Jesus is not afraid to get his hands dirty

Jesus is awesome. I have to start there. In the story of the healing of Jairus' daughter (Mt 9:18-26, Mk 5:21-43, Lk 8:40-56) there are two healing: first the woman who has been bleeding for twelve years and then the daughter of a leader of the local synagogue named Jairus. 

It's interesting to read this story with the purity codes of the Old Testament in mind, because the woman who has been bleeding is ceremonially unclean (Lev 15:25) and the dead daughter of Jairus is also unclean, and yet Jesus touches both of them. According to my understanding of Old Testament purity codes and first-century practices, wouldn't touching them also make Jesus unclean? The woman with blood only touches Jesus's cloak so I am not sure if this would be enough to make him unclean, but when Jesus "took [Jairus' daughter] by the hand" (Mt 9:25, Mk: 5:41, Lk 8:54) that would seem to make him unclean. According to Numbers 19: 11 touching a dead body made someone unclean. This fear of corpse contamination may be some of the reasoning why in the story of the Good Samaritan the priest and the Levite both avoid the wounded man. Jesus also talks of this defilement when he calls the Pharisees "whitewashed tombs" (Mt 23: 27) in reference to the unmarked graves in the Kidron valley which could within sight of the Temple accidentally render a pilgrim, coming to celebrate Passover, unclean for seven days.

Jesus is not concerned with purity codes, not because he is disregarding the Law, but because just as honoring the Sabbath should not keep him from helping others in need, corpse contamination would not keep him from doing the Father's will of healing. We see in this story that Jesus is willing to touch and be touched by those who society shuns. Jesus does not hesitate to reach out and get his hands dirty for our sake, and his interactions with these two women demonstrate the larger truth of how Jesus, who is perfect, came into the dark and dirty world so that he could restore and save us.

This raises a question about the Law which is not addressed in the Law: if a dead body ceases to be a dead body does anything rendered unclean by that body become clean again? For both the woman with the bleeding and the daughter of Jairus, Jesus took away their uncleanliness. Jesus overcame the source of their defilement and made them clean. 

So the answer my earlier question of did these women make Jesus unclean is no. The uncleanness of both women did not make Jesus unclean because he makes unclean things clean. His power to purify trumps any ability to defile. And this is an illustration of the Gospel, Jesus came into this unclean world and not only purifies us according the rules of cleanliness, but he also fulfilled our debt to sin and imputes us with his righteousness. Like I said, Jesus is awesome.

"Copy and Paste" and Intra-Biblical quotations

Have you ever read a passage in the New Testament, perhaps in the writings of Paul or Matthew, where the author quotes a passage from the Old Testament, but when you compared the New Testament quotation with the original source you found slight variations in the wording? For example, the Luke 4 quotation from Isaiah 61: (red added to show differences)

Lk 4: 18-19 (NIV)

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
   to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Isa 61:1-2a (NIV)

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Should the New Testament authors have not been more careful when quoting the Old Testament? Because the Bible is God’s word, shouldn’t we be extra vigilant to get our wording right? What’s the deal?

The good news is there is a logical explanation for these “loose” standards of quotation, and ultimately the word variations between Old Testament sources and New Testament quotations, while it may give nuance to the passages, do not change the meanings especially when the passages are viewed as a whole and not by word count.

The reason why the New Testament authors were not as “precise” in their citing of the Old Testament reflects a difference between their first century Near Eastern culture and our own twenty-first century Western culture. It was sometime around the third century when the quotation mark was invented and the idea of exact, word for word quotation, began. By the societal standards of the day, the New Testament authors were being accurate in their quotation of Old Testament texts. The challenge for us now is understanding their standards of accuracy and our modern standards of accuracy are different. Today with modern technology I can copy and paste a paragraph, quote, or even an entire manuscript with complete confidence I am not forgetting a word or letter. Computers are really good at assisting with these kinds of tasks. Such luxury was not available to Paul. Neither was a personal copy of scripture; before the advent of the printing press copies of the Bible were too laborious and expensive for an individual to own.

It is fine for us to adhere to the standards of precision afforded to us by modern technology, but we should not be upset when we cannot impose our cultural value upon biblical texts written in the context of a different culture.

The Bible is not like Wikipedia

I love Wikipedia. It is among my most frequently visited websites. When I'm bored, have a random question, or want to refresh my knowledge on topics I learn in college, I turn to Wikipedia. It's a beautiful thing.

But the Bible is not like Wikipedia, no matter how often we try to make it so. Here are a few reasons why not:

1. It does not answer our every question. The Bible is a narrative. It has an author and an author's message/story to us telling us what He intends. Selfishly we want the Bible to provide us with an omniscient objective point of view over all of history, which we can evaluate and judge based upon our own understanding. Sorry we don't get to be omniscient, that's just part of finitude. Some questions are left unanswered.

2.  We don't get to edit it to say what we want/think it should say. It edits us.

3.  We have to study it and discover what God was saying and is saying, which means we need to do our homework and be careful. When reading the Bible is all too easy to interpret a passage through my own cultural understanding. The problem is importing my culture, my ideas, my paradigm is inadvertently editorial.

To properly understand scripture we have to understand culture; both our own and that of the original audience. People have always existed within a culture and cultural context. The difficulty for us arises when our own culture is separated from the original author and audience’s culture by, say language and a couple thousand years. To assume that I can read a text written to another audience in another culture at another time, without considering or trying to understand the original author's culture and the original audience's culture is arrogant. There is no book in the Bible written to Tim with his Western 21st Century Post-Enlightenment paradigm, so I guess I will have some studying to do.

But the good news is, the more I learn about the Bible, the context, and the cultures, the richer my understanding of the Bible becomes. I love Jesus, but the more I understand what His words and actions meant in First Century Palestine under Roman oppression, the more I am challenged and inspired. Future posts on some examples to come.

Scripture Reading like Amino Acids

I love the Bible.  It's an interesting/difficult/confusing/challenging library of books.  There are numerous reasons and explanations of why we should read the Bible and the benefits of daily Bible reading.  Many explanations are well meant, but can be theologically unsound.  For example reading the Bible does not earn you Jesus points.  It just doesn't.  Our desire for control (qualifies as sin when over-prioritized) would love a formula such as the following:

[(X hours reading Bible + Y hours praying + W% tithe given)/168 hours per week] = Jesus Points.

Thankfully faith does not work like this.  Faith is relationship with God and therefore not something which can be quantitatively assessed.

Instead I think reading the Bible functions a lot more like amino acids.  Any introductory Biology course (or Wikipedia) informs us amino acids are the molecular building blocks our bodies and other organisms use to make proteins.  Proteins in turn make up basically everything in our bodies.  There are approximately 25,000 genes in our individual genomes which code for approximately 100,000 proteins that make up us.  We are composed of a lot of proteins built out of tons of amino acids.  But how is reading the Bible like amino acids?

I don't know how God speaks to you during your Bible reading, and it's fun to see how God speaks to people differently, but personally when God speaks through His word it is almost always not while I am reading the Bible.  Instead He usually brings up passages, stories, ideas, etc. from the Bible at other times (during worship, prayer, driving, eating, etc.).  For me reading the Bible is not a time to sit down and chat with God, it is a time to ingest raw materials and have those within me for future conversations.  I read the Bible to acquire building blocks God will later use to speak; each chapter, parable, psalm is like an amino acid which God will have available to bring to mind.

Some memorable examples God has said:
"Remember how I said I AM faithful? I have not changed."(2 Tim 2:13, Heb 10:23) or "An arrogant pharisee and a humble tax collector walk into the Temple (Lk 18:9-14)....which one of them is your religious spirit acting like right now?"

I am glad reading God's word is not a prerequisite for God to speak, but it does help facilitate our hearing Him.  I don't know about you, but I need a lot of help to quiet myself and listen for God's voice.  The Bible also provides a standard or baseline by which I can measure and calibrate my life.  More on calibration in future posts; for now let's go be people of the Word and acquire some more amino acid-like building blocks.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a coffee shop

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a coffee shop;  
A caffeinated retelling of three parables 
(Matthew 13:44-48)

People love stories; it is a part of how we are wired.  There is no coincidence 70% of the Bible is narrative.  Stories are fun, inductive, and memorable.  Good communication requires the audience be able to recall what was told to them, and studies have found stories are well suited for this.  Beyond simple storytelling, parables require the audience not only to listen but to engage with and decipher the story; to wrestle the meaning out of the parable.  This sheds some light on why Jesus purposefully told stories and parables.  With that in mind let's have some fun retelling three of Jesus' parables from Matthew 13:44-48.

1.  "The Kingdom of Heaven is like searching for the best cappuccino in town, and having found it, joyfully not settling for any other drink." (Mt 13:44)

We often read the familiar parable of Jesus declaring "the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field" and think of it as just that, a treasure, and miss the meaning of the parable.  Is God's Kingdom the object or the verb?  Can we own or obtain the Kingdom of Heaven?  Or do we seek the Kingdom?  

The Kingdom of Heaven is a verb and Jesus is our treasure.  His parable illustrates the only proper Kingdom response to finding such a great treasure as Jesus is to sell everything and surrender all that we are for Him.  The Kingdom is not a prize but a pursuit.  We do not earn God's Kingdom, but we gladly give up everything for what has been offered to us through Jesus.  

2.  "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a barista who shops around to find the best coffee beans, to find the right temperature and timing to make the perfect espresso." (Mt 13:45-46)

Again we often try and make the Kingdom into an object, a pearl of great value, when in reality the Kingdom of Heaven is like the merchant looking for fine pearls.  The Kingdom is an occupation; it is a way of ordering and arranging our lives.  Have we centered ourselves around Jesus?  As promised in Jeremiah 29:12-14 when we search for God He will be found by us.

3.  "The Kingdom of Heaven is like an open wireless internet network.  It is available to everyone, but you have to get connected." (Mt 13:47-48)

Finally, there is no auto login option with God's Kingdom.  God's Kingdom is everywhere and we have the opportunity to respond to what has been offered us, but it requires us to take an active step; there is no passively entering the Kingdom.  Furthermore the Kingdom affects everyone, not only those logged in, and the reality of the Kingdom will affect everyone come Judgement Day.  There are affects and consequences for both those who log in and those who do not.

I hope you have enjoyed this retelling of three parables.  Jesus is the master storyteller.  Cheers!

Jesus' Defense

I find it both inspiring and sobering that during Jesus' entire trial, flogging, and execution only one person ever stood up for him.  Not the crowd, they deserted him.  The disciples fled during his arrest.  We all know Peter denied Jesus three times.  Pilate was too afraid of the mob to do something, Herod wanted a show, the Roman soldiers saw easy prey.  Even one of the two men crucified with Jesus mocked him (Lk 23:39).  But the one person who stood up for Jesus was the second man being crucified.  Lk 23:39-42:

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Here we have the God of the universe being falsely accused and executed, and only one person stands up for him.  Jesus died a rebel's death to atone for rebels like me.  Maybe this other guy was the one person who at that moment understood how much he needed a savior.

I would like to think I would stand up for Jesus in this sort of situation.  I have never been asked to lay down my physical life for my God.  Hopefully I would.  But self-preservation can be so tempting.  Granted at this point the bandit on the cross next to Jesus was being executed, but even then it would be easy to sink into anger or cynicism, to lash out like the other convict.  We see it is only the man who had all hope stripped from him stand up for Jesus.  It is fascinating how much clarity comes from brokenness (or an awareness of our brokenness).  Discomfort has a way of pushing us toward God or away from God.

May we not be too comfortable to take a stand for our faith, and maybe allow brokenness and discomfort to push us toward our loving God who suffered so much for us.

"Where are you?"

Have you ever wondered what was the saddest moment in history?  What has been the darkest hour in creation?  I would submit that there are two equally and intrinsically linked saddest moments, and that they both revolve around the question "where are you?"

Scene 1:  The Garden.

God has finished His work of creation and everything is good.  We see humanity as the pinnacle of God's creativity.  Scripture describes Adam and Eve as being "naked" which I think may be one of the most beautiful descriptions in Scripture.  They were naked before God and naked before each other.  Perfect relationship.  Nothing hidden.  Fully present and fully known.  Adam and Eve had an intimacy with God that we will only know in Heaven.  Adam and Eve had a depth with each other that we can only catch glimpses of now.

Naked.

And then the Fall.  Their ate, their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked.  They knew they were naked so they hid themselves.  This beautiful and perfect state was broken and stained.

Then God comes walking in the garden.  He calls to them "where are you?" (Gen 3:8) not because they were hiding from an omnipresent and omniscient God.  God said this as an expression of the severed intimacy.  In one bite Adam and Eve went from perfect relationship with God to complete isolation.

Scene 2: Palestine

Emmanuel has come.  Jesus has been leading his band of misfit disciples around the countryside and now they have come to Jerusalem to start the revolution.  Everything seems perfect.  But then in a flash Jesus is arrested, tried, convicted, and executed.  Upon a hillside between two bandits Jesus hangs dying.  

As Jesus takes on the sins of humanity, my sins, Jesus who was one with the Father (Jn 17:11) suddenly becomes isolated from the Father.  Jesus who is God, and knows an intimacy with the Father that is beyond my comprehension, was cut off from God.  His perfect relationship was eclipsed by my sins.  In that moment of Hell Jesus cried out "where are you?" (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Mk 15:34).

Jesus died alone to save me.  He also decided to stop being dead that I may know life.  Jesus went through the Hell of isolation that we may no longer be isolated.  We have hope.  We can go home.  Jesus has overcome.

Nick-Names

Did you ever notice that Jesus likes nick-names?  That God loves a good name change?

Simon gets to be Peter "the Rock".  James and John become the "Sons of Thunder."  Can you imagine how cool it would be like to have Jesus who is LORD God Almighty say "Dude, Sons of Thunder, how you doin'?"

Jesus loves nick-names.  

But actually God just knows our identity.  He knows who we are and who we have been created to be.

Peter and Andrew, James and John, Jesus finds both sets of brothers in Galilee learning the family business of fishing.  In Jewish culture this means that they were not the best or the brightest.  The best youths were asked to be followers of various rabbis.  The fact that these four guys were fishermen means they were not picked.  They were not good enough.  Until a different rabbi came along.

I love the verse John 1:42

"He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter)."

Jesus looks at Simon, sees him, knows who he is, and then calls him Cephas.  It's not that Jesus looked at Peter and said "I'm never going to remember a name like Simon so let's call you Peter instead."  Jesus looked at Peter, knew his identity, who the world saw him as, and then called him by the identity that Peter had been created for.  Jesus did not seem Simon the blue-collar fisherman, he saw a pillar upon which his church would be founded and so he called him Peter.  Jesus defined Peter not by his past, education, achievements, but by his God-given future and identity.  Jesus called Peter into true life.

We see this same idea play out in the Old Testament.  Jacob had grown up with the identity of "Deceiver", that was who he was.  Until he wrestled with God.  Then God changed his name to Israel.  Starting from his grandfather (whom God changed from Abram to Abraham) God was creating a people who would be a light to this dark world, a holy nation set apart, and Jacob now Israel was a part of that plan.  God radically changed Jacob's identity.  God also broke his hip because sometimes we have to hit bottom before we allow God to speak over us.  If He has to God will break our hip to change our identity.

What names and nick-names does God have for you?  Who has God declared you to be?

Why I love Leviticus

Those who have ever tried reading the Bible, especially from start to finish, usually get bogged down around Leviticus.  In terms of scripture that inspires Leviticus with all of its burnt offerings doesn't usually make it to the top of the list.  Really it's about as fun a read as a genealogy.

But I love Leviticus and what it adds to scripture.  The secret to Leviticus to understand what the passage meant to the original audience and how it applies to our lives.  This is true of all scripture, Leviticus just takes a little more digging to uncover something interesting.

My friend Stephen recently showed me in Leviticus how Jesus uses the passages about healing, specifically healing of leprosy, to demonstrate who He is.  Leviticus 14:2-32 explains God's process for readmitting someone who had previously been afflicted with leprosy back into the community.  After being banished from the camp, and after God has healed them, the ex-leper would come to the priests and show themselves to be clean.  The priests were not the agents of healing, they were not like shamans who tried to heal people, they would simply make the pronouncement of God's work of healing.  God is the one who heals.  Cool.

Now flash forward to 1st Century Palestine (Mt 8:1-4).  Jesus is coming down from giving the Sermon on the Mount.  A leprous man approaches and asks to be healed.  Jesus heals him and tells him "go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded" (Mt 8:4b).  In the Levitical context, in which God heals and the priest then pronounces, is not Jesus claiming to be God?  By telling the man to show himself to the priest Jesus is bringing this healing into the context of Levitical law.  Jesus takes on, making no apologies, the role of healer and God in this story.  I find that to be cool.

Jesus is cool like that.

Pragmatic Eschatology

One of the most complicated, convoluted, and therefore uninteresting parts of Theology is Eschatology (the study of the End Times or better phrased "Last Things")

And I will not pretend to decipher the symbols, numbers, and meanings of the apocalyptic writings of Daniel or Revelation.

But just because the details are perplexing does not mean that Eschatology is unimportant or a subject matter we are unaffected by.

The aspects of Eschatology I am most interested in are the actual "Last Things," where everything is going, how the story ends. Because if we look at the broad picture we find some intriguing details. The story arc of the Bible is from Paradise to Paradise. And it is a story of redemption. God made Creation "good", we messed it us, and ever since Genesis chapter 3 God's work has been a work of making "all things new" (Rev 21:5).

Revelation ends with the New Heaven and New Earth (Rev 21:1). Not only that but we see Heaven fully invading Earth (Rev 21:2) which fits with the Eschatology of the Major and Minor Prophets of the Old Testament. God is making all things new. For a wonderful depiction I suggest the description of the "Old Narnia" and "Real Narnia" at the end of the chapter "Further Up and Further In" of The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis.

So we know how things end; God makes all things new and perfect.

Selah

And that makes all the difference. Because God's ultimate vision, how things finally end up, defines everything. What we implicitly believe about the "Last Things" dictates and influences how we live now. Understanding where we are going clarifies where we are now like a compass pointing North.

The temptation can be to live like our objective is to be "saved" enough to go to Heaven when we die, but without the need to engage the world around us while we are here. It has been described as "being too heavenly minded to be any earthly good", and that is a horrible and counter-Christ paradigm. Jesus did not come to draw us out and isolate "Christians" from the world, but He came to be Emmanuel, "God with us" (Mt 1:22-23), and to engage this world. We are called not to be elitists in the world, but "light of the world" (Mt 5:14-16). If we believe that God is redeeming Creation, making all things new, then we have been invited to be a part of that process of renewal (2 Cor 5:17-21). God came back for each of us, but that does not mean we can be content to let His redemption stop with us.

Instead of being "too Heavenly minded to be any earthly good" we have to be Heavenly minded (truly and Eschatologically Heavenly minded) to be any earthly good.

So may you be guided North by God's awesome work of redemption into the "Last Things"

How glorious it will be to finally go home.

Selah

Wasting Talents

We are each given various talents, abilities, and opportunities by God. He is the giver of all such gifts (Jms 1:17) But like the lazy slave can we waste our talents?

The answer is yes. Yes we can.

But is money/talents/works what God wants? Are they an end in and of themselves, or a means to an end?

In Exodus we see the Lord provide for the people of Israel as they are leaving Egypt by allowing them to successfully plunder the Egyptians (Ex 3:21-22) (Ex 12:35-36) . But if we fast forward to Sinai we see the Israelites use the very gold that the Lord provided them with to create the golden calf (Ex 32:1-3). Not only did the Lord bless them with the gold they used to create idols, and thus violate the covenant at its inception, but the wasting of the gold is illustrated in its totality when Moses makes the Israelites drink it. (Ex 32:20)

How broken is the human heart that we can take the very gifts of God and use them to utterly blasphemy His name. Yet in His great love there is forgiveness and reconciliation. But we see demonstrated that sin still has consequences when the gold God provided the Israelites is not restored. It is lost. It is a missed opportunity that will not come again.

I know I need encouragement sometimes to take advantage of the opportunities I have. Praise the Lord for grace. But may we also understand the gravity of sin, and the consequences even of forgiven sin.

Theology

This semester at Sac State I have the privilege of creating and teaching a class on Theology. The aim of the class is to give an overview of the character and nature of God. And such a subject brings up a lot of questions.

Theology (from the Gk: theologia, θεολογία,) is the study of God. It's a pretty big subject. But a cool thing about Theology is that one of its foundational principles is that God is knowable. He can be studied and interacted with. This may seem obvious but how wonderful this is given the alternative, that God is distant and unknowable. Unlike Deism Christianity believes that God is not some far distant creator who made the universe like a clock and is now watching it wind down. We can know God. We can be in relationship with God. God is near and discoverable. This is our hope, the fact that God has made Himself knowable to us.

In Jeremiah 29:12-14 the LORD declares "When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me." What glorious news is this!

Financial Martyrdom

This post is inspired by some profound words of Renee Hammond, and Curt Harlow's big screen TV

As someone who's income is based upon support given by a team of individuals, it is really easy to feel that part of the Call into ministry includes carrying the cross eternal poverty and financial martyrdom. Simply put to be in ministry means you will be poor.

Always.

But this is not true and it's not biblical. Full time vocational ministry is a worth-while career, and it is worth being paid to do. Paul wrote to Timothy, a young pastor, that "the scripture says, 'You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,' and, 'The laborer deserves to be paid'" (1Tim 5:18) quoting from Deuteronomy 25:4 and Jesus' teaching in Luke 10:7. Jesus lived and funded his ministry on support (Luke 8:3). Paul lived on support, and only did tent making when the people were too immature (new) in their faith to properly support him. (1 Cor 9:1-14)

As ministers we should not live or work with this thrifty, cut-corners, cheap poverty mentality. We are not called to be poor. We are called to be good stewards with our resources, but that call is for all followers of Christ. James writes that those who teach will be judged harsher (James 3:1) but is in regards to how we are viewed by others, and does not mean ministers should be poor, but that they should set a good example in how to wisely spend money. A poverty mentality is not beneficial to God's call on our lives.

Honestly we have this concept of ministers being financial martyrs not based on scripture, but our own uneasiness with money and our belief in the American Dream. I have found that our hesitancy is rooted in our insecurity of humbling ourselves and asking others for help; of being dependent on others rather than being autonomous and self-sufficient. But as much as America may preach that message, when we examine God's word He says the exact opposite. Even in the OT (Old Testament) the priests and Levites lived off of the sacrifices of the people offered to the Lord.

So while everything in my flesh tries to discourage and resist, I choose to live on support, to provide for my family on support, and not to be poor.

A Different View of The Bible

The following is an image of the entire Bible.




This image was created by Glen Davis using the website wordle.net. The size of a word depends on its frequency. The more often a particular word appears, in this case the Bible, the larger it is.

It offers us a different way of looking at and perceiving the Bible as a whole

I find it really cool and not too surprising that the largest words are: Lord, God, said, Israel, people. Because what is the Bible really about?