Church Write-Up: The Way, and the Timeless Afterlife

It is late right now, so my Church Write-Up will be terse.

A.  At the Missouri Synod Lutheran church, the main Scriptural text was John 14:6: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (KJV).  The youth pastor brought up a box of uncooked macaroni and cheese.  He bit into a raw noodle, then he took a bite of raw noodles with the cheese dust on it.  It did not taste good!  The youth pastor asked the child what they could do to make the macaroni and cheese taste better.  There were instructions on the box about how to prepare and cook it, the youth pastor observed.  But wouldn’t it be good if an adult fixed the macaroni and cheese for the kid?  And that is what Jesus did for us: he kept the law and died for our sins that we might have eternal life.  Jesus did not just show us the way: he is the way.

B.  In the sermon, the pastor talked about human attempts to search for God, on their own terms.  He likened that to the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, as people wrongly sought to build a tower that would reach the heavens.  John 14 itself has a similar theme: Jesus’ disciple Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father, indicating, to the pastor, that Philip wanted God to show up on Philip’s own terms.  Thomas wanted to know the way to where Jesus was going.  Jesus said, though, that he was the way.  The pastor said that many of us are on a spiritual search: we look for some way for our lives to matter, or to convince ourselves that our lives matter; we seek answers for why we suffer; and want to fill the God-sized hole in our hearts and find rest.  We can become so preoccupied trying to carve our own way to God, that we neglect what God has already done in Christ.  God has met us in Christ, understands and is with us in our suffering, and gives us hope and spiritual riches.

C.  As is usually the case, the Sunday school class on patristic interpretations of John got into a variety of issues.  There is Augustine’s proposal that the three resurrections Jesus performed symbolize the spiritual resurrection of those who sin in their heart, those who sin outwardly, and those who habitually sin.  There was John Chrysostom’s status as bishop at Constantinople, the capital of the Roman empire, and one of the wealthiest churches.  Senators attended it.  But Chrysostom took the bold step of giving a lot of the church’s wealth to the poor—-to make a soup kitchen, among other things.  That provoked ire on the part of his congregation.

The teacher got into the state of the dead.  The way he told it, believers, at death, go to a state of timelessness.  From other people’s perspective, their bodies are in the ground.  From the departed believers’ perspective, they are immediately at the bodily resurrection, with their body and soul united.  It was difficult to comprehend this.  A student was challenging the teacher, saying that the souls of believers go to heaven and wait until the final resurrection before their souls and bodies are reunited.  The teacher did not seem to believe in soul sleep (i.e., the dead are unconscious until the resurrection).  Like this student, I have my share of “But what about?”s to what the teacher was saying.  Still, the teacher was making an interesting point: if heaven is a realm of timelessness, then what does it mean for the dead to go to a timeless realm, a realm outside of our linear time in which the general resurrection is an event in the future?

D.  I went to the “Word of Faith” church, and the pastor’s daughter was preaching.  She recently came back from Columbia, and she shared how the people there were hungry for the Gospel, despite the language barrier and her cheesy skits (her words).  She believed the Holy Spirit was at work.  She talked about going out to pray out loud for someone’s healing, in that person’s presence: she was hesitant, but she said God told her that he would uphold his own honor.  She believes that person will be healed.  Another event that she considered to be a God-moment was when she saw a blind person in a fast-food restaurant: she asked God for a sign, and God said that the sign was that the person was blind and needed her help.  She said that many of us seek signs, even when it comes to areas where God’s will has been laid out: that we should do our devotions, or tithe.  Another point that she made was that we look to teachers to feed us, when we should remember that God feeds: her text for this was John 6, in which many Jews claimed that Moses gave the Israelites manna in the wilderness, whereas Jesus said that God gave the manna.

I am not endorsing all of this.  I am just relaying it.

Time for bed.

Vridar: The Abomination of Desolation in Mark 13: What Did the Reader Need to Understand?

https://vridar.org/2018/03/10/the-abomination-of-desolation-in-mark-13-what-did-the-reader-need-to-understand/

Church Write-Up: Control, and Why Does God Care What We Do?

I attended last Wednesday’s Lenten service at the local Missouri Synod Lutheran church.

The pastor’s main text was James 4:13-15:

13 Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15 For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.  (KJV)

The pastor talked about how tied we are to our calendars, and how we try to be in control through the management of our time.  Wanting to be in control—-equal to God—-was the sin in the Garden of Eden.  The pastor encouraged us to let go and let God, and that we can trust Christ because his nail-marked hands demonstrate his love for us.

Of course, I will continue to schedule.  The pastor will probably continue to schedule.  His point probably was not that we should not schedule, but that we should reflect.  Here we are, trying to be in control, and our lives are a vapor.  They go by so fast.  Plus, we are vulnerable as we go through life.  We should reflect on God, who is truly in control.

The pastor also told a story about when he was in high school, and a classmate and he were discussing religion.  The classmate asked, “Why does God care how we live, anyway?  How does it affect him?”  The pastor regarded that question as immature, and he thought that the classmate wanted to live his own life as he wished, without answering to God.  I think it is a question worth exploring.  Here God is, great and powerful.  Why does God care what we do?  A lot of answers can be proposed.  God loves righteousness and hates wickedness and its effects, and God, as one who loves God’s creatures, desires that they live in shalom with each other rather than harming one another.  God created us to be God’s image-bearers, exercising wise dominion over creation.  God desires that we rest in God as the ultimate, rather than ourselves, as God is greater, and we can do better when we worship what is beyond ourselves.  There may be other answers out there.

Book Write-Up: Mere Science and Christian Faith

Greg Cootsona.  Mere Science and Christian Faith: Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults.  IVP Books, 2018.  See here to purchase the book.

Greg Cotsoona has been a pastor and is currently an academic.  He has a Ph.D. from Graduate Theological Union and teaches religious studies and humanities at Chico State University.  He also leads Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries (STEAM) at Fuller Theological Seminary and is affiliated with Biologos.

Emerging adults range from ages 18 to 30.  A number of them are alienated from the church, and Cootsona believes that a significant factor behind this is the widespread belief that science and religion are at odds.  Many emerging adults are saturated with science and technology.  A number of them go into scientific fields, and many have grown up with advanced and advancing technology.

Cootsona seeks to demonstrate, largely for the benefit of emerging adults, that science and evangelical Christianity need not be at odds.  At the same time, he aims to explain to emerging adults how Christianity should respond to scientific developments, some of which present profound ethical challenges.  Among the topics that Cootsona discusses are: the Big Bang and Fine-Tuning; the question of whether the soul exists or if the brain is what generates the mind; the historicity of Genesis 1-3; Intelligent Design; the advantages and disadvantages of increasing technology (i.e., virtual communities and smart-phones); transhumanism; the possible genetic basis of homosexual orientation; and climate change.

Using surveys, case studies, and quotations of emerging adults, Cootsona attempts to profile where many emerging adults are on the questions of science and religion.  They are in different places, but, overall, Cootsona believes that they are at least open to the idea that science and religion can co-exist peacefully, or at least that they have the potential to be open.  He notes that even many emerging adult atheists are less belligerent towards religion than their atheistic forebears.  Cootsona offers suggestions about what churches can do to mentor and assist emerging adults who have questions about how science and religion can relate.

The book is not a comprehensive survey of the issues surrounding the relationship between science and religion.  After reading the mind-body chapter, I thought to myself, “Is that it?”, then proceeded to the next chapter.  Still, Cootsona conveys literacy about these issues, and he refers briefly to different views, without thoroughly fleshing them out.  He does so in a lucid, understandable manner, while leaving readers with the impression that there is more.  Moreover, even the terse sections address profound issues: the chapter on the mind-body problem, for instance, referred to the view that the human brain is actually oriented towards religion.

On some issues, Cootsona appears rather liberal; on some issues; he is rather conservative; on some, he is undecided.  He believes that climate change is human-caused and advocates creation care.  He is skeptical of arguments for Intelligent Design.  He tends to be skeptical that there is a “gay gene” and disputes that genetics determines what is moral and immoral.  He seems to accept evolution but is not fully satisfied, from a theological perspective, with certain Christian attempts to regard Adam and Eve as something other than two historical people.

While the book is not comprehensive and does not offer definitive answers on every question, it is a decent introduction to the issues surrounding the relationship between science and religion.  Those who want to learn more can read the books that Cootsona recommends and describes at the end, and even books cited in his endnotes.  The book also is readable and conveys a friendly tone, making it an enjoyable read.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher.  My review is honest.

Church Write-Up: Yielding, Christology, Faith, Nicodemus

For church Sunday morning, I attended the Missouri Synod Lutheran church, its Sunday School class on patristic interpretations of the Gospel of John, and the “Word of Faith” church.

Here is my description of each, based on what stands out in my mind right now.  Occasionally, I will include personal commentary and reflection.

A.  The church has been using road and street signs to convey themes of Lent.  It used the “Stop” sign a week or so ago in discussing repentance.  This Sunday, it used a “Yield” sign.  The pastor was complaining about his struggles with traffic, and how drivers, including himself, are not too interested in yielding to other drivers when they are on the road.  The pastor referred to Philippians 2:3, which states, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves” (KJV).  The pastor criticized Facebook memes and posts that denigrate other people, for political reasons or to lambaste other people’s parenting.  The pastor inquired if we are treating others as equal to ourselves when we do that, let alone as better than ourselves.

Yielding to others is a basic Christian principle, one that was in the forefront of my mind when I first became a Christian, but one of which I frequently lose sight.  I think that it is a valuable principle, albeit one that can be misused.  I recall Steven Covey’s principle, “Think Win-Win,” which is about both parties arriving at a solution that is beneficial and satisfactory to both of them, as opposed to one party voluntarily losing and allowing the other to win.  “Think Win-Win” sounds reasonable to me.  Moreover, if I am competing with somebody for a job, as will probably often be the case in this day and age, of course I will take the job if it is offered to me, rather than selflessly giving it up for the benefit of another competitor.  I will need the money, like anyone else.  Still, at times, there is a place for stepping aside for the benefit of others.  While this can take the form of being a passive doormat, it can also be an exemplification of inner strength: a person is strong enough not to get his or her own way, for the person receives strength and identity, not from consistently winning, but from Christ’s love.

B.  The Sunday School class on patristic interpretations of the Gospel of John got into a variety of issues, but I will highlight two.

First, once again, there is the issue of Jesus’ divine and human nature.  In John 11, Jesus weeps and his soul is troubled after his friend Lazarus has died.  Church fathers had issues with this, for did not Jesus have a divine nature, and is not the divine nature free of troubles and passions?  Augustine essentially said that Jesus was able to control when he was sad and wept, as opposed to being dominated by his passions.  Augustine also said that Jesus could control when he was sleepy and hungry.  I thought of the City of God, in which Augustine stated that, prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve had sex, but Adam was able to control when he had sexual desire, as opposed to being a slave to concupiscence, which he was after the Fall.

Someone in the class said that such a view depicted Jesus’ human nature as if it is an automaton, as Jesus chooses to turn the “sad” lever when he decides to become sad.  He expressed doubt that this would be consistent with Jesus being truly human.  We, after all, do not decide when we become sad, or hungry, or sleepy: these things happen to us.  (This is not an absolute statement: if we fast, we will become hungry; if we deprive ourselves of sleep; we will become sleepy.  But these things inevitably happen to us at some point, apart from our choice.)

Some of the Fathers, incidentally, seemed to depict Jesus’ flesh as rather vulnerable, and yet Jesus’ divine nature was able to discipline it.

Second, the teacher was discussing the patronage system in the ancient Roman empire.  People had patrons, and people had clients.  Even a slave could have clients: a slave could do a favor for someone, and that other person would be in the slave’s debt.  The teacher said that the favor bestowed by the patron was called grace, whereas the reception of the favor, and the accompanying loyalty, allegiance, and obligation to the patron, was called faith.  The teacher suggested that this was the way to understand Paul’s view of grace and faith: faith is not mere intellectual assent to Christianity but is allegiance, loyalty, and faithfulness to Christ.

Someone in the class raised a question.  He said that he has struggled with Jesus’ statements in the synoptic Gospels that people’s faith has made them well.  Was not Jesus’ power what made them well, as opposed to their faith?  The teacher tried to tie this with the patron-client relationship: Jesus as patron was doing favors for people, and people, in allegiance to Jesus, received them.  There may be something to this.  I had long assumed that the faith that Jesus praises in the synoptic Gospels is belief that Jesus, or God through Jesus, would or could perform a miracle or an act of healing.  I do not see where allegiance or loyalty would fit into that, though, perhaps, another definition of faith would: trust in God.  But could allegiance or loyalty fit into the equation, somehow: people, by accepting Jesus’ miracle, were not simply being healed, but they were declaring their allegiance towards the Kingdom that Jesus was bringing, which included healing?

C.  At the “Word of Faith” church, the pastor contrasted Nicodemus in John 3 with the Samaritan woman in John 4.

The pastor had an interesting interpretation of John 3, which I will neither endorse nor criticize, only present.  According to the pastor, Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, and the occurrence of the meeting by night indicated that Nicodemus had a sinister political purpose, as “night” usually accompanies something bad in the Gospel of John (i.e., John 9:4; 11:10; 13:30; 21:3).  Nicodemus, speaking for the Sanhedrin, wanted to bring Jesus under the Sanhedrin’s control; the Sanhedrin did not care for John the Baptist, who was acting outside of its control.  Nicodemus was a rabbi, and he knew that Jesus was a rabbi.  Nicodemus wanted to speak to Jesus, rabbi to rabbi.

But Jesus would have nothing of it.  Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again.  When Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3:5 that he must be born of water and of Spirit, he was essentially telling Nicodemus to go to the Jordan river, be baptized by John the Baptist (whom Nicodemus and the Sanhedrin scorned), and repent.  And, according to the pastor, Nicodemus was familiar, on some level, with what Jesus was talking about: Nicodemus was aware of such passages as Ezekiel 36:25-27, which includes the eschatological promises that God will sprinkle clean water on the Israelites and put God’s Spirit within them.  But Nicodemus was not willing to play ball: he liked his power and thought he was righteous already.  He was resistant to Jesus’ Kingdom and what God wanted to do with him and with Israel.

Jesus had two responses to Nicodemus.  First, to Nicodemus’ desire to speak with Jesus rabbi to rabbi, Jesus retorted that the two of them were on different planes: Jesus’ plane was spiritual, whereas Nicodemus’ plane was limited.  They could not speak to each other rabbi to rabbi, as if they were on the same plane.  Second, in John 3:14, Jesus referred to the story of the uplifted bronze serpent in Numbers 21.  The Israelites are complaining, so God sends poisonous serpents to bite them.  Moses creates a bronze serpent, and the Israelites are to look to that and be healed.  Jesus compared himself to that bronze serpent.

The pastor said that complaining and grumbling bring curses upon us.  According to the pastor, Nicodemus was doing so by resisting God’s Kingdom through Jesus, and what God wanted to do in his life.  But Jesus was offering a solution: look to Jesus and be healed.

In terms of the contrast between Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, the pastor suggested that there was a difference in Jesus’ approach to the two.  Nicodemus wanted to negotiate with Jesus and bring Jesus down to his level, and Jesus said no.  But Jesus was willing to meet the Samaritan woman, who was sinful and knew she was sinful, where she was.  Nicodemus, at least in John 3, was self-righteous, whereas the Samaritan woman knew she was a sinner.  (By the way, the book, Vindicating the Vixens, contains an essay that disputes the idea that the Samaritan woman was promiscuous.)

I’ll stop here.

Book Write-Up: Bible Matters, by Tim Chester

Tim Chester.  Bible Matters: Making Sense of Scripture.  IVP Books, 2017.  See here to purchase the book.

Tim Chester pastors Grace Church in Boroughville, North Yorkshire and teaches at Acts 29 Oak Hill Academy.  This book presents to Christians reasons that they should read the Bible, as well as offers occasional guidance on how to read it in a spiritually-constructive manner.

Here are some thoughts about the book:

A.  Chester believes in the plenary, verbal inspiration of the Bible.  That, for him, appears to be the only way for the Bible to be reliable and authoritative.  He seems open, though, to the possibility that Genesis 1 is not to be interpreted literally.  And, like a number of evangelicals, he does not believe in the divine dictation of all of Scripture.  God dictated to Moses, but “at other times the human authors wrote down their own thoughts and drew on their own existing knowledge,” yet “God so worked in them that their thoughts were God’s thoughts” (page 23).  Chester refers to Luke and Paul as examples of this: Luke researched sources and Paul wrote letters, and neither was waiting for the Holy Spirit to move them.  Still, in some way, as they performed their human activities, they wrote under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Does this model of inspiration work?  Chester looks to the Scriptures themselves to define how Scripture is inspired.  For him, Scripture demonstrates that God not only spoke the Scriptures, but that God still speaks through the Scriptures.  Indeed, the Scriptures themselves seem to have a high view of how the biblical writings were inspired, stressing the divine side of the equation.  This appears to be so, even if analysis of those Scriptures (i.e., looking at the ideologies and writing styles within the Bible) can call into question that view of inspiration.  A question would be whether Paul and Luke believed that they were writing actual Scripture: perhaps they themselves stressed the divine side of inspiration, but they wrote their writings as humans and did not consider them Scripture, even though Paul thought that he was bringing the Word of God (the Gospel), and Luke was attempting to write an orderly narrative about Jesus.

B.  There were times when Chester was rather dismissive of other perspectives.  He said that people who harp on biblical contradictions usually cannot name too many of them, and they are rebellious against God, anyway.  Well, in this age in the Internet, all one has to do is google “biblical contradictions” and see examples of possible contradictions!  Chester was dismissive of scientific and archaeological challenges to the Bible: scientists can be flawed and biased, and archaeology interprets artifacts that do not speak.  Maybe there is a valid point somewhere in there, yet should not their case be heard, rather than dismissed?  Chester offers a fairly decent case that Jesus in Matthew 23:35 and Luke 11:51 believes in the Palestinian canon, which excludes the apocrypha, then he casually explains away Jude 1:14-15’s quotation of I Enoch 1:9.  Chester says that Jude is not quoting Enoch as authoritative Scripture but is simply quoting a source, as Paul quotes the Stoics in Acts 17:28.  That does not work, though, because Jude treats those words of Enoch as an actual prophecy.

C.  Chester attempts to offer some basis for belief in Christianity.  On the one hand, he employs a form of classical apologetics: he states that the apostles were eyewitnesses and would have prevented any errors about Jesus from entering the Bible.  It is like the apostles were the Snopes of the ancient world.  There may be something to this, yet it is too neat, perhaps too neat than what the reality was.  On the other hand, Chester states that those who have the Holy Spirit are enlightened, and they will see Christ in the Scriptures.  If that is the case, why are there believers who struggle to derive edification from the Bible, as he himself acknowledges?

D.  That said, Chester does engage good questions.  For instance, he tackles the question of how he can believe in Christianity, without having studied every alternative religion.  His response is that he did not have to date every woman before he concluded that he loved the woman who became his wife.

E.  Chester echoes Tim Keller in saying that, if God were real, then God would contradict us, as other beings do.  This makes sense, yet it is a difficult saying to accept.  Granted, our moral sense may be flawed, as we look back in history and see flaws in previous generations’ perspectives.  Still, should we shut off our moral sense in evaluating if a statement in the Bible is good or bad?  Does not the Bible in places appeal to people’s reason or moral sense, implying that they are, in some measure, reliable?

F.  The book would have been better had it had more examples.  Examples of what?  Well, Chester talked about how Scripture challenges, then comforts, believers.  More anecdotes about how it does so may have illustrated what Chester meant.  These anecdotes would have been especially effective had Chester shown how seemingly barren passages of Scripture could edify Christians, or even how offensive passages could instruct them.

G.  The book was effective in making some of the points that it did make.  Chester argues that reading Scripture is about encountering God, not so much arriving at novel insights.  Chester employed analogies in making this point.  Chester said that he is interested in why verses say what they say and why they are present in a given biblical passage; that resonates with me, from a scholarly perspective, and Chester himself performed a close reading of biblical passages in this book, drawing interesting conclusions.  Chester effectively demonstrated how Scripture itself stresses continually the power of God’s speech.  Chester also includes insights from Zwingli and Puritans on how to prepare spiritually to read Scripture.  Overall, Chester does paint a compelling picture of how a person of God can cherish and value Scripture.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher.  My review is honest.

Church Write-Up: Abiding (John 15:1-17)

I went to the midweek Lent service at the Missouri-Synod Lutheran church.  Last week’s service was cancelled due to snow and ice.  The pastor this Wednesday preached about John 15:5-8.  John 15:1-17 states the following (in the KJV):

John 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.

Here are some thoughts, some based on the sermon, some not:

A.  V. 2 says that the Father takes away the branches that are in Jesus yet bear no fruit.  Does that mean that a Christian, one who is in Jesus, can lose his or her salvation if he or she is not producing the fruits of a righteous spiritual and moral character?

Those who believe that Christians cannot lose their salvation have ways to explain this passage.  A Reformed view is that the fruitless branches are only superficially, loosely, or apparently attached to the vine (representing Jesus), not fully or genuinely attached to it.  Andrew Naselli, who is Reformed, appears to go this route in his book, No Quick Fix: Where Higher Life Theology Came From, What It Is, and Why It’s Harmful.  John MacArthur in his commentary goes a similar route when he states: “The picture is of the vinedresser (i.e., the Father) getting rid of dead wood so that the living, fruit bearing branches may be sharply distinguished. This is a picture of apostate Christians who never genuinely believed and will be taken away in judgment (v. 6; Matt. 7:16; Eph. 2:10); the transforming life of Christ has never pulsated within them (8:31, 32; cf. Matt. 13:18–23; 24:12; Heb. 3:14–19; 6:4–8; 10:27–31; 1 John 2:19; 2 John 9).”

Christians who believe that Christians can lose their salvation can then retort, “But does not the passage say that these fruitless branches are in Christ?  How can they be in Christ, if they were not are genuine Christians?”  That is a good question, and yet, in my opinion, the Reformed argument does have some merits.  John 15:5 appears to say that abiding in the vine leads to the production of fruit; John 15:6 affirms that a branch that abides not in Christ is cast forth as a withered branch and is thrown into the fire.  A fruitless branch is a branch that does not abide in Christ, in short.  One could then ask: Can a branch be in Christ, while not abiding in Christ?  Is abiding a deeper connection with Christ than merely being in Christ?

B.  Another “once-saved-always-saved” interpretation of John 15:2 is that it means that God lifts up the fruitless branches, washes them, exposes them to the sunlight, and enables them to bear more fruit.  See here and here for articles that argue along these lines.  This is an appealing view, in that it affirms that God does not give up on people. It reminds me of Luke 13:6-9.  In that passage, the master of the vineyard observes that a fig tree has not produced fruit for three years and tells the dresser to cut it down, but the dresser offers to dig around it and give it dung to fertilize it.  If it still has not produced fruit, the master can cut the tree down.  But Jesus bends over backward to bring fruit from the fruitless tree.

Some, including the articles to which I link, argue that it was the practice in first century Palestine to try to improve fruitless branches rather than discarding them.  Bruce Wilkinson, in his book, Secrets of the Vine, refers to a conversation that he had with a modern-day vineyard owner:

“New branches have a natural tendency to trail down and grow along the ground,” he explained.  “But they don’t bear fruit down there.  When branches grow along the ground, the leaves get coated in dust.  When it rains, they get muddied and mildewed.  The branch becomes sick and useless.”

“What do you do?” I asked.  “Cut it off and throw it away?”

“Oh no!” he exclaimed.  “The branch is much too valuable for that.  We go through the vineyard with a bucket of water looking for those branches.  We lift them up and wash them off.”  He demonstrated for me with dark, callused hands.  “Then we wrap them around the trellis or tie them up.  Pretty soon they’re thriving.”

As he talked I could picture Jesus’ own hand motions when he taught in the vineyard that night…When the branches fall into the dirt, God doesn’t throw them away or abandon them.  He lifts them up, cleans them off, and helps them flourish again.

By contrast, Craig Keener, in the IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, asserts that the practice in first century vineyards was that farmers “removed unfruitful branches entirely” (page 293).  Keener states: “Those tending vines (and some kinds of trees) would cut away useless branches lest they wastefully sap the strength of the plant; in the long run, this diverted more strength into the branches that would genuinely bear fruit.”

C.  The pastor was making a similar point to what Keener makes, only the pastor seemed to be interpreting the fruitless branches as the sinful aspects of individual believers: God, through God’s refinement of believers, clears away what is fruitless (i.e., sins, character defects) from them.  V. 2 does appear to be making a similar point when it affirms that God prunes fruitful branches that they might produce more fruit.  But the branches themselves seem to represent people who are somehow connected to the vine, not characteristics of those people.  When God takes away the fruitless branch, in short, God is taking away a person, not a characteristic (i.e., sin) of that person.

That said, when the pastor talked about how the fruitless branches sap the strength of other plants, I wondered if John 15:2 related, in some way, to church discipline.  An unrepentant person in church can conceivably hinder the spiritual growth of other believers: Paul states in I Corinthians 5:6 that a little leaven leavens the whole lump.  Romans 16:17 states: “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (KJV).  In a sense, people in a church need to be on the same page, at least on some level, to edify one another spiritually.

John Gill believes that there is a multifaceted meaning to John 15:2:

taketh away; removes them from that sort of being which they had in Christ. By some means or another he discovers them to the saints to be what they are; sometimes he suffers persecution to arise because of the word, and these men are quickly offended, and depart of their own accord; or they fall into erroneous principles, and set up for themselves, and separate from the churches of Christ; or they become guilty of scandalous enormities, and so are removed from their fellowship by excommunication; or if neither of these should be the case, but these tares should grow together with the wheat till the harvest, the angels will be sent forth, who will gather out of the kingdom of God all that offend and do iniquity, and cast them into a furnace of fire, as branches withered, and fit to be burnt.

Gill alludes there to a variety of biblical passages: Matthew 13:21//Mark 4:17; I John 2:19; Matthew 18:17; I Corinthians 5; Matthew 13:30.  His point is that God takes away fruitless branches from the church, in the present and also in the eschaton.

That does not mean that believers are to lack compassion for the unrepentant people in church.  I Corinthians 5:6 affirms that the fornicator is delivered unto Satan in hopes that he might be saved at the Day of the Lord.  Matthew 18:15-17 outlines a process of giving the sinning brother opportunities to repent, and, if all of that fails, he is to be treated as an outsider.  Galatians 6:1 talks about meekly restoring those who are caught in a fault, while taking care that one is not tempted.  The pastor talked about telling people God’s law in a loving manner, while remembering one’s own faults.

Questions occur in my mind: Is not the church supposed to be a hospital for sinners?  Do not Christians develop better character when they learn patience with those who are unrepentant, or who are not on the same page as them?  Perhaps.  But it is understandable that some churches have concluded that disruption can pose a problem to the health of a church and should be addressed.

D.  What does abiding in Christ mean?  Naselli in No Quick Fix seemed to argue that abiding in Christ is keeping Christ’s commands, and God abiding in believers occurs when God’s word abides in them (through Scripture memorization?).  Naselli is arguing against a Christian view that abiding in Christ is passively letting go and letting God, waiting for Christ to produce fruit in a believer’s life.

Naselli’s teaching, as I understand it, is difficult for me.  Is abiding in Christ loving other Christians, which, in John 15:12, 17, is a commandment from Jesus?  Am I cut off from the tree when I do not do that?  I have difficulties loving people, so I hope that my salvation does not depend on that.  The idea, however, that I can bear spiritual fruit, including the fruit of love, by looking to Jesus in faith at least offers me hope.  Jesus himself is the vine, according to John 15:1-17, and Jesus is the source of fruitfulness.

The way that the pastor discussed this topic, Jesus is about love, and that means that we should be about love, as we are connected with Jesus and brought together through what Jesus did.  There are conditional sayings in John 15:1-17—-the statement in v. 14 that we are Christ’s friends if we do what he commands.  But, at the same time, John 15:1-17 emphasizes Christ’s proactive love towards the disciples.  I think also of I John 4:19: “We love because he first loved us” (NIV).