Bye!

More Christ has been online nearly five years. And as that five-year mark approached, I’ve been thinking about how the blog’s been doing. What works, what doesn’t. That sort of thing. I concluded it’s time to shake things up. Myself included. New challenge!

So beginning Sunday, I’m blogging at Christ Almighty! (Exclamation point part of the title.) It’s a new site. Same writer: Me. And of course I’m bringing my worldview with me, and my emphasis on knowing and following Jesus. All you really have to do is point your browser to a different website.

Yep, More Christ is passing away. As will everything in this world.

Christian hospitality.

When C.S. Lewis wrote his book The Four Loves—a treatise on four ancient Greek words which mean “love”—he skipped a word, xenía. That’s a particular sort of love people show towards xenós/“[welcome] strangers,” also known as hospitality.

I find it odd he missed it, since it’s kind of a big deal in ancient Greek culture. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, his book of moral myths, he told the story of Baucis and Philemon, an old, poor couple from the town of Phrygia, who were the only folks to take in a pair of strangers. When Baucis noticed her jar of wine wasn’t getting any emptier, she realized the strangers were gods: Zeus and Hermes, actually. (And when Barnabas and Paul visited Lystra and healed someone, the Lystrans freaked out and assumed they were Zeus and Hermes, Ac 14.8-13 ’cause they knew their mythology.) The gods, in gratitude for their hospitality—and in ire at the Phrygians’ rejection—told ’em to run away, for they were gonna flood the town. Yeah, it’s a bit like the Lot story; Ge 19 one has to wonder if there wasn’t some plagiarism involved. But the point is, the Greeks knew better than to dismiss strangers. After all, as the writer of Hebrews warned us Christians, one might be entertaining angels unaware. He 13.2

Or Jesus.

New fruit!

Most Christians know Paul’s list of the “fruit of the Spirit,” those attributes of the Holy Spirit’s character which Christians, when we follow him, ought to produce. The list of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control Ga 5.22-23 isn’t comprehensive, but it’s a start.

Problem is, it’s much easier to indulge in the works of the flesh—our instinctive, self-focused, Spirit-opposing attitudes are as unlike Christ as anything. I’ll quote St. Paul; again, it’s not a comprehensive list.

The works of the flesh are obvious in anyone who is the following: Promiscuous. Unclean. Unethical. Idolatrous. Drug-hooked. Hate-filled. Argumentative. Overzealous. Angry. Partisans. Dividers. Heretics. Envious. A stoner. A partier. And other people like these. I warn you of them just like I warned you before: Those who do such things won’t inherit God’s Kingdom.

—Paul, Galatians 5.19-21 KWL

But for those Christians who want to indulge in these traits—and find cheap grace isn’t as useful an excuse as it once was—our wider Christian culture has invented two new “fruits” to accommodate them.

Hard and tender hearts.

Heart hɑrt s. The immaterial center of a person’s life-force. Used in the scriptures for one’s personality, will, intellect, memory, and feelings.

The ancients believed the heart was the center of one’s intellect.

If your mind was open to new experiences, new knowledge, new wisdom; if it was humble, changeable, or even repentant because you realized you were going astray; or if you just plain lost your resolve and didn’t know what you believed about anything anymore, this’d be what the ancients called a tender heart. Or one of the other words we use to translate rakákh/“tender”—soft, repentant, changeable, faint, or even fearful.

On the other hand, if your mind was made up, and nothing could move you further, this’d be a hard heart. Or one of the other words for khazáq/“hard”—in the positive sense, strong, courageous, holding fast, strengthening; in the negative sense, hardened or tough.

“Those who wait on the Lord…”

Hang on. Porting you to Christ Almighty!

A brief introduction to Hebrew.

No, I’m not teaching you Hebrew. Not yet, anyway.

It’s important to know about Hebrew, because the Old Testament (a.k.a. the Hebrew scriptures) were originally written in Hebrew. For that reason, here’s a brief introduction to the ancient Hebrew language.

We don’t know when ancient Hebrew first arose as a spoken language. Or where it arose. Best guess is it’s something the Canaanites first spoke, and Abraham came to speak it after he moved into that territory—for Abraham’s great-great-nephew Laban wound up speaking a different language than Abraham’s grandson Jacob. Ge 31.47 The first we hear of it as a written language was when Moses began writing down the LORD’s sayings in the 1400s BC. Ex 17.14 The first archeological evidence of written Hebrew dates from the 900s.

There are two kinds of Hebrew we find in the Old Testament: Early biblical Hebrew, and later biblical Hebrew.

The first letter to the Thessalonians.

1.1-5: The makings of a solid church. 15 Aug 2014 1.1Paul and Silas and Timothy, to the Thessalonian church, in Father God and Master Christ Jesus: Greetings. Shalom.

2We praise God for all of you, always. We can’t forget your prayers. 3We remember, before God our Father, your faith-works, your love-labors, your enduring hope in our master, Christ Jesus. 4We’ve known you’re brother Christians, whom God loves; you’ve been selected 5because our gospel didn’t come to you in only words, but in power, in the Holy Spirit, and in absolute certainty—just like we demonstrated to you, when you saw us among you.

1.6-10: The Thessalonians’ reputation. 22 Aug 2014 6You became imitators of both us and the Master, accepting the message in great persecution, yet joy of the Holy Spirit. 7Hence you became an example to all the believers in Macedon and Achaia: 8The Master’s message has echoed out from you, not only into Macedon and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone out everywhere. Hence we’ve no need to speak of it, 9for they give us the news about what sort of reception we had from you, and how you turned to God—from idols you slaved for, to a living, genuine God—10and expect his Son, whom he raised from the dead, appearing in the skies, Jesus, our rescuer from the coming fury.

Elsewhere, 25 January.

• I’ve taught previously that it’s okay to offer to pray for people. But Steven Fouse from Mundane Spirituality has another take on the matter, from the viewpoint of someone in the service industry. It’s a fair point.
• For those who aren’t clear on how God’s grace is compatible with God’s rewards for good works, Craig Keener has part of a good answer.
• Jonathan Merritt wrote on the tendency of Christian bloggers (heck, of loads of people on the Internet) to indiscriminately overshare. I know what he’s talking about; I get letters, from time to time, which I’m never gonna post on More Christ because they’re just not appropriate for a public forum. Public confession isn’t true confession, folks. It’s offering up your soul for entertainment. And judgment.
• A LifeWay survey, as reported by Christianity Today, has some new figures about attitudes on ethnic diversity in U.S. churches. Though more than 80 percent of the churches are still predominantly of one ethnic background, and 50 percent of the respondents agree that’s a problem, 67 percent figure their churches are doing all they can to encourage diversity, and 53 percent feel their churches don’t need to become any more diverse.

Elsewhere, 18 January.

• The boy who died and went to heaven in The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, didn’t. NPR reports he’s recanted, and the publisher is taking the book out of print. (I myself remain skeptical of such stories.)
• Pope Francis recently pointed out how wrong it is to mock other religions. Roger E. Olson went into greater detail.
• Tim Stewart at the Dictionary of Christianese tells us where televangelism came from.
• Karl Vaters at New Small Church on why churches need to update our methods.

New Year’s Day.

“December” comes from the Latin for “tenth month.” In 100 BC the twelfth month was February, and the first month was March. The new year began when spring did. But since the Roman calendar didn’t have leap years, over the centuries the first day of spring slid away from 1 March, and wound up on 20 March.

In 45 BC dictator Julius Caesar “reformed” the calendar, adding leap years so the solstices and equinoxes wouldn’t move around. He changed New Year’s Day from 1 March to 1 January—eight days after the winter solstice. And because the Roman calendar became Europe’s calendar—and the calendar of Europe’s colonies—it gradually became the world’s calendar. We celebrate the new year on 1 January because Caesar did.

Does 1 January have any other significance? Perhaps some religious significance? Nah. It’s a secular holiday.

This hasn’t stop Christians from trying to Christianize it.

Fruitless supernatural.

In many churches the pastor opens the floor to the people of the church for “testimonies”—kinda loosely defined. Basically anyone may get up and say a little something, sing a little something, preach a little, teach a little, and so forth. The pastor moderates.

Sometimes the pastor is a great moderator. And sometimes the pastor sits back and lets the church turn into the worst of America’s Got Talent. We get mini-sermons which go on too long and misquote bible aplenty. Or stories about “God encounters,” which are obviously just coincidences, but the testifier lacks the discernment to know otherwise. Or “prophecies” which aren’t really, tongues without interpretation, singers without talent. In short, pastors need to pre-screen the people coming forward. Some do. Some don’t.

Why do the humbugs come forward? For the same reason they try out for TV talent shows: They think they’re anointed. God gave them the ability to preach, sing, prophesy, or pray really well. (Or so they believe.) So these gifts need to be displayed where everyone can appreciate them. Why not church?

Meh. There’s a place for these things, and the church’s testimony time isn’t necessarily the right place. If you’ve ever had to sit through one of these testimony times gone wrong, you know precisely what I’m talking about.

However if you think that’s bad, it ain’t nothing compared to what the church of Corinth used to do. Imagine the entire service was like a bad testimony time. ’Cause that’s what they did.

The person who monopolizes the small group.

That’d be me. Hi there!

Seriously. When I lead a small group, it’s really easy for me to flip a switch from small group leader, to teacher. ’Cause I’m a teacher. Next thing you know, I’m lecturing students and disseminating information. Which is fine, if that’s the group everyone wants—if they want me to teach a class on theology, or Bronze Age biblical history, or how to analyze a bible passage, or evangelism methods. But if everyone wants an interactive group, where everybody gets to talk and share and get to know one another, I gotta avoid teacher-mode.

And when I’m in the small group, as a participant, it’s really easy for me to be the member who always has an answer, always has a comment, always has a question, always has a remark. ’Cause I don’t join small groups unless I’m interested—and if I’m interested, I’m gonna participate, and if I participate, I won’t do it halfway. If there’s homework I do it. Heck, sometimes I’m more prepared than the group leader.

What grabs your interest? Meditate on it.

Ever had something you were thinking about so intently, you kinda lost track of real life?

Doesn’t necessarily have to be someone, like a juvenile crush. It could just be an idea you can’t get out of your head. Fr’instance, the last scene of last night’s TV program was so unexpected, so thought-provoking, that you find you’re thinking about it when you should be paying attention to other things… “Wait, did I just pour orange juice on my cereal?” You were, as they call it, “distracted.” Or “had your head in the clouds.” Or “daydreaming.” Something like that.

Well, that’s meditation. You’re thinking about that idea so intently, the things of earth become strangely dim in the light of it. Happens all the time. The trick, of course, is to put that intense focus upon the things of God, and not just favorite people or memories or media.

Hermas: The Shepherd, 1-5.

The Shepherd written around the year 140, is one of the books of the New Testament Apocrypha, and for the next century many early Christians considered it scripture. It was written by Hermas, a Christian prophet, an ex-slave, and brother of Pope Pius of Aquileia.

1. Hermas sins, and is corrected.

The man who brought me up sold me to a certain Rhoda in Rome. Many years later I saw her, and began to love her like a sister. Some time later I saw her washing in the Tiber, and offered my hand to help her out of the river. At the sight of her beauty, I thought to myself: “How happy I’d be if my wife were as beautiful and good as she!” My thoughts went this far; no further.

A little later, walking the road to the villages, glorying in the greatness, splendor, and power of God’s creatures, I fell asleep and the Spirit carried me away: He took me to a pathless place where no one could travel. It was rocky, craggy, and running water made it near-impassible. Crossing that river, coming to a plain, I knelt down and began to pray to the Lord, confessing my sins. As I prayed the heavens opened, and I saw the woman I desired, waving at me from the sky, saying, “Hello, Hermas!” Looking at her, I said, “Ma’am, what are you doing here?” She answered, “I’ve been taken up to correct you of your sins before the Lord.”

Thomas à Kempis: Imitation of Christ, book 1.

De Imitatione Christi (“On the Imitation of Christ”) was an anonymous devotional, likely written by Thomas Hemerken (“Thomas à Kempis”) a century before the Protestant Reformation. It introduces people to the principles of Modern Devotion, to get us to follow Jesus instead of being content to just call ourselves Christian. Book 1 is titled, “Helpful thoughts in the life of the soul.”

1. Imitating Christ, and his contempt for the world’s useless things.

“If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness,” says the Lord. By these words of Christ, we’re advised to imitate his life and habits if we wish to be truly enlightened, and free from all blindness of heart. So our main job must be to study Christ Jesus’s life.

Christ’s teaching is better than all the saints’ advice. One who has his spirit will find a hidden manna in it. Now, many hear the gospel regularly, but don’t care much for it. They don’t have Christ’s spirit. Yet any who wish to understand Christ’s words fully, must try to pattern their entire lives on that of Christ.

Haven’t had the experience.

Lots of Christians are cessationist—they don’t believe God does miracles (or big miracles) any longer. He did back in bible times; they don’t accept he still does. Sometimes they have bible verses to justify their unbelief. Sometimes they don’t, but it matters not: They don’t believe.

Why don’t they believe? It’s not the bible verses. It’s their experiences. More accurately, their lack of experience.

They don’t think it happens because they’re convinced their Christianity is a valid Christianity. (And let’s give ’em the benefit of the doubt; it probably is.) Within their Christianity, they’ve never seen an honest-to-God miracle. They’ve never been on the receiving end of one.

Romans 8.38-39: God’s love is unstoppable.

I’ve been convinced neither death, life,

angels, leaders,

the past, the future, powers,

height, depth,

nor any other creation can divide us from God’s love,

which is in Christ Jesus our Master.

—Paul,

Christians interpret this verse one of two ways.

• Absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love.
• Absolutely nothing else can separate us from God’s love. We, of course, can get in our own way.

Your interpretation pretty much comes down to whether you believe you can lose your salvation.As I explained in my article on the subject, it comes down to whether we have a true and living relationship with God, or not. If we do: Absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love. If we don’t: We’re not saved anyway, so this verse isn’t about us.

Hope it’s about you!

Romans 5.8: In love, Christ died for sinners.

Because we were still sinners God, to put us together with him in love, had Christ die for us.

—Paul,

This idea that Jesus died to save sinners, not righteous people, doesn’t pack the wallop it used to.

It used to. Used to be a huge scandal. Pharisees figured they were gonna be saved because they followed the Law. Gentiles figured they were gonna be saved because they didn’t outrage the gods. Even many pagans still assume if they’re “good people”—however they personally define “good”—they’re automatically going to heaven, ’cause heaven is for good people.

But times have changed. The older generation of pagans still assume “good” merits heaven. The current generation, more and more, assume suffering merits heaven. And to their minds, sinning and suffering go hand-in-hand.

The unattended small group.

I listed the three things that’d prevent you from starting a group:

1. You; you don’t have time to lead one.
2. Your people; they don’t wanna come.
3. Your church leadership; they don’t want one.

Today, why people don’t wanna come to your group.

And believe you me, I’ve been there. I’ve led standing-room-only groups, and I’ve also led groups where nobody showed up but me. (And the next week, not even I showed up.)

Why don’t people join small groups? Well, for the same reasons you don’t join certain small groups.

• You don’t care about that topic.
• You don’t care for those group leaders.
• You don’t care for those group members.
• Impractical time.
• Impractical place.
• Ulterior motives—and they won’t get met.

And even after you meet all these concerns, people still might not come to the group, ’cause the unexpected came up. (’Cause it does. That’s life.)

Why I don’t want to go to church: No freedom.

Bit of a rant today. (Aren’t they all?)

One evening during prayer—when people will pray, but if they want to, they can sing along with the worship leader—we were singing,

Where the Spirit of the Lord is

There is freedom

I lift my hands to Jesus

There is freedom

Certain people in my church are fond of saying we have perfect freedom to worship God in this place. A little too fond of saying it. (What they really mean, I suspect, is they get to sing their favorite songs during the Sunday services.) That evening—partially, I admit, out of pure mischievousness—I decided to test the truth of that saying. I changed the next slide to

I shake my butt for Jesus

There is freedom

’Cause if we have freedom, and the Spirit leads, we can do that. Right?

I very quickly heard about it from the prayer leader. She was outraged. Mainly ’cause of the word “butt.” It wasn’t blasphemy, but it was at least lèse-majesté. Good thing I didn’t use the other word I was considering.

But… freedom! Don’t we have the freedom to shake what your mama done gave ya, for Jesus? Or to at least say so? Don’t we have perfect freedom to worship God?

No we don’t. Not in my church. Nor any church. People have hangups. We shouldn’t, but we do. And our hangups become our churches’ holdups. God is totally pleased with a diversity of worship expressions. We aren’t.