Category Archives: Gospel

June 17, 2025 · 5:11 pm

Why I changed my mind…

This could also be called “more ammunition for my enemies to use against me…” if I cared, that is.

Interesting thing. When they have taken away everything that you thought you couldn’t live without, and you survived and are thriving, you no longer really care about their threats. Plus, I make liberal use of the block key, which is wonderful.

I changed my mind on the LGBTQ community. Most of you probably suspected that I was leaning that way. And, no, it isn’t because I suddenly abandoned the scripture. It is actually my love of God’s word that has led me to be gay affirming.

First, I don’t think that the handful of scripture used to condemn same sex attraction are about that at all. I changed my mind on that one. As I look at those passages, they are about abuse, degradation and idolatry.

Second, I also affirm that God created one man and one woman and brought them together. Before the fall. After the fall, everything got twisted around and men and women fled from God and tried to find their way home without him..

But the only hope of salvation is that God came looking for us. In fact, the heart of the gospel is that Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. You, me, the whole world.

And salvation never came through the law. All that the law can do is bring death. When you say, “Stop that behavior”, all that you are doing is increasing shame. And shame triggers hiding (what we call trauma response), and you cannot grow in love and peace and joy when you are hiding in terror from the face of God.

Nothing new here. I’ve been preaching that forever.

But the religious right is far more interested in the law. For some reason, they think that shouting at gay people will bring about peace on earth…

But I digress.

The only thing that will change a heart is love. Love without “yes, but I also find you repugnant.”

Or “Yes, but I’m going to need you to change”.

Or, “Yes, I love you, but hate your sin.”

You see, all of those responses are shame-based. Which bring guilt, fear, hiding and (you guessed it,) trauma.

Only when the brain is completely safe can it change and grow. But if you tell the brain to change and grow, it backfires, and you don’t get what you think you will get.

Paul calls that the “works of the flesh” and then he describes a whole list of things that we use to try to hide our shame from ourselves and from the world.

He could be describing the behavior of the religious right there.

So how can the brain grow and learn and bring the fruits of love?

Only by being implanted into Christ and his love, which absolutely MUST be free, unconditional, and without reproach, or it backfires.

And the love of Christ never, ever backfires.

Here’s what got me thinking:

I know personally, and I have heard the stories of others, many many times, of teenagers begging God to take away their gayness.

Every day new stories come. They have been told that they are going to hell. They know that their parents will abandon them if they “come out”.

And they are on their knees night after night begging God to take their gay away.

That leaves me with a problem theologically.

Either God doesn’t hear prayer.

OR God doesn’t hear prayer unless we muster up enough will-power to change our hearts.

OR God turns his back on people who truly and desperately are begging for help.

All of these scenarios are repugnant to me, not because I am suddenly “liberal”, but because I read the gospels.

Imagine a young man pursuing Jesus night after night. He finally gets up the courage to say, “Please, Jesus – take away my sin”

Or “make me clean”

Or “Love me, Lord. Please welcome me and help me.”

And Jesus saying, “Nah. I’m not going to help you. I hate your sin too much. But if you fix yourself up enough and save yourself, then I might not throw you into hell.”

This is not the Jesus who bore my sin and shame on the cross.

Does Jesus have the power to change “gayness”. He certainly does, if he desires.

Does Jesus ever send anyone away who comes to him for mercy? Never. “Whosoever comes to me, I will never, ever cast out.”

Do gay men and women beg Jesus for help? They do.

The only conclusion that I can come to is that Jesus doesn’t think about them the same way that the religious right thinks about them.

And that is why I changed my mind. Because I am really tired of young men and women killing themselves because all they have known is hatred for something they can do nothing about.

And now, the self-righteous among my readership are saying, “They CAN do something about it. They can choose not to act on it!”

So now Christianity is salvation by law?

Did you forget what the Bible says, “If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain.”?

If any of us could “choose not to act on it” or “choose to be better people” or “just stop…”

Then Christ came in vain.

But if Christ did not come in vain, but came in power, then he is powerful enough to have mercy to all who call upon him. And he will.

And he will change us into his glorious likeness.

But he will do it in such a way that we don’t lose the beautiful color, beautiful personhood, beautiful diversity of our wonderful, rainbow-filled humanity.

What does that look like? I have no idea. I live now in a world of death and misery. But how I long for that day.

Until then, I will let the Holy Spirit work on my AND work on my brothers and sisters and whatever other gender of those who walk this earth with me, all searching for their way home.

And you will now say, “Jesus loves us as we are, but he doesn’t leave us as we are.”

That is true. And yet when will we be like him? When will we be free of this body of death? What does that even look like?

Is it possible to rest in that love of Jesus if you are convinced that he hates you because you are still unclean in his eyes? How can you come to the Father’s embrace if you are sure that he will hate and reject you the minute you do?

No. It is the love that changes us in HIS time to be like HIM. Pure and holy, clean and beautiful in all of our glorious color and breadth of our beauty!

Through that love, which Jesus has promised he will never take away, we are safe. Safe in his arms, safe from rejection and death. Safe from being cast away forever.

And when we have psychological safety, the self is free to love and to grow and to change. And I will let the Holy Spirit decide what that looks like.

I promise you, though, that it won’t look like the abusive, power-hungry man that fills most of the pulpits of the religious right.

I will always reject covenant breakers, abusers, the unjust, the arrogant, the proud – those who cast the stones and then go home to hit their wives and abuse their slaves. Those who make and believe a lie. Those who trample the poor for new shoes and rob the houses of the widows. Those who make millions endorsing bibles and those who enrich themselves off the death of the poor.

That is a far different thing.

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August 19, 2024 · 4:50 pm

Smiling Wives, Obedient Children and Shostakovich

One of my favorite composers is Dmitri Shostakovich. He wrote his most famous and most moving works in Stalinist Russia. His masterpiece (in my humble opinion) is his fifth symphony, composed in Leningrad in 1937. It was triumphantly received and he became the darling composer of the communist regime.

But it was forced. The symphony is brilliant because on one level, the final movement seems like a joyous, triumphant march. It was interpreted as such by the powers that be and they loved it. The triumph of communist youth in the world.

But Shostakovich had a deeper message. He interprets it himself years later.

The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov. It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, “Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing”, and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, “Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.”

You can beat someone with a stick and teach them the rote memorization of the law: “Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing”. And if your gulags are terrifying enough, you will have compliance.

But you will not have love. You also will not have the obedience that God delights in. There is a difference between a slave and a son (or daughter).

In a recent flyer for a church plant (CREC, of course), I saw this and immediately thought of Shostakovich.

May be an image of text

I’ve lived that kind of “obedience”. The only way to achieve it is with a very large stick. The children cower behind the wife with a smile plastered on her face while the husband makes the rounds. She usually has stomach problems, ulcers, chronic pain, anxiety – but dare not allow the pain to show. The children used to scream and try to run whenever they saw the building, but they since have learned to keep their feelings to themselves. Now they just look scared and empty.

She will never break her smile to face her brokenness or deal with her pain and loneliness because she is too frightened.

And the children will finally break free when they are big enough to fend for themselves and want nothing more to do with Christianity, because they thought that this was what Christianity was.

But it isn’t. It’s what Paul calls the letter of the law written on stone. It is Shostakovich’s big stick – “Your business is rejoicing!”

And it kills.

It is funny to me how the conservative evangelical right wing church, on one hand so terrified of being taken over by commies that they cower in fear of elections, have become so similar to the chief communist dictator. Stalin would rather have the front of those rejoicing under threat than deal with any affront to his own power. This is the heart of Project 2025.

Sound familiar? “Your business is rejoicing!”

Smiling wives, obedient children, large sticks, human corpses waiting for a resurrection – pasting smiles on their faces in terror while the journalists from the west are touring.

How many of you have experienced church just like this: Paste your smile on. Terrify your children into staying small, quiet, “well-behaved”, and don’t you DARE let anyone know what you are actually thinking.

Home is the gulag. Church is the show.

When you see this and you see it used as an advertisement, you know something about the group:

1. They aren’t a church. The church is where wives sometimes weep and children are safe to ask questions and men are humble and all rely on the cross of Jesus, not manmade rules. Widows and single moms and addicts and those with broken sexuality and hurting bodies and confused minds come to find life, not to learn how to paste a smile on.

2. You know that they don’t understand the resurrection. The day will come when God will wipe all tears away, and today is not that day. As long as we are in this body of death we weep and mourn and hurt and comfort one another, longing for a resurrection.

3. And this is the big one. You know that beneath the smiles and obedience is someone with a very large stick. “Your business is rejoicing”.

4. They don’t know Jesus. Jesus never shamed the weeping woman, or the crying child, or the restless teenager. He came to save sinners, not to bring a stick to beat them with.

This stuff and these people have the smell of death, which is why they hate the cross. It is death to those who are dying.

But it is life to those who are ready to be free.It is life and peace to the one who weeps, the one who mourns, the one who is poor, the one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness.

But the one who is rich he sends away empty.

They are fine going away without Christ, anyway. Because the Jesus they want is one who knows how to keep the women in place, the kids quiet and out of the way, the men masculine and horny, and the girls pliable and under control, and the right politicians in power.

But this Jesus is just a figment of imagination. When they see that the least is the greatest, and the greatest is the one who serves and that there is only room for sinners at the table, the “rich man” scoffs and wants nothing to do with a Jesus who would hang out with people like that.

People like publicans and sinners. People with mental health struggles. People who are real and wounded and come for healing, people who cause fusses and make messes, and weep and mourn.

Jesus, the eternal Son of God, came to free those who are imprisoned by the big stick of the law. He came to teach us how to mourn, how to sing, how to laugh, how to cry out, and how to dance.

He desires, above all, that all of his children are released to be free. Free to feel. Free to speak the truth. Free to love. Free to exercise gifts and invest talents. Free to wiggle and to cry and hurt.

He came so that we might cry “Abba, Father!”

Yes, even the women. Even the children. Even the men.

I, for one, am sick of the peddlers of death under the guise of Christian pastors, and pray for their days to be short.

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August 15, 2024 · 6:44 pm

Does it turn out well?

I’m not sure I know how to write anymore. I sit down and try to get pixels on the screen, and my thoughts blur. My former life seems so long ago and I wonder if I even should write, what I would say, would anyone care, is there even a point…

Five years ago today, I created a small group of friends and shared with them a prayer request:

I’m just sharing this with a small group – those who are less likely to fill my page with adverts for essential oil and pressed juices…

Anyway, please pray for our daughter Margaret.

Right now she is in the hospital with seizures, pain, fever, headache, nausea – etc.

She’s also “altered” for want of a better word. Just not quite herself. She doesn’t respond like she normally does, and is very, very lethargic – mostly sleeping.

Just to explain one thing a little, she hasn’t checked her phone for about 18 hours.

Last night, she lost awareness of her surroundings and was unable to communicate with us for quite a while. That has come back, she knows we are here, but still isn’t really tracking.

Her fever stays high and they can’t find any cause.

She’s had 2 CT scans, EKG, EEG, tons of blood work, xray, etc, etc. and so far there is very little to go on.

Right now we are waiting for the Doc. Since she can’t advocate for herself, one of us is here all the time. Susan just went home to sleep and I am here now…We’ll tag-team it.

The admitting doctor suspects that she will be here through Sunday.

Five years ago. We didn’t know it at the time, but this was to be a long journey. For the next six weeks, we sat by her bed not knowing if she would live or die. All that the doctors could do was wait and see.

She had a virus that made its way into her brain and started killing off the tissues. About 40% of what used to be there is now just dead tissue. She had a 20% chance of survival.

But she lived, and now she has permanent brain damage. Many of you followed our journey.

Later on, one of the elders of my church rebuked me for staying by her bedside instead of keeping office hours.

He also told me that I asked for prayer too much, and that everyone had problems…

I wondered what it was about conservative, right-wing religion that hardens the heart so much.

I also started my journey into the mysteries of the brain and the personality and anxiety and regulation and holy crap how did we get so arrogant as to think that the problems of the world could be solved with making better choices?

Like I said – I don’t think I can write anymore. I feel shriveled and empty. My wife just thinks I need to take a break…but I try to process by writing.

So many things that I was so sure of evaporated during those 6 weeks, and the five years after that. I realized that behavior was far more complicated than our dogma declared it to be.

We mock the homeless and think that if they only weren’t sinners then they wouldn’t be homeless.

If single moms learned how to be chaste, they wouldn’t have to take my hard-earned money for food stamps (Yes, I actually heard that).

If victims quit being victims and just got on with life, we could all move on and pretend like everything was going to turn out all right.

What was she wearing? What were they eating? What were they drinking? Did they homeschool the kids, raise them right?

“Who sinned? This man or his parents that he was born blind?”

But watching my girl in the hospital I started asking myself questions.

What does one do when the part of the brain that interprets data isn’t there anymore?

What does one do when the part of the brain that takes in the stimuli from the outside world is twisted and inaccurate?

What does one do when the part of the brain that tells you that you are in danger gets stuck and you can’t unstick it?

What if you have no way to regulate shame, anxiety, worry, emotions and just end up screaming because you don’t know what is happening to you?

And through that process of thought, it occurred to me that the way the modern church uses the Bible is not the right way.

Let me explain – Jesus told the Pharisees this:

“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”  (Jn 5:39–40.)

Humanity’s natural religion tells us that if we do good things, good things will happen. If we make good choices, everything will turn out OK. God blesses those who obey, and his curse lies on those who don’t obey.

It is deeply engrained in us for we are image-bearers of God, we were created that way.

The problem is, that we are fallen and subject to death. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. The way to Eden is blocked and now we all are outcasts.

But we still think like Cain does. If we could just find the right formula, the right sacrifice, the right choice to make, we could enter into God’s favor again.

The Pharisees believed that as well. They would even say, “I thank God I am not like other men…” giving a nod to grace.

But ultimately everything is a transaction. Do this, and good with come. And that colored everything about how they read the bible.

Gay people? Stone them. That will fix it.

Adulterer? Moses said she should be stoned. What about you?

Transgender people? God made male and female. Obey. That will fix it.

Cut of the hand. Pluck out the eye. Chop off the foot. Drive them back into hiding.

Anxious people. DON’T BE ANXIOUS!

Worried people. DON’T WORRY!

I remember a minister in my former denomination preaching on spiritual comfort. He had a contemptuous sneer on his face while he called down shame on those who struggled with taking comfort in the gospel. “How dare you!” he would shout.

I think he thought that would actually work.

They searched the scripture. Found a verse to apply to the situation. Declared it to be fixed.

I saw an app the other day. You would look up your problem, and the app would point you to a Bible verse. That will fix it. If you are still angry, hurt, sad, depressed, discouraged, sick – then you must not have enough faith.

If you do things right, all will be well.

The problem is, as Jesus told the Pharisees, they missed the point of the whole thing, because they missed Christ. Jesus didn’t come to lead us to Moses.

How can anyone read the purity laws of the Old Testament without fear and terror? Who will escape the stoning? Who will escape the slaughter, the shame, the horror. Does the book of Leviticus fill you with love and peace and joy? Or does it cause you to look for a Redeemer?

Do you know how many animals were killed when Solomon dedicated the temple? Do you know what that would have smelled like?

Which parent would take glee in denouncing their child and casting the first stone against him? Do you want killing fields outside of your town?

Do we gather the townspeople together to watch the public burnings, brandings, disfigurements, amputations?

The curse of the law is exactly that – Satan’s weapon against humanity. And before Christ came into the world, the world delighted in law and order.

Impalings, tortures, crucifixions, beheadings, scourging…

Which one of us would be able to stomach a crucifixion or a stoning? Jesus said, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.” And that’s the problem, isn’t it?

What kind of cruelty drives the heart that wants to bring back the law? Will it excuse you? The stones that you throw today turn against you tomorrow.

Which law will you pass that will put an end to gayness? Transgender people? Broken sexuality?

Can people just decide not to do it anymore?

Why would we delight in driving people back into hiding when God says, “Where are you? Come out. Talk to me.”

The law brings death. The curse of the law is a weapon in the hands of the One who Enslaves Humanity – Satan himself. He temps us to sin, then denounces us with the curse of the law. HOW DARE YOU – he shouts.

And the other side of the coin – if we could just free ourselves from the sinners, all will be well. No matter what the problem is, you will find a verse in the Old Testament that calls for it to be put to death.

I’m reading the law again. It is good for me, because it points me to Christ. But it is hard going. Who wants to live in a world without Christ?

Who wants to live in a world where stoning, impaling, crucifying, floggings, degradation, shame, are used as weapons under the guise of law and order?

Moses didn’t bring about a world that anyone would want to live in. Moses showed the world what the curse of the law looks like, in all of its ugliness and shame. And even then, with the “perfect law”, every still died. Everyone went into exile. Everyone suffered as slaves.

It’s like God was saying to all of us – you want to follow the religion of Cain, the religion of “Do this and live”? This is how it ends. Read the end of Judges. Read the end of the Kings. This is how the curse of the law ends.

And then Moses showed us Jesus in pictures and stories, and taught the faithful how to yearn.

“O that salvation would come out of Zion!”

Because all scripture points to Christ. The impalings, the stonings, the shame, the pain, the death – he touched it and took all of it on himself and crushed the head of the serpent, putting an end to the curse of the law.

So why would anyone want to go back?

I told you I had a problem getting my thoughts down. Bear with me…

If righteousness could come by the law, the Christ died in vain.

Jesus lived a perfect life on this earth, without sin. And it didn’t turn out well for him. He was crucified, he died. He was buried.

This is the result of the curse of the law, and he bore it all. He took Satan’s weapon on himself, and through it crushed the Enemy’s head, and took that weapon away.

And then he rose from the dead.

We don’t need more people shouting “How dare you” at us. We need a resurrection.

Our brains are far more complex than we imagine. The motives, the desires, the longings, the wiring, the experiences and the culture that human beings dwell in effect everything about us.

I think, in my meandering way, winding along a river of thought, that Maggie illustrates this pretty well. There were those who told her everything she needed to do to get better. Just be productive. Quit being anxious. Pray more. But those things just lead to death.

She can’t process any of that. She still blacks out. She still has panic attacks and anxiety. She still is physically hurt when lights go on suddenly or sounds hit the wrong frequency. She still has Tourette’s and tics and vocal noises. And none of this can be fixed by anything under the sun. She doesn’t need the law or its curse.

She needs a resurrection.

Just like all of us.

And now, five years later, we get small glimpses of future resurrected Maggie when the light shines through. When the age to come bursts through the age of death that we are in. It comes in the moments when she sits on the lawn in her special spot singing hymns to her bunny. When she waters the flowers for the fire fighters across the street. When she bakes cookies for the police department. When she says, “I pray for youuuuu”.

And when she cries and lashes out and wants to die and does it all publicly on Facebook, it is easy for many to think about the law, and maybe wonder why she doesn’t make better choices. And then, you shamefully see (maybe) that those things are not the heart of Maggie. Those things are the Powers that hold her in bondage, waiting for the Lord of Lords to cast them out and set her free.

And so, like everyone else, we wait for the resurrection and long for the Groom to come and claim his bride. We wait for his embrace, just like everyone else.

We make our choices. Some are OK. All are tainted with sin. We have moments of light in the darkness. And we have pain and suffering and loss. And those things won’t go away until Jesus casts the powers of darkness and the curse of the law into the lake of fire where it belongs, and what is left is Love.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

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July 18, 2024 · 3:26 pm

Dressing with dignity

I am almost finished with a remarkable book, the Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. It was published in 1991, which made me sad and a little defeated. If people have been saying this for over 30 years now, why are things worse and not better? And what can my voice add?

Anyway – like all great books, it gets one’s mind whirling and meditating. The authors have a passage on Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead that stopped me in my tracks. I’ve been meditating on it ever since.

38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Jn 11:38–44.

The first question that the authors ask of the text is this: “Why didn’t Jesus use his almighty power to roll away the stone himself?”

And the second, “And why didn’t he just bring Lazarus OUT of his graveclothes himself?”

The answer to these questions speak of something very important in the life of the Church (not the outward corporation that has gotten so corrupt, but the people of God wherever they are found – usually in exile and hiding). In Ephesians 1:31, the people of God are called the “fullness” of Christ. The Son of God considers himself incomplete without his bride, his body, his people. We are so united to Jesus that his death is ours, his resurrection is ours, and his glory is ours. This is the point of Ephesians.

It also answers the questions so many people have about the Psalms. Are they about David, Jesus, or the people of God? And the answer is “Yes”. David was the type. Jesus was the reality. And we all, as his members, experience the same things in this life and the life to come. We suffer. We rise. We are glorified. We reign. We go to the abyss. We are rescued from the abyss. We long for God. We were born for another world. We are sinners. We are righteous. We are loved. We grieve our sins. We feel abandoned. We feel God’s love.

And we wait for the salvation of God. These realities are ours, and also belong to Jesus. And also to David in shadows.

But I digress.

Do you remember in Genesis where it was promised that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent? We know that ultimately that crushing belongs to Jesus. But it also belongs to us, his bride.

20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.  Rom. 16:20.

Here is another example of our union with Christ our head (the head of our body, not our CEO – those are different concepts). He crushes Satan’s head on the cross. We crush Satan’s head taking up that same cross.

But I’m digressing again.

Jesus gives his people the astounding privilege of serving with him in his kingdom. He could, of course, have simply rolled away the stone. But he commissions his people to take their part in setting Lazarus free.

Only the Eternal, begotten Son of God can raise the dead. We can’t do that. But we CAN roll away the stone. We can remove the barriers. We can take away our own blinders, our prejudices, our hatreds and grudges – we can make sure that when the world stumbles, it is on the cross, not politics or laws or culture or gender wars or ANYTHING other that the voice of the Son of God who speaks and raises the dead.

Take away the stone and set the prisoners free.

And yes, they are still in their grave clothes. They are gross and they stink. We are all wrapped with the rags of all of those things that were our comfort in the tomb.

When you are dead, (using spiritual language) you still have the clothing of the dead. That clothing has brought your comfort. You thought that it would take away your shame and your disgrace. You thought that you could find significance, security and strength – and you hold really tightly to all of those things. It is terrifying to think of losing your graveclothes (still speaking in metaphor, people).

Before the voice of Jesus called you and made you alive, you tried to find dignity in the brokenness of this present evil age, and it wasn’t there. But it is even scarier to let those things go.

Remember C.S. Lewis in the “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” when he “undresses” the dragon skin off of Eustice? Eustice recounts that losing his skin was the most painful thing he could imagine, but that it also felt good watching it tear away like a scab.

This is what it is like to lose the grave clothes. And it is even worse when those called out of the tomb are ridiculed for their clothes. Shamed because of it. Excluded and disgraced because they didn’t get rid of them fast enough.

And how shameful it is when those called by God to “loose him and let him go” just stand by and say to themselves “I thank God I am not like that poor guy.”

The scribes and the Pharisees stood by and watched, then plotted to kill Jesus.

And when Lazarus and Abel and Jacob and Amos and Zechariah and Zacchaeus and Mary Magdalene and Bathsheba and Ruth and Junia and all the rest are called from the tomb, there will always be the scoffers, refusing to soil their hands helping a terrified loved one of Jesus remove their graveclothes.

But that brings me to the concept in the book that floored me. When Jesus rose from the dead, he left his grave clothes behind. He could have done the same thing with Lazarus. So why didn’t he?

Because Lazarus would have had to walk out of the tomb exposed and naked in front of everyone.

Wow.

By telling his people to “loose him and let him go”, he is preserving Lazarus’s dignity. The people of God can get him changed without exposing him to the ridicule and shame of the passersby, and that is huge.

Shame has never changed a soul. Reviling and disgracing anyone has never saved anyone. Jesus came that we might have life, and to restore the dignity with which we were created – human beings, image-bearers of God.

Men and women, slave and free, rich and poor – clothed with Christ, the grave clothes come off easily. But it still hurts. It still is terrifying. It is still a long process.

We need compassion and the people of God need that compassion – the same compassion that Jesus had when HE was stripped naked and crucified so that We might be clothed.

 

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February 25, 2024 · 2:49 pm

The man’s man, who pisseth against the wall

It’s a curious expression. I was brought up on the King James Version and I remember giggling to myself whenever the old and venerable preacher would read it.

I would have gotten the tar knocked out of me if I said it. But if it is in the King James, it must be godly, right?

As I got older, I realized that there wasn’t any other English translation that uses that phrase.

Then when I studied Hebrew, I realized that the King James literally translates the Hebrew there. The Word of God does indeed say, “Every man that pisses against the wall.”

I started thinking about this a week or so back. Someone shared a clip of a southern preacher bemoaning the “lack of real men”. He said that the problem in America is that men pee sitting down, unlike what the Bible says. The Bible says that real men piss against the wall.

He was serious, by the way, and there are more problems with that exegesis than can be mentioned in this blog.

But it illustrates a serious problem in the way that the modern bearded dude-bro thinks. There is a worship of manly men. An obsession with authority. A lust for manly power. Pulpits mostly focus on men being men, and many careers have been made with the shaming of “effeminate men” who pee sitting down, and manly men who piss against the wall like men are supposed to.

You all know who I am talking about. A sermon shaming effeminate men and extolling manly men will go viral, if done well. And the manly man is equated with godliness, strength, courage, and power.

The horrible sermon about “pissing against the wall” was simply pandering to the spirit of the evangelical age of Trump, I’m afraid.

But here is the problem.

“Pisseth against the wall” is used 6 times in the Old Testament – all of them in the Age of the Kings.

And each time it is used, it is used as a promise of destruction.

David said that if Abigail hadn’t intervened, not one of Nabal’s men would have been left alive. All who pisseth against the wall would have been destroyed.

And then the curse on the house of Ahab – not one of Ahab would be left. Not one who “pisseth against the wall”.

If you think about it, the preacher was right about one thing. The man who “pisseth against the wall” is the manly man. He is outside the city, protecting the perimeter. He is with the soldiers. He isn’t inside on the couches and with the women. He is outside, pissing against the wall of the city, or the fortress, or the tower.

He is Nimrod, the mighty hunter. Esau, the hairy man of the field.
He is the mighty men of David. The soldiers.

And every time they are mentioned in the scripture, the term is used as a mark of contempt. You mighty men who piss against the wall, so proud of your manly strength. Not one of you will be left when the Lord finished his work.

Your armies can’t protect you. Your strength can’t protect you. Your authority and power can’t protect you.

A careful reading of the prophets shows a very important theme: Woe to all who put their trust in armies, strength, weapons, horses – or in the modern age – guns, tanks, politics, police, armies, patriarchs, men who pee standing up.

This is not where the kingdom of God is. Never has been. Never will be.

Where you find the spirit of God is where you find love and joy, peace and longsuffering.

I mourn when I see the established church lust after war and death. I hate seeing the people of God crying out for blood.

That is not what Christianity is. The kingdom is not advanced by armies and death and destruction.

God takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.

Like any other gift, the gift of strength can and has been used for God’s glory. God uses men of war for many different reasons, and many honorable men and women have served in the armed forces. That isn’t what this is about.

What this is about is trust. The problem with the “manly man” theology in the pews is that it drives the soul from Christ.

It makes us think that with strong resolve and will power, with strength and determination, we can overcome any obstacles and defeat any enemy.

And the bible calls this “pride”. We think that sin is something that can be overcome by strength of will. We think that the armies of evil can be destroyed by manliness and courage. We think that the problem in the country are those “other people”. When I was a kid, it was the hippies. Now, apparently, it is people who pee sitting down. How he got that information is beyond my imagination. But it all boils down to pride.  And God hates it.

God resists the proud.

But he gives strength to the humble. The humble one, in Biblical thought, is the one who is afflicted, without any resources, without any strength, without any hope.’ In the ancient Hebrew, the word for “humble” can also be translated, oppressed, afflicted, crushed, poor, or desperate.

It is the opposite of the one receiving a major award and saying “I’m so humbled by this award….”

Rather, it is the one with leprosy, cast out of the city without a cure.

It is the one who is destitute, begging for scraps at the temple.

It is the woman who reaches out to touch the hem of the garment.

It is the child stripped and dragged away as a captive.

It is the old man crushed under the wagon wheels.

It is the blind beggar that is shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

It is the rich ruler whose dearly loved daughter is about to die. He is destitute and his money and position can do nothing.

In other words, the one that God resists is the one who boastfully pisseth against the wall, spits on the ground, says to himself “At least I don’t pee sitting down”.

That has nothing to do with Christ. He didn’t come for those who have strength. When we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.

Those who pee sitting down because their legs don’t work.

The one who is so overcome with his sin and misery that he can only cry out, “Lord have mercy”.

Remember the cry of the desperate? “Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

This is the gospel. The church was called to give that message. To teach who Jesus is so that the desperate know who to call out to.

Whosoever calls on the name of Jesus will be saved.

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January 19, 2024 · 7:27 am

Jesus came for the desperate

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

This is a familiar verse. But there tends to be some misunderstandings here that I would like to clarify.

Much of the modern teaching goes something like “You must accept Jesus as your savior, but you also must accept him as Lord…”

The idea is that it isn’t enough to “simply believe”, you also have to do what he says and acknowledge him as your Lord.

Although it is certainly true that if we love Jesus we will seek to do those things which please him, and it is certainly true that he, as our creator and redeemer, is our sovereign king and lord, I don’t believe that is what Paul is getting at in this passage.

Here is the whole thing in context:

Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.” But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Paul compares the message of righteousness by faith to the righteousness which comes by the law. The law is anything that teaches “If you do these things, you will live.”

The law teaches that if you do good things, you will be blessed. If you do bad things, you will be cursed. The law is woven in our being, created in our psyche, unavoidable.

It also leaves us all under the curse, for who can say that they have done enough to earn the blessing of God?

The fact is that if we are aware of our condition, we know we are in trouble. We know that God is just and that we are sinners. Our consciences plague us on our beds late at night. This is the doing of the law, whichever law you believe will give you life.

If you believe that life comes from doing the right thing, you will never rest, never be at peace, and live in fear – either of the judge coming for you, or fear that the others are going to mess up God’s blessing for your community.

So you either live in terror and despair, or you live judging others and calling down fire and brimstone on the sinners.

Paul is not contrasting the “law” with the “law”. The problem is NOT that the Jewish people of Paul’s day got the law wrong. They didn’t just need to substitute the law of Moses for the law of Jesus. Paul’s point is different.

Let’s look at the word “lord”. In the Hebrew Scriptures, we read that God gave his personal name to his people (Exodus 3). That name is unique to the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It didn’t belong to any other gods, it was the true God’s personal name. It was spelled YHWH. But we forgot how it was pronounced, because centuries before Jesus came into the world, God’s people considered the name too holy to be pronounced.

So whenever they came across that name in their readings, they substituted the Hebrew word “my lord” – adonai. Adonai means my lord, my master, my husband, my sir.

A few centuries before Jesus, scholars in Alexandria translated the Hebrew bible into Greek. It was called the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX). They followed the custom of the Jews, and every time they came across the word “YHWH” they translated it “kyrios”, which is Greek for Lord, mister, sir, owner, or master, just like adonai.

But whenever they came across adonai, they also translated it “Lord”.

When the Bible was translated into English, the translators followed the same pattern, but they used small caps for YHWH and lower case for adonai.

Look, for example, at Psalm 110:

The LORD says to my lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

The first word is the personal name of the One True God, creator and redeemer, maker of all things visible and invisible, who redeemed Israel from Egypt.

The second word is a common title for royalty, husbands, owners, slave-masters, bosses.

Remember here that we are speaking only of the OT scriptures. You can easily tell the difference between YHWH and adonai by the way the translators have spelled it.

But when we come to the New Testament, it is a little different. The inspired writers used “kyrios” for both concepts and the only way to tell which was meant was through the context.

In our familiar passage, is Paul’s point that Jesus is our lord and master to be obeyed (as true as that is), or is his point something else?

If he means what is commonly called “lordship salvation”, then one is hard pressed to find a difference between that and the law of “do this and live”.

But look a bit further down, when Paul quotes the Hebrew scriptures. He quotes Isaiah 28 from the Septuagint, about believing in the heart, and then he quotes Joel 2.

“Whoever will call upon the name of YHWH will be saved”. The difference in the Greek text is hard to spot, but if you look up the quote in Joel it is clear. If you call on the name of YHWH you will be saved (Notice the all-caps of LORD). Paul’s point is that confessing with your mouth is the SAME concept as “Calling upon the name of the YHWH.”

The contrast is between those who seek their salvation through “doing” – “do this and live”, and those who understand their desperate need, and call out in the middle of the storm “Save me, Jesus, YHWH God, creator and sustainer of the universe who conquered death and the power of sin.”

Of course, that cry is when we are lucid. In the middle of the locust storm destroying everything (which is the context of Joel), all we can manage is “hosanna” – “Save us, we beg you”.

And now, here is the point of all of this.

If you, like me, have tried over and over again to live a better life, to love more, to cast off your fears and doubts, to flee the lusts of the flesh, and to do better – you know the agony of the spirit. The person that you long to be and the person that you are seem to be forever separated.

The body of death seems to be winning.

The “lordship salvation” purveyors want you to work harder, feel more guilty, exert more will-power, give more money, get up earlier…

But the Good News is this – Call on the name of Jesus, for he is the creator and sustainer of all, he is the giver of life, eternal and true God, who became flesh and took our grief upon himself, so he knows our pain and struggles. Call upon him. No conditions. Just call.

Jew or Greek, bond or free, male or female…just call. And you will be saved, for his name means “YHWH saves.”

(as a side note, this doctrine is continually under attack, for if Jesus is somehow lesser than YHWH, or a different God, then we are back to attempting to earn salvation by submission, which means that we are back in bondage to fear and misery. It is no coincidence that modern patriarchy and their attempt to keep women in bondage is built on “Eternal subordination.” If even the second person of the eternal trinity is subordinate to YHWH, then he is NOT YHWH (their duplicitous protestations notwithstanding), and salvation is again “do this and live”.  Many of my sisters are living this reality every day. ESS is a monstrous evil, and leads only to bondage).

YHWH is not divided. And Jesus is the One True eternal God, who with the Father and the Spirit is to be worshiped. Call upon him, and be delivered. This is the good news. He delights to hear and delights to save, if only we will call.

 

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September 2, 2023 · 3:36 pm

Why the hierarchy to begin with?

With my latest blog, the question is asked “Why was there a hierarchy in the temple worship to begin with?”

As best I can with stammering tongues, I will attempt to give an answer:

After mankind fell, a curse entered the world. Humans were separated from God. God is holy and cannot dwell in safety with sinful men without destroying them.

After God spoke to them from Mt Sinai, they begged Moses to plead with God to not speak to them again, but to speak through a mediator.

Which God did. Before sin and shame and guilt were taken away, no one could approach God and live. The glory would consume them.

The world was waiting for Jesus.

The temple was temporary. The patriarchy that came into the world in Genesis 3 was part of the curse. It would not be taken away until Jesus took away sin and healed both men and women so that they could love again.

The temple was a pointed pointing to how much was not right in the world yet, and what God was promising at the same time.

The thousands of animals sacrificed at the inauguration would have stunk . The noise and the smell and the sights would have been overpowering – and yet, God still was with his people – in promise and signs,

Already – but not yet. Sin was not yet taken away. The bodies of death not yet removed.

Now Christ has come. The veil is now taken away, because sin is taken away – not just in picture but in reality.

So why aren’t we in heaven yet?

Because these bodies are not fit for an incorruptible world and an incorruptible world is not fit for these bodies. We still long for God’s presence, even though he dwells with us in word and spirit – the day will come when it will be face to face.

The hierarchy and the priesthood and the patriarchy and all of the corruption of the ancient world – including polygamy and slavery – was tolerated by God. Maybe tolerated is not the right word. Maybe “not yet overcome” works better. Jesus had not yet redeemed his people from the slavery of sin and misery – they were still in the bondage to the law, as children are until they come of age. But even then, God was near to everyone who called upon him. He still never turned his mercy away. But the day of salvation had not yet arrived. The curse still held sway.

It still makes us uncomfortable, because a God who is that holy and that pure and that powerful makes us uncomfortable – which is why the temple was necessary in the first place.

But now Christ has come, and we have the Holy Spirit. All the old has been taken away so that the new could flourish. Now we know God in Christ, who descended to us that we might know him. No longer do we know him as people under the curse, or under the bondage of the law, but as heirs to the New Creation.

And the day will come when we will no longer see as through a mirror, but face to face.

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September 1, 2023 · 5:17 pm

Hierarchy, patriarchy and the veil

The centerpiece of worship in the Old Testament was the Temple in Jerusalem.

As you travel to Jerusalem, you are singing the Psalms of Ascents with the other pilgrims. No matter where you are coming from, you are going up. Anywhere towards Jerusalem was considered up.

You walk towards the place where David offered the sacrifice that stopped the God’s angel from destroying any more Israelites. It was in that place that Abraham’s arm was prevented from offering Isaac as a sacrifice.

He lifted up his eyes and saw a ram caught in a bush. “In the Mount of the Lord, It will be Provided”.

And now you are heading towards the Temple. When you arrive, you first enter the court of the Gentiles. This is where anyone could enter. Tourists, gentiles, all who wanted just a quick glance at the Great Temple.

But Gentiles, the unclean, the lepers, the emasculated, those who touched dead bodies – could enter no further. Barriers and signs were up. No Gentiles allowed. No admittance. Unclean.

If you were clean, you could proceed into the court of the women. Here the women and children would gather and pray.

But only the men could go any further. In the outer courts of the temple, the sacrifice was offered, the great basin for cleansing sat waiting for the cleansing of the priests, and the men could watch the priests come and go.

In the temple itself, the outer room was the Holy Place. Only the appointed priests could enter there, and then only if they had business there and were wearing the right garments and had cleansed themselves by water and blood.

And in the center of it all was the Holy of Holies, the most holy place of all. It was here that the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud representing the presence of God settled, and God dwelt with his people. But only the High Priest could go in there.

And only one time a year. The rest of the time a thick veil separated the Ark of God’s Covenant from the world of sinful man. God’s face was hidden, only to be hinted at by the mediation of priests.

No one just walks into God’s throne room, where he “dwells between the cherubim”.

The whole form of worship was an enforced hierarchy. The way into God’s presence was hinted at by shadows and types, but not yet made clear.

We all long to be part of something great, something beyond ourselves. We naturally long for the exclusive clubs, the inner circles, the greetings in the marketplaces.

No one wants to be kicked out. No one desires to be excluded.

Many of us know the feeling of being on the outside. When large groups gather, like after worship on Sunday Morning, circles form. Friends laugh and joke. And some (like me) would try to join the circle. But it would tighten up. My brother or his friends would move to block my access.

Eventually I gave up and pretended it didn’t matter. But it still hurt and I still feel that hurt, because we all long to be a part of something, to be included.

Admit something to me. When you were reading the description of the temple, did you feel as if it wasn’t fair that the gentiles, the unclean, the women, the children were kept out?

This is the emotional response to your yearning to be in God’s presence, in the holiest place of all. No matter how close you could go, you couldn’t just walk past the veil. Imagine the longing to see, the longing to be where all of mankind longs to be.

When men and women were kicked out of Eden, they were removed from God’s presence. “No one looks upon my face and lives”.

THIS is the longing. And no amount of exclusive clubs, golf resorts, circles of friends, membership cards can ever solve it.

There is only one solution. The way to God’s presence must be revealed to us.

When Jesus died; when he cried out “It is finished”, that veil that separated the Holiest Place from sinful humans was torn in two.

The hierarchy was smashed. The gatekeepers were out of work. Eventually the temple of stones was destroyed because God now dwells in the hearts of his people. YOU are the temple of the living God.

And how do you enter into his presence? Just come. Everyone is invited. The blood of Christ has made that way clear.

Yes, God is still holy. Yes, we are still sinners. But Christ has covered you with his blood and washed you with his spirit, and calls you right into his very presence.

19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. (The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Heb 10:19–22.)

But here is the difficult part for so many people. If all of this is true (and it is) that means that anyone at all who wants to come in may enter. No one will be denied. Everyone has access to Christ, therefore everyone has access to the throne room of God through the way – the blood of Jesus.

Which means that it isn’t exclusive to men. It isn’t exclusive to the rich, the white, the Jew, the ruling class, the righteous, the religious.

It means ANYONE can come.

And so, so many people refuse to truly come to Christ because they see the riff-raff and say, “Nope.”

And they desperately try to build the hierarchy again. The try to sew that veil together so that – even though they can’t really get to God – at least they can get closer than those people who are outside.

So they step over the velvet barricades held up by the stanchions that they erected and say, “See you, suckers”.

Look at all the losers outside.

But if the temple they are entering is exclusive and shuts out the riff raff, then it isn’t the temple of God.

The temple of the living God dwells in the heart by faith, not by position, wealth, genders, status or selective morality. It is Christ’s righteousness or it is none at all.

This is what bothers me so much about the patriarchalism of modern America and the dominionism of “Christian” politics. It is absolutely dependent upon building the curtain to separate us from them.

The sinners, the women, the children (who are to be beaten until they become useful to me), the immigrant, the poor, the ignorant, the foolish, the sinners – no thanks. If that is what this is about, I’m out of here.

Matthew tells us that Judas made the deal with the Sanhedrin when Jesus told him to leave Mary alone. “She is anointing me for my burial”. If that public display of completely inappropriate behavior, that waste of good money, that lowering yourself to the level of a woman who is a sinner – is what this is about, count me out.

And for all who say, “If God’s grace is for the wrong kind of sinners, I’m out” – eventually the door will be shut.

You stayed away from the feast and couldn’t even sit down to eat because there were too many sinners there. So now you are outside, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Notice that the anger hasn’t diminished. Even outside the feast, the anger continues, the unfairness of it all.

I’ve worked and I’ve slaved for you and you never gave me anything.

But you are going to feast with THAT GUY???

Don’t you know that he doesn’t vote right? Don’t you know that she is a woman and is supposed to wait for her man? Don’t you know that children are vipers in diapers and not worthy of the feast?

If you are tired of the continual jockeying for position, Jesus says, “Come unto me and rest.”

And he also said, “Whoever comes to me, I will never, ever under any circumstances, cast them out.”

Instead of being angry that Jesus eats and drinks with sinners, it should cause us to rejoice greatly. For that means he eats and drinks with you and me.

That is exactly what the gospel is.

Quit trying to sew the veil back together.

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come”.

Yes. Sinners. Yes. You. Yes, your children.

Yes, you who have been outcast and excluded, who know the pain of being cast out, who know what it is like outside the camp.

Go outside the camp. Inside the camp is where they are frantically trying to keep you out. They are sewing up veils everywhere to block access.

But outside the city there is a cross and an empty sepulcher. And even greater than that, outside the city is Jesus. He is gathering together all of the outcasts and building a new city. And all you need to do to enter that city is come.

And yes, when you get there there will be sinners and other riff-raff there. Just like you. But they have been washed, cleansed, justified, and made beautiful by the Lamb of God – Just like you.

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August 13, 2023 · 7:25 am

National Covenant Blessings?

While I was reading Dr. Valerie Hobbs’ latest excellent book (No Love in War), I was reminded of an aberrant theology that I had heard in my childhood.

(Of course, now might be a good time to plug this book. Please get it. It will help you understand some of what is happening in the Reformed world. So much of what she writes was an echo of my childhood church in the 60s and 70s, with the same damage, the same theological errors and the same teachers. I had left them behind years ago, but this theology was part of what drove me out of my denomination. Like bad milk, it has a way of coming up again and again. Back in the day, it was called postmillennial reconstruction, or theonomy, or both. Today, it is nationalism, or dominionism, or all of the above).

But- moving on. The theology that was impressed on us was that the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 27 have come upon this nation (the United States) because of sin (which they give the fancy name of “covenant disobedience”. The corollary is that if we as a nation want the covenant blessings of Deuteronomy 28, then we need to obey, which is given the fancy name of “Covenant faithfulness”.

I had forgotten this. I know that I had (and still do) frequently hear “We don’t deserve God’s blessing”. The anthem of my childhood is “God Bless America”, which has the connotations in Christian circles of covenant faithfulness.

Covenant faithfulness is generally defined as minorities and women know their place, liberals stay out of everything, white old men rule everything, the poor deserve it anyway, and empathy is sinful. I am not making this stuff up. Please read what the dominionists are writing.

What makes it so powerful is fear. We are afraid that if we are compassionate to the poor, give dignity to the LGBTQ community, listen to the black experience, acknowledge the brutality of slavery and own up to it, allow women to vote, of, God forbid, vote for the other party – then God will curse the nation because of covenant disobedience. The alternative to this is covenant faithfulness, which will be defined by me. Covenant disobedience is communist, feminist, woke, social justice, and socialist. It doesn’t matter what those words mean. We all know it when we see it.

It surprises me that the Reformed world has fallen so quickly for such basic theological errors. I think that there is a strange separation in the minds of those who follow these things. On the one hand, they talk about the gospel, free grace, the person and work of Christ. And on the other hand, they talk about national covenant blessings. But these two things cannot exist together.

This was the same error of the Pharisees. They believed that in order to have God’s covenant blessings, they must put a stop to sinners. The Sabbath breakers and the tax collectors and the prostitutes and everyone who isn’t us. “You were altogether born in sin, and you would teach us??” (John 9)

They knew he was born in sin, because he was born blind. Blind people are not blessed. Therefore, they broke the covenant, otherwise they would be enjoying the blessings of the covenant, and wouldn’t be born blind.

The formula is very simple. Those people, who are not like me – they are minorities, foreigners, women, children, disabled, woke, LGBTQ – they are the ones who are blocking God’s covenant blessings from coming on America like they used to.

In 2016, I was astounded that the whole seeming evangelical world welcomed Donald Trump. A foul mouthed, reviling, abusive, crooked, racist thug – as the savior of America.

But then I remembered that the crowds shouted for Barabbas while crying out for Jesus to be crucified. At least Barabbas tried to do something about all of those Romans getting in the way of God’s covenant blessings.

So let’s look at the very, very basic theological errors.

First, the blessings and cursings of Deuteronomy were given to the nation of Israel, which was the visible church in the world. The nation was where God chose to place his name and reveal himself. But God cannot dwell with sin. Any sin.

Second – the nation of Israel failed. Over and over and over. There was NEVER a time when they were faithful to the covenant. NEVER. Seriously, this is the point of the whole Old Testament. How can you read through Genesis to Malachi and come to the conclusion that America will do better?? Even if they had the option.

If you read the Old Testament and come to the conclusion that you will do better, if only a powerful leader would get rid of the libtards, then all you are doing is adding pride to your multitude of sins.

The Pharisees taught the exact same thing, and God did not tolerate it in them either.

The point of the whole Old Testament is this. God cannot be at peace with anyone who breaks his covenant, any more than a husband can live with an adulterous wife. And after centuries of playing the whore against God, God cast them off (Hosea – the whole book).

The New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34) is different. If God simply established another covenant like the first one, mankind would fail again – because that is what we inherited from Adam. Sin, misery and death.

We need a covenant mediator.

So Jesus, the True Seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16) , took all of the covenant curses upon himself, as it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” – Deuteronomy again…

He was crucified so that we might all know that these covenant curses are taken away in him. The old has passed away.

And now, for the new. His righteousness (His covenant faithfulness, his chesed) merited the promises of covenant blessings, for God cannot lie.

Not one nation, not one people, not one congregation, not one person, has ever, ever, ever earned God’s covenant blessings. There is none, no not one.

And the corollary – not one person, not one has escaped the judgment of God by their merit. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.

If Jesus had done what the Pharisees insisted, and brought fire and brimstone down on the sinners, not one person would be left.

Not one.

And so it is today. When we call for God’s judgment on the sinners, how far back will YOU have to stand. Remember that God sees the heart.

To put this practically – has there EVER been a time when the United States earned God’s blessing? Has there ever been a time when justice rolled down like water? Where the poor and the needy were relieved? Where justice was given to men AND women, white AND black, old AND young?

If God came in judgment, none of us would stand.

Except in Christ. By faith we flee to him and cling to him alone. HE is our covenant mediator.

In HIM was have all of the blessings that are possible. EVERY spiritual blessing, Paul tells the Ephesians.

And the curse is taken far from us. There is therefore now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. None.

And no one merited it, except for Jesus. There has never been a covenantally faithful nation. Never. Not one.

There has never been a covenantally faithful person. Not one. No, not even you.

Only Jesus. Only Jesus.

We used to believe “Sola Christus” (Christ alone). I wonder what happened.

Keep proclaiming the gospel. The good news. If we still have to earn covenant blessings, that isn’t good news at all. That is bad, bad news.

The good news is that Jesus has already finished all of that. It is finished. Done.

Now go rest. The day will come when this world, with the remnants of sin and death and misery will be wiped clean, as will my heart, and we will walk with God forever in the New Heavens and the New Earth. No politician can give you that. Don’t aim too low.

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June 4, 2023 · 7:33 am

Thoughts on Gothard

I was introduced in the early 80s to Bill Gothard’s stuff. I saw firsthand the damage done by this insidious cult leader. He is every bit as dangerous as Jim Jones, just with a larger following – but that is another issue.

I did not watch Shiny Happy People yet. I intend to. But this really doesn’t have anything to do with that.

But I was thinking about Gothard, Wilson, Piper, McArthur, etc, etc, and the gospel.

In way of reminder, here is what the Good News is:

God’s love for you is so infinite and unfathomable that the Second Person of the Trinity took on himself the flesh of a man, became obedient to the Father, even to the point of a shameful, hideous death. He did this so that I might know that he will stop at nothing to bring us back to his presence and reconcile the world to himself. He conquered sin and death and bondage to Satan, and is now pouring out His Spirit on all flesh, reconciling the world to himself through faith.

This was foretold by the Prophet Jeremiah:

33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Jer. 31:33–34.

Let those words sink down into your soul. Because of God’s love for you, because of the death and resurrection of our head, Jesus Christ, because of the Holy Spirit which he sends to us, we have NO NEED of endless control freaks telling us how to live, act, love, dress, recreate, or raise our kids.

We don’t need anyone to tell us how to be married, how to raise kids, how to behave at work, how to love our neighbor, how to earn God’s blessing…

We don’t need anyone to tell us what toys to buy, where to shop, what companies to boycott, what movies to watch, what music to listen to…

WHY? Because Christ has come to set us free and to teach us all we need to know by his word and spirit.

The Holy Spirit teaches us how to love, and when we know how to love, we have everything we need.

That is the gospel. But there are many, many people who have a material interest in keeping you from the love of Christ.

Gothard, Duggar, Wilson, and – you name it, it goes on and on – all make fortunes from telling everyone how to do everything. They leave you broken, fearful, restless – and then you buy more and more and more, hoping that this time you might do enough to be loved by God.

They work through your parents, because after all, you learn love from your parents. And so often the message that parents give is that you don’t do enough to earn their love, so work harder. Purity culture taught that kids must be ever vigilant, ever watchful, ever strong – because if they mess up, even a little, they are spoiled forever and no one will love them.

And then the kids grow up and apply this lesson that they learned to God. I need to do more. Maybe this guy can show me how to quiet my uneasy heart.

But hear me please.

Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe.

It is already all done. God cannot love you any more than he loves you now. Theology 101 teaches what we call the “simplicity” of God. God’s love is not in bits and pieces, to come and go based upon the performance of mankind. But his love is from himself, infinite in scope and active at all times, even when we cannot fathom it.

And THIS is the Spirit that he has poured out upon his people. We learn to love as he loves, not to earn his love, for that cannot be. But because he already loves us.

We love, because he first loved us.

And when we love, we buy teletubbys, and cabbage patch dolls and smurfs and even go to Disneyland if we want to. And if we don’t, we stay home and watch silly TV shows with our kids. And when we don’t want to watch something because it makes us restless or makes us feel dirty, we just turn it off – without EVER consulting an expert on what we should buy or what we should watch or where we should go.

Because the love of God is sufficient.

And because of the love of God, we are taught by God.

9 But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; 10 and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; 11 that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, 12 that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing. (1 Th 4:9–12.)

So find someone that tells you about Jesus. The wicked, abusive person wants nothing to do with the gospel, because if the gospel is true, the abusive control freak loses power over you. So find a church that talks about Jesus and about how Jesus loves sinners and calls them to himself.

It will be small, because those who like to exert power run away when they find that they don’t have power over people.

But those who are there will be learning how to love, because that is what God does. He teaches us to love one another.

And that is so much more important than purity balls and houses free from teletubbies, don’t you think?

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