Some Notes on Matthew--NT Journey

OK, we're getting closer to the New Testament Journey. Remember the point of this exercise is not just the get through the New Testament, but it's to dive in and allow God to teach us. So when you're reading, don't just read as if you're fulfilling an obligation. In John 5, Jesus is talking with the Pharisees and says this,

"You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."

As you work your way through the New Testament, don't fall into the same trap as the Pharisees, reading only to gain information. The whole New Testament is about Jesus, so as you read find life in Jesus.

A Little About the Order
Here's how I've broken down the NTJ. I'm starting with Matthew because it's one of the Gospels, which give us the most direct picture of Jesus we have. I could have had us just go right through the Gospels to start, but I wanted to break up the Gospels so we'll come back to them from time to time. Each Gospel has a different slant on the life and teachings of Jesus, depending on the audience or the writer. More on that later.

After Matthew, we'll move on to Acts, which is the continuation of the story. So by the time we're done with Acts, we'll have read through most of the events that happened during the writing of the New Testament books. After Acts, for the most part, we will be reading books in the order they were written. That way we can get a sense of the issues the church was dealing with as they developed their theology and practice through the years. As I said earlier, we'll come back to a Gospel periodically as a reminder of Jesus' life and teachings.

Why Four Gospels
Some people ask why we have four Gospels. If they're basically the same, why do we need four of them? In fact, couldn't it save us a lot of headaches from people who claim they contradict each other for us just to get our story straight? Well, the short answer to that is that we have four Gospels because we have a rich, diverse world.

Think about this for a moment. If it was so important to God that we all just get our theology straight and all behave a certain way, don't you think He would have just dictated a theology book and an instruction book and left it at that. But because God values relationship, what He most left us with was stories. He's saying, "Here's the picture of how God interacts with fallen humanity, now do likewise." In the Old Testament, we DO find those rules and regulations and look how that turned out! Paul says the reason the Israelites were given the Law was just to show how futile our attempts at righteousness are.

So the New Testament is the story of God interacting with fallen humans. It's the story of Adam and Noah and Moses and King David...and Jesus and Matthew and Paul...and YOU. No one tells a story the same way. Matthew, for instance is writing to Jews who have questions about this Jesus who claims to be the Messiah foretold in the prophets. John, on the other hand is writing to Greeks who are familiar with the philosophy of Plato and Socrates, so his writing is much more ethereal and reflects Greek thought. Luke is a doctor who has a great concern for the poor and oppressed. Each tell the same story, but emphasize different points and bring out different teachings of Jesus.

Different people have a different favorite Gospel. Philosophy students resonate more with John. Detail people and "bleeding-heart liberals" like Luke. Others like Mark for his simple, short and to-the-point style. It's OK. We have all four because we have different types of people. God knew that and provided for that.

A Look at Matthew
As I mentioned earlier, Matthew comes from a very Jewish perspective. The book was written by Matthew (one of Jesus' 12 disciples). Matthew was a tax collector. In Jesus' day, tax collectors were more than just IRS agents, they were seen by every Jew as a traitor because they worked for the enemy--the oppressive Roman government. The Jews were supposed to be God's chosen people, yet they were under the power of the Romans. The Romans knew the situation with the Jews around Palestine was tenuous, so they didn't figure having a Roman collecting taxes would be very effective. So they recruited Jews, who would exact taxes on their own people. Tax collectors could collect as much tax as they wanted. They would send a certain amount to Rome and keep whatever was left over. As a result, tax collectors were very unpopular and very rich.

Matthew left that life to follow Jesus. He wrote his gospel to Jews who were wondering who this Jesus guy was. So when you read Matthew, notice that he takes great care to reference the Old Testament prophecies. You'll read quite often in Matthew, "This was to fulfill..." This is also why Matthew is the only Gospel writer to include a geneology at the beginning of his book--tracing Jesus' roots back to Abraham. (Edit: Actually, Luke does include a genealogy that traces Jesus' lineage through a little different line. We'll discuss that when the time comes.)

In the book of Matthew, you'll also find Jesus speaking a great deal about the "Kingdom of Heaven." The other writers use the phrase "Kingdom of God," but because of the Jews' aversion to saying the word "God" Matthew uses "heaven" instead. The Kingdom of Heaven is actually a continuation of the idea of the Jews as God's chosen people. Israel was to be God's Kingdom, but in Jesus, God's Kingdom is now open to all and takes on more spiritual meaning as well.

As you read, you'll also find many references to "the Law." The Law is the Law of Moses given on Mt. Sinai. It was central for the Jews, and especially for the Pharisees--the most common religious leader of the day and usually Jesus' adversary. The Pharisees were fixated with the details of the Law. Jesus believed and followed the Law, but much of what He came to do was to clarify that the importance of the Law was not in following every little detail, but to focus on relationships (i.e. love God, love others in 22:34ff). Notice this theme throughout Jesus' interactions with the Pharisees.

Jesus' most extensive teaching is contained in Matthew. We find the Sermon on the Mount, a section of parables, as well as his comments on Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. As you read through Matthew, keep these things in mind and you'll have a much greater understanding of the book and of Jesus, which is the whole point.

The journey starts Friday.

Kory

A Little New Testament Background

We're just a few days away from starting the New Testament Journey so I wanted to make sure everyone has a good handle on what they're reading. For many of you, this is old stuff, for others it will be a complete revelation, but in any case, it never hurts to be reminded. What I'm going to do today is to give some general information about the Bible. Then one more pre-Journey post specifically about the book of Matthew.

When you thumb through your Bible, you'll see that it's broken down into Old Testament and New Testament. The reason it's broken down this way is because Christians see Jesus as the center-point of their faith. Everything before Jesus is the Old Testament (or old covenant) and everything from Jesus on is the New Testament (or new covenant).

The Old Testament is the history, law and writings of the Israelites. It extends from the beginning of time all the way through about 400 BC (before Christ). The Bible is a very Israel-centered book. The writers of the Old Testament and many of the writers of the New Testament were Jewish. So the themes of the Jewish people are prominent all throughout the Bible.

The Jews were God's "chosen people." What were they chosen for? Were they chosen because God loved them more? Were they chosen because they were more holy and righteous than any other people group? No, not really. They were chosen just because. Some of it had to do with Abraham's obedience, but ultimately the Israelites didn't earn their chosen status.

What were they chosen for? When we read the Bible, we see that the Jews were not chosen just to enjoy God's blessing, but so that they could be a blessing to the rest of the world. How did they bless the rest of the world? They carried the lineage of Jesus. Jesus is the blessing of the world.

Because God chose to bring about Jesus through the Jews, He protected them, He commanded them not to associate with other people groups or religions, He wanted them to be pure. In the Old Testament, much of this purity happen through The Law. When you read the New Testament, you will see references to the Law quite often.

The Old Testament law (or Law of Moses) was the Law given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Each Israelite was expected to keep the Law which included both ethical commands (i.e. the Ten Commandments) as well as instructions for ritual purity (i.e. ritual hand-washing, offering sacrifices, kosher laws, etc.). In the Old Testament, you see the covenant God made with the Israelites, "If you keep my commandments, I will protect you." That's what we refer to as the Old Covenant.

But if you're familiar with the history of Israel, ultimately they did not keep the covenant with God, so God allowed Assyria in 722 BC and Babylon in 586 BC to take Israel into captivity, ultimately displacing the Jews from Palestine. This, of course, was a great shock to the Israelites, who saw themselves as God's chosen people. How could God allow them to be taken into captivity?

At the time of Jesus, there was again a strong Jewish presence around Palestine and particularly in Jerusalem where the Temple stood. The Temple was the center of the Jewish religion and so you'll see much of what Jesus did was centered around Jerusalem and the Temple.

In case you didn't know, Jesus was born some time around 0 AD. I say sometime because the reality is that we don't know exactly when Jesus was born, but it's somewhere around there give or take a few years. He was born into a political and religious powder-keg. The Roman Empire was going strong. The Jews were bitter toward the Romans and felt oppressed. This was the environment of Jesus.

The Jews had the Old Testament. That was Jesus' Scripture. Of course, the New Testament had not been written yet. The New Testament began to be written around 45-50 AD or 12-15 years after Jesus' death and ascension. Remember that the New Testament was not written as one book by one author all at the same time. But instead it's a collection of books written by Jesus' disciples or people closely associate with His disciples as well as the Apostle Paul, whose situation is a little different than the others as we'll read in the book of Acts.

The different books were copied and distributed to the different churches that had formed around the Empire. So for instance, the books of 1 and 2 Corinthians were letters written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth (in modern-day Greece). Since Jesus wasn't still around to teach them, the church in Corinth found them to be valuable teaching about their new faith, so they would copy them and pass them along to other churches. As time went on, the collection of books grew and they were eventually all bound together to form what is now our New Testament. The collection of books that were bound together were the book that the church found to be authoritative and consistent with the teachings of Jesus as well as the Apostles.

At the same time, there were other books being passed around that were not included in the New Testament. The books that were not included were rejected for various reasons. For some, the author couldn't be verified, for others the teachings in them were clearly false or were just not consistent with the teachings of Jesus or the Apostles.

We read the New Testament (as well as the Old) as the Word of God. We believe it is inspired by God and still relevant for our day and age. Even though the books were written a couple thousand years ago in a particular situation, human nature has changed very little and we find the insight into the human condition found in the Bible to be just as relevant and useful as it was then.

Certainly there is much more that could be added here and I will certainly provide more background information as we continue reading, but let this serve as a quick primer on what we'll be spending the next year reading.

NT Journey--Getting off to a Good Start

OK, I promise I won't carry the "journey" motif too far, but there is a sense in which seeing ourselves as on a journey is helpful for us. First, we have to remember that what we're doing here will take us an entire year. If you're like me, it's pretty hard to stay focused on something for 15 minutes, let alone an entire year! But that's what we're doing here. In order to accomplish what you set out to accomplish, you have to remember at the outset that this is going to take a while.

We're always excited about the idea of things, but often less excited about doing the thing itself. So you're excited about the idea of being able to say, "I've read through the entire New Testament," but in order to be able to say it, you have to be willing to do it.

Now, we could certainly read through the New Testament in much less time than a year. For goodness' sake, my wife will read a good novel in an evening! The New Testament isn't that much longer than a novel. But we'll take much longer than that with the NT because our purpose in reading it is different. The purpose of a novel is entertainment--that's pretty much it. They may be thought-provoking, but ultimately a novel is mostly just a story that people are interested in.

I've never thought there was much point to being able to say "I've read all the way through the Bible." I don't think the Bible is meant to be read that way-as if there's something magical about just reading the words thinking somehow just by reading your life is going to be better. As John Ortberg says, "The point is not to get through Scripture, but to get Scripture through you." I think that's the whole point and why we're taking an entire year to go through the NT.

One chapter is really not that much to read on any given day. So what I will encourage you to do is not just to read one chapter one time and call it a day. Read the day's chapter a few times. Read it fast, then read it slow. Read it in light of the chapter before it. What's the point that Jesus or Paul or Peter is trying to make? How do the events of 2000 years ago relate to what's going on today? Hopefully, I'll be able to add some valuable background on the passages, but be sure to wrestle with them yourself. Don't just take my word for it. Do your own research.

Finally, the goal of reading Scripture is transformation, so pay particular attention to how the passage sheds light on your life or the world around you. First a warning: while we will ultimately try to apply Scripture to our lives, don't fall into the trap of only asking the question, "what does this mean to me.?" The second rule of reading Scripture is to remember that the Bible was written for us, but it wasn't written to us. When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he had in mind the church in Corinth, not you. What he said to the church in Corinth can certainly be useful to all of us, but sometimes in our efforts to find application to our lives, we make a passage say something it was never intended to say. So first we'll try to figure out what a passage meant in its original setting, then we can take the principle from it to apply it to our lives. (I'll beat that drum all year long.)

Allowing the Word of God to transform our lives is the ultimate goal, so don't put the goal of getting through the NT ahead of transformation. Next post, I'll give some background on the New Testament, it's relationship with the Old Testament, and other helpful tidbits as we prepare to get started on January 1st.

The New Testament Journey

I know I've often taken it for granted that I know the Bible pretty well. I grew up going to church three times a week (at least) and spent much of my childhood memorizing and having drilled into me large chunks of the Bible. When I went to college, a good number of the classes I took were Bible classes, then four more years of Bible classes in seminary. I even learned to read the Bible in it's original language--which I've since mostly forgotten. Yet as much as I've read and as many classes I've taken over the course of my thirty-some-odd years, it seems every time I open the Bible, I gain something new.

We all find it hard to be motivated to continue reading the Bible. I would guess that if someone said they would give us a million dollars if we read a chapter a day for a year, that would be motivation enough. But why should that be the best motivation for us? Isn't life-change or a greater understanding of our Creator and Father enough motivation for us? It should be, but there's something about the immediate tangible rewards that seems to work better.

With this in mind, I'm inviting you to join me in the New Testament Journey. I've put together a reading plan, beginning January 1st to read one chapter in the New Testament every week day (yes, you get the weekend off). Here's how it will work:

First, fill out this quick online form to gain access to the New Testament Journey page on the Hillside Community Site. Here you can see the reading calendar and even download the calendar to your Outlook or smartphone so you'll have it with you. (you'll need a Hillside Community login to do this).

Second, you can also download a printable version of the reading plan to put in your Bible. (which should be available in the next day or two).

Third, check back on my blog to learn some history, background, commentary and other insights on the passages. I'd also invite you to comment about the insights you gain from the passage as well. I can't guarantee I'll post every day, but I'll do it as often as I'm able.

Before the new year, I'll post a quick explanation of the Bible that will be helpful for those of you who consider yourselves completely Biblically illiterate. This should help you as you dive into the New Testament for the first time. There may even be some helpful stuff for those of you who already know the Bible pretty well.

As always, if you have questions, feel free to e-mail me.

Kory

The Spice of Life

When we read scripture, we often have a terrible habit of paying attention to the verses and sections. When the Bible was originally written, it didn't have the section and paragraph breaks. In fact, Greek didn't even have punctuation to separate one sentence from another, let alone paragraphs and chapters and verses.

Now usually, the editors do a good job of breaking things up. They'll usually leave a complete thought a complete thought. But sometimes, even a paragraph break can throw us off. I think the break between Matthew 5:12 and 13 is one such break. When we read this section, we typically read the Beatitudes as if they stand alone, then verse 13 starts a completely new section, only minimally related to the Beatitudes.

What I hope you'll see today is that what Jesus says in verses 13 through 16 is inseparable from the Beatitudes. Without verses 1 through 12, we are tempted to think that the way Christians are "salt" and "light" in the world is by fighting in the political arena for our beliefs and correct doctrine and making sure the Ten Commandments stay in courthouses.

But when we read verses 13 through 16 in light of verses 1-12, we see a different picture. The Beatitudes are Jesus' new proclamation about the nature of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God in so many ways is diametrically opposed to the way the world does things. The world is about pride and confidence, the Kingdom stands up for the poor in spirit. The world is about boldness, the Kingdom finds strength in meekness and humility. The world is about coercion and deception, the Kingdom is about purity of heart. So many things about the Kingdom are so different from the world, it's often hard to see how they can co-exist.

So as we read Jesus' challenge to be "salt," we must read it in light of the Beatitudes. How are we salt? Is it by buying into the latest ideas of the world? Not really. Is it by fighting the way the world does? Not at all. But the way we are salt, is by living out the radical, self-sacrificing love of Jesus in the world. We are salt when we love our enemies. We are salt when we, in real and practical ways, stand together with the poor and broken. We are salt when we, more than anything else in life, seek out right relationship with God and our neighbors.

That means not buying in to the culture that tells us we have to have the best job, the nicest house, the most "successful" and athletic kids or the busiest life. It means we become willing to sacrifice the "stuff" of life for the people in our life.

Salt is important in our day, but it's not nearly as important as it was in Jesus' day. For us, salt adds flavor (and usually iodine) and that's it. But salt was a hot commodity in the ancient world. Salt did two things.

The most important use for salt in Jesus' day was as a preservative. Today we have refrigeration. Back then they had salt. When someone would kill an animal, seldom could they eat the whole thing before it went bad and killing a cow for one meal was awfully expensive--even for us. So when they would kill an animal in order to eat, they would take what they needed and cover the leftovers in a thick coat of salt. The salt would preserve the meat long enough not to let it all go to waste.

As a citizen of the Kingdom of God, how are you partnering with God to preserve the world? Of course, this requires activity. As saw earlier on the post on compassion, it's not enough just to feel compassionate or feel like you should work to preserve the world. What matters is that you actually make practical, proactive steps to do so. How do you do that? You embody all the values of the Kingdom Jesus mentions in the Beatitudes.

The second thing salt does is it adds flavor. Now too much salt is not a good thing (as my son finds out every now and again when he tries to apply his own salt), but in just the right dose, it enhances enjoyment.

I think this also applies to our job as Kingdom people as well. Our job is not necessarily to overpower other people's gifts until all they see is us, but to help them understand who God created them to be. People will get more enjoyment out of life when they're living out who God intended them to be. I'm not talking about God planning out people's lives, I don't believe that's the case. But what I am saying is that he created each of us with unique gifts, interests, passions and dreams. Over time all these natural, God-given qualities tend to get overrun with the expectations people have for us or the inevitable failures of life. When these things happen, we begin to feel that we're something other than God's intentional, good creation.

As Kingdom people, we can breath life back into dead people by reminding them of who God created them to be. I think the Beatitudes, one by one war against the very things that try to convince us that we are not good enough or that somehow, God made a mistake in creating us. If believers actively live out the Kingdom and seek to be salt in the world, we fulfill all that God intended for us.

How are you living out Jesus' teaching to be salt in the world? What keeps you from stepping out and being proactive?

In good company

At the end of the Beatitudes, we have the only couplet that is explained further. For those who don't know, a couplet is a type of poetic verse that contains two lines that complete a thought. In the Bible, we usually find the two lines contrasting with each other--especially in the Proverbs. In the Beatitudes, we find the couplets that are cause and effect. "Blessed are...FOR they shall..."

The last line breaks up the couplet streak by expounding more. The couplet I'm talking about is in verse 10, but the thought continues on into verses 11 and 12.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The second part (verses 11 and 12) are actually an explanation of verse 10. What does it mean to be persecuted? Why should anyone think persecution is something to be celebrated? In an earlier post, we looked at what it means to be righteous. Suffice it to say (if you haven't read it) that righteousness is a relational term. It's not about following rules to the "t." It's about being in right standing with God and the people around us. When we're in perfect relationship with people, we are complete. We are what God intended us to be. When our relationships are broken, we are broken.

Looking at righteousness in this way, it seems as though Jesus is talking about persecution that comes about because of our right relationships--particularly with God. But here's the real kicker. It's because of our relationship with God that we allow ourselves to be persecuted in the first place. Here's what I mean.

When I am in right relationship with God, when I live as a citizen of HIS Kingdom, I do things His way. His way is the way of the "peacemakers." His way is the way of the merciful (and we show mercy, not just to people who are our "side," but we show mercy to everyone. Later in Matthew, we'll read that Jesus challenges us to love our enemies and "pray for those who persecute" us.

If I am inclined not to do things God's way, I don't allow myself to be persecuted. For one thing, I might hide or downplay the thing--like a particular belief--I would be persecuted for. Or, on the other hand, I may become "militant" about my beliefs, challenging and fighting against anyone who would dare disagree with me. This second way was the way of the zealots.

The zealots were Jewish freedom fighters. They, like most Jews, were tired of the Roman occupation and believed that God gave them a mandate to fight against their captors. The zealots were also expecting that the Messiah would be a political or military ruler that would overthrow the Romans and against establish Israel as a free nation--God's people. But of course, when Jesus came, He redefined everything they believed about the Messiah

For the zealots, winning was conquering. For Jesus, victory came only in laying down His own life for His "enemies." So when we're persecuted, whatever that persecution is, we don't come out with the gloves on. We love our enemies and pray for our persecutors. When we do, Jesus says we're in good company and great is our eternal reward!

Are we "passivists?"

Continuing through the Beatitudes, we've come to "blessed are the peacemakers." This is another one that we would be tempted to say Jesus wants us to be peacemakers. I think it's actually true that Jesus does want us to be peacemakers. We'll get to the "blessed" (good news) part later, but first, let's talk about peacemakers.

We're all familiar with the debate over war and peace. I would guess that most people would come down on the "just war" side--that there are just times when war is a necessary evil. The question I've wrestled with over the last couple of years though is if it's ever OK for Christians to resort to violence to solve anything. More and more, as I look at the teachings of Jesus, I'm thinking more and more the answer is "no." This particular beatitude is one reason why.

The most popular (and most convincing) argument against "pacifism" is that we are called to defend the defenseless. Pacifists are seen as "passivists." This is why, more and more people are abandoning the label pacifism and turning to something like "peace theology." True peace theology, in the spirit of Jesus is not passive, it's very active. Peace-makers are not passive when it comes to justice for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, etc. In fact, I would go out on a limb and say that peace-makers are much more concerned with issues of justice than most people who condone war in its various forms.

While many peace theologians will respect a government's authority to "wield the sword," they would say it's never appropriate for a follower of Christ to do so. Governments can be very effective at achieving their goals through the use of force. The goal of government is self-preservation and the well-being of its people.

I guess you could also say that the goal of the Kingdom of God is also self-preservation, but the difference is that I believe when the church turns to the sword to advance (like in the Crusades and Inquisition, et al.) it actually ceases to be the Kingdom of God and becomes something else-it becomes another king of Kingdom.

But you might ask, "How can the Kingdom of God (or Kingdom people) possibly achieve any kind of justice without resorting to using force or coercion?" Great question, I'm glad you asked. Very well, actually. The concept is very simple, but it's not easy, nor is it quick.

I like the way Greg Boyd frames the conversation. He says the power of the state is "power over." It's coercion. It's the sword (or gun). It's passing legislation. Now there may be a place for these things. In Romans 13:4ff, Paul tells us to submit to our "secular" government because "he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. he is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer..." General George Patton once said, "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." That's "power over," and its the power of government.

But the power of the Kingdom is "power under." It's Jesus emptying Himself of all the perks and powers of being God and living among the poorest of the poor. It's wrapping a towel around Himself and washing His disciples feet. It's Jesus bringing "justice" by going to the cross and dying for us.

Power over squashes people. Power under lifts people up. Power over forces others to bow down. Power under kneels before others in order to lift their head. In Matthew 20, Jesus describes the difference between the two approaches when He's teaching His disciples:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great mong you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

So while the "power over" stance of government may fight injustice a certain way, by laws, coercion, etc. The Kingdom fights injustice, but does it in a much different way--incarnation. Power over creates an "us vs. them" mentality. WE are the good guys, THEY are the bad guys. Power under always seeks reconcilliation. So rather than simply punishing the bad guys, Kingdom people become willing to stand with the victims; to identify with them in their struggles and oppression.

When the church has tried to do it any other way, they may have saved some from oppression, but became oppressors themselves. I would argue that this is reason enough for Christians never to resort to coercion, manipulation or violence. Coercion, manipulation and violence do not breed peace. Only peace breeds peace.

But here's the catch; peace, as a means takes time. Coercion and violence can bring about quick results, but will be unsustainable. Grace and peace will always take more time, but will be much longer lasting. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, "Love never fails." It may SEEM like it's failing, but the reality is that peace works from the inside out. If we have peace on the inside, it will follow on the outside as well.

This is why Jesus says in the Beatitudes, "I have good news for the peace-makers." They need good news because it's just those who see peace as a means, not just an end that may become discouraged because the results are slow in coming. In fact peace-makers will suffer more and even die in their efforts to bring peace and justice, but their suffering and death will never be in vain.

Jesus' words are meant to encourage those who may be tempted to think they're going about things the wrong way. While the violent and the politicians are thriving, the peace-makers are doing things the Kingdom way and seem to be achieving nothing. Ultimately, they are the children of God. The children of God have observed and learned to do things the way their Father does them. Whether they "achieve" what they set out to achieve or not, their reward is to hear their heavenly Father congratulate them for a job well-done.

How to get rid of double vision.

I have a friend who has just about perfect vision, but still wears glasses. No, it's not because he thinks he looks good in glasses. Sure, he's a good-looking guy, but that's with or without glasses...anyway. The reason he wears them is because without them he sees double. I'm not sure if they really know why, they just know that if he wears lenses that are prisms, he sees just fine. So his glasses have no prescription, just prisms.

Some things are better in twos. Bicycles are better than unicycles. Eyes are better when you have two. So are legs. Anyway, you get the picture. Sometimes two is better. When it comes to vision, however, you only want to see one. When it comes to the Kingdom of God, one is definitely better than two.

In Matthew 5:8, Jesus says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." The obvious question to ask here is what does it mean to be pure in heart?

In the Beatitudes, when Jesus says "pure," it uses the Greek word katharos. This is the origin of our word "cathartic." We often think of the word cathartic in terms of therapy. What it actually means is to purify, to get rid of all the things that don't belong and return something to its original state--the way it was intended to be. When everything is in its place, everything works right.

Of course the heart, both in Jesus' culture and ours represents the center of our being-both physical and spiritual. When we see someone who's unconscious, what do we check? We check for a pulse, of course. The heart is what makes us go.

So what Jesus is saying is "Good news for all you whose hear is free from all the things that don't belong there." The key to the Beatitudes is to remember that it's not that God will reward the people who are pure in heart or poor in spirit, etc. but this is just the way things work in the Kingdom of God. It will certainly feel like a reward, but the good news Jesus talks about in the Beatitudes are the natural result of Kingdom living.

Of course, the natural result of living with a heart free from impurities is a clear vision of God. But when our heart is corrupted by impurities, our vision of God is also impure. It's almost as if our heart is the lens through which we see God.

How does it work? Well, if my heart is basically set on God, but a little on my desire to be rich, it might result in me seeing God as the means to financial gain. "God wants me to be rich," I'd say, ignoring the stern warnings Jesus gives about love of money. If I allow sex to be close to the center, I may think God doesn't really care about pornography or lustful thoughts. If I have bitterness in my heart, I might have a judgmental attitude thinking God sees me as right despite the evidence that's obvious to everyone else.

Of course, this exposes a dangerous catch-22. I continually amazed at the number of people who can be so sure they see or rather, hear God clearly. Often, no matter what someone else says, they're so sure they hear Him right. They've made up their mind and no amount of counsel will convince them otherwise. Such situations emphasize the importance of two things: submission to Scripture and Christian community.

The Bible gives us the clearest vision of God of any other source. It's not a secret message-it's right out there for anyone to read and study and discuss. But what's important is that we're willing to submit to its message; its entire message, rather than picking and choosing what we read or study. This is why it's also important to study scripture together. We learn from each other. It's in hearing other perspectives that our biases and "impurities" are exposed.

When I rid myself of these impurities I can see God clearly. When I can see God clearly, I can look at myself clearly and honestly as well. It's only then I can be who God created me to be and my double-vision will disappear.

Feeling bad won't get you to heaven!

True or False: It's the thought that counts? If you think it's true, try to explain that to the homeless guy who hasn't eaten today. Is it really the thought that counts? Can your thoughts miraculously make a sandwich appear in his mouth? This is the question that is at issue in Matthew 5:7.

If you really want to study the Bible in-depth and pull out all of the nuances of what it says, it's helpful to know how to use the Bible study tools (or know the original language, but how many of us really know that). Matthew 5:7 is a case in point. In the English language today, we don't use words very precisely, so when a Bible translator wants to express the full thought behind a Greek word, he's left with limited options. Many times, these limited options can leave us confused.

One great example that's pretty well, known is the word "love." In English, I can use the word love to describe how I feel about my wife or how I feel about peach smoothies; exact same word. If I were to guess, you would probably know figure out that I don't treat my wife the same way I treat a peach smoothie (and vice versa).

In the Greek language, however, there are three different words for love...eros, phileo and agape. "Eros" is where we get our word "erotic." It's the sexual, sensual form of love. "Phileo" is the root of the word "Philadelphia Cream Cheese (which I love). OK, but it IS the root of Philadelphia--the "city of brotherly love"-how ironic is that? If you didn't catch that, phileo is "brotherly love." It's the solidarity of humanity when we're living in harmony. Finally, there's "agape," the deep, deep love of a father for a son or the mother for a child. (I don't know which of these I'd use for my love of peach smoothies!) In any case, you can see that the Greek words are much more precise than the english word. I don't know if this is always the case, but sometimes it is.

Same thing with this word "mercy." When we think about the word mercy, I would guess that most people would equate it with the word "compassion." The two go hand in had in our world and they did in Jesus' day as well. When we look in the Bible, we find that the words that are translated "mercy" and "compassion" are very different words. Biblically speaking, compassion is a feeling, mercy is an action.

The that's translated as compassion is sometimes oikteirō and sometimes splanchnizomai. Oikteiro just means "feeling pity" or "feeling sorry for someone." Splanchnizomai means "bowels." Yep, you read that right, bowels. I'm not sure I completely get this one, except that many cultures back then used "bowels" the same way we use "heart." Thus, "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my bowels. Where? Down in my bowels...you get the point." Wait, I've just thought of another love song. Who can forget the Extreme song, "There's a hole in my bowels that can only be filled with you...and this hole in my bowels can't be filled with the things I do." Nice thought, huh? (Makes me glad we made the switch to heart.)

Anyway, compassion is a feeling that comes from deep down inside. Compassion says, "my heart goes out to them." (There's another one...It just sounds wrong to say, "my bowels go out them." I'll stop now.) It's great to feel bad, but it's not enough. Now, compassion isn't a bad thing if it motivates us to action. Any time the gospels use that word for Jesus, the feeling is followed by action. The people were hungry so Jesus fed them (Mt. 15:32). They were sick, so He healed them (Mk 1:41). Jesus' splanchnizomai is always followed by action.

However, we know this isn't true for us. There are many times we feel bad for someone, but that's about as far as it goes. We don't really lift a finger to help because we think it's the thought that counts. Good Christians should feel bad when bad things happen. Well, this isn't Jesus' way.

So when we get to Matthew 5:7 and Jesus says, "blessed are the merciful," He uses the word eleēmōn. Eleēmōn is not a feeling. It's not just pity for others, but taking the initiative to do something about it. Action is built right into the word. So the people listening to Jesus could make no mistake, feelings weren't enough. Anyone can feel bad, but the Kingdom is filled with people who show mercy with action.

As with every other beatitude, there's a particular Kingdom blessing that comes with each one. Those who mourn will be comforted, the meek will inherit the earth, etc. In this case, those who actively show mercy will actively be shown mercy. Perhaps the corollary to this is that God will just "feel sorry for those" who only "feel sorry."

In the world today-as it was in Jesus' day-the ruthless win. "Show no mercy" is the motto of the business and political world. When you have someone down, you go for the kill. But in the counter-cultural world of the Kingdom of God, things are upside-down.

In the last post, I wrote about how I think we should refine our idea of righteousness according to Jesus' teaching. This passage makes me think that all the more. We tend to think that things like murder, stealing, and lying are sins, but bitterness and lack of mercy are just character flaws or "something I have to get over." But Jesus says very clearly here and in other places that we receive mercy from God only in so far as we show mercy to others. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus calls mercy one of the "more important matters of the law."

So the question for me is, "Where do I need to show mercy?" This question is not just a hypothetical-remember mercy is not a feeling, it's an action. Where am I an agent of God's Kingdom mercy?

Refining Righteousness

Working through the Sermon on the Mount (up to this point, just the Beatitudes) has been a great thing for me. Often times, the greatest problem long-time Christians have in reading the Bible (again) is to keep looking at it from the same perspective we always have. In a way, that's only natural. We all see life from a particular perspective; either the perspective we were taught when we were being raised or the perspective we chose to take when we started rebelling against the perspective we were taught when we were being raised.

Regardless, we often get stuck looking only through the lens of what we already know, rather than seeking to go back to a passage with new eyes--a clean sheet of paper, so to speak.

I mentioned at the beginning of this study that my lens was always the lens of a semi-fundamentalist upbringing that defined sin as the outward acts like smoking, drinking, dancing, going to movies, playing cards and failing to read your Bible. Often times, spiritual growth comes when we, holding loosely to those ideas, we become open to looking at the Bible from a different perspective.

If you only look at one side of a coin, you'll describe the coin as a round, flat piece of metal that has the picture of some guy's head on it. That's it. Some people never explore the coin from a different perspective and thus fail to see that there's another side to it.

Some people will object, "but if we don't "hold firm" to what we believe, we run the risk of believing anything and become wishy-washy Christians." Is this criticism valid? Only if we don't continue to go back to Scripture and allow its message to shape us. I actually think it's more dangerous to hold too tightly to our particular interpretation of scripture and not continue to re-examine scripture, re-evaluating our lives in light of it. We actually make our pet doctrine or interpretation of Scripture to be the authority rather than Scripture itself.

I have to admit, all of this is a set-up. It's a set-up for you to open yourself up to a new understanding of "righteousness." Defining "righteous" by referring to the rules of religion places you squarely in opposition to the teaching of Jesus Himself on this topic.

We all know the Pharisees and the religious leaders were Jesus' "enemies" (if you could call them that). What was it about the Pharisees that upset Jesus? It was not that they made rules-not entirely anyway. It wasn't that they followed rules. It was that they focused on the rules and made them the measure of the spiritual life. They majored on minors.

For instance, in Matthew 23 Jesus' goes off on the Pharisees. They are hypocrites, they make religion a burden with all their rules, they do everything to be seen by people, they love the place of honor, etc. They look beautiful on the outside following all the rules, but are full of filth on the inside.

Take the example of verses 16-22. One practice of the Pharisees was that of "corban," or an oath to the temple. Corban was a way of recognizing the gifts God gave by committing a certain amount of money back to the Temple. This, in itself isn't a bad thing. However, when it gets out of focus that's where the problem starts. For the Pharisees, their oath to the Temple was so binding that if they had some money they committed to the Temple, but afterward found out their own parents were starving, they wouldn't even help them.Jesus says, "Corban is great. Tithe is fine. Just don't forget about the important things." There are just some things that are more important than the rules.

Back in Matthew 5, after the Beatitudes, but still in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Most people who heard this, who didn't really get it yet would have certainly been thinking it was an impossible task. How could anyone surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees and teachers of the law? The Kingdom of Heaven is completely out of reach for the average person stuggling along.

But remember, we're looking at the Beatitudes here which proclaim "good news" for those whom religion has left behind. So while this may have seemed like a daunting task to people hearing it for the first time, later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explains what He means by "righteousness," and it's not really what the people were expecting.

While we'll look more in-depth at how Jesus describes righteousness later on, suffice it to say it has less to do with rules and more to do with "love"-pure, relational, self-sacrificial love. Righteousness is to be in right standing with God and neighbors. When people long for it, or as Jesus says, "hunger and thirst for righteousness" they will be filled.

Whereas, all the people's efforts to obey all the rules and laws left people isolated and prone to judgement and separation when other people didn't live up their standards, Jesus' redefinition of "righteousness" gave freedom and led to reconcilliation. Instead of being responsible only to care for ourselves and make sure we're following all the rules, we're free to forget about ourselves and care for others.

What does it mean to be filled with righteousness? Listen to Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13:12. As we grow in love, here's what happens. "Now we know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." Does that sound like right relationship to you? Does to me.

Blessed are the Meek

There's a commercial campaign for a line of cars that encourages us to "grab life by the horns." Of course it's for Dodge trucks. I can only assume they mean that if I buy a Dodge truck that's exactly what I'm doing. When I do, I will be a success. This is a common sentiment in our day and age. If I'm aggressive and take control of my own destiny, I will be considered a success.

I actually think there's a sense in which this is true. I know a lot of people who sit around and mope and feel sorry for themselves, feeling they are just the victim of circumstance. Passivity becomes their way of life. It's on this backdrop that I move on to the next line of the Sermon on the Mount..."blessed are the meek."

The word Matthew uses is praus, which means "gentle, enduring all things with an even temper, tender, free from haughty self-sufficiency, tender of spirit." When we read the definition, we could be convinced that Jesus is saying there is a virtue on being meek. I think this would be accurate as long as we make a distinction.

There are some people who are intentionally meek. For some, it's part of their personality. They're just quiet, humble, unassuming people who can take things in stride. This is the result of a quiet spirit that's confident of their place as a child of God. But for some, meekness is not necessarily a virtue. This is what I believe Jesus is referring to here.

For some people, praus (meekness) is a learned behavior. It's not that they learn something and decide to make a change for the better, it's more like a Pavlovian response to life. After people get beaten down for so long, they begin to feel like they're not worth anything. If a harsh husband tells a wife she's good for nothing for long enough, she begins to believe it. When circumstances keep working against a person they can be prone to believe God doesn't love them. When these things happen, confidence is eroded and some people hide. Those are the meek Jesus is refering to.

Of course, meek people don't take the initiative; they don't "grab life by the horns," and as a consequence, society leaves them behind. This was certainly prevalent in Jesus' day--society had a way of leaving people behind. But in the middle of this, Jesus says, "Good news to you who life as beaten down!" The Kingdom is good news to people whom society has left behind.

I think the interesting thing in this one comes in the next line: "for they will inherit the earth." First of all, it doesn't say, "you'll get yours in heaven." He says they will recieve the earth. Maybe their reward will come later, but Jesus doesn't talk about a strictly "spiritual" reward. Second, notice how they will "get" the earth. It's an inheritance.

While the bold and the brash seek to conquer the earth and take it by cunning, force and manipulation, the meek recieve it as an inheritance. This is the ultmate plot twist here. The people who are really seeking to be important, the ones who have the power, resources and cleverness to take over the world ultimately will end up with nothing. God owns it all and no matter how powerful or rich or manipulative anyone is they cannot have what God doesn't give them.

The sad reality is that too often in its history, the church has been the ones seeking to take the world by force. The crusades, the inquisition among other things are evidence that the church has not always been among the meek. We've sought power and reputation as the way to accomplish "God's will." But such efforts are detrimental to the Gospel. Think of the vast numbers of people who reject God or the church today for this very reason.

While it seems like the agressive always win in life, the greatness of the Kingdom is that some day order will be restored. There will be justice in the overall scheme of things.

In the meantime, we followers of Christ should work feverishly to proclaim the Kingdom is here now! We don't just wait for things to be restored in the end. We are salt and light now to proclaim the radical upside-down nature of the Kingdom. We work toward justice, not by power, but by identifying with the meek, knowing that one day, the earth will be ours.

When we trust in what Jesus says about the Kingdom, we can be free from the power games of society. Trust says "I believe and will commit to God's way of doing things," rather than "grabbing life by the horns."

Blessed are Those Who Mourn

Blessed are those who mourn is one of those phrases that make us believe Jesus was doing more in the Beatitudes than telling us how our attitude should be. A key to interpreting the Bible well is for us to remember that the Bible was written FOR us, but not TO us. In other words, whenever we read the Bible, we have to look at it in its own context. When Paul wrote the book of Romans, he wasn't writing it to Hillside Wesleyan Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. When Jesus preached the sermon on the Mount, He wasn't thinking about Kory Kleinsasser in 2009. I can learn from what He taught, but Jesus was saying something very specific to the people around Him.

In many ways, we always assume Jesus is talking to us--the middle class Americans. I think Jesus' message in the Beatitudes does have something to say to us, but he wasn't really talking to us. So whenever we read we should try to figure out who He's talking to and what are the issues He's addressing. We can learn a lot about a passage when we try to learn about the history and culture surrounding any given teaching.

When we hear the phrase "blessed are those who mourn," we often just move on to the next "beatitude" because unlike the other beatitudes we really can't think of why mourning would actually be a virtue to Jesus. Well, just like the rest of them, Jesus isn't saying that mourning is a virtue-that somehow you're better off in the Kingdom if you're always sad about something.

Remember when Jesus says "blessed are" you can substitute the words "good news!" So Jesus is saying, "I've got good news for you who are poor in spirit. I have good news to those of you who are mourning!" Of course, what is the Gospel if it isn't good news?

Jesus comes proclaiming good news to those who mourn. In Jesus' day and age we can be certain that this was the majority of your average, everyday people. In fact, when we look over the course of history in most societies, pain, suffering and mourning are the rule rather than the exception. We tend to forget this (or intentionally forget this) because mourning is the exception in our American society today.

People in most societies throughout history have lived in close relationship with death. Infant mortality rates were high life expectancy was low. Disease and war were rampant and grotesque. We have been "blessed" (for lack of a better word) in our society that suffering and death is very seldom a part of life. When we do face death, it tends to be hidden or sanitized. We've used our technology to distance ourselves from suffering.

But it's not just our society today that's done this. Anywhere at any time, if people could do the same thing, the would. There were rich people in Jesus' day that could, to some degree, separate themselves from pain and suffering as well. But there are always those who cannot get away from suffering, pain and mourning. To those people, Jesus says, "Good news! The Kingdom comforts people like you."

The question we have to ask then is "how?" How does the Kingdom comfort mourning people? My temptation is to answer that question by talking about heaven. Sure there is pain and suffering here on earth, but if you just keep your faith, when you die you'll have the rewards of heaven. I believe that's true and it should be a consolation to all of us who suffer here. But I also see a couple of problems with dismissing the question in such a trite way.

The first problem is the struggle we have with the idea of fairness. Sure, heaven is a reward for people who suffer here on earth. But there are some people here on earth who suffer very little in comparison to others and yet, they too get to go to heaven. Where is the equity in that? If you can go to heaven without all the suffering, why does anyone need to suffer? So while there is consolation in the hope of heaven, its not necessarily the answer to the question of how the Kingdom comforts those who mourn.

The second problem with jumping right to heaven is that Jesus taught the Kingdom is not just "out there" but He taught that the Kingdom is "HERE." How is the Kingdom a present comfort to those who mourn now? I think the answer comes when we think about the idea of "blessing."

How often do we pray and thank God for the many blessings He has given us? If you're like most Christians probably at every meal and when your church takes the offering on Sunday morning. Actually, we often stop to thank God for the way He has "blessed" us. But if that's all we think about blessing, we don't have a Biblical view of blessing.

In the Bible (Old and New Testament) we find that blessings are not just for us to enjoy. Take the blessing God promised to Abraham for instance. God promised to make Abraham a "great nation" -- his descendants would be like the sands on the beach. Of course, this would have made Abraham a happy guy. But what was the real reason for Abraham's blessing? Was it for him to enjoy? Genesis 18:18 says this: "Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him."

So you see the blessing Abraham received had a purpose that was greater than just Abraham's enjoyment. He was blessed to bless others. Over time, Israel forgot this purpose as we're all prone to do. Not only this, but it's usually the blessing itself (i.e. money, leisure, good health, etc.) that keeps us from being the blessing to others.

The point I'm making here is that the Kingdom of Heaven is good news to those who mourn because God blesses people in order to bless others. Kingdom people with good health, are healthy in order to bless the sick. Kingdom people with wealth are wealthy in order to bless those who are poor. Kingdom people who are happy are happy in order to bless those who mourn. In the Kingdom, it's about the relationship.

Too often, instead of using our wealth to care for those who are poor or those who mourn, we use it to avoid pain. We think we are blessed in order keep ourselves from pain or at least inconvenience. But any glance at the teachings of Jesus should tell us that Kingdom living requires that we enter into the suffering of others. (e.g. Matthew 25) We are blessed to be a blessing to those who may not be. I'll get more into Matthew 5:13-16 in a later post, but read these verses now with a mind toward the beatitudes. Why do you think Jesus talks about our status as salt and light right after the beatitudes?

Are the beatitudes true because of you? Are you working toward fulfilling Kingdom purposes in the world? Do you use the time when you're not mourning loss to identify with and bless those who are mourning? How are you using your wealth to insulate yourself from the suffering of others? How can you change this?

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

As we look through the Sermon on the Mount, don't get me wrong-I do believe in personal holiness. We should seek to stay free from personal sins and live holy in that way. What you'll find as we look at the Sermon on the Mount is that this is not the only way Jesus defined the goal of the Christian life. In fact, I would dare say it wasn't even the primary way He defined it.

We've already took a (very) brief look at the Old Testament prophets that were the precursors to Jesus' teachings on the Kingdom of God. What we saw there was that their primary concern-and thus, God's primary concern-was for the Israelites (God's original "kingdom") to love mercy and justice and care for people who couldn't care for themselves. This, along with staying away from idol worship were the most egregious sins. Also, looking through the Old Testament, we see that God cared very little for the religious ritual of the Israelites. This is from Isaiah 1:

¹¹ "The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?" says the LORD.
"I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

¹² When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?

¹³ Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.

Later in the chapter, Isaiah mentions the sins of Israel:

Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,

¹⁷ learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.

Given this background, it should come as little surprise that some of Jesus' first recorded teachings had to do with this very thing. When a large part of the message of the prophets was to take care of the "throw away" people, we shouldn't be shocked that Jesus leads with the same thing when proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus comes proclaiming that what Israel failed to do, the Kingdom of God would accomplish. There is a great deal of inequity in life. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Israel was constantly reminded this isn't the way things should be. Maybe it's how things are with the "pagan," but it was not supposed to be that way with Israel-God's Kingdom.

So Jesus comes proclaiming the Kingdom of God in the beatitudes. "Blessed are the poor in spirit." This means more than just the "humble." It means those who society has forgotten--the unimportant people, the poor (both financially and within society). The are "blessed" because the Kingdom is theirs.

During this time, there were many laws keeping the "poor in spirit" from becoming members of society. This is illustrated by all the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament. If you were a leper, or were "unclean" in some way, you couldn't come worship at the temple. You had to do some ritual washing and wait a prescribed period of time before you would be acceptable to God. Some people because of certain incurable diseases could never be "acceptable" to God. Of course, this created a lower class of citizen.

When Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom as belonging to the poor in spirit, He turned the whole system on its head. The Kingdom is available to everyone--the lowest first and the greatest last.

Can you imagine what you would have felt, if you had heard Jesus and you were perpetually unclean? Freedom! Joy! Unbelief. How would you have felt if you were the religious establishment? Annoyed, angry, frustrated, skeptical. No wonder Jesus was accused of overturning the whole religious system. That's exactly what He was doing.

Today, in our effort to make the Beatitudes more palatable, we usually interpret this that humble people will inherit the Kingdom. The reality, what Jesus was saying was much more revolutionary than that. So the question for us is, "What do we do about it?" Does the church operate as if the Kingdom belongs to the "poor in spirit?" I think too often we play favorites and cater to the middle class, the rich, the dynamic and the talented. Where does your church reflect the teaching of Jesus that the Kingdom belongs to the forgotten people? How does your life reflect the Kingdom's attitude toward the poor in spirit?

Sermon on the Mount

I have lately (the past year) been working through the Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5ff and Luke 6ff) Many of you know that best way I know to get a passage of scripture or an idea down into my soul is to let it percolate in my mind and my life for a while. When I do this, I study every angle and idea associated with it. As I do and as I figure out how to incorporate it into my life, that's where it takes up residence in me and the Word becomes a part of me.

I preached on this passage a few months ago (you can listen to it here), but there's only so much you can do in 30 minutes. I wanted to take the time to dissect it a little more closely.

I've always been drawn to the sermon on the mount, particularly the Beatitudes. For some reason, they seem to resonate with me and I'm not sure why. In many ways, the Beatitudes are speaking to people who are very much unlike me. I've lived a pretty charmed life for the most part-great family, I couldn't ask for a better wife, my kids are a good as I could expect being raised by me, I've never been in the hospital and I've only broken one bone (and I'm not even sure about that!)

The people Jesus is speaking to and about here are very much unlike me. I can see how the Beatitudes could be "good news" to them, but what about me? What do the beatitudes have to do with me? Isn't that the question that's in the foremost of every individualistic Christian's mind?

I've always been told that when we read the Beatitudes that we should read it that Jesus was saying this should "be our attitude." As I read this section it's hard for me to believe this is what Jesus was intending. Is Jesus really saying our attitude should be "poor in Spirit" (which I don't think translates as simply "humble." Are we supposed to be "meek" or should our attitude always be that of "mourning?" I don't think that was how Jesus lived life, so apparently that's not the case.

I do think the key here is in the blesseds. Remember that the single greatest message of Jesus was the "Kingdom." The counter-cultural, counter-religious, God-centered Kingdom of Heaven. I believe we need to read the beatitudes in light of the Kingdom. The idea of the Kingdom of God goes way back into the Old Testament and is especially poignant in the prophets. For a more in-depth discussion of this, you can listen to this podcast from my "Exploring the Kingdom" class.

Israel saw themselves as God's chosen people or in essence, the "kingdom of God." Of course, they weren't content with God as their King, so they asked for a human king to rule over them. God reluctantly agreed, but the Israelite kings were not always cooperative with God's plan and led the nation astray. Because of this, God sent prophets to Israel to warn them of the consequences of going astray.

So we see passages like Isaiah 10, where the prophet pronounces judgment on the nation of Israel and warns them that if they don't change the way they do things, God will judge them (by sending another nation to conquer them). Of course, this would be devastating for Israel's self-image. After all, if they are really "God's Kingdom" He would never send a pagan nation to take them over. Surely God would do everything to protect them. But the prophets told otherwise. Israel didn't want to hear it, didn't listen to them, and subsequently were dragged off to Assyria.

However, in the middle of each warning from the prophet, there was always hope. So we see in Isaiah 11, for instance that Isaiah promises a "shoot from the stump of Jesse." Of course, David was the son of Jesse so Isaiah is saying that God promises to bring about someone from the line of David (and Jesse) to be the one who sets things right again. That's why Matthew goes to such great lengths to trace the lineage of Jesus back through Jesse. Matthew wanted to make sure the Jews knew that Jesus fit the image of the Messiah (even though He wasn't what most Jews expected of the Messiah).

In the next post, I'll get into the actual Beatitudes, but here let me just point this out, because I think it's instructive for us and should change the way we look at righteousness and salvation. In the evangelical church today, we often see righteousness as this personal holiness thing. We don't do certain sins--like drinking, or swearing, or lying, or looking at porn, we go to church and read our Bible, and believe the right things--usually that "Jesus died on the cross for my sins," and whatever other pet doctrine we have. While there is an element of truth to these things, they are not ultimately or completely what the prophets or Jesus defined as righteousness.

Go back to Isaiah 10 for instance (this is only one example, but I guarantee that if you look though any of the prophets, you'll see these same themes running very strongly through them). What does Isaiah 10 mention are the sins of Israel?

• Making oppressive laws
  
• Depriving the poor of their rights
• Making widows their prey
• Robbing orphans

The list goes on in other places, but notice God's concern for the powerless of society and His love for mercy, justice and love. Because of a lack of these things, Israel deserves to be destroyed. It's on this canvas that Jesus paints the Sermon on the Mount. Take a look at Matthew 5 and Luke 6 and start to look at them through this lens. We'll continue the discussion next time.

The Will of God

A while back, I was having a conversation with someone about the will of God especially as it relates to prayer and I thought I'd write down my thoughts and see what you think. The conversation stems from Randy's message on hearing from God. If you want to listen, click here. I happen to agree with Randy on this one.

It's a pretty common thing for people to say "God has a wonderful plan for your life." I think that's true. But I think it's true in a different way than many people think. Most people when they say God has a plan, they mean that God has a "perfect will" for your life. He knows who you should marry, what college you should go to, what house your should buy, etc. Spiritually mature Christians are the ones who seek God's perfect will in everything. So if there's a decision to make, whatever it is, we should pray about it. This is the thinking I disagree with.

Here are some problems with that line of thought. First, no one prays about EVERY decision they make in life. Who, before they get dressed in the morning prays about what color shirt they should wear? Who prays about whether they should take a different route to work that particular morning? Nobody. People only pray about the "important" decisions. Yet can you think of a scenario where what route a person takes to work in the morning is an important decision? What about the man who gets in a fatal car accident on their way? It turned out to be one of the most important decisions of his life, yet he never thought to pray about it-and he shouldn't. We would drive ourselves crazy stopping to ask God about every decision we make in life.

But there are decisions that are obviously important in life. Take getting married for instance. Does God have that perfect woman picked out for me? My answer is no. Though it's romantic to think about finding your "soul mate," what about the person that didn't pray about who they were going to marry, made a mistake and missed out on God's perfect plan for their life? I'm married to Ann, but let's say that in college when I asked her to marry me, I was too spiritually immature to seek God's counsel in this decision and missed the fact that God actually wanted me to marry Sally.

What should I do now? Should I divorce Ann? I don't think so. After all, God hates divorce. Should I marry Sally too? I don't think so. After all, the U.S. government hates polygamy. I guess I'm stuck being out of God's perfect will for my life. I'll always have less than the best as far as God is concerned. (As far as I'm concerned, Ann takes a back seat to no one).

The same thing applies to cars and houses and other important decisions we make. As we look in the Bible, we see the same thing. We just don't see people sitting around asking God what they should do. The only example I can think of is when the Disciples were looking to replace Judas. They asked for God's guidance, but then they drew straws and I don't see a lot of people drawing straws in the middle of big decisions.

What we do see, however is people minding their own business. Abraham was doing whatever when God got a hold of him. Moses was tending sheep when a bush caught fire, Paul was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians when God contacted him. What's the common them here?

First, God initiated. I don't deny that there are times that God will ask us to do specific things. But in the Bible, when God had something for people, He was the one that initiated-people didn't ask.

Second, God always spoke very clearly. When we ask for guidance on things, often-times we get answers that we have to decifer and read into things. But when God contacted people in scripture, He did so clearly. Often it was through an angel, sometimes, it was a dream, sometimes a voice (and sometimes a talking animal). I've had that kind of experience only twice in my life. It doesn't happen all the time.

Third, when people disobey (or don't listen), they're not necessarily "out of God's will," but they do miss out on God's blessing in their life. When God calls us, not only do we get to be a blessing for someone, but we are blessed when we know we're partnering with the God of the universe.

One thing I'm not saying is to stop praying. What I am saying is that we ought to redirect our prayers. There is something the Bible says IS God's will--that we become like Jesus. Our prayers should be to that end. Of course, we should also pray for our daily needs. When we do that, we are reminded of our dependence on God for everything we have. We pray also for wisdom, but not just when we need it. We pray for God's wisdom consistently in our lives so when the time comes that we really need it, we won't have to "cram" for the test. When we develop the mind of Christ, we don't have to always seek out special directions from God. Since we have allowed Him to develop His mind and His character in us, doing His will will come naturally for us.

A New Perspective

It's been a long time since I've blogged anything. I'm not sure why. I forgot. I got busy. I didn't really have anything to say. Whatever the reason...I'll try to finish some of the blog entries I've had in my drafts for quite some time now. So look for a few new ones over the next week or two. Anyway...

For some reason, my thoughts always come back to the Kingdom. Maybe it's because Jesus' message was primarily about the Kingdom of God. In Mark's Gospel, he says that when Jesus left the desert after His temptation, He immediately went into Galilee and summarized His preaching this way: "The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" The Kingdom is mentioned around 150 times in the New Testament. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me there is little emphasis on the Kingdom in evangelical preaching these days.

I think to understand Jesus' preaching, we have to understand the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Heaven). When we look at His teaching through the lens of the Kingdom, I think we understand Jesus much better.

I think, very simply, we can define the Kingdom of God as "anywhere the will of God is being done." Isn't that what a Kingdom is, essentially--a place where the King is in charge? On earth, Kingdoms are always territories, but that's not the case with the Kingdom of God. His Kingdom is a spiritual Kingdom.

Now some people might disagree with this description saying that God's will is ALWAYS being done; that anything that happens is God's will. I, however, don't believe that's the case. I don't think God always gets His way. He could always get His way if He wanted, but the Bible tells us that God has limited Himself out of love. Clearly, humans can oppose the will of God. 2 Peter 3:9 says it's not God's will that anyone would perish, but that all would come to repentance. That doesn't always happen.

But what are the signs of the Kingdom? How can we describe the Kingdom of God? Let's take a spin around the New Testament to see what it says.

First, we the Kingdom is a spiritual Kingdom, that we're not to make any nation or church on earth out to be the Kingdom. When Pilate questions Jesus about the accusation the Jews made that Jesus claimed to be a king (whose kingdom would seek to overthrow the Romans), Jesus replied (John 18):

Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

"Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?"

"Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?"

Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

So clearly Jesus didn't see the Kingdom as an earthly government or regime. It's spiritual.

We also see that the Kingdom of God is turned upside-down. Look at Matthew 20:25ff

Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

The way Kingdom people go about things is completely different than the way the people of the world do things.

Another similar passage that I find interesting is this one in Matthew 16.

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

When Jesus says this, He's really contrasting the Kingdom of God with the kingdom of this world. So many things we chase after are really values only in this world--money, fame, "success", reputation, etc. Those things aren't Kingdom values. When Jesus says we often try to "save our lives," He means that we worry so much about these values and we sell our soul for them. But Kingdom people run the opposite way. Their goal is not money (though we need it), and it's not what the world calls success, and it certainly isn't their reputation and standing up for their rights. If they were worried about that, they would do things a lot different.

We sometimes get frustrated in life when we try to live in the two worlds. Ultimately, we'll try to synthesize the two worlds and end up with a confused mish-mash of competing values. Christians will often talk about things like integrity and honesty, yet cheat to get ahead. They know God values generosity, but will only be generous when they have enough saved up. They read that first will be last and the last will be first, yet will try like everyone else to be first. They live like this and wonder why their faith is ultimately unsatisfying.

Peace in life comes when we're living consistently with who we are. We were created as citizens of the Kingdom of God, so when we live lives that are inconsistent with that identity, we'll be dissatisfied. I find that I have much more peace in life the more I live consistently within my Kingdom identity.

Over the course of my life, I've been conditioned to think and act otherwise. I've been taught, explicitly or accidentally that if I want to be happy, I have to look out for myself, money will make me happy, and that it's OK for me to react to people differently depending on how they treat me. Growth is that process of unlearning those things I've been taught by the world and learning to be who I really am. Who God created me to be.

Thoughts About Compassion

I was thinking about compassion the other day. I think sometimes we misunderstand compassion. Compassion is actually a compound word that comes from the Latin words for "suffer" (pati-i.e. the "passion of Christ") and "with" (com). So at its heart, to have compassion is to be willing to "suffer with" someone. I think this is very profound, but it seems other people don't find it quite as inspiring.

What gets me about that is that to have real compassion, we have to be "with" someone. Compassion requires presence. If we don't take the time and energy to be with the person-to identify with them-we may have sympathy or something like that, but we don't really have compassion.

As I thought more about it, in order for us to identify with someone, we have to understand that we are more alike them than we are different. It's very easy to look at someone on the street and see how different we are. I see the alcoholic passed out on the park bench and I don't even drink. I see the guy who robs the local Subway, but I pay for everything I take out of a store. I see the homosexual dying of AIDs but all my sins are forgivable and not really as serious as his anyway. I can find many ways to mentally and emotionally distance myself from those people. We're just different.

But ultimately we ARE the same. I fail to love people the way I should as much as anyone else. I'm tempted look at women lustfully like any other man. I may not have knocked off the Subway, but I've fudged on this and that, too. The truth is I'm not as great as I make myself out to be, at least not because of anything I've done. In fact, rather than being willing to suffer with people, I'm often the cause of their suffering. The good news is "blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God..." It means the Kingdom is accessible to everyone. Until we understand this important truth, we can't truly have compassion.

I've thought a bit about the Old Testament in this light. Much of what the law did was to separate people. The Law of Moses was there to distinguish the Jewish people from everyone else. They were to be separate and unstained by the heathen who didn't have the Law-at least that's the way they interpreted it. Yet they were commanded to have compassion on the widows and foreigners. It seems a little ironic, really.

The book of Hebrews says that the Law is only a shadow of the real thing. Of course, the real thing is Jesus. When Jesus came, He was appalled at the religious leaders' interpretation of the Law.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin, But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former."

In other words they did all the righteous things, but forgot the real purpose. What God intended was for their righteous acts not to separate them from everyone else, but actually draw them toward others and result in mercy, justice, and compassion. So in Romans 3, Paul later says that the purpose of the Law was really to show us how sinful we are.

"no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin."

In other words, the Law never made people "righteous" it only showed us how sinful we are.

I think we can distort anything. We want the Ten Commandments in the county courthouse so those people can learn to be as righteous as we are-as if posting the Ten Commandments is going to make anyone act differently. We tend to allow the Law to drive a wedge between "us" and "them." But Jesus, who is the real thing came in compassion and "suffered with" us. The Old Testament was just the precursor to get us ready for the New. Instead, we often try to re-drive the wedge even thought it's been broken down. We go to church. We read our Bible. We teach Sunday School. We don't have sex with people we're not supposed to. Those are fine things, but my question is: does that make us inherently different than the people who don't go to church, never crack open their Bible, or live promiscuous lives? It shouldn't. In Christ, we realize our sameness. In that, we can learn to give ourselves for people we never associate with before. I think that's compassion.

Us vs. Them

Sometimes when you look at something from a new perspective, everything looks different. I would say that's the case with my current journey. A little more than a year ago, I found a book called "The End of Religion" by Bruxy Cavey which made me begin to see things from a new perspective. As I read the Bible now, through new lenses, I have come to a new understanding of what it means to follow Christ.

The newest passage is in Ephesians 2, where Paul writes:

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

I'm not sure how I read this passage before, but as I read it with new eyes, it really jumps out at me. As I was growing up, my idea of "holiness" always had to do with separation. I was "set apart" to God. What this did was set up a sort of adversarial relationship with people-particularly people who didn't know Jesus. I was taught to stay away from those people lest I become corrupted by them. If I did have to be around them, it was strictly for the purpose of evangelism. Separation and being different was always in the back of my mind. I don't think I was taught this explicitly, but that's certainly what I gleaned from my years of Christian education.

But as I look at Ephesians 2, I see that Paul describes the work of Christ on the cross as "reconcilliation." In 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, Paul then says that Christ gave us the "ministry of reconciliation." This, of course, makes sense. If we are to be the image of Christ as individuals and the "Body of Christ" as a church, then it would make sense that we would also have the same ministry.

In the Old Testament, we get the sense that there is to be an "us vs. them" mentality. After all, God called the Israelites to be separate. We learn that this was only for a time and for a specific purpose. As much as we in America like to think we are "God's chosen people" we are not the Israelites. The Israelites received the Law of Moses which, again, caused an attitude of separation and judgment. But the ultimate end of that Law was reconciliation in Christ. Once Christ did his work, our need (and desire) for separation should have been done away with.

We've held on to the "us vs. them," but I'm beginning to see that this is anti-Christ. We can no longer see anyone as our enemy. Later in Ephesians 6, Paul says that our struggle "is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." We don't fight spiritual battles against physical people and we certainly can't fight those battles with judgment when our strongest weapon is grace.

Judgment is the pornography of the Christian. It's enticing and promises to fulfill our need to feel superior, but in the end, leaves us empty and shallow. The difficulty of seeing things differently is not seeing things differently, but doing things differently. If my job is reconciliation, then it applies to every area of life, whether I like it or not. I have to stop seeing people with the "us vs. them" mentality and realize that it's only "us." I can no longer stand at a distance and judge other people's sin, but identify with them and first reconcile myself with "them." Then together, we can live in "our" reconciliation to God, through Jesus.

The Opposite of Love?

I've been reading Greg Boyd's book "Repenting of Religion" which has been a great read for me (although the first couple of chapters were pretty slow for me). One of the points that Boyd makes has to do with the forbidden tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden.

Boyd says he always wondered why a tree with the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil was a bad thing.

Consider, why was the fruit of the forbidden tree a fruit that was said to give the knowledge of good as well as evil? Isn't the "knowledge of good" a good thing? Aren't we Christians supposed to be promoting "the knowledge of good"? Isn't following God all about increasing our "knowledge of good and evil" so we can side with "the good" and resist "the evil"? And yet, whether it fits our preconceptions or not, in the Genesis narrative the nature of the sin that separates us from God is said to be the "knowledge of good and evil."

A conundrum indeed. Boyd continues:

We have failed to understand and internalize the biblical teaching that our fundamental sin is not our evil--as though the solution for sin was to become good-- but our getting life from what we believe is our knowledge of good and evil. Our fundamental sin is that we place ourselves in the position of God and divide the world between what we judge to be good and what we judge to be evil. And this judgment is the primary thing that keeps us from doing the central thing God created and saved us to do, namely, love like he loves.

Coming from a not-quite-fundamentalist background, I really had to wrestle with this concept. After all, I was always taught that holiness meant separation, that "we" are somehow different from "them." To be sure, there are biblical commands that we should be "different" But the question is, "In what way should we be different?"

What really interested me in Boyd's book was in chapter three when he talks about the "center." He writes,

Christians sometimes try to assess how they or others are doing on the basis of such things as how successfully they conquer a particular sin, how much prayer and Bible study they do, how regularly they attend and give to church, and so forth. But rarely do we honestly ask the question that Scripture places at the center of everything: Are we groing in our capacity to love all people?...Are we increasing in our capacity to ascribe unsurpassable worth to people whom society judges to have no worth?

That's the center--LOVE. The way we are different or peculiar (I love that word) is that we love wholly and completely. Jesus said they will know we are his disciples by our LOVE, not by our "knowledge of good and evil."

Boyd then raises the object that some people have.

Even as I write these words, I can hear someone saying, "Yes we must love. But we must balance love with truth." "Love has its place, but we must not forget God's wrath." "Love must never take the place of correct biblical doctrine."

The problem is that nothing "balances" love. Love is the pinnacle. 1 John says that God IS love. It doesn't say that God IS wrath. There is nothing that balances out love.

Peter Kreeft says:

What is the wrath of God...? Is it real or not? It is real, but it is not part of God himself. God is not half love and half wrath, or 99 percent love and 1 percent wrath. God is love. Wrath is how his love appears to us when we sin or rebel or run away from him. The very light that is meant to help us, appears to us as our enemy when we seek the darkness.

Back to the Garden...When we realize that judgment falsely puts us in the place of God, we become free to more truly resemble him by loving. Judgment creates and "us vs. them" mentality. It becomes easy to look at people from afar and make sweeping generalizations about them. But love doesn't allow us to separate ourselves from others on any basis, even if it's what we consider to be the greatest sins. Love is blind to that kind of thinking.

Will there be judgment for sin? Absolutely, but we can leave the judgment up to God and just love people--as Boyd says "ascribe unsurpassable worth" to them.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:17)

It's taken me a while to grasp this principle and it's actually one that I still wrestle with, but at this point, I can't deny its truth.

Behind the Curve

I've been thinking some about why it's so hard to live out faith in a real and tangible way. I was reading through Ephesians 4 and started thinking about verse 14, "Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming."

As I was reading it, it occurred to me that the Church as a whole has always seemed to be behind the curve of social good and change. I think the exception to this was the early church (first 300 years or so). Rodney Stark notes that the church's greatest growth came during the two major epidemics of the Roman Empire in 165 and 250 AD. Durning these epidemics, up to a third of the population of the Roman Empire died.

During these epidemics, while pagans (who had no moral ramifications of their religion) fled to the hills, Christians stuck around and cared for the dying. What historians say is that the very fact that Christians stuck around saved an innumerable amount of lives. During these epidemics, a large number of people did not die from the disease itself, they died of starvation or unsanitary conditions. Such deaths could be prevented just by someone making sure they have their basic needs met.

Christians stuck around and made dent in society. But it seems that since that time, the Church has been much less on the cutting edge and often has to be dragged kicking and screaming through societal changes.

To be fair, often great movements were led by individual Christians living out the teachings of Jesus. Movements for religious freedom (Pilgrims), abolition (William Wilberforce), care for lepers (Mother Teresa), women's sufferage, and American Civil rights (Martin Luther King Jr.) were all led by individuals with Christian convictions. The Church at large always seemed to be fighting them.

Back to Ephesians 4. Could it be that the Church just isn't very mature? It seems as though we are often "tossed back and forth by the waves" of society and that the church reflects and subscribes to culture more than it transforms it. While the church in the first 250-300 years of existence, knew who it was and sought to follow purely the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, it seems as though the church (after Constantine?) has become preoccupied with other things, namely tradition and power.

Maturity is the ability to live consistently by the truth, even when opposing forces seek to derail. Has the Church lived by the truth of Jesus or have we subscribed more to society?

Lately, there has been a great movement in the church emphasizing love for our neighbors and awareness of global poverty and social issues. It seems the church is starting to take up the cause. But my question is, "shouldn't we have been doing this all along?" I think in many ways, we're trailing the government and even MTV in our awareness and support for the value of life. What took us so long to follow the teaching of Jesus (and even the Old Testament) to love our neighbors and care for the poor and outcast?

It might be that we still have more maturing to do. When Jesus was asked what is most important in the law, he replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself." That seems a pretty simple thing. When they ask Jesus what's the most important thing, he states it pretty plainly. So if we figure out what that means in our church and societal context and stick with that, no matter what movements appear, we're bound to be right on the edge of progress.