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Christ is Wisdom from God

“It is because of [God] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.”

1 Corinthians 1:30-31a

In the book of Proverbs, Solomon speaks repeatedly about the wise and the foolish. He also talks about wisdom. He talks about it as something you can gain. He also talks about wisdom as a person.

Personifying “wisdom” was a foreshadowing of an actual person. It was a statement that all of the wisdom that God possesses can be found in an actual person. Solomon refers to that person as wisdom. Paul is telling us that Jesus is that person. Jesus became the human that contained all of God’s wisdom when He became human.

To me it goes without saying that all of the wisdom that God possesses also encompasses all of the wisdom that all of humanity has ever possessed or will ever possess. We all have some level of wisdom and maturity in our lives, but no matter how powerful or successful or clever or good we are, Jesus can match what we have done and what we know. And Jesus can go beyond what we have done and what we know.

All of us were created for love, and Jesus is someone that all of humanity can look up to when it comes to that. Additionally we all have different experiences and talents and pursuits and Jesus has the wisdom necessary to fulfill any person’s view of maturity, provided that view of maturity is rooted in love.

Because Jesus has the ability to fulfill the vision that each of us possesses He is the one person we, all of humanity, can entirely agree on.

He is powerful and wise, and He is oh so very different than the vision that we often have of powerful people. He did not come to be served, but to serve. Even though it’s a greater honor to have someone waiting on His table, He was the one waiting tables (Luke 22:27).

You can even see in Proverbs 1, “Wisdom” is not simply sitting in an ivory tower asserting His superiority. Rather He is crying out in public (Proverbs 1:20) to people in need of good counsel to protect their lives (Proverbs 1:33) so they can enjoy their lives. This is just like the Jesus we know in the New Testament that is seeking out sinners to restore them (Luke 5:31-32). He did not do as the Pharisees expected. He did not always keep His distance from sinners or let them die in their sin. He did withdraw often (Luke 5:16), but He did that so He would have the strength to go out, lead sinners to the Father, live His life free from sin, and die as the pure and spotless Lamb of God.

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Introduction to 1 Corinthians

If you’ve been in or around Christian circles for very long you’ve listened to or read pieces of 1 Corinthians 13. “Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” That famous excerpt is verses 4 and 5.

However, the entire book of 1 Corinthians is a book about love and chapter 13 is merely the climax. Chapter 13 is not out of place in the rest of the book.

In reality, how many of the people you know that like to pontificate about amazing love and being good people actually live up to being patient and kind? How many do not envy, do not boast, do not act arrogantly, don’t dishonor others, aren’t self-seeking, aren’t easily angered and don’t keep any record of wrongs? Not too many that I know of.

“Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful person who can find?”

– Proverbs 20:6

So much teaching in the Church suggests that grace and truth are somehow opposite, or that morality and love are at odds with each other. It seems like some people think that you can love people by being impatient with those that believe in the existence of moral principles. The reality is that if you aren’t being patient and kind you aren’t loving. Period. Paul is taking us back to morality 101.

1 Corinthians teaches us that a failure to value people constitutes a failure to love, and that love is a far bigger Kingdom Value than convenience is. 1 Corinthians also teaches us that love is the very foundation of all Biblical morality, and that morality that is not based on love is empty.

Paul’s Biblical writings were transformative for his audience in that they were calling people into the New Covenant, which was made by the blood ofJesus. I would say that 1 Corinthians is one of two New Testament books written by Paul that is by nature conservative, in the sense that Paul is attempting to go back to basic moral principles and educate an audience that seems to be largely Biblically illiterate.

1 Corinthians sits here in the New Covenant where Paul is teaching pagan Christians, whose minds are more highly influenced by the world around them than they are by God’s Word, about basic morality.

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Faithful in Small

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

Luke 16:10

Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.

Matthew 25:23

This is a very simple statement that basically seems like common sense. When people are talking about “Kingdom Government” we can get all kinds of ideas about what that idea is. However, at a very basic level, you really don’t need much more philosophy than this. If someone does a good job, then promote them. If they don’t do a good job, then don’t promote them. It’s really that simple.

In reality, we do currently need more structure in our governments than simply this philosophy about being faithful in small. One of the main reasons for that need is that some people try to take over and make sure people who do a good job don’t get promoted. They do this so they can maintain control over people and resources and because of the perception that there are only so many places to be promoted into. This belief is definitely a lie and I’d call the subsequent behavior dictatorial behavior.

In God’s Kingdom though, people get promoted when they do a good job. God alone decides the timing of such a promotion, but it’s a guarantee. If you are faithful in small, you will be given more. If we want to imitate God in our government, we will be fair to people and continue to promote them as long as they are doing a good job, even if they begin to outshine us.

If you feel like a small person because your position is low within your organization, do not despise the day of small beginnings. Whatever responsibility you have, do it with all your heart. Do an amazing job. Be faithful in that small amount of responsibility. If you do, God will promote you in due time.

While entry into God’s Kingdom is not based on merit, assignment of responsibility is based on merit. If you are faithful in small you will be given much.

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Stalking Jesus

How would you feel if you were being followed by a stranger and when you asked them what they wanted, they said “Where do you live?”. Many of us would…not think highly of that person. That’s putting it generously. But that’s exactly how the disciples of Jesus acted toward Jesus. They didn’t fall on their knees and ask for forgiveness for their sins (even though they knew He had the power to take away their sins). They were hungry to spend time with Jesus. So much so that they did the…’quirky’ thing. They stalked Jesus.

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”. When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.  Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”. They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”.  “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

John 1:35-39

I haven’t spent too much time thinking about what it would be like to be John the Baptist. As I read this passage I imagine it being such a joy to just say, “There He is”, and watch as person after person’s guard crumbles and tumbles to the ground. It must have been a joy to see them filled with awe, passion, devotion, hunger, love, desperation to be in the presence of the one they were made to worship with their entire being. They were thrilled to hear His voice and to have their lives forever transformed as they were even sent out from His presence, challenged and equipped to be powerful representations of the living God on the Earth.

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God Wants to Preserve All Lineages

If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

Deuteronomy 25:5-6

Many people have, in our modern day wondered why this was a practice back in the day. God believes in monogamy. Why would His people practice this? We usually assume it was for less than…noble reasons. The practice, which was not permission to establish a harem, has nothing to do with a man’s (not) freedom to take multiple wives. This was also more than a practice. It is a command of our God and King.

The reason for the command is given right there in the text: so that [the brother’s] name will not be blotted out from Israel.

God wants the names of all people to continue on forever. This specifically is talking about people of Israel, but those of us that understand basic New Testament Covenant know that Israel was a root that has become a plant, which we now refer to as the “Church”. God wants the names of all people to carry on forever, not just those that are Jewish biologically. We know it won’t happen for everybody but it’s still God’s desire. I would refer to this desire of God’s as a “value” of God’s or a “priority” of God’s or a “purpose” of God’s.

God gave this command so that all people’s names would continue on. He didn’t give this command because men can’t have self control. That’s a lie. The law is there to reveal what we should do even when we don’t. The law doesn’t accommodate sin.

Also this command is not about about marrying multiple women in general. Men can’t just marry multiple women. A man can marry his brother’s widow if he has the ambition to not only work to provide for his own family so they can enjoy their lives and carry on the family name, but to also do the same for his brother that has passed away.

The children born wouldn’t go by his name. They’d go by his brother’s even though they are biologically his. He wouldn’t be working to build up his own reputation or his own wealth, but rather his brother’s and that of his brother’s children. That takes selflessness. Anybody want to raise someone else’s kids? Anybody want to take your own kid and refer to it as someone else’s until the day you die? I really wouldn’t. That would be tough.

It’s interesting that in this scenario, the authority of the name given overrides the biology. God created the biology and is pleased with it, but at the end of the day He is the final authority over it, and can do with it as He pleases. It obeys Him, not the other way around. In this case the child’s identity actually becomes that of the brother that has passed regardless of its biology.

To me, all of this flies in the face of the atheist doctrine of “survival of the fittest”.

When I was a child I loved watching National Geographic. It was so real. I didn’t know how to describe the feeling, but it just felt so real compared to the rest of television. I loved the first version of Planet Earth by BBC. However, annoyingly, much of what is being shown on nature shows and series today comes chained to 2 core atheist dogma messages: the bigger males get all the females while the smaller ones get zero, and therefore only the genes of the fittest survive. These are both lies.

Nature can reveal some things about Jesus. Jesus taught in parables about nature consistently, but He did so as someone who knew what Heaven was like. He wasn’t referring to nature as a final authority or model for us to follow. The Earthly metaphors He used were merely used as a means of communicating something about Heaven to people that were pretty disconnected from it.

Christians have been taught that all people have sinned, but even more so, all animals have been corrupted by sin. We don’t look to animals to understand what’s natural and healthy for us. They aren’t the one whose image we bear. I don’t want to be like an animal when I grow up. I want to be like Jesus.

God created marriage to be between one man and one woman, and therefore for the names of all people to be carried on forever. He doesn’t want only the supposed “fittest” to survive.

Anybody can get fit if they understand their royal identity in the image of God and if they learn to act on their royal identity by making healthy choices. There’s nobody that is ugly or stupid. Maybe they’re out of shape and uneducated, but those are temporary states. Some people have not taken care of themselves and some people wear sadness or anger on their faces, seemingly permanently, but it’s not actually permanent. God the Father can heal our daddy and mommy wounds. I guarantee it. Dogma debunked.

God wants everyone to reproduce sexually. Maybe not until after He gets back, because we know we live in a tumultuous time right now, and the more people the world has like Paul the better. But it is God’s longing that the names of all people are carried on through their family lineages.

I feel so honored by that. I feel so fought for. God’s not willing that someone big and mean should steal my family from me and take multiple wives. He is willing that, if needed, my brother should lay down His life for me and my family and cause my name to live on forever. He wants me to be remembered with honor and dignity.

Did I mention that we are all as precious as the blood of Jesus?

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God’s First Act as King of Creation

I’m a believer in the fact that what we do and say first reveals our priorities. If my daughter is crying and fantasy football decisions need to be made, what I choose to do first often reveals what is of greater importance to me.

In Genesis 1 an account is given of God’s creation. Initially God created the Heavens and the Earth themselves. At this point they were kinda a blank canvas of sorts. The Earth was “formless and empty”.

The first thing God did that began to fill that emptiness was to declare “Let there be light.” When He said this, the authority of His voice was received and there was light.

As a child I didn’t see much significance in this statement. God turned on the lights. However when we begin to read the words of Jesus, such as, “This is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed,” (John 3:19-20) we begin to see that the act of turning on the lights is far more than mere procedure.

One implication I see here is that God let His creation see His process: the process of creating the rest of creation. He could have turned on the lights after creation was complete, and He could have done it with a grand “TA-DA!”, but He didn’t. I think we would all feel happy if our government was completely transparent about the results of their governing. However God took it to a whole other level and made His process visible.

When I was in college there was a man who one day walked up to me and asked, “What is wrong with me?”. He had some issues going on. I’m not sure why he approached me in particular, but I spent a few minutes with him. I spent time praying and giving thanks to God. The man spontaneously burst out into tears. I believed that was the Holy Spirit working in his life. I would see him from time to time throughout my years in college.

One day, a few years after we met, he told me there were drug dealers after him and he needed $600 to pay them off. I was on a neatly drawn up budget that my parents had given me, so there wasn’t too much wiggle room, certainly not $600 worth in a single month. I spent a couple days thinking and praying but still had no sense of clarity about what to do. I finally just decided to go with being generous and gave him the money. I was a bit afraid to tell my dad so I told my college pastor. He encouraged me to tell my dad before I found out if I was going to have budget problems that month, not after.

I followed my pastor’s advice. This did a couple of things. Firstly, it held me to a level of accountability that was not purely results oriented. In our modern culture we’ve discovered that, over the long run, taking the right actions is more important than getting the results. As the saying goes, “even a blind squirrel can find an acorn”.

Secondly, it created a level of intimacy between my dad and myself that we wouldn’t have experienced otherwise. I walked through this step of faith and courage with him rather than alone. My dad was clear I’d have to face the consequences of this without him giving me extra money, which I accepted. It actually turned out that my budget was ok because I had some savings and ate less quality food for a bit. Also, the man was able to get away to a smaller city and find a job and a more normal life.

There are many things in our lives that are in process. We’re all in the process of being set free from sin. It’s needed for us to invite a few people into that process. If you don’t know how to break free from pornography or other sin the answer is simple: invite people into your process. You are loved today. You are loved now. You won’t become more loved when you get the result. Invite people into your process. It’s not good to be alone.

God has invited us into His process, not just into believing that He is right because He gets the results. Make no mistake, He gets the results, not only for Himself, but on our behalf as well. However He wants us to be a part of seeing how the results are made. He has nothing to hide, and He doesn’t want to be alone.

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The Nature of and Consequences of Adultery

…live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer for human desires, but for God’s will.  For there has already been enough time spent in doing what the pagans choose to do: carrying on in unrestrained behavior, evil desires, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and lawless idolatry.  So they are surprised that you don’t plunge with them into the same flood of wild living—and they slander you.  They will give an account to the One who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.

1 Peter 4:2-5

The world is surprised that Christians don’t join them in their sexual sin. Occasionally some of us have found ourselves wondering what the big deal is.

Before we go any further I’d like to make myself abundantly clear: sexual sin is a very big deal. In 1 Corinthians 7:26 Paul refers to a “crisis”. I believe the “crisis” he is referring to is the rampant hook up culture of the day (See verse 2 in that chapter). It is similar to what it is happening in our own culture currently. According to the Bible, this is a crisis. But why?

In December 2009 the painting “Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo” by Rembrandt sold for 20.2 million British pounds. It was the first time in 40 years that the painting had been seen in public.

Generally when someone pays such a high price for an item, they aren’t doing so on a whim. They are doing so because they are invested in the item in some sort of permanent way.

This is the honor we all have before God: God has paid the highest price possible for us. Him doing this shows He is permanently invested in us. In doing this, God is also showing us what is normal as far as how people should be treated. We are all called upon to follow His example in the way we honor people.

If I were to purchase the painting spoken of above, I wouldn’t carelessly throw it in the trunk of my car, let it become sun stained, and possibly ripped. I would certainly hire private security in order to protect such a valuable asset. Such care is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how God expects people to treat one another.

People are worth being permanently invested in and they are worth treating with care. So much so that God sent Jesus to die on our behalf. He didn’t carelessly toss us aside. He was permanently invested in us even though it was painful for Him to be so.

All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah 40:6-8

It’s true that people are physically attractive, and there’s obviously nothing wrong with that or with noticing that. A problem happens when we start to believe that there’s nothing else worth living for outside of that sexual experience.

The verses in Isaiah tell us that not only is there something else worth living for, but that something else is something that is enduring. It will produce lasting satisfaction, not simply momentary gratification. Love matters: living in accordance with God’s Word. God Word calls us to love people: to be permanently invested in people.

If a man commits adultery, he is sending the message to his wife and his kids that, in his judgment, they are not worth being permanently invested in. He can try to rationalize it all day long, but the reality is that his sons and daughters will be in danger of believing that they will always be alone. Their father wasn’t invested in their mother. Why would they expect their spouses to be any different?

They should expect differently because Jesus has commanded us to make disciples, and there are and should be men and women out there who believe that adultery is a gross and weird abnormality that wreaks havoc on all it touches.

Unfortunately the message that adultery sends does not always fall on deaf ears even though it is a lie. The consequences of adultery include an increase in rates of homelessness and prostitution in the generations that follow.

People are worth being permanently invested in even when it’s painful or unpleasant. The Hollywood lie of a “loveless marriage” is demonic. Do not let anyone deceive you into thinking that you’re doing anybody a favor by not being permanently invested in them. Do your best to value them even when they don’t value you back. Who knows what can happen? With God all things are possible. He can and has taken marriages where there is zero love and caused them to blossom as people chose to love each other even when it was momentarily unpleasant to do so.

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You Are as Precious as The Blood of Jesus

Basic everyday bargaining and economic theory tell us that, to the purchaser, the object purchased is worth the price paid by the buyer.

We get a little uncomfortable applying this to humans, and rightly so. We just know that people are so much more unique and precious than a specific number of pieces of paper, even if that number is a very high number.

This is where the Cross of Jesus comes in. The Cross tells us that humanity is worth far more than any number of USD. Humanity is worth the blood of the God of the universe. The Old Testament tells us that “the life” of an organism is in its blood. When I say that humanity was purchased at the price of the blood of God, I’m saying that humanity is worth the life of God. At least to God we are.

Price is buyer specific. One person may only be willing to pay $1,000 for a particular coffee table, but another person may be willing to deem that it is worth $5,000. The same table has a different value in the eyes of different people.

In our scenario about humanity, the price of the blood of God has been paid by God. A convicted murderer in prison might not be worth much to us, but to God, that same man is worth the blood of Jesus. In the end God expects us to learn from and abide by such judgments.

Ephesians 2:4-5 tell us the reason that Jesus died on the Cross.

But BECAUSE OF HIS GREAT LOVE FOR US, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…

Ephesians 2:4-5

Paul isn’t disputing the fact that God is merciful. He is however stating that what drove Jesus to the Cross was His great love for us. He goes on in verse 10 of the same chapter to reveal that we are God’s masterpieces, His greatest treasure.

When humanity begins to understand how much God (the creator of all that is sexy) has paid for us, we will begin to have a profound sense of identity.

The price that God paid for us only points to something deeper: that we were created in His image to be His very sons and daughters. This implies many things, one of which is that we have the ability to mature and become like Jesus. However, far before we ever get to that point, we can see that as His children there is a preciousness with which He views us. That preciousness is marked by a willingness to pay the blood of Jesus for us.

No matter what we do or don’t do, no matter what we produce or don’t produce, no matter who we please or don’t please, our value can never be any more or less than what it already is. As I tell my daughter, “You are as precious as the blood of Jesus.”.

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Kingdom Worship

Generally as Christians, we know that something that makes us different than other “religions” is the particular person that we worship. However it also seems clear to me that in scripture Jesus has a particular character. He has “ways” as Psalm 103:7 tells us. He has ways of doing things. For example, the way He speaks is tender and always filled with love and truth, and that includes when He speaks to us, His people.

Similarly we know that there are certain behaviors that are healthy in a relationship for us as humans, and there are certain behaviors that are not. What is normal for God defines what is normal and healthy for humans because we were created in His image (Eph 5:1).

I’d like to go back to the Garden of Eden for right now and understand what God’s plan for mankind was. I do agree that God knew we were going to fall into sin. However, that fact didn’t preclude Him from telling Adam and Eve exactly how to avoid falling into sin. So we see that there was a plan, but that we interrupted that plan, and that God is in the process of restoring that plan today through the work of Jesus on the Cross, which was planned ahead of time due to God knowing we’d fall.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’”

Genesis 2:16-18

What we know is that God told Adam he could eat from any tree in the garden…except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The way I see it is that there are three main things in the garden outside of God and man:

  1. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
  2. all the other trees
  3. almost forgot: The Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9)

God didn’t give Adam any commands regarding the Tree of Life. The first time I realized that I was struck with a very profound sense of excitement and also a sense of freedom.

God didn’t command Adam and Eve to worship Him. He also didn’t command them to eat from the Tree of Life. It seems very clear that it was not God’s intention to force them into a relationship with Himself, but rather give them a secure place to live and secure resources in order to create the space in which He would woo them into a relationship with Himself. He was very confident in Himself that He could successfully attract them into worshipping Him. Command not needed.

It’s always been God’s plan to not force people into a relationship with Himself. Many of us are pretty confused by that idea because of, namely, the 1st commandment in the 10 commandments, as well as God’s promise to send some people to hell. We will come back to the thing about hell in my next post. In this post I’d like to examine the command to worship that was absent in the Garden but is now present today.

Lets contrast two scenes of worship in the Bible. One is about God and the other is about an idol. God is righteous. The human that crafted the idol was acting overtly evil.

And God spoke all these words:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
 You shall have no other gods before me.’

Exodus 20:1-3

This was the 1st commandment in the 10 commandments.

Next…

and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up?  Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?’

Daniel 3:14-15

This is from the story commonly know as Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3.

There are a couple differences I want to point out about a healthy worship relationship and an unhealthy worship relationship, beyond the reality of who is being worshipped.

Firstly, God rescued Israel before He commanded them to worship Him. There was no negotiating. He simply rescued them. He did what He was going to do, and He waited for a response from Israel. His love was unconditional.

Nebuchadnezzar required that they worship His idol before He rescued them. He held a gun to their head essentially. This isn’t a healthy relationship.

Many might ask about Deuteronomy and the promises of blessing for obedience and the curses for disobedience. I’d say that God was informing Israel of the natural consequences of staying under God’s covering or not. We are free to walk out from under God’s protection, but if we do, there is a lion out there trying to find someone to eat (1 Peter 5:8). As Paul tells us in Galatians, you will reap what you sow.

Secondly, Nebuchadnezzar is talking about being rescued from himself. Making promises of murder is beyond an unhealthy relationship into crazy talk. God is talking about rescuing Israel from “Egypt, the land of slavery”. He’s not bent on killing Israel. He’s not talking about saving them from Himself.

Back in the Garden of Eden, God didn’t command Adam & Eve to worship Him, but in the 10 commandments He did and today we have that same command. Why the shift? As with the rest of the law, we have that command because we needed and need a reminder to do things that God originally intended to be natural (like not murdering) before the sin nature became a part of us. God didn’t, all of a sudden, become egotistical or abusive.

The command to worship is not coercive: God gives us the time we need (2 Peter 3:9) to decide, just like He did in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.

If we refuse to worship Jesus, it’s the enemy that is coming to steal, kill and destroy us (John 10:10), not Jesus. Jesus came to give us life. This warning Jesus has given us about the enemy is not coercive. It’s simply a warranted warning.

God rescued Israel from Egypt, not from Himself (today He rescues us from the enemy and from sin and death, not from Himself). As God gave Israel her freedom back, He reminded her that He’s the one who rescued her, and that Egypt was not. He gave this reminder, not for His ego, but for her good. Don’t trust the person that got you into trouble. Trust the person that got you out. Don’t trust the abusive relationship.

Next post I’ll be writing about how this relationship with God provides us with salvation.

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The Relationship that Provides Us with Salvation

Many people think about going to Heaven or hell as a scenario in which God is holding a gun to our heads, coercing us to worship Him, and we just have to say the magic “Jesus” word or intellectually understand the propitiation and we will be rescued from God and His wrath. This view is categorically incorrect.

Salvation depends on one thing: a person’s response to the person of Jesus, and specifically the proposition of having Him as our lord. The idea of a “lord” isn’t something we exactly understand in the West. It’s basically the idea of Jesus being our owner or our boss forever.

Jesus’ ministry was not focused on warning people about hell. Jesus’ central message was, “Repent, because God’s Kingdom is within reach“. “Within reach” is my translation of what is commonly translated “at hand”. In this particular message, Jesus wasn’t warning people about hell. He was informing them and attempting to allure them with the promise of life in God’s Kingdom. We have a lord that doesn’t use threats but who wants to guarantee that we live in a paradise that is suitable for us personally because He loves us personally.

It is true that Jesus does acknowledge the reality of hell during His ministry. And while it was not the focus, I can see how it could be difficult for someone to not feel coerced by the reality of hell when considering whether or not to trust Jesus . I can also see how someone could find it difficult not to feel allured by the promise of life without sickness, death, or problems of any kind forever. Each person decides where their focus will lie.

Whether or not someone feels coerced, the fact is that nobody can be saved without trusting Jesus. Saying some magic words out of fear while not really trusting Jesus isn’t how you are saved, and forcing people isn’t God’s method.

God’s desire is for His peaceful Kingdom to come on Earth as it is in Heaven and to dwell here with humanity forever. If someone doesn’t trust God, it’s impossible for that person to be peacefully integrated into God’s Kingdom. They’re going to keep stealing, keep creating factions, keep looking out for #1 and keep starting unnecessary wars as long as God will let them, which won’t be forever.

This sounds kinda like works righteousness but it’s not. It doesn’t matter at all what you’ve done in the past as long as you’re willing to trust God now. And when Jesus comes back, there will be no devil, no evil, no death, no starvation. Practicing righteousness will be easy (Hebrews 2:15).

If you simply trust God, you are fit to be integrated into God’s Kingdom. You will bear fruit. When God gives you a command for how you need to act in order to maintain a peaceful lifestyle: because you trust Him you will naturally want to follow Him. You may not be perfect at it immediately, you may fall and stumble, but you will follow and keep following and keep being faithful until your training is complete (Luke 6:40).

Proverbs 24:16 is compelling. I’d like to note that all of the ESV, NASB and NIV, as well as almost all English translations translate the first personal subject in the verse as “the righteous”. It says:

“for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.”

Proverbs 24:16

This verse shows us that the righteous aren’t perfect. Rather, the righteous know God is worth pursuing. They trust Him. They are aiming at being like Him. They are aiming at righteousness, and when they fall short, they stand up and keep moving forward. They don’t make up their mind to permanently give up and resort to evil methods, as the wicked do. They don’t make up their mind to take care of #1 by whatever means necessary, as the wicked do. They don’t consider it a waste of time to serve God (Malachi 3:14), as the wicked do. Unlike the wicked, the righteous trust Jesus.

We see that salvation doesn’t come through anything mechanical that you can just perform. You can’t coerce God into saving you. You can’t do a dance, or say magic words or give enough money or be good enough. You have to have a genuine relationship with Him. You have to trust Him. It’s possible to perform morally to some degree without trusting God. You still aren’t getting into God’s Kingdom unless you trust Him (Romans 9:31-33).

God doesn’t form lasting relationship by forcing people or coercing people into relationship with Himself. Lasting relationship is formed through trust. If you are ready to trust God, God is already ready to trust you.

God is extraordinarily trustworthy.

Jesus died on the Cross. He literally had absolutely no legal obligation to do so. He is capable of peace. He lived, suffered and died as one of us and was at peace with all that He encountered, as much as it depended on Him. He can be trusted.

Some might say, “Well what if I am able to successfully create my own peaceful kingdom without God?” Are you willing to get to know Him? What will you do if you find Him to be trustworthy? All that’s being asked of you: trust at a basic level.

At the end of the day, it’s important to look at humanity’s history and see that there is no scientific evidence that humanity is capable of living at peace for any sort of extended amount of time or, as a whole, even for a day. At the end of the day it’s important to ask ourselves the important question: would I rather trust Jesus and have a world at peace or choose to exercise my perceived right to not trust Jesus and continue on with business as usual? Do you want a world of peace, or would you prefer a world without Jesus? To the sane, the answer to this question seems obvious.

None of us completely trusts God all of the time. We may not understand how God is working in this current evil age, and we may not like some of His choices, but at a very basic level, if you simply trust that Jesus is raised from the dead and you pledge allegiance to Him, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). Period. If God can raise the dead, He obviously has the ability to provide a lasting peace to all that want it.

You don’t have to do anything to get into God’s Kingdom except trust Him. That’s all. You do have to trust Him though. Can you really consider Jesus dying on the Cross a threat or a promise to kill someone or coercive behavior? That certainly wouldn’t be reasonable or logical. At that point it’s up to each of us to decide if trust is something we are willing to live with.

We see in 2 Peter 3:9 that God gives people all the time they need to decide whether or not they want to be in a relationship with Him, just like He did with Adam & Eve, and just like He did with the thief on the cross.

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What is Hypocrisy?

Many years ago, I think it was when I was in high school, someone at church told a story about a man who was at Bible study with his friends. People were talking about how they were hypocrites. The man commented that all they generally did was get together and talk about how they were hypocrites. I don’t remember exactly how this story ended or who it was about, but it strikes a chord with me years later.

If you get together with other people and genuinely lament the ways you aren’t meeting God’s standards…….you are not living a life of hypocrisy.

Please take some time to just hear this. Many of us Christians have been taught, often times by people that aren’t Christians, that we are hypocrites. It is true that Jesus had a particular distaste for hypocrisy and warned his disciples about it, but the big question is “What is hypocrisy?”. I realized a couple years ago that I really couldn’t pin down the definition of the word in a way that was at all clear. So I looked up some things about the Greek word Jesus used.

Using studylight.org is not too difficult. Using the interlinear study Bible is the basic tool that I have used most often. In Luke 12 Jesus explicitly warns His disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. The Greek word used here is transliterated as “hypokrisis”. I’m going to just list some of the meanings of that word that are given on Study Light. There’s obviously a lot of materials out there that we can dig into if we want.

“an answer or an answering” – this seems fairly innocuous at first. The problem with it will become more clear as we go on. I’d suggest that this indicates something akin to an “official statement”. It’s an answer. It’s not the reality or truth, and we generally know that it doesn’t tell the whole story.

“the acting of a stage player” – this can actually be taken multiple ways. The idea of speaking a predetermined set of words is similar to the idea of an official statement. The idea is somewhat worse though here because people’s personal lives here can be completely disconnected from the publicly staged impressions they are giving. At least with an official statement we know things about the person and their history to a degree. A good actor can portray emotions they’re not naturally inclined to have at all. Bad actors, however, at least generally have something in common with their characters. This, to me, implies a disconnect between the public and private life.

“dissimulation” – I don’t think I’ve ever used this word before. Its dictionary definition is “concealment of one’s thoughts, feelings, or character; pretense”. Some synonyms of dissimulation are: pretense, dissembling, misrepresentation, deceit, dishonesty, duplicity, lying, feigning, falsification, shamming, faking, bluffing, counterfeiting, posturing, hypocrisy, double-dealing, subterfuge…it’s all becoming clear now.

“implying arrogance and hardness of heart, utterly devoid of sincerity and genuineness” – this will be the last definition I list here. I think we all get the point. It’s an utter lack of sincerity. Words said in hypocrisy don’t represent the reality of the life or the feelings of the person that speaks them. It’s basically just lying. It’s making one’s character appear better than it actually is.

Sometimes people give lying a pass, as if it’s not really a big deal. I think that to Jesus and to us, His followers, it might be the biggest deal.

Jesus talks about yeast or leaven in the context of hypocrisy. Leaven is something that puffs bread up. I really enjoy puffy bread, but we see how it is made to appear to have more mass than it actually does.

In Luke 16:13-15 Jesus had the following interaction with the Pharisees:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”

What stands out to me about this is that Jesus is calling people out for seeking to appear better in front of people than they actually were, and for highly valuing that appearance, but not actually having a heart to please God.

In John 5:43-44 Jesus says “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?“

Again Jesus is calling people out for seeking glory from people, but not from God. God is not impressed when people seek to impress people but don’t seek to impress Him. Having a great public life but not having a life that pleases God isn’t impressive to God. Having a great reputation but not having a great character isn’t impressive to God. Why would it be? A building without a solid foundation is going to fall over. It’s not a good decision to continue building it, adding on to it and/or repairing it. It would be wiser to re-lay the foundation and start over.

The first thing that we need to have in order to have a solid foundation is simply to trust God. The following passage is about Jesus.

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

1 Peter 2:23

Jesus was without sin, yet He didn’t retaliate when He was attacked. Instead He…trusted God. He entrusted Himself to the one that judges fairly.

Often times people avoid being open about their sin because they don’t want to be attacked. This shows a fear of people. Jesus wasn’t like that. He just let Himself be known and let the cards fall where they may until God judged fairly.

If someone is living in hypocrisy, often the need is for that person to simply entrust himself to God by creating a clear consistency between his public life and his private life and facing the music as he does. For us God is not only the one that judges fairly. He is also the one who has mercy on us. We can trust Him. Also His judgments matter a lot more than people’s do and He will work everything together for our good.

Teaching the Bible while being imperfect is not hypocrisy. Unless you are giving the impression that you are perfectly living out what you are teaching or aren’t even practicing at all. If we could only teach once we’re perfect nobody would teach the Bible. It’s obvious in the New Testament that God is calling us to teach the Bible, and to not be silent even though we are imperfect.

However, if we teach the Bible, I think it’s generally incumbent upon us to be open with those we teach regarding the ways we aren’t living up to our teaching (people often times know anyway. See Matthew 23:12), lest we give the impression we are and we come to have a disconnect between our public and private lives. At the very least, if we aren’t even practicing, but we are teaching, I think there’s a pretty strong disconnect between our public and our private lives. We don’t want that.

When we have hypocrisy, number one, we come to lead a life Jesus has to oppose because it’s not safe for others to be around. Number two, what’s the point? God’s Kingdom isn’t actually growing in that life. God promises that if we confess our sins, He will both heal us and forgive us. He will help us get out of our sin and actually lay a stronger foundation in our lives. There’s no way to gain all of that, though, without being in the light. (see 1 John 1:5-10 and James 5:16).

Really as those commanded by God to make disciples and build the Church into maturity, it’s not an option for us to stop teaching the Bible. That’s the cowardly way out. Straight up cowardly.

We’re called to face the music by reading, practicing and teaching the Bible and then being honest with ourselves, God, and others about our shortcomings. This is how the Kingdom grows.

Don’t start suggesting that you’ve arrived until you’ve actually arrived. Show your respect for God by acknowledging all the ways that He doesn’t think you’ve arrived. Almost as importantly, be honest about your own dreams. If you are, you’ll recognize that even in your own judgment you haven’t arrived yet. God loves us in a powerful and beautiful way. When we know that, there will be no fear or shame attached to being honest in this way.

I want to draw your attention to one more passage before I conclude. Psalm 32:1-2 is quoted in Romans 4:7-8, but the end of verse 2 is cut off. They say:

Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.

Psalm 32:1-2

I don’t believe there’s a requirement to live a life free from deceit to be saved or to experience forgiveness. However we know from the verse in 1 Peter that if we actually trust God, we will be able to face public humiliation and that we will seek to please God, not people. If we can’t do this, do we really know that God forgives us? Or maybe we don’t think that God’s decision making and what He thinks of us are relevant for today’s world. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When we step into the light, the power of the Holy Spirit begins to work things together for our good whether others are on board with us being blessed or not. There’s only growth in God’s Kingdom. God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5-6). When we live in the light, we follow Jesus and we get into the flow of His Kingdom and His power. Sin loses its stranglehold on our lives because all of sin has its roots in darkness. When we live in darkness we walk away from the victory of Jesus.

We don’t have to go through people to have light in our lives, but the Bible commands us to open up to each other anyway (James 5:16). The light of Jesus-following community is the safest place we can be. We are free to stop pretending. When we do we find out who our real friends are.

Let’s live lives where there is consistency between our public and private lives and avoid hypocrisy so that Jesus doesn’t have to warn people about us.

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Innocent Until Proven Guilty

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”

– Matthew 18: 15-16

This passage typically has one more verse attached to it when we read it, verse 17. For the sake of this particular discussion, there are a couple things I want to point out about verses 15 & 16.

Jesus makes a reference to Deuteronomy 19:15 here. The cited text is about being convicted in a court of law. It says:

One witness cannot establish any wrongdoing or sin against a person, whatever that person has done. A fact must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

– Deuteronomy 19:15

We see here that if there is one person that actually saw a crime committed and even if that person is not at all confused about what they saw, one testimony is not enough to convict someone of a crime unless the person that committed the crime confesses. One witness isn’t sufficient evidence to convict. This implies that you need evidence to convict, not to acquit. When nothing has been “established”, acquittal is the default.

This tradition of “innocent until proven guilty” is a great tradition that is consistent with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord of all the Earth. As far as its origins within our culture, I’d guess that the Bible was a part of the process of creating it.

Regardless of the reasoning, we that know God know that His ways are trusted whether we understand His reasoning or not. Nonetheless I will speculate a little bit as to why, in God’s Kingdom, the accused are innocent until proven guilty.

It seems likely that God defaults to accusing nobody in the absence of hard evidence because God has respect for human life. Why punish someone that might be innocent? We are His masterpieces (Eph 2:10). He loved us so much He sent Jesus, God in the flesh, to die on our behalf. He clearly treasures us and is intent on preventing any one of us from meeting a justified conviction, let alone an unjustified one, and the punishment that would come with it.

This doesn’t mean we should be casual about investigating crimes. When a loved one has been betrayed, it is quite appropriate for us to consider finding out what happened to them to be a matter of urgency. However, this idea of “someone will pay for this and if nobody confesses, everyone will pay for it” isn’t in line with what we see in these verses, although it is common in corporate America, from what I understand.

In verse 15 Jesus is advocating for people to just confess their sins openly without having to be confronted by 2 or 3 witnesses. However, in the event that people choose not to opt into living in the light (1 Jn 1:5-7), we are called to be those that choose to opt into the light in our own lives by being real about what we know and what we don’t know.

Whether someone is a Christian or not, this principle of “innocent until proven guilty” is a blessing because of how it protects people, and in particular, people that are innocent. Here in the USA, let’s continue seeking to live in accordance with this righteous way of life.