Are You a Stripper?

Context matters.

One of the biggest mistakes the Church has fallen into is approaching the Bible verse by verse, stripping them of context. Jesus didn't tweet the Gospels a phrase or sentence at a time. He told stories, he had conversations, he painted vast panoramas on verbal canvases. He was God; if he wanted to communicate in one liners he would have. He mostly left that to others such as Groucho, Bob Hope, Jack Benny.

For example, a friend recently asked about Matthew 5/37: "But let your `Yes' be `Yes,' and your `No,' `No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one." (NKJV). he wanted to know what it meant.

I understand; I learned to do this and did it for years. But eventually I rediscovered how much more sense the Bible makes when we read verses in context. In this case looking at just a few verses before helps immensely. Let's read Matthew 3/33-37 in two translations for even more depth:

"Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, `Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.' But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply `Yes' or `No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." (NIV)

"And don't say anything you don't mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, `I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, `God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say `yes' and `no.' When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong." (The Message)

Now the meaning is more obvious. "Speak the truth. If you need an oath to back up your agreement or disagreement, something is wrong... and no one can trust what you say without an oath. Just be real." Studying verse 37 alone does not provide the whole picture, but it does lend itself quite well to legalism, the trap into which so many Pharisees had fallen in Jesus' day. God is always about relationship more than rules. Look at verses in relationship to the verses nearby. No verse is an island.

 

Various Jewish and Christian scholars added chapters and paragraph divisions for multiple reasons, but verses did not appear in the New testament until the 1500s. While useful as reference points they should otherwise be ignored. Once you can ignore them (The Message really drove this home for me and was just what I needed to move back to a holistic reading) you begin to see things you would otherwise miss.

Even Jesus, quoting brief verses to Satan, clearly had a broader context, or he would never have associated those passages with the topics at hand.

1 Do yourself a huge favor. Read the stories 2 in the Bible as stories, 3 not as a chopped up group of 4 sentences and fragments.

Jethro Tull Recognized Our Folly

Much of the mystery, of the glory, of the joy, of being human is that we are made in God's image. Part of that was lost in the fall; certainly we were disconnected from that reality. Christ died to fully restore this in us not just for an eternity after we die, but right now, right here, on Earth.

There is a movement within the Church that recognizes and celebrates this image-of-Godness, and brings freedom, authority, and power.

But... sometimes instead of learning, or remembering, or focusing on who God is, and what that means about us, we tend to take things about us and project them onto God. We make God in our image.

God doesn't look like us, except in as much as we look like God. There's the source of your awesome, right there.

Jesus Fails Various Tests

In John 4, we find Jesus talking, apparently alone, with a Samaritan woman at a well. Plenty of preachers and teachers have discussed the way Jesus failed some of the common "tests of faith" of his time:

• He spoke with a woman,
• alone,
• a yucky old Samaritan at that,
• and he asked her to get him a drink.

This all adds up to a pretty serious ritual impurity. And yet he remained pure.

But...

The thing that struck me today was how he failed a major, modern, evangelical test (and abysmally flunked the equivalent fundamentalist test). What did he do about the fact she had gone through five husbands, and was living with yet another man?

1. Admonish her to get busy with sacrifices?
2. Reject her?
3. Give her a tract?
4. Wave a sign in her face and scream that she was going to Hell?
5. Ask what church she was a member of so he could berate her pastor for letting her stay?
6. Stone her?
7. Offer her living water, grace, forgiveness, eternal life?

Ha ha ha! Of course, I am just kidding with number seven.

Oh, wait, I'm not. And by the end of the story, because her testimony brought them to Jesus, "many more became believers." This suggests that she had become a believer as well.

As far as we know, he never demanded she "reconcile with" (remarry) her first husband. [1]

He didn't take her through the Roman Road (Paul had yet to write that letter, but do you really think that would stop Jesus?).

No tracts.

Especially no John T. Chick tracts. Thank God.

He didn't make her say a prayer. He didn't even talk directly about repentance, just offered her grace.

We have no record of why she had five husbands. We have no record of who did what. Was she abused? An abuser? Was she cheating on them? Was she frigid? Was she barren? Was she mean? Was she boring? Did someone more enticing come along? Someone richer? Than who, her or her husband?

We have no idea. Jesus didn't go there.

So why do we?

Yes, I know God hates divorce. Yes, we should take marriage seriously. But it's not up to us to judge people or to demand (for instance) that a woman "reconcile" with an abuser and stay with him. You can proof text this one easily, but I guarantee you I can find a proof text to put you in the same boat with a divorcee, no matter how you live. If you consider context, consider Scripture as a whole, consider how Jesus dealt with people...

It turns out Jesus didn't fail the tests. The test givers failed.

Think about that long and hard before you try to beat someone into submission with a Scripture.

And think about another Scripture while you do. "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Mt 7/1-2, NIV)

Grace. It's a good way to live.

 

NOTES
[1] some people will argue that the words husband here means "gods" because there is a Hebrew variant of Baal that can be translated either "god' or "husband". While I am not technically a Bible scholar I have studied quite a bit and been taught by some of the best. The word that can be translated either way is limited to a very few passages in the Old Testament. It does not appear in the New testament at all. Only one word for Baal appears in the new Testament, in Romans, and it clearly refers to the false god Baal. The word used here for "husband" is a word used for a human husband (it is translated "man", not "god") throughout the NT. I have no idea where the idea came from that Jesus meant gods here; it seems at best poor scholarship.

I Want to Hug the Westboro Baptist Church

I hope Westboro Baptist Church pickets my funeral.

No, really, I do.

I hope Jesus lets someone call me back, like Lazarus. I'd run over to hug the Westboro people first. They'd either get saved or run away and never picket another funeral.

But if not, I'm sure the revivalists, the community of people around me who are madly in love with the God of Love (and I don't mean Cupid), will show so much love that the Westboro folk will either get saved or flee in panic and confusion. I can hear the cops talking to them now. "No, sir, they were trying to hug you, not assault you. I know, because they hugged us all when we showed up."

Not long before going to the cross Jesus said, "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples-when they see the love you have for each other." (Jn 13/33-35, The Message)

Or how about this? When asked earlier on which of the commandments was the greatest, Jesus said, Jesus said, "`Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: `Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." (Mt 22/37-40, The Message) Many versions say "your neighbor" instead of "others". Jesus made it clear in his parable of the good Samaritan that everyone is our neighbor, including those we might tend to look down on, left to ourselves.

I'm sure that twisted logic would tell the WBCites that they are acting in love, but it's pretty obvious to the rest of the world that they aren't. I hope and pray that the people at Westboro Baptist Church come to know real Love, and are set free from their fears and hatred, as I pray that for all-- from world leaders to terrorists to people in third world hell hole slums to those caught up in sex trafficking. I want to hug you all. because God does.

There's an excellent booklet I recommend on the base topic here, The Mark of the Christian by Francis Schaefer. It's a quick read, less than 10,000 words. I wish every Christian would read this. It's available online (with permission from the publisher!) at http://www.ccel.us/schaeffer.html .

 

Passages from The Message copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.

The Tsarnaev Legacy: We Get to Decide What it is

My friend Mitch Barnett posted today on Facebook:

"While everyone celebrates the fact that the two Boston Bomb suspects have been caught, I hope that everyone would remember the fact that another life has been lost to this incident (Tamerlan Tsarnaev) and now yet another life hangs in the balance. While these people were mistaken, and performed a terrible act of aggression on innocent people, they are human beings; they have families that loved and cared for them; they had friends. Keep your perspective in check before you begin to cast a message of hate at the two brothers. Violence and death solve nothing."

It's one thing to call for justice[1] but hatred is something else altogether. Hatred only leads to more hatred, misery and destruction-- if only in the hater. Seldom is it that limited.

Jesus spoke of justice but he also spoke of love. Everything he did was in the context of love. He went to the cross so that we need not face ultimate justice for our sins. The two greatest commandments do not mention justice:

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

Jesus replied: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Mt 22:35-40, NIV)

Justice goes hand in glove with the Law. So even justice must be defined by Love.

The best possible outcome at this point is healing for all involved. I pray for emotional healing in all who lost a loved one or whose loved ones were hurt in any way. I pray for emotional and physical healing of everyone hurt (though about two hundred were physically hurt, thousands-- perhaps millions-- were emotionally scarred). I pray for the monetary damage to be overcome, that nobody would ultimately lose from this. I pray for the peace and joy of Boston, for the runners and their families and friends, for the people whose jobs or businesses were impacted.

When I say "all" I mean "all". I pray for the Tsarnaev family-- including these two brothers-- and friends. I pray that Boston, and Massachusetts, and the USA, and the world, will realize the futility and foolishness of hate, and turn to love.

Love has the best chance of bringing out love in people (others and ourselves). Hate tends to bring only more hate. Which do you want coming your way? Then think about what you're living out.

I believe that love requires us to stop heinous acts. Often this comes at a high price. But we cannot let that price be hatred or we become part of the problem.

In the words of Tiny Tim, "God bless us every one"-- with love and mercy, peace and joy. We've already seen much too much hatred, death, fear and misery.

While we're at it, pray for those in West, Texas. More people died and were physically injured in this than in Boston. While far less people are involved overall, it's a much smaller community, so the devastation within the community is huge.

 

Notes
[1] I find restitution to be the best form of justice, but it is not always possible, especially in violent crimes. Obviously, the perpetrators here cannot bring people back to life, replace limbs, restore the lost days of peoples' lives or the many millions of dollars wasted, rewind the Boston Marathon to the explosion point and let it finish, or remove the fear, pain and anguish inflicted this week.