The Greatest Whatever

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In an age of increasing sensitivity to what people have been calling diversity and equality the use of comparative and superlative adjectives has become a hypocritical chess game. As a result, parenting has become a parental black hole. Leading has become figure-headed wandering. Excellence has been downgraded to “great efforts”, everyone takes home a trophy, and the truly great ones are hidden behind bullying, prejudice, and insignificant conflicts based on the love of gain, personal and national pre-eminence.

The colonial and imperial mentality with its greed and domination motifs, heroes and villains, still pops up from time to time, reminding us that humanity is what it is: a creature with options. The current Canadian furor about the word “sons” in the national anthem illustrates how thought leaders can pettifog, pretending to be aiming for the sky in recognizing diversity and equality. It has not dawned on Canadian patriots, to tease out how the First Nations lost their sovereignty, in Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, South America, and the Levant. Who are the heroes and villains in the great slave of Africans?

O Canada! Our home and native land!

True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,

The True North strong and free!

From far and wide, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!

Here is an example of the greatest nothing. Polls (for changing/against) report: 4/31, 594/5398, 3/9, and 12%/83%. Since when does son not mean offspring, adopted or otherwise, especially in a nation with an English language heritage? Since when does we or our not include the speaker (the singer)? What is Canada’s gender? Why is this anthem using 16th century pronouns: thy, thee? Millions of believers read and study the best-seller of all time in the same 16th century language as the anthem uses, the King James Version of the Bible. Just look up sons in the Christian heritage!

On the trail of the greatest we find all eyes looking back in time, way back, to ancient Babylon, the Medo-Persian empire, Greece and Rome, the first and second world wars. The present is irrelevant, because labelling anyone as the greatest other than a martial arts fighter who just knocked out the opponent runs the risk of calling someone a loser. To call something the greatest is to relegate another to “the pits”, and we can’t have that, can we? There are however men, women, boys and girls, all over the planet who are the greatest.

Malalal Yousfazai is the bravest victim of Taliban misogyny and backwardness. I could be wrong.

What label does Nelson Mandela deserve? What wreath will Barack Obama wear? Does not Winnie Churchill ought to have a crown for standing up to Hitler? Which of the trading nations will rise to the top of the list of Babylon’s prostitute daughters? Does anyone want to claim the title “Greater than Babylon the Great”?

We thought Solomon was wise. What is his legacy in connection with the revealed wisdom of his ancestors? We were sure that Moses was legislator par excellence. Where are his disciples today? We thought the caesars and Alexander were great. Where exactly is their squeaky-clean legacy?

By the way, doesn’t the biggest sword go hand in hand with the biggest shop?

And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. Revelation 6:4

And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. Revelation 18:23

And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: Revelation 18:11

The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, Revelation 18:12

And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. Revelation 18:13

Which nation will stand up as the refuge for oppressed people?

Which nation will take the prize for a religion (culture?) of intolerance of foreigners?

Which nation will stand up for the equal right of all its people?

Which nation wears the crown for its drug culture?

Who wields the biggest sword?

Who built the longest wall?

Where is the peace and security the United Nations is supposed to guarantee?

Don’t everybody stand up now.

Envelope please. The Oscar goes to ………………………….the greatest … magician who has … disappeared from the front row.

The search continues. Nobody wants to be the greatest any more.

Do I know You?

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Look at what they are saying about Yeshua!  Without a gospel filter – Biblical sunglasses – the path leads to the brink of a contradictory and unproductive life.  Remember how Peter opposed the Lord’s last journey to Jerusalem?  He thought he was on to something noble but he had no idea how much of a stumbling block (a skandalon) he was becoming.   Peter was not under condemnation; far from it.  He was a disciple under the Master’s intense scrutiny and tutelage.  Yeshua knew him too well.  The question of mutual knowledge is still relevant:  but it does not turn on how well do I know God, but does He know me.

Eager to find peer-approval we usually find ourselves saying yes to every proposal especially those that offer personal gain or comfort, but the road that leads to spiritual fruit and a graceful character is not on our fave list.  How can God recognize those who claim to follow His Messenger if they keep avoiding  the path?

An easy way to get people to say “Amen” is to say something that awes us whether it provides edification or some kind of  redemption or not.  Among the popular crowd-stirrers are “What God can do”, “God is the same, yesterday, today and forever”, “Only believe”, and the granddaddy of doublespeak “God is here in this room “.  We do not need deep Bible study to know that statements such as these are not absolute in their application to the Christian believer, and need to be interpreted.  For example: where do the  genocidal and xenophobic commands of God stand today?  Is swearing – the uttering of oaths – acceptable practice?

It seems that preachers have forgotten that Yeshua has something to say about what we have to say about Him.  We get audiences to jump and prance, sing and dance, and we declare that the sick are well and the bound are free.  In summary, we perform like the prophets of Baal on Mount Camel and like them we end up without a reliable witness.  What does Yeshua say?

If you want to spent your time on trances, healings,  exorcisms, and prophetic decrees, be prepared to hear “Do I know you?”

What is behind the preoccupation with physical healing if the Christian life is “all about the spirit”?  What is the point of God “coming into  a room” when His residence in believers is not on the agenda?  What is the point of telling people what God can do without an inkling of what He is doing?

The point of doing great things when you are a nobody, unknown to the Boss is that you are a like boxer punching the air, looking good at the weigh-in, but having nothing to show in the ring.

“Do I know you?” may be a mild disappointment when it comes from a peer or a superior, but when one comes to the great day of reckoning expecting a commendation for all the good stuff one has done the question is devastating.  “Do I know you?”  is a stiff rebuke to people who thought that all they needed to do in following Messiah and obtaining His approval was to accumulate brownie points for demonstrating miraculous powers, prophecy, and exorcism.   It is far better to rely on belonging rather than on performance.

Yeshua’s first disciples, after conducting a missionary tour,  were overjoyed that they could exercise power over demons, but Yeshua cautioned them and advised them that their priorities were in disarray.  According to Yeshua, they ought rather to be in joy-mode over the fact that they had been enrolled as kingdom citizens (Luke 10:17-20)

“I never knew you” is the last thing you want to hear from the great Rewarder.  So why don’t we get on with the love: receive it and serve others with it.  Let us carry on with the hope: receive it and inspire others with it.  Let us make our faith count: make sure, above all, that we are known.  It is Peter, the same, scandalous and brash big brother, who seems to have learnt this important lesson as we read in his letter.

For this reason, brethren, be all the more in earnest to make sure that God has
called you and chosen you; for it is certain that so long as you practise these
things, you will never stumble. 2 Peter 1:10

99 Words to Sanity

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‎The salvation equation, “believe on the LORD Jesus Christ ‎and you will be saved” is elementary. It is one of many faith sayings which, due to the lack of precision, have become part of the confusion of modern pharisaism.
The standard proclamation “whoever believes in Christ has everlasting life” ‎cannot reasonably be parallel to “believe and go to heaven”. Having eternal life is not the same as getting eternal life. Going to heaven is not the same as passing from death to life‎. Having life is not the same as living forever, but no one tells us these things.

Church Growth and Conflict

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Messiah assured the disciples that Hades’ pillars would not sway the church and it was not long after His resurrection that He gave them evidence of church dominion. Contrary to popular theology, the Church’s ascendency does not consist of ecclesiastical power over the secular organs of governance: that has been tried in ancient Israel, the Roman church and to some extent in the world – ruling empires all the way down to the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The so-called theocracies, whether Israelite, Islamic, or Christian, have not, advanced the cause of faith in God, the brotherhood of man, or justice. The conspiracy against Christ (Psalm 2) fell through without the Jewish authorities being aware of the effect of their actions on the success of the Messianic mission. The preoccupation with their monopoly over the lucrative temple services and the propagation of their brand of the Mosaic law by means of the alliance between Sadducees (priestly power), Scribes (academic power), and the Pharisees (popular examples of orthodoxy) helped to blind them to God’s moves and contributed to church progress.

The death of Christ provided an end to the embarrassment of the Jewish power triad and it effectively terminated the temple services and the sway of Mosaic Judaism. The shape of the conflict between God and all pretenders to the throne was decided and the later skirmishes between Judaism and the Way represent a lot of bark with no bite. The rise of opposition against the church would only foster growth.

If Sadducee pride came from the example of Zadok the resistance to Davidide power was ignorant, pitiful, and egotistic. Zadok was the anointer of Solomon. If scribal acumen had anything to do with Moses and the prophets (including David and Daniel) the world of Judaism was standing on its head and the scribes’ refusal to see past the rituals and interests of the temple served to make the Messianic doctrine take wings. What Christ had to say provided what the people had never found in all the Mosaic literature: grace.

This is what the deacon Stephen had that brought some African and Asian Jews to contend for Mosaic orthodoxy: grace plus wisdom and spirit (Acts 6:11). Luke tells us that “… they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God.”

They incited “the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council”. In the face of false witnesses and charges of blasphemy Stephen defended the Biblical record of Jewish resistance to God’s will. His accusers showed that they had no intention of allowing God to take charge of the temple and Jewish religious life. Change was the last thing they wanted.

They chose Moses instead of their Creator who had proved that if they had believed Moses they would have believed Him (John 5:46-47). The truth about what was really happening was too much for the council (Acts 7).
(51) Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
(52) Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
(53) Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

They plugged their ears even though Stephen’s defense was a recitation of the Biblical record. They had started a fight and showed that they could not fight fairly.

The death of Christ had brought accelerated growth to the number of disciples. The death of Stephen would have the same effect. A great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem followed, and the outcome was that the expansion into Gentile communities began in earnest.

Acts 8:4 tells us that “they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word.”
They lit up Samaria and made a connection with Ethiopia, and when the Jewish authorities ramped up their persecution one of their most ferocious agents, one Saul of Tarsus, ran headlong into the Risen Lord. This encounter resulted in Saul’s conversion and the successful gospel outreach of Saul and his companions into Asia and Europe.

The Church cannot be overcome. Conflict and persecution only increased the energy with which the disciples pursued their call. Like the attempt by Satan to bring about a regime change in heaven the attempts to impose non-messianic principles on the church have failed and will fail. Under such circumstances the Church can only grow and be strengthened.

New Testament Prayer

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An increasing number of believers have been expressing their conviction that prayer is an essential element of Christian life and spirituality. When we neglect prayer or pray without regard to the Biblical call and the crucial instruction offered by our Lord we miss a large portion of our heritage as children of God. Please see the document “Prayer in the New Testament” for a biblical survey (link below).

Prayer in the New Testament

The Kingdom is like a Royal Person

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Of course the kingdom of heaven shares qualities with royalty. Yeshua was very specific when he said that the kingdom of heaven was to be likened to an anthropos basilei. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants (Mat. 18:23)

What did Yeshua mean by adding king (basilei) to the definition of man’s likeness to the kingdom? To be specific, it is not a man or king that is like the kingdom of heaven, it is the actions of the man and the outcomes that help us see what the kingdom of heaven is like. We can see a that the kingdom of heaven is also not merely like a person, but is usually likened to a person who does certain things. In this case, the person whose activities mirrors or explains the kingdom of heaven is a king.
The pressure to make this a male ruling person is reduced by the very presence of an’thropos. Our Lord was not referring to a male ruling person but to a king-type of person whose actions help us understand kingdom accounting processes.

The details are quite ordinary and regular but the recommendation is strong and unwavering :the servant who could not pay received compassion, the loosing of his bonds, and the forgiveness of his debt. (27).

Our freedom is at stake if we withhold forgiveness from our contemporaries. The heavenly Father is watching this very thing.

The heavenly Father will lock you up until you pay what you owe if you do not forgive your debtors (32).

The divine accounting is more often linked with punishment than with pardon and release, but this parable establishes divine priorities with the idea that we must be ready to forgive because our own status depended (and depends) on divine forgiveness. This is royal character at its best. Christ on the cross and his followers on the road to life forgive. This is the spirit that defines the king and his children.

The Parable of Unbelief

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Even though the story of a rich man and a poor man has given life to several fables and apparently granted license for reports about death, Luke 16:19-31 is concise and conclusive Christian teaching about unbelief. The twists and turns of this fascinating parable do not obscure our Lord’s concluding remarks.

The challenges in interpreting this passage include the absence of God, the conclusions of the authority figure of Abraham, the contradiction about communication between the living and the dead, and the notion of rewards at death. Evangelicals are on some kind of theological crack drug which allows them to believe and make idols of fantasies that have been written by once-trusted pastors and thinkers.

Consider the fable that one is said to die (depart this life) and immediately unite with Christ but not with the resurrection body. If one knows anything about the Lord’s promises about the end of the age and the final victory the report is immediately filed under fabulous and phony. Death unites man with his origins not his destiny. There is no theology behind the “absent – present” deception. Believers are already seated with Christ in heavenly places. Resurrection unites man with his immortal body and this unites him with Christ who already has (is in fact the only person who does) an immortal body.
No one is departing this life to be with Abraham because that would be a godless destiny. This is a well placed jab at the notion of sleeping with ones fathers. Here one gets to sleep it the father of the nation.

Still it is Abraham who is the authority in the parable. He pronounces judgment on the tormented rich person, affirms the unbridgeable gap between the dead and the living, and denies request for the poor man to be messenger to the rich person’s siblings, reminds the tormented rich person of the pivotal roles of Moses and the prophets, and seals the fate of those who had not listened to Moses and the prophets by pouring cold water on the notion of someone returning from the dead as convincing evidence.
Since they had not listened to Moses a resurrected person would be of no effect. This was the other hit on the audience’s fun (vs 14).

To properly interpret this parable the gospel must be the workbench. There is no Abraham’s bosom in the gospel. There is no tormenting fire at death in the teaching of the apostles. Abraham is not the judge of humans neither in this life nor the next.

For the Jewish audience Moses and the prophets were the authority. For people who follow Christ the gospel takes the place of Moses and the prophets and unbelief has no excuse once one has heard the message of Messiah and the kingdom of God.

The stories about life in death seem to be grounded in the life “you shall not surely die”. If people can be directed to ignore God’s earliest warming then there is no reliable foundation for belief in a quality life in fellowship with God.
If creative and figurative language about human destiny can ignore the evidence about death and dying then we have no chance of being convinced about Messiah. The whole of Judaism’s pride was phony and ineffective. Belief in Moses was rare. Unbelief irrevocably sinks the boat every time and this parable sinks Judaism’s floating juggernaut. Yet Christian commentators have bought Yeshua’s creative genius but have rejected what He taught through the mouth of the fictitious Abraham. The love of money and the demise of the Law and the Prophets (vss 14-18) are the reasons for this parable and we will miss the benefit of a Living Witness if we are going to focus on fables and traditions. The risen Christ appeared only to chosen witnesses and there was only one Jewish official among them, Saul of Tarsus, whose witness established the sad unbelief of his Jewish contemporaries. Faith in God’s Son is still the only way to avoid torment .

Elbert Joseph, PhD
Helping God’s People Stay Connected

Quasi-theology

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Quasi-theology Under the Microscope

There is a lot of theology in the Bible and those who do not want to study it ought to stop pretending that they have a spiritual alternative. How many of us would like to be a Peter, always putting his foot in his mouth, or an Apollos who got a whiff of John the Baptist’s message and thought he was now in the Way? It seems to have taken a long time and the exposure of Peter’s Jewish biases for him to begin his journey to be a healthy pastor. For Apollos God sent Prisca and Aquila. Sadly there is no supervision of the pulpits today. People who say they are pastors, preachers, and teachers say whatever feels right, and especially what tickles the ears of the audience’s ear. God is not mocked. Ignorance of the text is no excuse: the apostles were at first mostly unschooled, but they quickly learned to speak and write with accuracy. The Church is more than a sideshow for worship and miracles. Mutual edification is the reason for the church to assemble, and the central and pervading message is the gospel: the Lamb for sinners slain. When we neither preach the gospel, nor teach the kingdom principles that Christ imparted to the apostles the church is in grave danger. Church has become in many places a place of get what you can, gain and profit, instead of humble service.

Here are two examples of quasi-theology that have come to my attention. It is not clear how widespread these are but they certainly call attention to pastoral skill-sets.

Grace is God Believers and Mercy is what Assists Unbelievers?

To Timothy, my loyal child in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 1Tim 1:2 (NRA)

To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 2Tim 1:2
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 1 Peter 1:3
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, in truth and love. 2Joh 1:3

*Raised is for Non-Final Resurrection, *Resurrected is for the Final Resurrection? (Greek verbs egeiro and anistemi)

  • and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” Matt 14:2 (NRA)
  • Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” Matt 28:7
  • And immediately the girl got up (anistemi) and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. Mark 5:42
  • because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9
  • But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 1 Cor 15:20 (and vss 4, 12, 15, 16, and 17, 42-44)
  • when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. Col. 2:12

ANISTEMI

  • because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:31
  • and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, Luke 24:46 (NRA)
  • not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. Acts 10:41
  • As to his raising him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, Acts 13:34

It is the writer’s prayer that you are not saying “Amen” to nonsense like this and this was written with the hope that you will alert your friends to these types of timewasting dangers.

If you have ever heard that salvation and healing were purchased at the cross, then watch this space for more on the atonement, the verb sozo (I save), therapeuo, ( I heal), and iaomai (I cure).

Elbert Joseph, PhD
Helping God’s People Stay Connected