Redefining the beginning

This week is on Romans 4:7-12:

“Blessed are those
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
Blessed are those
whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

Paul was writing to the Romans. People at that time had pretty much filtered their view of God through the idea that their connectedness with him started with circumcision. To them, a man who hadn't been circumcised could not know God. Knowing God was being Jewish, which was being descended from Abraham and being circumcised like Abraham was circumcised. (There's probably a lot more to it than that, so forgive my religious/historical butchery here.)

Paul turns their world view on its side. The world didn't begin at the point where people believed it did. God existed before circumcision, and knew people personally before circumcision. Therefore, if circumcision was some kind of magic ritual, none of that could have been possible.

People had clearly chosen to only start paying attention part way into the story. God goes back way further than that. And therefore, their envelope of experience was too small to be making sweeping statements like they had.

We do this ourselves. Maybe it's a religious background that puts God in an easily marketed box. Or maybe it's a background of heathenism or atheism that views him via pop culture stereotypes of Christianity or doctrines of other religions. None of us have the whole story, and all of us make mistakes based on what we "know" to be true. If you're pointing at "the religious people," you're pointing at yourself. Everyone has a set of beliefs they live by, and some of those beliefs will always be founded on incomplete or incorrect information.

The people Paul was writing to, the people who were further along in the faith and more influential, had lived their whole lives in the old testament, under the old covenant, which was based on the law God had given to Moses. Their view of God was filtered through that experience. They had gotten old testament tunnel vision!

Paul's message to them, and to us, is that God is bigger than that. The circumcision thing wasn't something that existed from the beginning of time. It was added. Therefore, the relationship with God is not in the context of circumcision, but circumcision was inside of a stage in mankind's relationship with God. Which is bigger? God, of course.

It seems obvious to us, because we're mostly Gentiles, who haven't practiced religious circumcision ever, especially not in the last couple thousand years. But that's not who Paul was discussing circumcision with. We have to look at this from the shocked perspective of the people steeped in it. For us, the shocking statements might be about permanent church buildings, professional clergy, rehearsed worship, enforced "tithing," or any number of things which have been sacred to us as a religious collective, but which are neither eternal nor related in any functional way to our relationship with God.

If you want to go back to the beginning, it was just Adam (containing Eve) in God's garden. There was no ritual for connecting with God, no prerequisites for faith, or special forms of address. There was God, and below him was man, and below him was the rest of creation. It doesn't get any simpler than that. And that's just the beginning of the story of "us." God goes back to the unimaginable void, full of chaos and nothing. Try making a doctrinal harness out of that!

Tradition sells itself as an unbroken chain carrying back to some ancestral time. But God exists and has always existed before that. Ever since the first man, God has been with us. The real tradition, the most natural state for us, is a perfect friendship with God. Before the first marriage, or the first church was built, or the first town was named, God was talking with mankind, living among us. Jesus died in order to cast off those chains and return us back to our original state with God. We didn't just start with Abraham or Moses. We've been doing this since Adam.

Marriage, Money, and Monogamy

This week's goodness is on Hebrews 13:4-5:

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.

As you can tell, I've been wringing the goodness out of Hebrews this month. This week's verses are an odd marriage between matrimony and money. They do have something in common, and it does relate to our salvation.

Marriage

First a little background. I've talked with Christians, Muslims, and Atheists, and done my share of reading about marriage. Here's what I've come to believe on the subject. Marriage is:

• Optional: The old testament was a giant baby-making festival, but the new testament is all about the connection to God. Marriage can be a distraction if you're too focused on it. Therefore, if you can do without the baby-making, you can opt out and focus on God. This is ideal, but obviously not for everyone.
• Between one man and one woman: God created woman for man out of one of his ribs, not the whole set. During the population explosion of Israel in the old testament, I believe God tolerated polygamy in certain cases, but the new testament speaks against it directly. Besides, if the best number of wives/husbands is "zero", how does "many" make any sense? You need only look at the Muslim world to see the curse it brings.
• Public: If we're supposed to honor the marriage bed and keep it pure, we need to know who is married. There is no such thing as a secret marriage. That's why we have all of these complicated social customs involving giant cakes, gaudy rings, lounge singers, and limousines.
• Permanent: Marriage is a life-long pair bond. The only way it can break is when one partner dies, or breaks the contract through adultery. There are no temporary marriages, like some sects of Islam practice.
• Binary: You're either married, or you're not. Nobody's "sort of married." Engaged isn't married. Dating isn't married. "Remembering to use birth control" isn't married.

So, if we're supposed to keep the marriage bed pure, that means only letting married people into it. If you're not married, you don't belong in the married people's bed. And if you don't have a marriage bed, you shouldn't be using it for what married people do in their creaky marriage bed. Now that I've gone and told you all I know, I'll tell you why the concept of marriage is awesome...

The marriage between the Church and God

The way men and women interact is like a model of how God interacts with his Church. (When I use a capital C, I mean the worldwide Church, as in every Christian in the world, not just the group of Christians you huddle together in a room with on Sundays.) Let's see how that looks:

• Optional: Not everyone is a Christian. Only in this case, it's better to be "married" as the Church than to be without a relationship with God. We need salvation.
• Between God and the church: There aren't "many paths to God." You can't be both a Christian and a Buddhist. Or both a Christian and a Witch. The church is Christians, and Christians have a relationship with God.
• Public: In the new testament, we're urged not to hide our faith. We're not the creepy guy/gal who pries his/her wedding ring off for a night on the town. We're faithful, and faithful people admit they're in a relationship. Sometimes that means we miss out on certain choices, or that we get hassled for who we're with, but marriage is a choice.
• Permanent: We're in it for eternity. You can't just get sprinkled with holy water as a kid, and then go off and be a Muslim. Being a Christian is a relationship, and you have to stick with it. We're not just Christians on Christmas and Easter.
• Binary: Either you're a Christian or you're not. You're not sort of a Christian, and maybe sort of something else. At some point, you make a choice: This is what I am.

Money (is a dirty dirty tramp)

Money is a tricky thing. It's the life blood of our society. It's incredibly useful, but it's also a serious danger. Why on earth would Paul put it in the same verses as he puts the warnings about marriage? Because money wants to be in the marriage bed with you instead of God!

Money makes all kinds of promises about the future. If you get more money, you get more future, and you have better stuff in it. If you get enough money, the curse of toil will be broken and you can live in heaven on earth, never lifting a finger to work again. If you get sick, money will pay for you to get well. If your enemies come against you, money will make them go away. Money is power, money is hope, and despite what the Beatles told you, money will increase your prospects in love. We invest it, gamble it, hoard it, and spend it. It is everything in our modern society. People sell themselves into debt (slavery) in order to get their grubby hands on just a bit more of it.

In our relationship with God, our marriage to him as the Bride of Christ, picture what role money plays when it encourages us to seek it, to fall in love with it, and to make it the center of our life's efforts. That's right: Money is a dirty, dirty tramp! Or it can be, if you don't keep the relationship business-only...

Money inflates our hopes and increases our appetite. When money is to be had, our current lot in life seems insufficient. The thing is, God gave us our lot in life. Would you leave your earthly spouse if they couldn't afford to make the house as nice as your swinging neighbor could? When we drop God to seek a salary, that's what we're doing.

Picture waking up tomorrow with no money. No bank account balance. No wallet full of crumply bills all facing in different directions. No change between the couch cushions. No stocks and bonds. No piggy bank or change jar. Credit cards all shredded. Is that a scary picture? Do you believe that God could still take care of you if you never saw another dollar bill again? What if you never heard God's voice again, but still had all of the money?

You can only serve one God. If money becomes that god, guess whose marriage bed the Bride of Christ is defiling? Money isn't supposed to be our god. It's only supposed to be a tool. People lived for thousands of years without it. They all had enough to eat, places to sleep, and fruitful, fulfilling lives. Why run out on God for something which isn't even necessary, let alone awesome?

Keep the marriage bed pure. Don't take another god in God's place. Look at money and say "this is just a tool. it is made of paper, the same as I have in the bathroom. it is not and cannot ever be as amazing as God. it is not worthy of my worship." God will never leave us or forsake us. Can we say the same about money? Be faithful to the faithful one.

Faith

This week is on Hebrews 11:1-3:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

These verses fit together really well, despite the fact that they're only the beginning of a whole long list of examples of people who held strong to their faith. Faith, our belief in God's statements of reality, starts before we see what he describes. It's only fitting that his universe started off formless and empty.

Taking a moment to ponder the beginning of Genesis, it's hard to picture a world that can't be pictured, existing before the light to see it was spoken into being. Faith is the same way. It's there, but there is no way to access it, no way to even see it, until God has spoken it into being. If you think you're the only one to struggle with that, read about some of the stories Paul lists in Hebrews 11, about people like you and I, who are told to plan for things they can't see or even imagine.

God has spoken to us and brought us into an amazing world. When he tells us things, we have to trust him as if we saw them ourselves. In doing this, we are temporarily on the same page as God, of the same mindset, agreeing with him by sharing his perspective. It's more than just expecting things. It's putting your money where God's mouth is.

Noah is a good example of this mindset. He didn't just expect a catastrophe to destroy the earth. Any of us could have done that. Noah actively worked to do what God told him to do, even though it went against any common sense anyone could have had at the time. Nobody builds a giant boat in their yard based on a vague hunch, especially after being persecuted by their neighbors over it. He invested in God's view of reality, not in the view presented by the world around him.

Be side by side with God in your faith. Jesus said that people had no idea what they were getting themselves into by asking to stand at his right hand. I think you could say something similar about acting in faith. It's scary and unknown. All you have to go on is something which, in trying to explain it to others, is empty and formless. What are you getting yourself into? (Smart Alec answer: God's blessing.) Faith is where we're supposed to be, though.

Our salvation is based on faith. Have you ever tried explaining the gospel to an atheist? That look you get is a good indicator that what your atheist friend is hearing is formless and empty. If we're going to accept that that's true, how can we back down from accepting the other things God has told us? They can't be more preposterous than the gospel story!

So, if you're on the fence about something you believe God has said, because you can't see any evidence that it could be true, then quit being on the fence. It's supposed to be like that. Faith starts off formless and empty, gets hit with light, and then comes alive. If you're trying to come at it with science first, planning to then end up in belief, you're heading in the wrong direction.

Brothers and sisters

This week's good news is on Hebrews 2:10-11:

In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

I call it good news because it's a basic truth that people often forget about when thinking about Jesus. Jesus calls us brothers and sisters. God the Father made God the Son come to our level in order to get us. The Son (Jesus) did it willingly. He conquered sin on our behalf. He has no reason to be ashamed of us.

Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. Through Jesus' sacrifice, we are cleansed, reset to original showroom condition, so that we can connect seamlessly with God and be part of his family. On the one hand, we're totally not worthy. On the other hand, we're made worthy, courtesy of Jesus. The bills are paid.

When we connect to God, and we acknowledge him, and we seek him, we are part of his family. He is not ashamed of us. Jesus has made us his brothers and sisters. Think about that this week. We're still people, like mortal and imperfect, but we're also made perfect and immortal. We still suffer like people who don't know God, but at the same time, we have access to the divine, to the resources of God's royal, eternal dynasty. We're not slaves, but brothers and sisters, members of the royal family, living amongst the commoners, just like Jesus did.

Angels

This week's serving of homemade theology is on Hebrews 1:13-14:

To which of the angels did God ever say,

“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet”?

Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

People sometimes get too caught up in the supernatural aspects of God's creation. They immerse themselves in arguments over angels, and demons, and various things that probably were kept from our daily physical world for a good reason. Sometimes they take the science that God gave us for dominion over our natural world, and they try to use it on the supernatural. Other times, they mistake the angelic messengers of God for God himself, and worship the angels. (We do this with our pastors, prophets, teachers, etc sometimes too, but that's a tale for another day.) From the sounds of it, people in Paul's time were all focused on the angels, and he wrote to set them straight on a few things.

The truth is that we're more awesome than the angels. God gives orders to the angels, and they carry them out. Their only purpose is to "hear and do." With us, he has a relationship. We have conversations. He talks with us, not just to us. No angel has ever enjoyed that privilege.

I was at a conference recently where the helpers were called 'angels.' It seemed oddly appropriate, given that I'd just read these verses the day before. The job of the angels wasn't to run the conference, or to enjoy the convention. It was to stay out of the way and do whatever was needed for the conference to happen smoothly. Nobody worshiped them or marveled over the stuff they did. Nobody was making a statue of the guy checking bracelets, or declaring a day of remembrance for the guy bringing the microphone to the people in the audience. The angels just did their jobs.

Real angels are the same way. They're God's creation, created to minister to our needs in the world. They're like robots. It does us no more good to worship them and marvel over their work than it does for us to worship the coffee machine or the tickets printed by a transit kiosk. Angels are what we'd be, if we focused only on doing what God had for us to do, and never accepted the relationship he wanted with us: Automatons, machines, trained ponies, etc.

We are the ones who will inherit salvation. Angels are sent to serve us, not to be served. Did God create us to take care of the needs of our guardian angels? Are we slaves to God's creation, or is it really the other way around?

We have the ability to sit at God's side, both as individuals and as the church. He is our Lord, just as he is Lord over everything, but he is also our friend and our heavenly father. There is no other creature I know of that has that to be thankful for. Don't fill your mind with useless conjecture, and your waking hours with spiritual busywork, only to miss out on the most important thing God has to offer his favorite creation.

Selling out in the moment

This week's much-awaited online Bibley-goodness is on Genesis 25:29-34:

Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.)

Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”

“Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”

But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.

Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left.

So Esau despised his birthright.

These verses are a classic illustration of the cost of thinking only of the current moment. Esau is hungry. That's all he can think about. Jacob names an exorbitant price for his stew, and Esau accepts without hesitation. He can never earn back what he's given up in the moment, but he never stops to consider this. He just goes for what he wants, blindly, and he makes a bad decision.

In the movies, it's always easy. When the villain is trying to make you make a bad decision, there is always dramatic music and facial close-ups. When you're not supposed to open the cellar door, you know, because you have a whole theatre of people crying out "Don't open the door! Don't go in there!" In real life, there is only silence.

We often look at stories like this one, and imagine Esau making an informed but impulsive decision, after reading all of the fine print. In reality, failing before temptation can seem like a non-event. Esau was hungry, and he said what he needed to say in order to get fed. People who have dieted or fasted know how easily the appetite can take over reason and lead us to do things we swore we'd never do. Esau's decision was less of a decision to part with his birthright, and more of a decision to get food by any means possible.

Compare Esau's decision with Jesus' decision. Jesus had fasted for much longer than Esau, and would have been more justified in giving in. Check out Matthew 4:1-4:

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Jesus recognized what was going on and resisted temptation. He made the perfect decision where Esau made the imperfect one. We are to be like Jesus. We have the power.

Esau thought only of his needs. He was ruled by his stomach. He lost out on a blessing by following his stomach's guidance to where it took him. Compare that to Jesus, our role model, who had eternity in mind. He knew his purpose, and he knew what Satan's advice would result in if he'd followed it. Jesus wasn't ruled by his stomach. Even when Satan joined forces with it, Jesus still stayed strong. His life was more than "I want what I want and I want it now."

Ask God to help you to see and understand the big picture. Ask to know your purpose. Ask for that eternal perspective. Don't follow something lesser than you, like a bowl of soup. Follow God almighty, who is greater than us all. He knows eternity, and can help keep us on track when we're caught up in the moment.

Now and forever

This week is on 2 Corinthians 4:16-18:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

A lot of the Christian life consists of navigating blindly. We serve a God who creates, who is all powerful, and who renews and perfects us, yet we are surrounded by evil, decay, and decline. Our wealth grows and shrinks, our bodies age, friends and relatives die and move away, and our sports teams lose important games. From a scientific standpoint, it's hard to prove that our faith is worthwhile. But, faith is a funny thing.

Paul writes about all of this stuff. His body was wasting away, and he was condemned to death in a prison. He should have been discouraged with his life, but he knew how to see things from a big picture perspective. Our present life is only a blink in eternity. While it's nice to enjoy the moment, and it's great to be thankful for what we have, when bad things happen it's good to remind ourselves that it'll all pass soon enough. We are eternal beings, created in God's image, but we struggle to see things from an eternal perspective.

God is, was, and shall be a God of healing, even if he isn't healing you in this moment. God is, was, and shall be a God of victory, even if you're currently overwhelmed and failing. The momentary evidence is not what matters, but eternity is. If we'd stopped looking the moment Jesus breathed his last breath on the cross, we'd have missed the entire Gospel. The moment would have told you that nobody had ever survived being nailed to a cross, and even if it was possible, the Roman soldiers would have just nailed Jesus to another one. Science does a great job of describing the past, but only God determines the future.

The Bible is full of stories of people in sorry circumstances, in situations which nobody had ever come out of. No infertile couples had kids until Abraham and Sarah had Isaac. Nobody'd ever crossed a sea on foot until God parted one for Moses and the Israelites. The sun had never stood still in the sky until Joshua fought at Gibeon. What about the first guy who was healed of the blindness he was born with? What about forgiveness of sin?

But even if we go to our deaths without seeing miracles like that, we still win. We have eternity with God. The core of our faith lies in the fact that there's more to life than meets the eye. But we live in a world that only believes what it sees, and that relies on the past to predict the future. If we think like the world thinks, it's easy to get discouraged. But God is the author of life. His perspective is eternal. So don't get caught in the moment. Live in the freedom of eternity.