is an excerpt of my work-in-progress book on social justice in the Old Testament. Feedback is welcome! More on Learning to Do Right.]

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[1] An apology is a “defense of the faith,” defending Christianity as true and good against its critics.

[2] Epistle to Diognetus 5:1-17, Bart D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, Vol. 2

[3] Read Paul’s letter to the mixed church at Colosse to see how people from all backgrounds set an example for society. Colossians 3:11 reads “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

[4] Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 17

[5] Athenagoras, A Plea for Christians, Chapter 32

[6] Tertullian, Apology, Chapter 30

[7] 1 Timothy 2:1-2 specifically teaches, “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”

[8] Tertullian, Apology, Chapter 37

[9] Tertullian, Apology, Chapter 50

[10] Tertullian, Apology, Chapter 40

Christians as salt and light in the world

Jesus explained the unique role of Christians in society by calling them the salt and light of the world.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:13-16)

The primary sense of this scripture is that Christians must preach the true gospel of God and that they should live their lives in accordance with the gospel. In a secondary sense, these verses could read that Christians must help preserve the world from evil and to shine as examples of God’s righteousness and justice. Just like salt preserves meat from spoiling, Christians are in the world to preserve it from moral degradation and injustice. Jesus is saying that Christians, through their unique message and actions, exert a good moral influence on society that checks a natural deteriorating process. Jesus also says that Christians are like a light that exposes evil and illuminates what is right and wrong according to God’s standard. Just like people in a dark room need the light of a lamp to see objects around them, society needs the moral instruction and godly examples of Christians to see God’s standard of justice and righteousness.

As salt and light in society, Christians instruct others about God’s standard of righteousness and justice found in the Bible. Their conscience, pricked by the Holy Spirit through God’s word in the Bible, commands that they decry societal injustice. Christians must be first to raise moral objections when the powerful oppress the weak, first to expose injustice and corruption, and first to seek redress for the oppressed and protection for the vulnerable. Of course, Christians must be salt and light not just in what they say, but also in their life example. To effectively illuminate God’s standard of righteousness and justice, they need actions that correspond with their words. Thankfully, Christians can be proud of their heritage in both advocacy and action. For example, Christians not only advocated for the abolition of slavery in the United States but helped to establish the Underground Railroad that helped slaves escape from Southern plantations.[1] This advocacy on behalf of the weak goes on today as Christians speak out against abortion on behalf of those who have the least voice of all—unborn children. Many others adopt children who need families, work to stop human trafficking, bring hope to those in prison, and care for the poor and needy because of their Christian faith. In doing so, these Christians act as salt and light helping society see, hear, and understand the standard of righteousness and justice found in the Bible.

[This post is an excerpt of my work-in-progress book on social justice in the Old Testament. Feedback is welcome! More on Learning to Do Right.]

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[1] Unfortunately, some Christians also twisted the Scriptures to suit their own prejudice or self-interest, such as those in the slave-holding South who argued that Africans should be subject to Whites because of Noah’s prophesy that Ham was to be the slave of Shem. Later, other Christians argued against miscegenation on grounds that God commanded the Israelites not to intermarry with other nations. This type of travesty should serve as a warning to Christians to remain true to the Scriptures and seek out their true sense apart from political ideology. 

Gospel message for Valentine's Day

This is a short message that I use for Valentine's Day events.

Valentine's Day Gospel Message (Sermon)

The Drum Major Instinct Revisited

This is a sermon that I preached on last Sunday, reflecting on Martin Luther King Jr.'s sermon "The Drum Major Instinct" and the recent furor over Amy Chua's "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" article in the Wall Street Journal. The main thrust of the sermon is that Christians are called to be first in love and service, not in worldly distinction.

The Drum Major Instinct Revisited (Sermon)

Writers in a tizzy

I've been putting together a style guide for the website I'm helping to launch at work. Our company is super-fast-paced and growing like a weed, so as long as sales keep climbing, nobody seems to mind not having a basic style guide.

Anyway, the website I'm writing copy for has five people who contribute and today I passed my draft style guide around for comments. It's just funny to see how worked up people can get over whether to use periods in a bulleted list or not.

Teacher Judy on "spiritual giftings"

My new bestest English pal, Judy Callarman, has found "gifting" is a proper word after all. Apparently, there is a very dated verb form of "gift," which means it can be used as a noun when -ing is added. As Judy writes:

In the latest Merriam-Webster dictionary, I found that the word “gifting” is a form of an obscure verb, dating back to 1550. Apparently, it is the basis for the word “gifted,” meaning to have an unusual ability, such as “a gifted artist.” This same usage is in the Oxford English Dictionary, the granddaddy of all dictionaries. Therefore, even though I at first proclaimed that “gift” is always a noun and never a verb, I now must admit that I was wrong.

Since it is a verb—-albeit a verb seldom seen—-my inner grammar program tells me that it could correctly be a gerund. A gerund is an “-ing” verb form used like a noun, for example, in the sentence “Swimming is fun.”

Wow. It's nice to know that even English teachers get it wrong sometimes, but of course do their homework to correct the mistake.

But while Judy shows "gifting" is a proper word, no one has explained its use in place of "gifts" when referring to spiritual gifts. As I wrote earlier, even the King James Version authors saw fit to use the word gifts, and there is no English translation that uses giftings anywhere. Was the introduction of "giftings" accidental or intended? Like the number of licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie-Pop, the world may never know ...

Digging deeper into "giftings"

Like Alice, I'm finding out just how far this rabbit hole goes.

I've got a lot of feedback from people about the term "giftings" to refer to spiritual gifts. Scott Bothel, a youth minister in Seattle, pointed out that gifting implies a gift we "own":

The only problem i have referring to giftings is if we turn around the sense of a received gift to a possessed gift. Gifting (from an english teacher perspective) can be seen as a verb and the in reference to a past bestowal of gifts. Some of the senses of gifting found in the bible, such as charisma, actually have that sense of residing in or on the believer and then I think it is ok to refer to it as a gifting, somethng that has been bestowed on that person.

Mickey from Drinking Deeply goes the other way, and says gifting is more temporary:

My best guess for why people use the term "giftings" is that they are refering to the active "giving" of the spiritual gifts.

My co-worker and fellow blogger, National, also said "gifting" was probably meant to give credit to God, the Giver of the gift. In the comments section of the previous post, Bipin Sen gave the charismatic Christian's reason for using gifting:

... those who have responded don't seem to have tapped the fundamental charismatic meaning behind using the word "gifting" as opposed to "gift". the main idea is to give credit to the *source* of the gift - the spirit - and to take away the emphasis on the person receiving the gift. hence the verb usage is geared towards recognizing that it is the *spirit* who gives the gift.

Chris Daukas, a pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Phoenix and author of Gospel Musings, reflects my personal view, which is that there is no intended difference on the part of the speaker ... it's just something they picked up somewhere and repeat:

I would typically say "I don't have the gifting for that......" but what I am really saying is I don't have the gift to do that. I think that they are both saying the same thing really.

(By the way, Ps. Chris has an excellent blogseries defending charismatic practice. Check it out.)

Finally, I think I have to credit English teacher, blogger, and fellow believer Judy Callarman for setting the grammatical record straight. Without regard to the possible doctrinal implications of adding -ing to gift, it is just plain bad English. As she wrote on her own blog:

When I responded to “ts,” I said to him that “’Gifting’ is a verb and not even a main verb, actually.” But I suddenly realize that is wrong: “Gift” is a noun. You can’t put the verb ending “-ing” on a noun and use it as a noun. It is certainly not wrong to use an “-ing” verb as a noun, necessarily. We have gerunds in English—words like “swimming” and “reading”—that can be used as either nouns or verbs.

Oh, dear. This is confusing. Any time you try to put a universal rule on the English language, you are in trouble, because it originates from such a mish-mash of a number of languages. And English is always in the flux of change. But . . . I hold that people who write about spiritual gifts should say just that: gifts, and not giftings.

You heard it from the English teacher--"gifting" is not even a proper gerund (a verbal noun). Moreover, most people (including myself), aren't even conscious of why we use gifting rather than gift, which is a word even the King James Version translators deemed fit, as in 1 Corinthians 14:12, "Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church."

What I believe about ... faith

(This is the first post in a "What I believe about ..." series. My opinions are based on what I've read, heard, and experienced, but are by no means an exhaustive discourse on the particular topic.)

Faith has everything to do with getting us to heaven. Our faith in Jesus and His redeeming sacrifice is of supreme importance. The New Testament talks about our saving faith a lot, such as in 1 Peter 1:3-9. And that's what you hear about from most Christians, which is great. As Peter writes, the goal of our faith is the salvation of our souls.

But what I've come to realize in the last several years is that faith is not just for heavenly things. In fact, God wants Christians to have faith concerning things on earth as well. When Jesus talks about faith, most of the time He's not talking about faith for salvation but rather faith for healing or other miracles. For example, when the Canaanite woman came to Jesus and had her faith tested (Matthew 15:21-28), He commended her "great faith" for her daughter's healing, not for her own salvation. Jesus says if we have faith as small as a mustard seed, we can command mountains to be cast into the sea--which has very little to do with heaven.

For Jesus, faith was the key to seeing God's hand move on earth, not only in the spiritual realm. When Jesus visited his hometown, the people there were disbelieving because they knew Jesus before He started His ministry. (Mark 6:1-6) They said, "Isn't this the carpenter?" As a result, the Bible says, "He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith."

The point of this post is that many Christians think about faith in terms of salvation, but miss the prerequisite of faith for the fullness of what God wants to do here on earth. This "heaven-only" view of faith translates into wrong doctrine and lack of faith concerning the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit (that they are not seen today, and therefore are extinct). Really, why not believe in healing and prophesy today? Because of your reading of Hebrews 2:3-4? Because of church history? Because you don't see that in your own congregation?

Faith is for seeing Jesus' work carried out in our everyday lives, not just on the day we first believed. Did Jesus say, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will have eternal salvation?" No, He said, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:11-13)

That's some of what I believe about faith.