The Rest of the Old Old Story

I wrote an introduction to this week’s readings. It gives the day by day readings and a way to deal with the extra length of this week’s commentary. It also has a prayer request!

In today’s case, you will find that the extra length is because there are basically two thousand word sections. The first is a (very) short introduction to the apostles writings, and the second is my commentary on today’s readings.

The Writings of the New Covenant

I admit I have always found the new covenant writings more fun than the Tanakh. Sometimes, though, when I’m seeing the application of some prophet to modern times, I’m awed and captivated by the Tanakh. At such times, I can get sucked in for hours.

You need a foundation and some teaching before that starts happening. Hopefully, this year will lay a very good foundation.

The Apostles’ Writings: A Short Introduction to the New Testament

Today’s commentary is exceptionally long. You may want to use this introductory parts here as a lesson later if you are short on time. There’s a section below titled "Today’s Reading" that starts the commentary on Matthew 1 through 7.

The writings of the New Testament are the apostles’ writings. It may not seem like that because two of the Gospels are not written by apostles, and no one knows who wrote Hebrews. Nonetheless, except possibly the Book of Revelation, all 27 new covenant writings are in your Bible because some church believed an apostle wrote it or approved it.

The earliest Christians believed that Mark wrote his Gospel based on what he heard from Peter while he was a companion of Peter in Rome (e.g., "Mark, the interpreter and follower of Peter, commences his Gospel message in this way … " — Irenaeus, Against Heresies III:10:5, c. A.D. 185). Luke, of course, is said in Acts to have been Paul’s companion. He begins his Gospel by telling us that he did much research to write it, and thus Irenaeus, in the same link I just gave you, is called "the follower and disciple of the apostles."

Justin Martyr, the first to say there are four Gospels (around A.D. 155), tended to refer to them as "the memoirs of the apostles."

So as way of introduction, it is good to understand that the churches started by the apostles had been taught to follow the apostles, not just their writings. They had a foundation of interpretation from the apostles that they called The Rule of Faith, the Rule of Truth, or just the Rule. The Nicene Creed, which is still recited in many churches every week, is the product of the rule of faith of the church in Caesarea that the council adapted a bit to combat the Arian heresy.

The book of Hebrews, by the way, has an unknown author, but it "made it" into our Bible because African churches thought it was written by Barnabas, Paul’s companion. Other churches thought it was written by the apostle Paul.

Putting the Bible Together

Eusebius’ Pamphilius (of Caesarea) wrote a history of the church in A.D. 323. In the third book of that history, chapters 23 through 25, he discussed what books were accepted by the churches. It is clear in what he writes that while most of the books that we call the New Testament were agreed upon, several were not. Eighty years later, about 350 years after the time of the apostles, the famous St. Augustine also mentioned that not all books of the New Testament were agreed upon by all the churches (On Christian Doctrine II:8:12).

There have been lists of new testament writings put together since A.D. 161, just 100 years after the apostles. Those lists are in agreement on most books, and they agree on all of the Gospels and Paul’s writings except 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. 1 John and 1 Peter would also be writings accepted by all early churches.

So who decided which books should be in the New Testament?

It’s funny, but no one did.

For the Roman Catholics, the first council that had any authority which established a definite list of books (or "canon") of the New Testament, was the Council of Trent, which convened in 1546. Many earlier councils decreed a list, but they had no authority to enforce their list.

What happened is that St. Jerome, in the early fifth century, made a translation of the Bible into Latin, called the Vulgate. That Bible became the standard in western Christianity for the next 1,000 years, and it’s never been called into question.

Interesting, isn’t it?

The Gospel of Matthew and Today’s Reading

Matthew’s gospel begins with a genealogy. The genealogy skips some generations (compared to what we read in the Tanakh), and I’m not sure why. I suppose it’s possible that he was making sure the totals were 14 generations each, but that doesn’t make much sense to me.

Sorry, I don’t have the answer on that one.

The story of Jesus speaks for itself. We won’t need to comment on that much, but I do want to point out the prophecy that Matthew uses concerning the virgin birth. That Jesus was born of a virgin we believe because of the eyewitness testimony of Joseph, Mary, and the apostles. The prophecy simply tells us that God planned it in advance.

Dual Prophecy

If you go read the prophecy that Matthew quotes (1:23), which comes from Isaiah 7:14, you will see that it had a much different meaning in Isaiah’s time. Such dual prophecy is not unusual. In fact, it’s common. When you are God, it’s very easy for you to speak of something happening in the present while also leaving a prophecy for future generations in the very same words.

A Benefit of Preparation in the Law, Prophets, and Writings

In 2:18 we read that it is Rachel who is weeping when the children are slaughtered by Herod in Bethlehem. Having read Genesis, we know why! That is where Rachel was buried (Gen. 35:19; 45:7).

The New Covenant and the Holy Spirit

I mentioned already, when we talked about Joseph, that receiving the Holy Spirit is central to the New Covenant (cf. Acts 2:16-18; Rom. 8:5-8; Gal. 3:2-3; 5:16-18). We find this again in Matthew 3:11. The Messiah Jesus, the provider of the New Covenant, comes to baptize with the Holy Spirit.

The Temptation of the Devil and the Bible

We see at the start of chapter 4 that the devil tempts Jesus. He even quotes Scripture to him!

It is not enough to memorize Scriptures. You must know the Gospel, and you must know the general will of the Father. Jesus knew that his Father did not want him to put his Father to the test. He knew that he should worship no one except the Father, and he never considered doing anything but the Father’s will.

We will find that temptation will flee from us, too, if we learn to delight in the Father’s will. That strength comes from fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit and prayer and the reading of Scripture (cf. Ps. 119:9-11).

Calling Jesus’ Disciples

In northern Galilee in the first century, Scripture was held in great honor, and so were the rabbis who read and taught the Scriptures to the people. Only a few would be found worthy to follow a rabbi, be trained by him, and become a rabbi after him.

It might seem surprising that Jesus could simply walk by a boat and call a fisherman to quit his fishing and follow him. However, there is more than Jesus’ divine presence and power working here. It was a great honor to be called to follow a rabbi, and most Jewish young men, at least those on the north shores of the Sea of Galilee, would do anything to be chosen as a disciple. (This information came from the excellent and interesting, if slightly expensive, DVD that I show to the right.)

Notice, though, that Jesus did not call students from schools. He called the ones that had not made it through the rabbinical schools. He called ordinary people.

Which brings us to …

The Sermon on the Mount

Jesus didn’t choose disciples like other rabbis. He didn’t pull them from the best students of Bible school. He pulled them off their fishing boats, and he had them watch and learn.

Jesus didn’t teach like other rabbis, either. I read some of the Talmud online recently, and I was astounded at the difference between Jesus’ teachings and the teachings of the rabbis of his time. While the other rabbis nitpicked over things like how thoroughly a house had to be searched for unleavened bread before the Feast of Unleavened Bread and whether handing an item into a house constituted work that should be avoided on the Sabbath, Jesus was teaching the sorts of things we read in the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus had been teaching in various cities and synagogues (end of chapter 4), but when crowds accumulated, Jesus didn’t stay with them. He took his disciples to a mountain, and he began to give them instructions.

These teachings were not picky. They didn’t address whether you could take 52 steps or 152 steps on the Sabbath day. They addressed what was important to God, the heart of the Law of God, that we love God and love one another, avoiding selfishness and overcoming our desire to please ourselves.

You can read through the entire Sermon on the Mount and be confused by almost nothing even though you are reading it 2,000 years later and 5,000 miles away in a completely different culture and language. Jesus’ message, as Justin Martyr put it, was like this:

Brief and concise utterances fell from him, for he was no philosopher, but his Word was the power of God. (First Apology 14)

The Power of the Sermon on the Mount

Please do not miss the promise at the end of today’s reading. Jesus says that if we will do—not just memorize, but do—the things taught in the Sermon on the Mount, we will never fall! That’s what Jesus’ himself said! Do these things, and you will be like a wise man who built his house on a solid foundation so that it would stand through wind and rain and wave.

Don’t do them, however, and you are like a foolish person.

2 Peter 1:5-11 and James 1:21-27 say similar things about the importance of being doers of God’s message. One of the things in the Sermon on the Mount stands out as well:

Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven. (7:21)

Judging by Fruit

Let me indulge your time for one more comment.

Jesus said we are to judge a prophet—and thus any teacher or church—by their fruit. Jesus knew that humans are never going to resolve what’s true by arguing (cf. 1 Tim. 1:5-7; 6:3-6). If we want to know how to follow God, then it is good for us to look and be taught by those whose lives we want to imitate (cf. Rom. 14:17-19).

Modern Christians have far too much trust in their ability to interpret the Bible. However, if your interpretations of the Bible result in a "psychotic obsessions with disputes" (1 Tim. 6:4) and division from people who "name the name of Christ and depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. 2:19), then your interpretations of the Bible are bearing bad fruit. If that’s so, make the tree bad, too. Admit there’s something wrong and stop interpreting the Bible the way you do!

It is fine to wind up divided, as far as the church goes, from people who do not avoid the sorts of things mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount. Paul says so, and gives some examples, in 1 Cor. 5. He says it is important to separate from those called Christians who live in open sin.

However, if we are dividing from obedient Christians over our interpretation of the Bible, we are missing it, and we are destroying the testimony of God (Jn. 13:34-35; 17:20-23).

Let us learn to judge by fruit and not by our confident interpretations of Scripture. Scripture is given to equip us for every good work, not to equip us for arguing with one another! (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

The YouVersion Bible app on my iPhone is advertising "read through the Bible in a year" programs today. It encouraged me to suggest such a plan to my friends as well.

So …

For those at Rose Creek Village that I know would be interested in a program like me, and for any of you that might find benefit in it, I am going to try to go through a Bible reading program this year and include a short commentary on each day’s reading … right here on this blog.

My plan is to limit each day’s comments to under 1,000 words, preferably closer to 500, and stick to basics.

On the other hand, much of what was basic in the apostles’ churches has been forgotten. If a day’s reading inspires too much commentary, I will add the extra commentary by video, still right here on this blog.

My goal for each day’s commentary is twofold:

• A simple overview to make the passage easy to understand for even beginning readers.
• To use this reading as a catechism that will introduce everyone to the basics of the original apostolic faith, as testified to by the writings of the apostles’ churches.

The Plan

I’m going to do the reading plan at an average of roughly 5 chapters per day with weekends off to catch up if necessary. Some days it may be less and some more. We need to average 4.75 chapters per weekday to get through the 1189 chapters of the Bible in the 250 (or so) weekdays of the year.

If I’m going to be commenting, I want to be able to choose the starting and stopping points. That’s why I’m not using some other plan.

We’ll go straight through the Bible, Genesis to Malachi and Matthew through Revelation, but alternating between new and old covenant writings every two or three weeks as we complete a book (or two).

Why me?

Why me?

Two reasons.

One, my spiritual gift is teaching, so I’m trying to be faithful and teach. Whether I’m really carrying out my gift spiritually and faithfully is up to you to decide.

Two, most people don’t have time to sift through the writings of the apostles’ churches. I have. I’m familiar with their way of interpreting the Bible and with the things they said the apostles taught them. Hopefully, the result of these commentaries is that you’ll be exposed to the historic Christian faith without having to spend hundreds of hours reading yourself.

For those unfamiliar with "the writings of the apostles’ churches," I’m not talking about some secret set of writings I discovered. I’m talking about the writings that are known to everyone as "the early church fathers."

For doctrinal and practical purposes, the writings that are useful are the "early church fathers" who wrote within 150 years of the death of most of the apostles. Anything later, in my opinion, doesn’t carry a lot of weight as testimony to the apostles’ teaching.

If you’re from RCV and reading this, please spread the word that I’m doing this. It can be used for either devotions or for home schooling.

New Pages on Christian History for Everyman

Off the subject, today I put up pages on Calvinism and the substitutionary atonement.

Yesterday, Restless Pilgrim suggested (correctly) that my answer left "intimate fellowships" as deciding the correct interpretation of Scripture. I wanted to elevate my response from a comment to a post.

Note that the purpose of the Scriptures is to equip us for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17), not to resolve disputes over doubtful doctrines (1 Tim. 1:4ff). The Holy Spirit will not feed our "sick obsessions" (1 Tim. 6:3ff).

Intimate Fellowships and a "Living Authority" to Resolve Scriptural Disputes

If that intimate fellowship is the church, then the Scriptures tell us that "The Anointing will teach you all things, and it is true, and not a lie" (1 Jn. 2:27).

Other authorities have failed us. They have not produced the fruit Jesus spoke of. The promise of the Scriptures, however, is that disciples together, joined in Jesus’ name, will be led into what is true. They will speak the truth in love to one another, and they will be delivered from deceivers and from being tossed around on the waves of doctrine (Eph. 4:11-16).

Eph. 4:11-16 and 1 Jn. 2:27 settle the question of what church it is that is the pillar and authority of the truth (the "magisterium"). It’s the local church, as long as they are following Christ rather than just standing on tradition.

Rev. 2-3 is another great section showing us this. Jesus took responsibility for each of these local churches, speaking to them individually through John the elder.

So, yes, I’m saying that intimate fellowships—of disciples following Christ, committed to being the church—will be led into proper interpretations of Scripture by following Christ. The Holy Spirit resolves questions about what to do, which is the purpose of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16-17); he will rarely resolve doctrinal disputes unless they have practical application or have some sort of important application to unity.

More responses to the Catholic Encyclopedia’s article, Teaching Authority and Living Magisterium.

Definition of "magisterium" from yesterday’s post:

The magisterium is the self-assigned and self-acknowledged “teaching authority” of the Roman Catholic Church. It’s a reference to whatever authority gets to decide what is true teaching. For Protestants, then, the magisterium is the Bible, though it’s not a very successful teaching authority because Protestants feel free to interpret it any way they want, even if the interpretations are ridiculous and embarrassing. For Roman Catholics, taken to its logical conclusion, the magisterium is the pope or a dogmatic council.

A good portion of that article is an attack on the Protestant’s rejection of the Roman Catholic magisterium. Some of it is good; some bad. It’s the arguments against the Protestant position of Sola Scriptura that I think we need to pay attention to and consider. History establishes that returning to Roman Catholicism is worse than the present situation, but can we not improve on the present situation?

In a similar way they show that they cannot dispense with a teaching authority, a Divinely authorized living magistracy for the solution of controversies arising among themselves and of which the Bible itself was often the occasion. Indeed experience proved that each man found in the Bible his own ideas … The exercise of free inquiry with regard to Biblical texts led to endless disputes, to doctrinal anarchy, and eventually to the denial of all dogma.

We can’t deny that each man interpreting the Bible, the Protestant "magisterium," for himself has led to endless disputes and to doctrinal anarchy.

Protestants have denied all dogma, however. They have simply extended the right to dictate dogma to thousands of competing denominations.

Hence the necessity of a competent authority to solve controversies and interpret the Bible.

The Protestants have either given this authority to their denominations, to some chosen teacher, or to themselves.

The question is, what’s the alternative? As we saw in yesterday’s post, and is amply explained by John Calvin in his letter to Cardinal Sadolet, Protestants found it impossible to leave that authority in the hands of the unspeakably corrupt 16th century Roman Catholic Church. Anything was better than that, including "endless disputes" and "doctrinal anarchy."

[The Roman Catholic] position was amply justified when the Protestants began compromising themselves with the civil power, rejecting the doctrinal authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium only to fall under that of princes.

Wow. If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black. This doesn’t even have much to do with today’s post, but it was so hypocritical as to be shocking. I don’t even know how to respond! I had to include it while I was quoting.

Moreover it was enough to look at the Bible, to read it without prejudice to see that the economy of the Christian preaching was above all one of oral teaching. Christ preached, He did not write. In His preaching He appealed to the Bible, but He was not satisfied with the mere reading of it, He explained and interpreted it, He made use of it in His teaching, but He did not substitute it for His teaching. There is the example of the mysterious traveller who explained to the disciples of Emmaus what had reference to Him in the Scriptures to convince them that Christ had to suffer and thus enter into His glory.

This is all true, but what they’re forgetting here is that the Roman Catholic Church hasn’t preserved any of the apostles’ oral teaching! Or if they have, it’s so mixed up in the midst of invented nonsense that it can’t be found. Things like bowing to statues, Mary being the queen of heaven (see yesterday’s post for the dogmatic pronouncement of the RCC that this is so), the worship of the bread of the Lord’s Supper rather than the true oral teaching of the real presence, and the creation of an ecclesiastical organization with powers so far beyond any thing apostolic that they can rightly be described as bizarre, superstitious, and despotic.

Having stated that I don’t believe the RCC has any oral apostolic teaching to pass on to us, the question remains as to whether we need it and where we would find it if we did.

The Catholic Encyclopedia has rightly pointed out the confusion and disputes in Protestant Churches. This blog is often devoted to pointing out how badly Protestant Churches are misinterpreting Scripture; so badly, in fact, that most can be accused of not believing it at all, preferring their tradition even when Scripture clearly refutes it.

I think we have to do something, and finding the oral teaching of the apostles to the churches they formed seems like an excellent solution if that oral teaching can be found.

Many people agree with me, which is why there is such a revival of reading the early Christian writings among Protestants today.

The problem is, listening to those writings and to their teachings would rip apart the entire fabric of Protestant Christianity (just as it would rip apart the entire fabric of Roman Catholic Christianity).

To me, the primary problematic issue is that the oral teaching of the apostles highlights the clearly Biblical teaching that the church is supposed to consist of committed Christians who know each other intimately. Such a church can cleanse itself of leaven, as commanded in 1 Cor. 5, by putting out not only the adulterers and immoral, but even the greedy.

The problem is, if we did that, we’d lose at least half our Protestant members and probably more like 80 to 90% of them, thus depriving most pastors and church staff of a job.

If course if the 10% to 20% left, became part of one another’s lives, and formed Biblical churches, then the pastors and church staff could keep their jobs by either evangelizing or tickling the ears of the 80 to 90% that are left.

That sounds shocking, but at this point millions of people agree with me. George Barna, in his book Revolution, argues that up to 20 million Christians have left organized churches to seek the very sort of fellowship I’m talking about.

The bad news is that even most of those don’t really want God intervening in their personal lives, and working out unity by the power of the Holy Spirit is an undertaking that requires immense self-denial that most people are not willing to give. (Think of it like marriage. It sounds great when you’re courting, but give it some time, and those that are not willing to make significant sacrifices will fail.)

Enough for today. More tomorrow.

You may or may not have noticed, but modern translations differ significantly from the King James Version at Romans 8:1. Modern translations, like the NASB and the NIV, say that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The KJV, however, adds the clarifying sentence, "who do not walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

I’ve heard some Christians complain that the new versions take responsibility away from us. Like the false teachers mentioned in Jude, they turn grace into a license for sin (Jude 4), by removing the requirement to walk in the Spirit.

I don’t agree.

Don’t get me wrong. Paul makes it very clear that there is condemnation for those who claim to be in Christ Jesus but who do not walk after the Spirit. "If we live according to the flesh," he says just eleven verses later, "we will die."

Whether you believe that death is only physical (as ridiculous as that interpretation is) or whether you believe it is spiritual, Romans 8:12 proclaims judgment on those who walk after the flesh rather than after the Spirit. Galatians 6:7-9 does the same, saying that those who sow to the flesh will reap corruption from the flesh.

In both cases, our walking after the flesh is not simply forgiven or covered in the blood of Christ. Those who walk after the flesh are not among those blessed ones "to whom the Lord will not impute sin."

But Paul does not need to point that out in Romans 8:1. He already points it out in Romans 8:2!

Sometimes it’s good to make sure we understand one verse because it clarifies a whole lot of others.

Romans 8:2 says, "The law of the Spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death."

Somehow, most of us (including me for many years) read that comment about the law of sin and death, and we have some general, hazy idea of "the law of sin and death" that we never really think through. We just sort of think, "Yeah, yeah; Jesus died for us." We never get around to really ruminating on the Word of God and becoming clean by doing so.

The law of sin and death is the law that Paul has just spent an entire chapter explaining. There were no chapter breaks in Paul’s original letter to the Romans. He’s still talking about what he described in Romans 7. Sin lives in us, compels us to disobedience, and then disobedience to the law of God slays us.

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, Paul tells us, has delivered us from Romans 7.

Romans 8:1 doesn’t need the clarifying statement “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:2 is that clarifying statement.

Paul even ties Romans 8:2 to Romans 8:1 with the Greek word gar, which basically means "because." There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has delivered them from the law of sin and death.

What is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus? Paul goes on to explain that. Romans 8:3 also begins with gar. It explains Romans 8:2. The Law of Moses couldn’t deliver us from our bondage to sin, Romans 8:3 tells us, but God could and did. He did that by sending his own Son in the likeness of our sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.

Romans 8:4 then has the clarifying statement that is not needed in Romans 8:1. "The righteous requirement of the Law is fulfilled in those of us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

Today I watched a powerful video, When the Rabbi Says "Come," for the second time. It’s one section of a video called In the Dust of the Rabbi.

Ray Vander Laan’s excellent portrayal of life in Galilee and the background of the Gospels is so helpful that I purchased a copy for my family even though it’s a bit pricey. I also got the study guide, so I could go over it carefully with the children.

But this blog is not about Vander Laan’s convicting and important teaching. It’s about the fact that even a man like Vander Laan, whose study of the geography and culture of the Bible has led him to strongly emphasize a life-changing discipleship, is confined by semantic taboos every bit as much as those less well-informed.

His study guide says:

Jesus and his disciples had a very different view of discipleship. They made no distinction between "being saved" and living in obedience to God. To be saved was to be totally committed to a life of obedience—to walk as the Rabbi walked, to become like him.

That’s clear, and no one who’s read First John—and believes that it’s God’s Word—could deny that what Vander Laan says is true.

Mark Twain once said, "Laws are sand; customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment."

What Twain says concerns society is no less true of modern Christianity. You can often say things that flatly contradict the Bible yet maintain an audience in the churches. Say something, however, that contradicts well-established tradition, and you will be quickly called to task.

To call Christians to discipleship is no violation of modern tradition, but to tie it to salvation … that’s another story. For Vander Laan to say "They made no distinction between ‘being saved’ and living in obedience to God" is to walk on thin ice despite the fact that he’s practically quoting 1 John.

So Vander Laan adds a line in honor to modern tradition.

They did not do this in order to be saved, but rather because they were saved. (emphasis in original)

We hate to say that we obey to be saved. In fact, custom forbids it.

But does the Bible forbid it.

If so, the apostles didn’t know about it. They had no qualms about tying obedience to salvation, nor about saying that we obey to be saved.

For example:

• "Therefore, brothers, be diligent to make your calling and election sure because if you do these things you will never stumble, for in this way an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1:10-11)
• "What benefit is it, my brothers, if a man says he has faith and does not have works? Can faith save him? … You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only" (James 2:14,24)
• God will repay everyone according to their deeds. To those who seek glory, honor, and immortality by patiently continuing to do good, [he will repay] eternal life. (Rom. 2:6-7)

Yes, yes, I know that modern Christians excel at rewording the apostles so that their words don’t violate modern tradition. James, for example, really didn’t mean "justified by works and not by faith only," they say. He meant "justified by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone."

Slick.

But clearly James wasn’t guarding his words the way modern custom prescribes. Neither was Peter. Neither was Paul.

James didn’t follow his statement with, "Oops, sorry. I’m not saying that we do works to be justified. Obviously we do them because we are justified."

Peter didn’t follow his words with, "I didn’t mean that we diligently do these things to enter the kingdom of Jesus Christ. I meant that we diligently do these things because we already have an entrance."

I highly recommend learning to quote the apostles, despite the fact that you will quickly be labeled a heretic. You may find that there’s a reason that between 80 and 95% of people who make a profession of faith don’t even attend church five years later. As you learn to say what the apostles said, I believe you will find that their words will change what you believe as well, slowly delivering you from the vise-like grip of unyielding custom.

By the way, the statistic I quoted in the last paragraph came originally from Ray Comfort’s Hell’s Best Kept Secret. I recommend the book because it describes the problem so well, though I strongly disagree with his solution. We have a Gospel that doesn’t work for the large majority—at least 4 out of 5—of the people who hear it.

I got carried away and wrote a long email to a young man who wrote me. It covers evolution, church history, the apostles, the Word of God, the Scriptures, the Gospel, and what is central to Christianity.

I hate to see it simply languish in my sent folder, so here goes:

All Bible quotes in this post are from the NASB.

You wrote:>>Either you believe everything in the Bible is the inspired Word of God, being completely true, and that it is the standard for which Christians should live their lives, or you don’t.<<

To me you just made two statements, not one. The first, if I'm understanding your meaning correctly, is that the Bible is completely accurate historically and scientifically. That's a bit more narrow of a definition than "completely true."

Is the Bible “Completely True”?

There is no denying that I don’t believe the Bible is completely accurate historically or scientifically. I don’t believe the world is set on pillars (1 Sam. 2:8). I don’t believe that the sky is as hard as a metal mirror (Job 37:18). I believe that the earth moves, even though Psalm 93:1 says it doesn’t.

Of course, everyone–including you, your pastor, and everyone else you know–agrees with me on the three things I just listed. Oh, they have their excuses as to why that’s different than doubting the exact scientific accuracy of Genesis 1, but it all looks the same to me.

Do we really believe that God made plants before there was a sun? Do we really believe that there is a tree that if you eat from it, you’ll have eternal life whether God wants you to have it or not? That’s certainly what the story of the Garden of Eden suggests. God had to ban Adam … No, let’s not call him Adam. His name is Man. The Hebrew word Adam is used over 500 times in the Old Testament, and it is only translated Adam in the first few chapters of Genesis.

So, God had to ban Man and Life (Life was the name of Man’s wife) from the garden because if he didn’t, then Man would eat from the tree of life and live forever; apparently even if God didn’t want him to live forever!

Maybe that was meant to be an accurate description of the very first days of mankind, but I don’t believe that. And everyone I’ve read on the subject of how the Hebrews told stories agrees with me. To the Hebrews, “true” was not a matter of historically accurate. “True” had to do with whether it communicated truth.

I believe that the story of Man and Life not only communicates truth, but it communicates God’s truth. It’s not just a saying or a bit of human wisdom. It’s a message from God.

In that sense, I do believe that the Scriptures are completely true.

Is “scientifically and historically accurate” the correct definition of true? Well, that’s for you to decide, but I believe that is a modern, western definition that doesn’t apply very well to the Hebrew Scriptures. It was certainly not their mindset, according to every Hebrew scholar I’ve read.

Is the Bible our Standard

The other part of your statement was whether the Bible is “the standard for which Christians should live their lives.”

First, let me say that I definitely believe that the Bible is the standard for which Christians should test, though not necessarily live, their lives. If our lives disagree with the Scriptures, then we are in error. With that I completely agree, but the Scriptures teach us that we are to be led by the Spirit, not led by the Scriptures. The Scriptures can provide guidance, but we are to walk in the Spirit.

Today, we think the Bible is the center of the Christian faith.

I’m pretty certain that the apostles thought that Jesus Christ is the center of the Christian faith. I think they believed that the ultimate testimony of Christianity was that the Gospel they received from Jesus was “the power of God to salvation,” and that those who believed the Gospel received a real and powerful justification, becoming new creations.

Paul describes that concerning the Thessalonians:

“You became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything” (1 Thess. 1:7-8).

The Scriptures talk about the Word of God growing three different times in Acts (6:7; 12:24; 19:20). We tend to equate the Scriptures and the Word of God, but the apostles didn’t. They believed the Word of God is either Jesus or the entire message of God, in whatever form it came. One major form is that the Word of God lives in us, planted like a seed. It can grow because as the number of disciples multiply, the Word of God grows.

We can say that the Scriptures are the standard by which we must live our lives, but could the apostles’ churches say that? I’ve read all the writings of the second century church, and I can tell you–along with the agreement of pretty much every Christian scholar you want to check–that the New Testament writings were not gathered together until about a hundred years after Jesus died.

And do you know how they gathered the New Testament writings?

They were not gathering “inspired” writings. They were not gathering “New Testament” writings. They were gathering the writings of apostles and men who accompanied the apostles. They wanted all and any they could find.

It was the apostles who were inspired, not just their writings. (For example, see 2 Thess. 2:15 and verses like 1 Cor. 11:2 and 14:37.) The New Covenant has never been about a book. It has been about God pouring out his Spirit on all flesh, bringing them into the church, and making of them a family that would glorify his name by their love for God, their love for each other, and their disdain for the things of the world.

Boxing up God, the Scriptures, and the Gospel

I’m so sorry, dear reader, that writing like this is so limited. Today we’ve boxed everything up and made everything nice and tidy.

God’s never been that way. He’s always left questions and things we don’t understand. He doesn’t care about our fitting his grand plan into our limited human minds. He cares about our trust and obedience. He wants us to know him, for eternal life is to know him, not to pass a test on his plan of salvation (Jn. 17:3).

The Original Faith

My goal is not to convince you of things, but to let you look at the faith that’s been handed to us. The original faith consisted of a firm trust that God sent Jesus, Jesus sent the apostles, and the apostles raised up churches to preserve the truth. Those churches all had a basic “rule of faith” to keep them on the straight and narrow. The Apostles Creed is a 4th century “rule of faith.”

When you read the writings of the 2nd century church, it’s such a glorious thing to see the purity of original Christianity. They held firm to the foundation that “The Lord knows those who are his, and let those who name the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19). They demanded that Christians accept the basic truths, the sort of things outlined in the Nicene Creed, but after that, “sound doctrine” was much more like what is described in Titus 2 than the sort of things we argue about today.

They honored those who lived holy lives. In fact, one early Christian said, “We don’t speak great things; we live them.”

When they defended Christianity, they spoke of the divinity of Christ’s teachings and how the Spirit of God empowered them to be delivered from greed and lust and to live lives of good conscience. Further, they stood gallantly during persecution, arguing that the bravery of the martyrs was proof of the power of the Spirit of God in the lives of Christians.

Misusing the Scriptures

I love the Scriptures. I hope, as you can see, that I study them thoroughly. I pattern my life after them, and I quote them in defense of all I say. If what I say can’t be found in the Scriptures, then what I say can be rightly rejected.

But we’ve done something awful with the Scriptures in the modern era. As I read today in a George MacDonald book, there are too many people who are “more desirous of understanding what they are supposed to understand than of doing what they are supposed to do.”

We argue and fight over doubtful matters. We make our determinations of what is true based on our intellectual interpretations of Scripture, when in fact Jesus (in Scripture) taught us to judge our teachers by their fruit and not by their confident interpretations (Matt. 7).

The Doctrine According to Godliness

We need to relearn the “doctrine according to godliness” as mentioned by Paul in 1 Tim. 6:3. Because our doctrine is according to intellect and argument, rather than according to godliness, we are what Paul describes in 1 Tim. 6:4-5:

He has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved minds and deprived of the truth.

Let us set ourselves to obeying Jesus Christ and honoring him by our lives.

Evolution and Doubtful Disputes

I have a web site on evolution. That is not because I think that Christians need to take a position on evolution, nor because I want anyone at all to agree it’s true. What I want is that men who have boxed up the Word of God and wrapped a book cover around him do not splinter the church of God into fighting factions over doubtful subjects.

The mark of a Christian is not that he agrees that Genesis one is literal … nor that it’s not literal. The mark of a Christian is that by the power of the Spirit of God he obeys Jesus Christ, living a life marked by the love of God.

We have enough work achieving that goal, but modern Christians have forgotten that it is a goal. They have become confused into thinking that Christianity is a mere understanding of and assent to the atonement.

Salvation is not a plan; it’s a Man, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I’m still filing away old emails from after transferring from a PC to a Mac and from the Mozilla Thunderbird email program to Mac’s "Mail."

In the process, I ran across a June 9 email from Christianity Today that focused solely on evolution, and more specifically on the historicity of Adam and Eve. That newsletter sent me to this article, titled "The Search for the Historical Adam."

The issue I want to discuss today is not whether Adam was a historical figure, though I imagine most of you know I consider the garden story an obvious allegory, even less likely to be an actual historical story than "The Prodigal Son" or "The Good Samaritan" because those don’t involve talking snakes and trees that can make you live forever (even if God doesn’t want you to!).

What I want to discuss is where we’re going to stand if we come to agreement, as I’m sure we will eventually will, that man evolved. In the 1600′s, we came to agreement that the earth moves around the sun against the literalist (and Lutheran and Calvinist) interpretation of Psalm 93:1. Eventually, and probably soon, denying evolution is going to look so foolish that Christians in general will no longer take that stand.

Anyway, an evangelicalism "expert" (an expert on evangelicalism???) at a policy center in Washington "call[ed] the new thinking the new thinking an ‘urgent’ and ‘potentially paradigm-shifting’ development with ‘huge theological implications.’"

It does have huge theological implications, but they are implications we are going to face whether we like it or not. As Francis Collins and Karl Giberson put it, "unfortunately" the concepts of Adam and Eve as the literal first couple and ancestors of all humans simply "do not fit the evidence" (The Language of Science and Faith as cited by the referenced and linked Christianity Today article).

So What Are Those Implications?

If we have to admit that Adam and Eve were not literal people and that the Garden story is the allegory that it seems to be, then where do we stand? What do we have left?

What I’m afraid of is that most Christians have nothing more than a religion they’ve been talked into with a book that they honor for reasons they do not understand. Those Christians will be left with nothing at all. For them, Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, is correct. Their whole religion will crumble.

I used the word "honor" in the preceding paragraph advisedly. I do not agree that such Christians believe the Bible. They only reverence it. Try sometime to get two "Bible-believing" Christians to agree on what the Bible says about some point of difference. It doesn’t take much effort to see that neither cares what the Bible actually says; they care only about what their particular tradition has taught them.

Today, most traditions which include people who reject evolution have taught their adherents to reverence the Bible in a way that borders on worship. They have also taught their followers to equate their traditions with accurate Bible interpretation. Anyone who disagrees with them is wrong by definition and is thus at least somewhat separated from God.

Embracing evolution for Christians from those traditions looks like leaving the faith. They have to face the following horrifying consequences, all of which violate their tradition, and each of which represents one step away from following God.

• There was death before Adam
• Our sin nature is not the consequence of the fall but the natural consequence of evolution
• The Bible is not historically literal throughout
• The Bible is errant when it comes to science

There are probably others, but we don’t need to mention them because these are enough to ensure ostracization from their denomination or tradition.

Finally, one of the worse fears these Christians have is that the only alternative to their strict literalism is a liberal Christianity that embraces homosexual pastors and exchanges holiness for social programs that are not even personal but run by governments and large organizations.

A Purely Intellectual Christianity

I want to point out here that all four of those bullet points above are nothing but statements that can be written down in a doctrinal statement. Not a single one of them is an action, nor can any of them be transformed into an action at all.

I assert that the majority of evangelical Christianity is primarily an intellectual theory. Yes, many Christians live a life that is "holy" by New Testament standards that evangelical Christians agree on: no sex outside of marriage, respect for others, kindness, regular prayer, etc.

However, this is not primary to evangelical Christianity because evangelical Christianity has a powerful emphasis on Paul’s phrase, "not of works." Living a life of obedience to the teachings of Christ has to take a back seat to acknowledging all the purely intellectual assertions of the evangelical traditions.

And those purely intellectual assertions are threatened by evolution.

Evolution and a Practical, Spiritual Christianity

I’m not afraid to see those intellectual assertions crash. They don’t belong to apostolic Christianity anyway.

Sometimes I wonder how the Bible could say things so clearly, yet so many of us miss it. Of course, I know the answer to that. Most Christians are not Bible believers; they are holders of tradition.

For example, Paul says very clear what is at the foundation of Christianity in 2 Timothy 2:19:

God’s foundation stands firm, and inscribed on it is this:
The Lord knows those who are his
And let him who names the name of Christ withdraw from unrighteousness

Now there is action, and it was primary to Paul. In fact, he said it is what is inscribed on God’s foundation, rather than all those “I believe’s” that are inscribed on denominational foundations.

I don’t know how many times evangelicals have responded to this with, "Well, Paul said sound doctrine is important."

This is sound doctrine!!

There’s only one passage that specifically defines sound doctrine. It’s the entire chapter of Titus 2. Go read it. There isn’t anything remotely similar to "no death before Adam."

In fact, it ends by saying that Jesus died "to purify a unique people for himself, zealous for good works."

Right before that, it tells us that the purpose of grace is not to convince us that we can go to heaven no matter how we live but to teach us to "deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age."

In Romans 6:14—so that we can move out of the so-called "pastoral epistles" into the so-called "faith epistles"—Paul tells us that grace is what breaks sin’s power over us, so that we can stop being slaves of sin. There again, in Romans 8:3-4, Paul tells us that is the reason Jesus died. He says something similar in Romans 14:9, telling us that Jesus died so that he could be Lord of both the living and the dead.

This sort of theology, which as you can see I’m merely quoting from the Bible, is not intellectual. It is powerful, difficult, and puts us in a daily struggle against sin which Jesus’ death has empowered us to win.

Paul describes that struggle in Galatians 5:16-18 and again in Galatians 6:7-9. It is described very similarly in Romans 8:5-14, but my favorite description is in 2 Peter 1:3-11.

What is Christianity? It is the death of Christ to deliver us from the power of sin so that our lives can be so utterly transformed that we can be described as "born again" and "a new creation." It is the resurrection of Christ who lives in us by the Spirit of God so that our lives are noticeably divine.

That Christianity is not threatened by evolution. Who cares whether Adam evolved when we are no longer sons of Adam but sons of God? (I love the fact that 1 Corinthians 15 calls Jesus the second man, but the last Adam. He is the last Adam, whose death and resurrection creates a new race of men, the children of God.)

Since I have put myself in conflict with a proclamation from strict literalists—by whom I mean people who strictly believe that their interpretations are accurate no matter how much they don’t match the Bible—I want to make an appeal to Jesus’ standard for conflict resolution when it comes to the proclamation of his teachings:

Beware of the false prophets … you shall know them by their fruits. (Matt. 7:15-16)

You decide what message produces truly good fruit.

There’s probably some really great title for this blog, better than "Liberal Arts and the Word of God," but I just can’t seem to find it. I thought of titles involving the right brain as well, but I thought that would mystify too many people.

So, let’s get to the point:

God doesn’t just want to speak to your left brain (the logical, exact, scientific, and mathematical side of your brain), but if you want to actually follow through on the commands of God—to avoid being a hypocrite—then you need God to speak to your left brain as well.

A friend (Adam Walker) linked to a great article on Apple and its competition with the PC, and it had the most amazing quote by Steve Jobs (Apple’s CEO):

I’ve said this before, but thought it was worth repeating: It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. That it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.

This was said concerning the iPad 2.

Last fall I sat and talked with two friends, both of whom work for Apple. They were commenting on how Apple was selling a produce, the iPad, that served no new purpose. Everything the iPad does can be done with an iPhone or a laptop.

Steve Job, by mentioning liberal arts and the humanities, says that the iPad’s appeal is not usefulness; it is beauty.

The iPad appeals to the heart.

Every good salesman knows that almost every purchase is an emotional decision, not a logical one. (I base that on numerous sales training courses I’ve been through.)

God is not a salesman, but God made us. He not only knows how we’re constituted, but he approves of it. He’s the source of it.

Thus, the Word of God, reduced to it’s left-brained, merely logical, scientific and mathematical basis, is, um, let’s say dehydrated. It’s like Carnation Evaporated Milk^™ or a military MRE (Meals Ready to Eat, which are mostly "just add water" powders and dried patties). It may have all the vitamins and nutrients you need, but very few people like to eat it.

Does this produce a different emotion than an MRE?

MRE; photo by Christopherlin, used with permission

The point of all this?

In the early days of the church, the writings of the old covenant were a rich source of spiritual insight. Christian teachers, across the board, taught that all new covenant disciples, being endowed by God with the Holy Spirit, could look into the words of the Law and the Prophets and glean spiritual truths.

An example used repeatedly in their writings: The food laws, which taught that the only clean animals were those that chewed the cud and parted the hoof, were not about food. God doesn’t care about food, and food can’t defile a man. Instead, those laws taught us that we are to be in fellowship with those that ruminate on the Word of God and separate from the world.

An example from Bible class with my kids a couple days ago: In Genesis chapter one, there is a reason that light and day are created both first and three days before the sun. Light is of first and foremost importance. We are children of the light and of the day, and our lives are to be a testimony of the Word of God. Further, God didn’t want us to think that light for us is physical. The physical light and the physical day would come later and be of secondary important. Our light comes not from the sun but from the living Word of God. In the deepest darkness, the voice of God cries, "Let there be light," and there is light.

Another common early Christian example: When the Israelites defeated the Amalekites on the way to The Promised Land, they were able to be victorious only while Moses’ hands were in the air. Why? It is because we are to learn that our victory over our enemies comes only through the cross. To the early Christians the raising of hands always represented the cross. It represented both our triumph through the cross and our access to God through the cross.

Why such pictures? Why do we have to focus on analogies, and why did God want us to have to dig, search, and be spiritual enough to find those analogies in the words of the old covenant?

The reason is that God knows that obeying his commands is more than a dry, logical choice. We are not dry, logical creatures. We have a left brain, and a right brain, and that is not some physical limitation, but the purposeful choice of God our Creator.

There is a liberal arts side to the Word of God, and that is the purposeful choice of our Father, who had made us like himself. Our life in him is imbued not just with commands and obedience, but with beauty, emotion, zeal, and excitement. We are supposed to be delighted with discovery and deeply satisfied with spiritual insights.

Alone, left to our decisions and commitment, we will falter and stumble. God has put us in the body of Christ, where we all need one another, and where our sharing is not just the nutrition of obedience to God, but the beautiful colors and rich packaging that is allegory, spiritual insight, and participation in the revelation of God.

Excursus: Can God be Silent?

This is one reason it’s so horrifying for me to hear that the revelation of God ended when the last book of the New Testament was written. (Of course, for centuries the churches would never have agreed on what the last book of the New Testament or exactly how many books of the New Testament there were.)

Did God take a vow of silence for the last 2,000 years? As the church has wandered here and there, and as both counterfeit and utterly corrupt Christian movements have arisen, God has had nothing to say in the way of correction? He has waited around for men to know about, find, and interpret a book that’s really a collection of books?

Is that what you would have done if you were God? You’d have sat silently through the last wild 2,000 years of history?

God is not like that. We wrongly attribute 400 years of silence to him in the "intertestimental period." There was no 400 years of silence. God prophesied what would be happening during those 400 years through Daniel, and the incredible and powerful history of Isreal continued as described in the books of the Maccabees. Finally, even when Jesus showed up as a baby, we read of the prophetess Anna in the Gospel of Luke. There were still prophets and prophetesses in Israel until John the Baptist, when the gift of prophecy moved to the church.

God is never silent. It’s horrifying to hear people say that he’s had nothing to say since the time of the apostles.

I have very little time to whip this post out. I have a marrow biopsy in 2 hours, though they’re going to do it right here in my bed, but I also have visitors out in the gift shop.

On Facebook, someone posted:

The real issue isn’t-”the Bible alone” versus “the Bible plus tradition.” Rather, the issue is- “the Bible plus Apostolic tradition” versus “the Bible plus man made tradition.”

Depending on your definition of “apostolic tradition” everyone agrees with this.

If apostolic tradition means “what the apostles themselves meant to say when they wrote the words of the New Testament,” then Protestants, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and even Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are in unity on that belief.

The question is, how do we determine what the apostles meant to teach?

First off, let me say that I believe that 95% of all people who claim to be Christian are so stuck on whatever tradition they practice that it would be fair to say that they couldn’t care less what the apostles meant to say. They just want to continue doing what they’re doing. Even if they change, it will be for some emotional or relationship issue, not because they feel that they’ve gotten any closer to apostolic truth.

For those of us who do care what the apostles taught, there are multiple routes to determining what the apostles meant.

The Roman Catholics and Orthodox tell us that we should just take their word for it. By God’s protection, they’ve preserved the apostles’ meaning through the church, which Jesus promised would never fall (they say).

Most conservative Protestant churches tell us that it can be found just by reading the Bible because the Bible interprets itself, though it seems to have interpreted itself differently to around 50,000 different denominations in the United States, and to a lot of individuals as well.

A newer movement tells us that we can find apostolic tradition in the history of the Pre-Nicene church. I would, uh, almost be among those. However, those who are in this movement are in at least as much disagreement as other Protestants, often more.

I think the obvious route–and any historian would have to agree with me–to understanding the meaning of the apostles is not only to read their writings, but also to see how the churches they started interpreted their writings and put them into practice. And we have thousands of pages of writings from apostolic churches from the first couple centuries after the apostles.

But that doesn’t mean that’s enough to accurately interpret “apostolic tradition.” Even historians disagree among themselves over both the history and the beliefs of the early churches.

So, how do we decide. Here I agree with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox, sort of. If we are Bible believers, then the Bible tells us that the church is the pillar and support of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15). If we are Bible believers, then the Bible tells us that together we can trust the Anointing to lead us into truth (1 Jn. 2:27). If we are Bible believers, then the Bible tells us that as we are trained to build the body of Christ together, speaking the truth in love, each member doing its share, then we will be protected from deceivers and false doctrines (Eph. 4:11-16).

It is the church that can determine whether we have accurately found apostolic tradition, but that church is not some organization based in Rome, Antioch, Istanbul, or Moscow. That church is the local church, believers gathered together, giving themselves to Jesus Christ, willing to be supernaturally taught by him, and to follow his Spirit wherever he leads.

Men will always disagree. It is their nature. Galatians 5:19-21 tells us that divisions, schisms, and dissensions are simply what our flesh produces.

But if we will get out of our flesh and get under the leadership of Jesus Christ together (alone, you’re a sitting duck–Heb. 3:13), then we will know everything we need to know, and the apostolic tradition the Spirit of God leads us into will be exactly the apostolic tradition that the Spirit of God led the apostles into.