Church Write-Up: Unshakeable, Consuming Fire, Wealth

The Wednesday Bible study was about Hebrews 13:5-6. As is usually the case, the pastor commented on the preceding verses, as well. Here are some items.

A. The Epistle to the Hebrews teaches that Christians are on their way to someplace else, as the Israelites in the Old Testament were on their way to the Promised Land. Christians are not citizens of this world but are on their way to another place. Christians wait for a new city with a new Temple and thus are not tied to the current Temple. This Promised Land towards which Christians journey cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:18-29). This is in contrast to the trembling that the Israelites experienced at Mount Sinai, as well as the shaking of the earth and heaven that God will do. If Hebrews were written after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., the author of Hebrews may have mentioned shaking because the destruction of Israel’s national symbol had a terrifying effect on the Jewish people. The author of Hebrews was also seeking to encourage and comfort, in the faith, those Christians who were being persecuted, who had their lands taken away due to their faith in Christ. Christians were tempted to revert to Judaism to avoid persecution, since Judaism was legal and recognized within the Roman empire.

B. Hebrews 12:28-29 exhorts Christians to be grateful for receiving the kingdom that cannot be shaken, and to offer God worship with reverence and awe, for their God is a consuming fire. God is called a consuming fire to remind the Hebrew Christians that God has accomplished victory in Christ, so they need not fear their enemies, whom God has destroyed in a consuming fire. It is also a reminder that divine judgment exists outside of God’s grace in Christ.

C. Christians are to help one another within the body of Christ, since they are members of one another (Hebrews 13:3). The Hebrew Christians are to assist those Christians who are being imprisoned. They are also to honor their marriages, for disrupted marriages can have a demoralizing effect on the body of Christ. Not only does the body of Christ care for its members, but it may also feel that it has done something wrong if a lot of marriages in the church end up in divorce.

D. Hebrews 13:5 exhorts the Hebrew Christians to be free from the love of silver and to be content with what they have. Silver was big money; talents were measured in silver, whereas denarii were copper. The author is not rebuking those trying to pay the bills but rather is criticizing a preoccupation with wealth; at the same time, Christians need not fear recession or creditors because God will not leave them orphaned, without any support or provision. The orientation, foundation, priority, and trust of Christians’ lives should not be love of wealth, but God and trusting in him.

E. The concept of contentment has been misapplied, ever since the Middle Ages appealed to it to tell people to be satisfied with their position in the hierarchical chain of being, so that the social-political order is not unraveled. Contentment is believing that all that we have is from God. Christians have wealth at their disposal, and it is to be used for service: in the case of the Hebrew Christians, they were to use it to serve people in the community and for hospitality to strangers. God provides through the creation, since all belongs to God.

Book Write-Up: The Feasts of Repentance, by Michael J. Ovey

Michael J. Ovey. The Feasts of Repentance: From Luke-Acts to Systematic and Pastoral Theology. IVP, 2019. See here to purchase the book.

Michael J. Ovey was a scholar, writer, and the principal of Oak Hill College in London. As the title indicates, this book is about the subject of repentance in Luke-Acts. While Luke-Acts is its main source, it gets into broader issues and questions concerning repentance.

For the first fifty pages or so, Ovey is plodding along, stating the obvious. He tries to connect stories in Luke’s Gospel to repentance by showing that Jesus’s adversaries lacked a sincerely repentant attitude because they had the spiritual flaws that people usually associate Jesus’s adversaries (i.e., prizing wealth and status, exclusion of others).

Around page 54, the book gets interesting. Ovey starts to address difficult questions as well as qualifies his points by seriously addressing potential and actual objections.

Some examples:

—-Is there such a thing as culpable spiritual ignorance (see Acts 3:17; 17:30-31)?

—-In what way were Zechariah and Elizabeth righteous (Luke 1:6)? They were not sinless, right?

—-Is repentance mere moralism and self-improvement?

—-Do people become authentically human through their relations? Ovey believes that a “yes” answer is a key to the definition of repentance and an accounting of its importance, particularly when it comes to the human relationship with God. But, when it comes to interpersonal relationships, he raises serious reservations.

—-What is the relationship between faith and repentance? If one is justified by faith alone, does that mean that repentance is unnecessary, incidental, or optional to salvation?

—-Does forgiveness entail a miscarriage of justice? How does miscarrying justice help anyone?

Some of Ovey’s answers are better than others. His discussion of forgiveness is particularly cogent, as Ovey balances justice, compassion, and the importance of repentance and demonstrating fruits of repentance, all while grounding what he says in Scripture. Ovey also distinguishes between the church as a place of forgiveness, repentance, and discipline and the world as a place of judgment. His discussion of the relationship between faith and repentance is likewise helpful, as when he says that faith is repentance-shaped and repentance is faith-shaped.

I am somewhat ambivalent about Ovey’s critique of Brian McLaren’s view on repentance. McLaren presents repentance as a change in direction, away from the futility of sin. Ovey maintains that McLaren’s definition prioritizes what humans want over what God requires: it focuses on people asking themselves how their sin is working out for them, rather than what God wants. Ovey also thinks that McLaren’s definition lacks contrition. I can see Ovey’s point when he accuses McLaren’s definition of being anthropocentric rather than theocentric. I do not think that what humans want should play no role in repentance, however, since people start to appreciate righteousness when they see the ditches into which sin has landed them. Ovey’s point on contrition rubs me the wrong way, since how can God command us to feel a certain way? And does one have to be emotional to make a change in one’s life?

Along the journey, Ovey broaches other points, such as Calvin’s response to Catholic arguments for honoring saints, and how humans who idolize machines come to resemble what they idolize.

Repentance is a subject that has long been a stumblingblock to me. When it is defined as ceasing to do evil and learning to do good, I trip over it, for can anyone seriously cease doing evil? To make that a requirement for salvation, in my opinion, makes salvation a matter of works rather than a celebration of God’s free grace. Ovey’s book is helpful in its presentation of this difficult subject.

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

Book Write-Up: No Higher Power, by Phyllis Schlafly and George Neumayr

Phyllis Schlafly and George Neumayr. No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom. Regnery, 2012. See here to buy the book.

Phyllis Schlafly was a renowned conservative activist. George Neumayr is a contributing editor to the conservative magazine, The American Spectator. Hereafter, I will refer to the authors as “S & N.”

This book was released in 2012, which was at the end of Barack Obama’s first term as President. S & N essentially argue that Obama has undermined religious freedom and has used the federal government to attack Christianity. One way that S & N believe Obama has done this, of course, is through the contraceptive health care mandate: requiring companies to pay for health insurance that covers abortifacents. Such pressure threatens to put more and more Catholic hospitals out of business, if they choose to be non-compliant. Another way is by pressuring military chaplains to support same-sex marriage. According to S & N, Obama’s policy here gives lip service to religious freedom, but it prefers chaplains who support same-sex marriage, while marginalizing those who reject it on religious grounds. S & N also discuss Establishment Clause cases, which strip Christianity from American public life, all so that atheists will not be offended by a God they do not even believe in.

S & N appear to imply that Barack Obama has a personal animus to Christianity. Obama has consistently omitted references to the Creator when quoting the passage of the Declaration of Independence that mentions the Creator. His pastor, Jeremiah Wright, questions whether Obama is even a Christian. While Obama lauds his mother as a Christian, she actually was a disbeliever in Christianity. S & N also maintain that Obama has not been honest with the American people about his views. He claimed to oppose same-sex marriage before supporting it, when there is evidence that he supported it at the outset. S & N acknowledge that Obama is a good family man, but they believe that he manifests a bias against Christianity.

While Obama is negative towards Christianity, his Administration is more positive towards other religious expressions. Islam gets high praise from Obama and his underlings. And students in public schools sing praises to Obama, as part of official class activities.

S & N take the opportunity to criticize other aspects of Obama and his Administration. Saul Alinsky, the renowned radical community organizer who inspired Obama, gets a chapter. Former Weatherman radical Bill Ayers has a cameo. And the book contends that Obama appointees, nominees, and czars have radical personal and political views. One condones pederasty. Another argued in a case for prohibiting students from having a Christian club on a public school campus. Yet another endorsed abortion as a means of population control.

S & N are also critical of Christian supporters of Obama. They note that one makes almost a million dollars a year in her pro-Obama activities!

S & N see a conflict between two ideologies. The ideology that they oppose lets the State take care of people from cradle to grave and devalues the family as the place of instruction. S & N’s perspective, by contrast, values the family and faith while fearing that government will impinge on freedom, if given leeway to do so.

Here are some items:

A. S & N refer to a case that was like the later case of Kim Davis, the clerk who refused to provide same-sex marriage licenses on religious freedom grounds. This other clerk, however, was perfectly willing for her subordinate to provide the licenses, just so long as she did not have to do so.

B. Unlike some on the right, S & N are critical of those who support compulsory birth control for welfare recipients. They fear that Obama’s policies could set the stage for that, as a way for the government to save money.

C. It is interesting what causes Schlafly takes up. In more than one issue of her Phyllis Schlafly Report, for example, she weighs in on “patent reform.” As far as I know, not too many conservatives get fired up over that! In this book, she is somewhat critical of organ donorship, since doctors may be reluctant to save a person’s life if they can use that person’s organs to help someone else. A relative of mine has a similar attitude: he does not want hospitals to sacrifice his life to save a Rockefeller!

D. Overall, S & N in this book are rather negative towards Islam. They cite acts of Islamic extremism in responding to glowing accounts of Islam by Obama and his appointees. Surprisingly, S & N did not comment on how Obama’s stance towards Islam influenced his policies regarding the War on Terror. Despite their largely negative stance towards Islam, they manage to acknowledge nuance, every now and then. They are aware of the existence of moderate Muslims, for they state that Obama tends to favor radical Muslims abroad over moderate Muslims. They criticize Obama’s attempt to pressure the Kenyan government to support reproductive freedom, to the consternation of Muslim clerics.

E. S & N’s treatment of Alinsky was better than that by other right-wingers I have read, who attribute to Alinsky things that he never said. S & N quote Alinsky’s writings. I happen to be more sympathetic towards Alinsky than they are, since Alinsky seems to have been seeking to empower people who lacked a voice and political power. Why should corporations and governments be able to do anything they wish, without resistance from the people they impact? Even S & N advocate civil disobedience later in the book!

F. On some issues, I am broadly sympathetic towards S & N. I can understand why it is a bad idea for the government to attempt to compel people to violate their religious convictions: that is futile, since people will resist! Obama was arrogant to even try. In terms of S & N’s dire predictions about the outcome of such a policy, the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision and the succeeding Trump Administration probably undermined the policy significantly. I am also opposed to students being pressured to sing Obama’s praises. But is not indoctrination in public schools wrong, period, including the indoctrination that S & N may support: public school support for Christianity, or textbooks that have a conservative bent?

G. S & N are critical of setting up schools for LGBT students. What is wrong with this, though? They can be places where LGBT students can thrive academically and socially, without fear of harassment or violence. S & N are for private Catholic schools. Why are LGBT schools so wrong?

I checked this book out from the library. My review is honest.

Church Write-Up: Giving Because You Want to Give

Church this morning talked about the story of the rich young man in Mark 10:17ff. Here are some items:

1. The youth pastor talked about how it is difficult to give some things up. When the rich man was exhorted by Jesus to sell all that he has and give to the poor, he should have responded that he could not do that. He needed Jesus because his heart was not right and his heart was attached to his possessions.
2. The pastor’s sermon included a couple stories. The first story was about when he was a pastor years ago. He had Saturday off and company was over, so he was looking forward to a day of relaxation. But he received a phone call from someone who needed help. The pastor was trying to think of ways to brush the man off or to refer him to somebody else, since the pastor did not want to give up his Saturday. The pastor’s brother-in-law, however, was eager to help. The pastor and the brother-in-law picked the man up, and the man looked ragged. They drove him to a hotel, and the woman behind the counter looked like Granny Clampit. She had a frown on her face, and there was no way that man would stay in her hotel! But the pastor showed her his card, which identified him as a pastor, and suddenly her entire disposition changed. She was now happy to do something for Jesus. She let the man stay at the hotel and fed him dinner.
3. In the second story that the pastor told, the pastor was a child. He earned a dollar and was very possessive of it. His dad came up to him and said that, if the pastor gave him his dollar, he would give him what was in his pocket. Inside the dad’s pocket was a great big Eisenhower silver dollar. The pastor replied, “No,” so possessive was he of his dollar. The dad was disappointed because his son did not trust him.
4. The Sunday school class was about giving. We see in the Bible laws and warnings about giving. In the Torah, the Israelites were required to give, according to the degree that God blessed them. In the New Testament, there are exhortations to place God above one’s wealth, along with warnings about the negative consequences of materialism. God does not want us to give because we have to give (law), but because we want to give. God does not need our money, for it is all his to begin with. What concerns God is our heart. Remembering God’s love and mercy for us can give us the proper motivation to give; God has lavished us with spiritual riches, even though we do not deserve them. We can therefore offer ourselves as living sacrifices, trusting that God accepts those sacrifices because of Christ’s atonement for our sins. When we love others, we are pleasing to God. We do that imperfectly, and sometimes far and in between; if our hearts were where they should be, we would not need a capital campaign, for our lives would be characterized by giving. But it is a process. The teacher also defined stewards. Stewards are managers of somebody else’s wealth. We manage the wealth that God gave us, as well as creation.

Church Write-Up: The Rich Man of Mark 10:17-27

The Wednesday Bible study group focused on the story of the rich man in Mark 10:17-27. Here are some items:

A. The story comes in between two predictions by Jesus that he will suffer, die, and rise from the dead (Mark 9:12; 10:33-34). The pastor thinks this is significant. The disciples wonder how anyone could be saved, and Jesus responds that, with man, it is impossible, but all things are possible with God. How does God make salvation possible? Through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

B. The story comes after the disciples rebuking people for bringing their children to Jesus so Jesus can lay hands on them in blessing (Mark 10:13-16). Jesus responds that one must become like a child to enter the Kingdom of God. In those days, the pastor said, children were not considered important. Moreover, people would not place their hands on someone else’s children, as Jesus did; the children’s mothers did that. Someone asked if children were allowed at the Temple, and the pastor replied that the Temple was for adults; women may have brought their infants, but not their toddlers. I will let that stand without comment, at this time, since here I am primarily recording what I heard in class rather than embarking on a major research project; I wonder to what extent it was true. In any case, the pastor thinks the placement of this story before the story of the rich man is significant because the story of the rich man is about the need to become humble: the rich man was self-righteous and proud on account of his riches and his status within the community.

C. The rich man says, “Good master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” Perhaps he wondered if there was anything more that he needed to do, or he was seeking commendation from Jesus. Jesus asks the rich man why he is calling Jesus good, since there is only one who is good, namely, God. The rich man was coming at Jesus focusing on himself and what he could do, but Jesus shifts his attention to God: God alone is good, while human beings are sinners in need of a savior. Jesus then tells the man to keep the commandments and specifies commandments from the second table, which focus on not harming one’s neighbor. Jesus may have focused on the second table because that concerned a man’s standing in the community, of which the rich man was proud. The rich man replies that he has kept those commandments from his youth, and Jesus then expands on the second table while shifting the rich man’s attention to the first table (love for God above all else). Jesus exhorts the man to sell all he has and give to the poor. The man was not merely to avoid harming others, for the law required him to help others, as well; it also requires him to place God above his wealth. The man is offended and walks away. The challenge of the law either kills a person and drives him to the Savior, or it offends him and makes him angry with God.

D. The pastor also commented on II Corinthians 9:7, which affirms that God loves a cheerful giver. Paul was raising money for the Christians in Jerusalem, so they could buy food during a coming famine (Acts 11:28). With food scarcity comes higher food prices, so Christians in Jerusalem would need money at that time. The Christians in Corinth owed some spiritual debt to the Jerusalem church, which was the mother of Christianity. At the same time, Paul wanted their contribution to be solely voluntary, not under compulsion. People were to decide for themselves how much they wanted to give, if anything. God loves a cheerful giver. “Cheerful” refers to more than an upbeat attitude but means an attitude of joy. This joy is in response to God’s grace and the promise of eternal life.

Church Write-Up: God Meets Us in the Physical, at Communion

Here are some items from last Sunday’s church activities:

A. The youth pastor contrasted the Old Testament system of access to God with what Christians have. The Old Testament had only one church building: the Tabernacle. Only the high priest had direct access to God, and only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. When Jesus died, however, the veil of the Temple was split in two, and now everyone can have access to God. This model raises a question in my mind. People could pray to God in Old Testament times, without being at the Temple, so what is the difference between what Christians have now and what Old Testament people had then? Perhaps, in the Old Testament, being at the Temple was a surer path of access to God.

B. The pastor talked about the importance of the physical. God meets us in the physical, through such rituals as communion and baptism. That was also the case with the Old Testament sacrificial system. People needed something physical to assure them that they were forgiven. That is true of humans, as well: an apology may not be enough, but a hug can reassure a person that you have forgiven him or her. The physical is also important because, if we overspiritualize things, we can say that our heart was right, even though our outward actions are damaging.

C. A lady gave her testimony. She talked about how she became a Christian at her confession of faith at her confirmation. She did not read the Bible that much, until she was older and had to teach Sunday school. But she felt that she was not growing. She could not attend adult Sunday school, since she was teaching Sunday school to kids at that time. She found a Bible study class, which went through the Bible slowly. They were in Genesis when she started, and, two decades later, they are in Proverbs. She also learned about Christian radio, and she has been fed by the same spiritual teachers for forty years.

D. The Sunday school class was about communion. There was some ambiguity about what exactly communion accomplishes. More than once, it was said that communion brings people forgiveness, but the teacher backtracked from that and said that it was about appropriating the benefits of the forgiveness that Christ brought through the cross. This is a Lutheran church, which believes that Christ is literally present in the elements of communion, and people there expressed their sentiment that Christians who see the elements merely as symbolic are missing out on something: not justification, but a help in sanctification, the path of growing in and building on the faith. Why communion? Well, I would say that, first of all, it is a memorial. Jesus at the first communion said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19; I Corinthians 11:24-25). We are memorializing that Christ died for our sins, and perhaps, by eating the elements, we remind ourselves of the importance of being nourished by Christ’s sacrifice by placing our faith in it. Believers in the “real presence” may take this a step further by saying that Christians actually are ingesting Christ’s sacrifice at communion and being nourished by it, not merely symbolizing their act of faith. Second, in my opinion, the teacher did well to point out that communion is a place to fellowship with God, to eat a meal with him. Paul in I Corinthians 10:20-21 places the table of the Lord in the same category as the table of demons, the idolatrous sacrifices. Obviously, the first is good and the second is bad, but both are places where a worshiper fellowships with a deity.

Church Write-Up: Messiah as Melchizedek; Jacob’s Stone in the Temple

Here are two items from Wednesday’s church Bible study:

A. The Book of Hebrews interacts with Psalm 110. Psalm 110 opens: “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (KJV). Within the New Testament, “my Lord” in Psalm 110:1 is interpreted as the Messiah, Jesus Christ (see here). Psalm 110:4 goes on to say, presumably still to “my Lord”: “The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” According to a New Testament interpretation of Psalm 110, the LORD is telling David’s Lord, the Messiah, not only that the coming Messiah will sit at God’s right hand and rule his enemies, but also that the Messiah will be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was a priest prior to the time of the Levitical priesthood (Genesis 14), so Hebrews 7 argues that the Messiah, Jesus, is high priest, even though he did not descend from Aaron or any other Levite. The pastor speculated that, upon receiving the revelation that the coming Messiah would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek, David moved the Ark to Jerusalem, the site of Melchizedek’s old kingdom Salem.

B. The pastor said that the Ark of the Covenant was not inside of the Holy of Holies of the Second Temple. Instead, there was a stone, believed to be the stone on which Jacob slept and poured oil in Genesis 28. In Genesis 28, Jacob saw a ladder going up to heaven. The stone in the Second Temple reinforced that the Temple was a place to encounter God: it was where people could meet God, and God could meet people. There are rabbinic traditions about a stone in the Temple, first and second, and some of them associate it with Jacob’s stone (m. Yoma 5:2; Pirke R. Eliezer 35; see here for more information).