https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-nmirv-187b7e1
I introduce myself and speak of some of the challenges in Reformed Theology.
The air you breathe
My father loved the Proverbs. He loved quoting them, preaching about them, warning his sons with them.
He would warn us about the dangers of the “scoffer”. He would warn us about tale-bearers who kept gossip and strife going because they loved chaos. (My dad loved words like “strife”; “meddling”; “tale-bearing”; It turns out, Solomon was right. So was Dad.
Mostly.
I took his words seriously. When I was growing up, the air that I breathed was the air of the scoffer. We mocked everyone and everything when we were schoolchildren. I have since commiserated with those friends of mine from decades ago, in awe that any of us survived. We used our tongues as weapons, ever the jesters on the feelings of those who weren’t as quick with the wit as we imagined ourselves to be. But then I realized that words hurt, and I really hated hurting people.
I thought I was funny. But I was mostly hurtful. I remember all the Proverbs on the scoffer and the one who mocks and the one who says “I was only joking” and my heart hurt.
Around 1990, my dad introduced me to Rush Limbaugh. He was entertaining. Every good Christian and right wing person listened to him.
When Clinton was elected in ‘92, Rush exploded in popularity. Do you remember him playing “My ding-a-ling” as Madeline Albright’s theme song? Do you remember how you would mock Jesse Jackson’s name every time he said it?
If you knew my dad, you would know how out of character it would be for him to laugh at Rush’s masturbation jokes. But he did.
It was about that time that I turned Rush off and went back to listening to my CD’s in the car.
I, like every good Christian, got my news from Fox. Fair and balanced, unlike the libtard mainstream media….hahahaha.
But something happened gradually. The news turned into people just yelling at each other. There would be on two or four windows of obnoxious people shouting over each other, mocking each other, contemptuously railing on each other. I realized that I was poisoning myself with the air around me.
I hated it. I couldn’t watch more than 30 seconds of it.
And now, of course, I know that most people who lean right are saying “But MSNBC is just as bad. But the liberals are just as bad. WHAT ABOUT HILLARY’S EMAILS!!!”
Dunno. Never watched MSNBC either. I was always more apt to watch Friends reruns than the news anyway.
Scoffing, contempt, mocking, fear, demonization – it drives up ratings and eventually puts madmen in power. It changes how we think.
My father hated the uncouth. He hated jeans. He hated impolite language. He never talked about sex. He hated rudeness.
And then came Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
The air that we breathe can make us alive, like the crisp fresh tang of a bright spring morning; or it can cause us to wither and die, like smog in Beijing.
Right wing media is smog in Beijing. It poisons the mind. And yeah, the left wing…blah blah blah blah. I don’t care. I don’t listen to any of it.
The left wing didn’t destroy my church and my family. So excuse me for not jumping on the bandwagon.
But I digress.
When the news companies got websites, I checked out the Fox website, just to see if I could get news without the noise.
And flashing everywhere were headlines – “Is Jennifer Aniston sleeping with Russell Crowe??” or some such thing. And then you’d click on it, and the story would be “Friends and acquaintances say that Aniston and Crowe don’t even know each other, and never met. And that was the story. Or whatever the details were. It was 25 years ago.
Now they call it “click bait” and I hate it. It is simply what my dad used to call “Tale bearing”. The hints of a story with just enough credibility behind it to destroy someone.
Fox did it with celebrities. Left leaning politicians. And I was angry. It was as if being a celebrity or a politician took away all obligation of Christians to not bear false witness. You could destroy someone for ratings and the church would cheer.
This was the only news that the right would watch. Every Christian watched Fox, you know.
And lives were destroyed. The followers of Christ were poisoned by the air that they breathed. Reputations destroyed. Hillary eating babies; Bill hiding pedophiles. And then an hour or so of people screaming over each other.
Jump ahead a few years.
I once talked to a man who was a member of a Reformed church his whole life. Avid Trump fanatic. He told me that when he watched that first debate in 2016, he knew that Trump was the guy to save America.
I didn’t watch the debate. I haven’t watched a debate in years. See above for my reasons. But I heard the sound bites.
Donald had nothing constructive or positive to say. He simply mocked, scoffed, gestured, insulted and ridiculed. It is what he does.
And it occurred to me. The church didn’t flock after Donald IN SPITE of his contempt and hatred. They flocked after him BECAUSE of it. It is what they wanted.
They were catechized by 30 years of Rush and Fox News.
When Rush and Fox were first starting, I asked my dad “Dad, how can you follow this? You’ve always hated that kind of thing”. and he said, “It’s just entertainment. We aren’t electing Rush president.”
Until we did. Only we elected someone far, far worse.
We were poisoned by the air that we breathed.
Turn off the talk radio. Turn off the news. Do something beautiful.
Go talk to your neighbors who might be different than you.
Quit acting the fool. We are better than that. We are the people of the living God.
Listen to Cory Booker, and learn how to talk to people. He knows Christ, so he knows how to talk to people.
But turn the poison off.
That’s all.
Have a great weekend.
How did we get here?
I’ve spent a lot of tears and a lot of meditation on how we got here.
How did a morally bankrupt criminal and his billionaire cronies manage to pull the wool over so many eyes?
I feel so alone. The church I used to love and cherish has gone maga, shouting “The voice of a god, and not a man” at an idol, while shouting for the blood of the outcast, the orphan, the widow and all who eat and drink with publicans and sinners.
I think we may have been here before.
I know I feel helpless. There is no atrocity, no corruption, no act of terror or outrage or betrayal that will convince them. Right now, as we speak, the most horrendous betrayals are happening. Brown and black people are rounded up without trial and shipped of to notorious torture dungeons, and the church shrugs, much like the evangelicals of old shrugged when slaves were publicly horsewhipped or burned, or “heretics” publicly burned at the stake.
How did we get here?
I am not a historian. I can only speak of what I have seen and what I know.
Having been brought up in evangelical and reformed circles, there was an honor reserved for the rich man that was not given to the poor man.
In fact, the most trouble I ever caused as a pastor was preaching on James 2.
2 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? (Jas 2:1–7).
Was the church sleeping when this was read? Are we not living in the same day with the same beliefs?
We have let a billionaire foreigner have access to the most secure databases, and the defense I have heard from the church is “He’s a genius. He knows how money works.”
The idea is that because he is so rich, he must be moral, just, capable of making wise business decisions, and running the lives of billions of people.
But the Bible has a different view. Isn’t it the rich who are exploiting you?
Aren’t they they ones dragging the poor into court? Aren’t they the ones blaspheming the name of Christ?
But we excuse it because they are rich. They must know what they are doing.
“He’s a businessman. He makes sound decisions.” How do we know? Because he is rich.
Therefore he must be wise.
This has a long history in America. The rich landowners were the members of the churches. They bought the pews. If you couldn’t afford the family pew, you could sit in back. If you were black, you could just leave and go somewhere else.
In fact, as I think about it, I believe this was the main reason why there were dress codes in evangelical churches. Even in my lifetime, there were many who wouldn’t dare show up without a suit and tie. I still feel a little guilty when I go to church in flannel.
And the excuse was “Doesn’t an audience with God deserve your best? You wouldn’t go to lunch with the president dressed in flannel…”
Again, there is the motif of wealth=worth. The real reason that men wore suits and women wore dresses was to separate the rich from the poor. The black slaves wore rough cloth, the poor sharecropper only had one set of pants and no water. A poor man isn’t welcome.
A homeless man isn’t welcome. Only those who can dress the part will be welcomed to the church.
And as kids we all watched our parents gush over how much money someone made. How nice their car was. How big their house was.
Full bank accounts was called “good stewardship”.
And woe be to the poor woman using a few pennies to buy a treat for her kids, or using SNAP for a bit of Ice Cream after a hard week.
“Look at her” they’d say. “Using my hard-earned money on junk food. Total waste. Millions down the drain. We better take away her money and give it to someone who knows how to use it.”
Examine your hearts, please. Do we not automatically think of a well-dressed, wealthy man as morally superior to the poor man who can’t catch a break?
Don’t we do exactly what James warns us of?
How often have you heard sermons on how to be good stewards.
How to increase wealth in Jesus’ name.
You don’t even have to be as blatant as Kenneth Copeland about it. It pervades everything.
We gawk at “The lifestyles of the rich and famous” and mock the poor man. It is bred into us.
It is time to break the cycle.
What can we do?
We can’t give our balls to Mike Johnson. We can’t donate our spine to Mitch McConnell. We can’t follow footsteps on the sea. And you can’t talk sense to a person who professes love for Christ and worships a rapist. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
But here is what you CAN do. You can repent of covetousness.
You can quit praising a man as a good steward because he is rich. Rich doesn’t mean he is either good or bad. It simply means that God has given him that which he doesn’t deserve.
None of us do, by the way. And we need that perspective to put off covetousness.
God gives to each exactly what he wishes to give to each. To some he gives great wealth and calls them to use that wealth to love their neighbor, the poor, the orphan, the widow.
To build hospitals and places of beauty and libraries and never, ever exploit or crush or extort. And never take the poor to the courts in order to take the little they have.
And the poor – be rich in faith. Be kind and courageous. Speak words of truth and honor. Don’t honor the rich man because he is rich, and don’t dishonor him because he is rich. He is a human like you are, and ought to be judged by character, not his bank account, just as we would like others to do for us.
Teach your kids not to look at a person’s car or clothes, but at their kindness and dignity. How to they talk to the custodian and server? How do they treat their spouses and kids? How do they honor those whose sins are different than their sins?
Is the trans community safe with them? Will gay children find a resting place in their home when they have been driven out everywhere else?
There is a quiet dignity in godliness with contentment, and Paul says that means everything.
How different the church would be if we didn’t spend millions on building programs and weird universities with weird theologies and weird statues, selling our souls to the industrialists and conmen and instead honored the poor man who had wisdom.
Or the widow with character. Or the outcast with kindness and dignity.
What can we do? Break the cycle. Quit worshiping money and those who pretend to have it.
Start honoring character, and the cycle will break.
It might be too late for our society. The wolves have already been given the keys to the henhouse and the shepherds have run off. They loved the money, and their purse was threatened.
You can only be courageous in times like these if you are not afraid of their curses and threats. And you can only do that if you lay aside the worship of money.
God makes our idols ridiculous. But we still bow down, even when they are killing us.
May God have mercy.
Filed under Covetousness
What does God require?
8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Mic 6:8.
As I moved farther and farther away from the conservative evangelical and reformed culture of my youth, I am frequently accused of “antinomianism.”
Literally, antinomianism means “against law”. It is generally used to attack those who question the rigid rules of those in power. The law of God is interpreted and if one disagrees with that interpretation, they are accused of being “antinomian”.
It is also used to attack those who show too much love and deference to sinners, especially the “sinners” who are considered outside the camp of the acceptable ones. In Jesus’ day, it would be prostitutes and tax collectors. In our day, it would be LGBTQ+ folks and Democrats. If you would like to test the theory, mention sometime that Christ’s love for the gay community compelled him to come into the world to redeem and bring them to himself. They might still be gay or trans after Christ calls them, because the Holy Spirit is not bound to our political opinion.
This is what got me tried and found guilty of being a false teacher, and today you might see the pejorative term “antinomian” attached to my name, perhaps with some spittle or other forms of rage.
Like the Pharisees disdainfully said of the “rabble” – They don’t know the law.
I don’t really want to critique again. I actually want to write something more positive. God is clear about what he loves and what he hates.
He has given us the Ten Commandments, which summarize our duties to God and to man. But Moses and later Jesus summarized that duty by saying,
“You shall love the Lord your God. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Paul said that love is the fulfilling of the law. If you love as God loves, you don’t need laws written on stone. You aren’t dreaming of stabbing your boss in his sleep or cheating on your wife if you only had a chance. A man made perfect in love is a perfect man. A man without love can only keep the outward form of the Ten Commandments, but he cannot fool God, and the world will eventually see what kind of a man he actually is.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, for this is the teaching of Jesus all through the gospels. “Clean the inside of the cup” he said, “And the whole cup will be clean.”
In our age as in every age, there are new questions about morality. What do you do if your teenager announces that he is trans and wants to change his name and his pronouns? What do you do if your daughter says she is gay and wants to marry her girlfriend? How do you help your children navigate a difficult world?
They see the contradictions in the conservative church – they went through the purity classes and wore the ring and vowed to be pure then watched their parents and their religions leaders slavishly follow a rapist and a serial adulterer as the savior of our nation – yes, our children are watching that.
They’ve had the ten commandments pounded into their heads from their youth, about honoring parents and all in authority, and then watched you scream at government officials about wearing masks or paying taxes.
They watched you drive the abused woman out of your fellowship because she refused to live with the man who beats her every night.
And they watched their while their friends were forced to stand in front of the church and confess their sin of getting pregnant while their leaders were raping children, committing adultery and other forms of spiritual abuse and receiving standing ovations at the next church service.
The kids have watched us meticulously strive for cleaning the outside of the cups and whitewashing the tombs, while the rot and filth on the inside is destroying the church.
So maybe they aren’t listening when we talk about the “sins” of others.
I would suggest that rather than trying to shame them and casting them out for their struggles trying to navigate a very complicated subject of sexuality and gender, let’s leave that work to the Holy Spirit, to complete in his time and in his way.
And instead, let’s summarize the law the way that Moses, Jesus and Micah all did.
Micah used slightly different words, but the concepts are the same. He gives three things that the Lord requires of Adam (human).
Do justice
First, practice justice. Do justice. Mishpat (justice) is the practice of doing that which is right, being impartial, good to all, and striving – as far as our place allows – for a just and equitable society. African American theologians today and yesterday have written volumes on what a just and equitable society looks like. Perhaps take a look at some of the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, who puts it far more eloquently than I can.
The prophets of the Old Testament also dealt with injustice. The rich trample the poor, destroy their houses to build bigger estates for themselves. Take food from widows and children in order to get richer.
The judges take bribes and those who don’t have the money to pay don’t get justice. Bribes are still taken that pervert justice, but in different forms. I’ll contribute to your campaign; I’ll sign that bill for your zoning, if you condemn that widow’s house. All the deal making that we see every day cries out to the Lord of Justice.
Every time a man is pulled over simply because he is black, the Lord sees.
Every time a woman is bullied into silence or called a “gold-digging whore” for accusing “such an outstanding man”, the Lord sees.
Micah is telling us what the Lord asks of us. He asks us to see as well. Not only to see, but to do.
DO justice, he says.
Love “mercy”
I put “mercy” into quotes because that is how most people memorized this verse, but it isn’t really exactly what the Hebrew says.
The Hebrew is hesed, which doesn’t really have an English equivalent. It has to do with loyalty in relationship. It is a defining characteristic of God. His “hesed” is everlasting, is repeated in every verse of Psalm 136.
It has so many different angles. At a minimum, it means that you keep your contracts. You fulfill your vows. You follow up on promises.
It is translated “mercy” because God is merciful to us because he made a promise to his Son – through Abraham, through David, through Jesus. And he cannot break that promise because his hesed is everlasting. Hence, mercy.
The King James version, knowing the uniqueness of this word, translated it loving-kindness, to distinguish it from other words, such as love, kindness, mercy, loyalty, faithfulness – it is all this and more.
Let me try to explain.
God created us in community. Our decisions and our actions affect our families, our neighbors and our communities. If you decide to drive drunk and put your neighbor’s life in danger, you are not acting according to “hesed”. You are acting treacherously.
There are unspoken rules about living in society. Don’t curse people. Don’t spit on people. Don’t hit your brother. Don’t rape your neighbor’s wife. Some are written down. Some are solemn vows, like marriage vows or business contracts.
A person who loves hesed is one who will make a vow and keep it even if it means loss for himself. A person who loves hesed is reliable, faithful, he keeps his vows to his wife. He honors and cherishes her, even when no one is watching.
A person who loves hesed is someone who will never use the body or the house or the possessions of another for his own gain, but always treats a human with dignity and honor, honoring their possessions and their home.
He helps his neighbor’s donkey out of the ditch, even if that neighbor isn’t a very nice person, because he is hesed, just like his God is hesed.
These two are the heart of what God expects of us with respect to other humans. The Good Samaritan acted with hesed; the priest and the Levite did not.
The examples in scripture can be multiplied again and again.
We might boast about the “art of the deal”, but God calls it treachery, and he sees it.
Because he is just, he will set things in order in his time.
Walk humbly with our God
There is so much that we don’t know. So much that we have not seen.
Where were we when God laid the foundations of the earth?
And yet, he loves us.
We want to pry into his counsels and into his decrees. We want to say that God hates the same people that we hate and that God loves the same people that we love.
We want answers to everything. We draw a circle around ourselves and our tribes. We are the chosen ones, the smart ones.
My mother asked me the other day what the difference was between the Reformed churches I grew up in and the church I attend now.
I had been thinking about it for a while. I think it comes down to “distinctives”. If you belong to a NAPARC congregation, you know what I am talking about.
Every conservative Reformed denomination has what they call “distinctives”
Some have two services on Sunday
Some don’t allow women to vote in congregational meetings
Some only sing Psalms
Some never use instruments
And on and on it goes.
Having been brought up with it, I can attest that these are far more than simply preferences. These are lines in the sand. They are circles around the tribe. Really good, godly faithful people only sing Psalms. The rest of you cannot be called a true church.
And yes, at every meeting where a minister is being examined, they will ask about the “true church”. Can you be a true church if you only have one service on Sunday?
Can you be a true church if you do not force every family to baptize their infants?
These are the people who are “in”. Everyone else is “out”.
Where I attend now, we spend almost no time at all drawing lines in the sand. It is refreshing. And you can give me all the arguments about truth and error, and I won’t answer you because I’ve tried before and it was a worthless waste of time.
And you can share this with your buddies and laugh or sadly shake your head and pat yourself on the back for driving me out of your pure church, and it won’t hurt me anymore.
Nor will I change my mind, because I have confessed since childhood, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”
He is far more capable of correcting where correcting needs to happen than I am.
This is what it means to walk humbly with God.
You don’t have to go to the mat on everything. You don’t have to fight to the death over wine or grape juice. You don’t even have to drive you kid out of your home because his preferred pronoun isn’t the one you think he ought to have.
There is so much about the human brain that we don’t understand. But the one who created the brain knows, and sees, and cares.
Teach that to your kids.
Do you know what is far, far more important than your pronoun?
Fight for justice. Love Hesed and tolerate nothing less.
And leave God’s work in God’s hands. He knows. He cares. He can handle it.
This isn’t antinomianism. It is understanding how God works in the world. It is what the law really means.
Exchanging Jesus for Barabbas
Imagine a man who is a sinner. The particular sin isn’t relevant. Perhaps he is a tax collector for Rome with sketchy morals. Perhaps a woman who sells her body to put food on the table. Perhaps a man seeking life in the arms of many different women, using them and never speaking to them again. Perhaps a thief, a reviler, a blasphemer.
Sinners cause grief in society. They are at war with nature, at war with themselves, at war with their neighbor. Every time God’s moral code is broken, someone gets hurt.
So we want to do something about it. We don’t want prostitutes on the corner of our neighborhood. We don’t want the government getting rich on the backs of the poor. We don’t want to be cursed out when we are in the market. We don’t want thieves running the cash registers.
So far, nothing too controversial. So with those images in mind, ask yourself – what should be done about it?
There are really only two things that can be done. First, is to make the sinner stop sinning. If you have a strong enough king, you can put a stop to an adulterous man. You can eventually lock him up and never let him out. If he has no access to people, he can’t commit a sexual sin against people. Depending on the severity of the situation, this might need to be done. A man who rapes children, for example, needs to be removed from children, whatever it takes to do so. The damage is too great.
But the fact is, this doesn’t actually stop the sinning, because the man still has his heart with him. He still takes his fantasies and his greed and his hatred and his envy, even into prison.
The second problem is this one: If you seek to purify society by removing all the sinners, where do you stop?
Who purifies the ones purifying? The oppressed class rises up and purifies themselves from the oppressors and the oppressors become the new oppressed class.
Revenge is a vicious cycle without an end.
Which brings me to the second way to do something about it.
David cried out, “Oh that salvation were come out of Zion!”
David was the king at the time, and Zion was his palace. He knew that as the king, the salvation he was seeking wasn’t forthcoming. A different kind of king would be needed.
What if a heart could be changed and the adulterous man no longer had any desire to use and abuse the bodies of others?
What if the thief got a job because he wanted to have enough to give to the poor rather than making the problem worse?
What if the racist could see with new eyes the perspective of people different than he is, and actually spend time listening to the struggles and desires and difficulties of the refugee?
What if the greedy government official found security somewhere else rather than in his bank account?
In other words, what if the heart was freed from fear and filled with love?
This, of course, can never be done by laws, by education, by religion, by philosophy, or by anything under the sun. Under the sun is only death and vanity.’
In order for the heart to be changed, a savior must come from another realm with power that doesn’t belong to the realm of death and misery.
It can only come from God himself.
The laws of men can never be strong enough to change a heart or purify sinners. They can’t even agree on what “sin” is!
One problem with the ruling class seeking to purge sinners is that they first have to classify what a sinner is. The next problem is that they have to propose a solution to those that they have deemed sinners.
This is why seeking to eradicate “sin” by the law always ends up multiplying atrocities and never actually solving any problems. You declare a certain type or class of people to be the problem with society (sinners) and then you seek to put a stop to it.
But where do you stop?
You can’t build enough prison camps. You can’t have enough Guantanamo Bays, or Gulags, you can’t have enough Auschwitzes. And not only have you not corrected any problem, you have only made society worse. Death and misery will never cure death and misery.
And death and misery are in this world under the sun because we are alienated from the God of life, fearful of those who are different than we are, and seeking to cover shame and fear and guilt by adultery, murder, anger, reviling, drugs, alcohol, suicides, theft, and the list continues.
In order to truly change behavior, guilt, shame and fear must be removed.
But God doesn’t just zap us and make us perfect. He created us after his image, with personhood, personalities, will, culture, and all of those things that Jesus called “talents”.
And like a skilled surgeon removing a cancer but keeping the patient alive, God removes the fear and the shame and the bent nature and leaves our humanness intact, because God loves his creation and does not desire the “death of the wicked”. Jesus came to redeem a cursed world, not to condemn a cursed world.
But redemption takes time and can’t be rushed. In fact, it takes a whole lifetime and is only complete at the resurrection.
And we are impatient. We want the problem taken care of right now. Our pride tells us that the problem is those others who are sinning.
The problem is that prostitutes are on the corner. Greed is in the government. Refugees are stealing jobs. Politicians are lying. Women are having abortions. Men are sleeping with men.
And if we just had a righteous, powerful king to rid society of these menaces, then the price of eggs would go down, inflation would be over, and we could make Israel Great Again.
And this is where Barabbas comes in.
John’s gospel tells us that Barabbas took part in an uprising.
He thought just like Peter did. Just like Judas did. Just like the crowds did when they welcomed the Son of David into Jerusalem.
FINALLY – God is acting. Jesus is going to rid the world of these Romans. Prostitutes and tax collectors and religious zealots and Herodians and Essenes will finally be put in their place. We will rise up with the king and finally have the peace and security that we deserve!
But then Jesus just rode in to Jerusalem, looked around, and then left!
The Romans didn’t even pay him any mind!
Day after day went by, and nothing.
He let a woman pour a years worth of money out on his feet!! Think of what he could have done with that!
And after Jesus told Judas to leave the woman alone because it was for his burial, Judas finally got it.
He wasn’t going to do anything about Rome at all! He’s just another loser sitting around and doing nothing.
I’m going to join the winning side. Maybe Barabbas can get something going. At least he tried to do something.
And by Friday morning, when the crowds finally realized that Jesus wasn’t going to overthrow Pilate, their shouts of Hosanna quickly turned to shouts of “Crucify, crucify”.
And they exchanged the Lord of life for Barabbas.
He might be a murderer, a thief and an insurrectionist, but at least he tried to make us great again!
Peter was confused, but he tried to keep up with what Jesus was doing. He even drew his sword in the garden.
But when Jesus rebuked him and healed the ear, even faithful Peter had enough.
He didn’t deny Christ because he was afraid. He denied Christ because Jesus didn’t do anything and just allowed himself to be arrested.
He was angry and disillusioned, not afraid.
They had that vision of David – the Great King, defeating the enemies. The time of Israel’s greatness.
But was it that great, really? There was death, corruption, continual war, plague, oppression, enforced slavery…and even David longed for a better salvation.
And now, 2,000 years later, it is easy to scoff at Peter’s faithlessness, Judas’ betrayal, the crowd’s fickleness…
But we still fall into the same trap, over and over again.
We still exchange Jesus for Barabbas. Jesus takes to long. He’s too soft on sin, we say.
We forget that if Jesus came to condemn the world, none of us would be here.
If Jesus came in judgment, the wheat would be thrown in the fire with the tares.
But we think we know better. We think that we can separate the wheat from the weeds and send the weeds off to Guantanamo, so the wheat can get on with growing, and it won’t stop ever.
The body count will get higher and higher. More and more prisons will need to be built. More soldiers and police will be needed until the whole nation is fearful, ashamed, hiding, turning on each other –
And there will still be prostitutes on the corner, greedy government officials, women getting abortions, thieves, and murderers.
Righteousness will never come by the law. Only death and misery.
Shouldn’t we know this by now? It is literally what every single one of Paul’s letters is about. And history has shown us over and over and over.
When Barabbas is king, only misery can follow.
The duty of Christ’s people is NOT to shout for Barabbas to be king, but to take up the cross and follow Jesus. His cross and his resurrection, motivated by God’s love for the world, changed the world and is still changing the world.
But it isn’t on our time-table. We always kill the good while trying to purge the bad. Let Jesus do that. Let the Holy Spirit do that.
In the meantime, love your neighbor. The ones with brown skin who are being threatened. The trans kid with no place to go. The woman on the corner. The greedy government official.
And it might cost. In fact, I know it does. It will cost everything, because we are Christians – like Christ. So we take up our crosses and be willing to even lose our lives for the sake of our communities – and even our enemies.
Because we, of all people, should understand that resurrection only comes after death. Never before.
So we wait, we mourn, we dance, we sing, we take up our crosses, we give generously, and we refuse to give into fear and shame. It has no place here.
Here we will stand. We will crucify fear and shame to the cross of Jesus and stand with joy and peace, with infinite love to share from Jesus through us to the world.
9 Random things –
If you have to hide who you are in order to fit in, you aren’t in the right space
If you cannot explore your sanctification and your understanding and if you are not allowed to grow beyond the established walls, then you are in a cult, not a church.
If someone says that the only law is love, and you call him antinomian, then you don’t know what love is, nor do you understand the law.
If you are in a space that loves to use the word “antinomian”, I would advise you to leave.
Sometimes you can just say, “I’m going to go away now” and then do it.
Some people bring peace whenever they enter. Others bring peace whenever they leave. Try to be the former.
A church is not afraid of the work of the Spirit. A church is not afraid of love.
The fatal flaw of Presbyterianism is that those who are supposed to minister spiritual comfort and pastoral care are ALSO the ones who try, convict, and excommunicate. These two, it seems to me, cannot co-exist.
If you cast out a teenager for being gay, trans, or molested, assaulted or pregnant, you are not doing the work of God.
Gender and Creation
When you begin a discussion about transgenderism, with all of the various nuances of the science of “gender”, you should be aware of the knee jerk reactions that will inevitably take place. I fully expect threats, condemnations and even loss of friendship. I hope not. But I am used to it.
As a follower of Jesus, I believe that the bible alone is my ultimate authority both for faith and for practice. That, by itself, is meaningless, I know, without the filling of the Holy Spirit, for everyone claims the “bible alone” – even those who wouldn’t know what it taught even if it bit them.
I only mention the “bible alone” because I am not an expert on science, or on gender, or on biology or on constitutional law. But I do know a glimmer of what the bible says, even when that knowledge is only “in part”.
Most of those who are quick to condemn transgenderism will say that a transgender person is denying how God made them. Then they will quote Jesus saying, “He made them male and female.” This seems like a slam dunk – so much so that those who condemn a transgender person will use that same person as an example of the worst sort of immorality. In fact, the transgender debate played a large role in the last election. “People don’t even know what bathroom to use…” and so on.
In the list of sins normally presented in an evangelical church, you can be prepared to hear “sodomy, transgenderism, abortion” and almost no mention of racism, abuse, cruelty and assault. But that is another topic.
But if you look at the whole passage that Jesus is quoted in, you will see that it is not nearly the slam dunk that our opponents believe it is. Here is the passage in full:
3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ v 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” Matt 19:3–12.
It is important to notice that the questioners were testing him. They were looking for something to either turn the people against him OR turn the Romans against him. “Yes or no? Is it lawful to get a divorce”.
For this reason, I am leery of questions that begin with “Yes or no??”
“Yes or no, is transgenderism a sin??”
“Yes or no, can you tell me what a woman is?”
“Yes or no, do you know what bathroom to use?”
When questions are put like this, they are rarely asked with good motives. In my experience, every time I am asked a question like this, there is a trap in play.
So let’s look at Jesus’ response.
I have written on the passage several times before: Here, for example.
But not specifically applying in to the transgender discussion.
Jesus did say, “He created them male and female”, but then he goes on to talking about the “hardness of heart” which God did NOT create.
God’s original, beautiful design was marred and corrupted and twisted by sin and death. Now, please do not stop here and think that I am saying that transgender persons are living in sin. That is not the point. Hold on for just a minute.
The fact is that sin is like a cancer, or a leprosy, that effects everything and every person. The brokenness of sin and shame and misery lie in every human heart. We are cast out of Eden and we all feel that in our very bones. We all long desperately for the beauty of God and the acceptance of our Shepherd.
Decades of Wesleyan perfection have infiltrated the church, though, including on the subject of transgender. Wesley, and more particularly his follower Charles Finney, taught that sin was merely a choice that someone makes. That you can choose to do good or choose to do evil. Like Pelagius, they thought that talking about sin as a cancer was just an excuse. That people could be moral if they just decided to be moral.
So when we talk about acceptance, our knee jerk reaction is that if we start choosing to do right, then God will accept us. And so we divide the whole world up into US – those who choose to do right. And THEM, those who make bad choices and deserve the outcome.
We sing about “only a sinner, saved by grace” but secretly harbor the sneaking suspicion that God accepted us because we are a little bit better than those drag queen who actually want to read to children.
But when you say, “The Bible alone”, you also need to condemn yourself, just as Paul wrote in Romans chapters 1-3. The “bible alone” leaves us all subject to sin and death.”
This is a deep subject. I am not simply saying “Yes, you are bad too”. That would be caving to Finney’s view of sin. Instead, look at it this way:
All of us are east of Eden, alienated from life. All of us have mental disorders, physical disorders, cancers, graying hairs. All of us are one car crash away from permanent brain damage. All of us are one accident away from living in a wheel chair. All of us have twisted views of God, twisted views of ourselves, twisted views of our neighbors.
Instead of viewing sin as a series of behaviors, the Bible views sin more as a cancer – the result of living outside of Eden, missing the mark of the glory of God, living outside of his embrace. Everything else is a RESULT of sin. Behavior, shame, guilt, terror, and everything that plagues mankind, up to and including death. We don’t need to make better choices. We need redemption. We live in a world of death and misery, in bondage to the kingdom of darkness and pain and misery.
And all of us try to manage the absurdity and brutality of life in destructive ways.
Some are drunk on alcohol.
Some are drunk on porn.
Some are drunk on their hetero-cis-genderism.
Some are drunk on pride
Some are drunk on their spiritual superiority.
Look deeper than “bad behavior.” Human behavior isn’t nearly as simplistic as you want it to be.
There is a spot in our brain, for example, that controls executive function. That is the function that we use to successfully organize, plan and execute a goal.
I know a person whose executive function was destroyed by a virus. She would be called lazy, unmotivated, and sinful by some – and has been. But human behavior is not that simple. Choice and will are not that simple.
There is a spot in our brain that gives us our identity as either male or female. We know ourselves as gendered persons because of a function of our brain.
And no, I am not talking about the soul right now. That mysterious self that lies beyond our science. I am not a materialist. But I believe that we are one, body and soul. One affects the other.
There is a place in our brain that floods our body with adrenaline. It is supposed to go off when we are attacked by bears or lions. It senses danger and prompts the body to act.
There are hormones, there are nerve endings – and all of this functioned perfectly when God created them male and female.
But then there was catastrophe. Sin entered the world. We became spiritually alienated from God and our bodies, our environment, our relationship to ourselves and our neighbor were all affected.
The brain started flooding the brain with danger signals when there was no danger. We became depressed, neurotic, prideful, even hateful, or contemptuous – as many different responses as their are types of persons.
People forgot who they were. We lost so much we can’t even fathom it. We can’t imagine a world without sin and death and pain and misery. We can’t imagine living without shame or guilt or fear. We can’t imagine living with a healed brain and a healed soul. We can long for it, but we can’t imagine in.
As I write this, my shoulder is cramping up and my knees hurt so badly I have to get up and stretch them out. I cannot imagine a day without pain.
If I believed in a simple “bible alone” response, I would say, “I can’t run the race. I can’t even walk across the store.”
And I know that there will be those who think I can be fixed by “their doctor” or by making better choices. Maybe. Maybe not. Life is far more complicated than better choices.
Sometimes the place in our brain that gives us our gender identity is messed up by abuse, by birth, by trauma, or simply by “I have no idea”. To me, it is simply a part of being a fallen human in a fallen world, longing for redemption and deliverence from the pain of existing.
So, is a transgender person sinning?
I cannot find even one passage in all of scripture that would apply. There is a relatively obscure verse in Deuteronomy that is pulled out like a weapon, but is it talking about a transgender person? Not really.
In fact, the church cannot be dogmatic about how to apply the law of God at all. Is it meant to be normative? Is all of the case law given in Deuteronomy supposed to be followed to the letter? What about that place in Numbers where a woman accused of adultery is supposed to drink water mixed with dust from the temple floor. We don’t have a temple any more. What are we supposed to do.
Here’s the verse I am referring to:
5 “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the LORD your God. Dt 22:5.
But what does it mean? The rest of the passage seems to deal with not mixing seeds, not mixing threads, and not mixing birds and eggs. Is Moses speaking of a thousand case laws, or is he teaching Israel that God has called a people for himself, and makes a difference between his seed and the serpent’s seed? I would lean to the latter, but what do I know? Do we need to throw away all of our garments that are made with mixed thread?
When Paul said, “Be anxious over nothing” was he speaking about those whose brain floods their body with adrenaline without a reason? Where someone is triggered by a smell, a sound, a phrase and goes into fight or flight mode? I think not.
I do know that Jesus said not to search the scriptures looking for a zillion rules, thinking that life would be found there. But look to scriptures as a testimony to Jesus.
So here is what my pea brain offers.
Wherever you are, whatever your coping method is, whatever gender you identify with, whatever your sexuality, whatever your background…
Whether you can’t remember if you turned of the stove and it ruins your whole day
Whether your executive function is damaged and getting up to do the dishes is the hardest thing you’ve ever done
Whether your gender switch is different that mine and you truly don’t know which bathroom to use
Whether you don’t see yourself as either male or female and don’t even know how to answer that question
Whether your anxiety is through the roof for no reason
Whether you lose the battle against your sins today, yet again
Jesus came just for you.
He didn’t come to make you a good slave.
He didn’t come to make you straight, or cis, or male, or female, or white, or republican
He didn’t come because he is sick and tired of you screwing up all the time and you better get it right…
He came for only one reason. Because God loves you, and God hates that cancer that is making you miserable.
He is in the business of restoring everything and making you beautiful. And making me beautiful. And you have a glimpse of that beauty in you right now.
Exercise that beauty that is in you. Do justly. Love faithfulness, and walk humbly with God.
He is coming and everything will be restored. He is longing for your embrace even more than you long for his, believe it or not.
And in his arms, everything will be made right.
As for my part, I am so tired of the impulse to tell everyone what is wrong with them. It does not good. It solves nothing. And I am not nearly smart enough to act as a judge.
Unless you are hurting someone less powerful than you. Then I have a problem.
Be faithful; be just; be humble. That’s the whole of everything.
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Nine reasons why I joined the ELCA
I was brought up conservative, Republican, Reformed, complementarian, patriarchal, postmillennial, theonomic. I have rejected most of that and have joined First English Lutheran Church of Faribault, MN. I am very thankful to my heritage for the confessions of the Reformed Churches – the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dordt – but I no longer consider myself Reformed. It sometimes catches me off guard to find myself in what I would have considered a “liberal, godless” church just a few years ago. So here are nine reasons why I have made First English my church home.
1. They have been so welcoming to my daughter. They don’t try to fix her. They don’t criticize us or hint that we have somehow morally failed her and that is why she is disabled. And they have never, ever rebuked us for asking for prayer for her. Yes, in the Reformed church I was rebuked for asking for prayer for my daughter.
2. They are thoroughly Trinitarian and understand the nuances of classical trinitarianism better than do conservative circles. I have never heard a hint of Wayne Grudem’s abhorrent theology. When I spoke to the pastor about ESS, he said, “That’s weird, isn’t it?” Yes. Yes it is.
3. They have never heard of Doug Wilson and do not have his books on the book table.
4. Christ is proclaimed every Sunday and the liturgy is beautiful and uplifting.
5. I have never had to fear “giving the wrong answer”, and have never felt like I was being tested. I can simply speak from my heart and I listen to others speak from theirs. The fear of failing the test and being rejected is very, very real in conservative circles, as so many of you know. No more.
6. There is more scripture read in a typical service than anything I have seen in my background. The rhythms of the liturgical year are soothing.
7. I have never heard the word “libtard” or “demoncrat” or “Ovomit” or “Let’s go brandon” in any fellowship time.
8. We are active in our community, providing school supplies, food, shelter housing, and comfort to all who are in need, as much as we are able.
9. They define “neighbor” as Jesus did: All who are in need. It is a congregation where anyone who walks in the door is welcome, loved and invited into the bosom of Jesus.
Complementarianism and Abuse
In which I come out as fully egalitarian and plead with you. In which I make the case that abuse and complementarianism necessarily go hand in hand. And a plea to men to finally begin to listen to their wives.
I used to consider myself in the complementarian camp. I even attempted to make an argument that women cannot serve as pastors or elders in a church – which I regret. I am now fully egalitarian.
The main reason that I am fully egalitarian is that I do not find any of the scriptures used by complementarianism to subjugate women to be compelling. (If you take this as permission to mansplain to me why I am wrong, save your writing. I’ve heard all the arguments and the exegesis is poor, the hermeneutic is poorer and the scholarship is poorer still.)
Quite simply, the gospel makes no distinction between male and female – neither ontologically, as image-bearers of God, nor in “role”. But that isn’t why I’m posting this.
I’m posting this for the SECOND reason why I am fully egalitarian. Jesus said that you will know false teaching by the fruit. And the fruit of complementarianism is ugly and rotten to the core. A simple glance at the response of the complementarianism to Bishop Budde, or simply listening to what our sisters have endured in complementarian churches is enough to demonstrate the stench of the rotten fruit.
Abuse, degradation, silencing, ridicule, threats, bullying, excommunications and other forms of spiritual and physical abuse have been thoroughly documented in complementarian churches for those who wish to see it.
At this point, I know that there are many of you who will say, “not my church” – and if that is actually the case, I am thankful.
But there is a deeper problem. Before I get there, I want to define complementarianism:
Complementarianism and egalitarianism are theological views on the relationship between men and women, especially in marriage and in ministry. Complementarianism stresses that although men and women are equal in personhood, they are created for different roles. Egalitarianism also agrees that men and women are equal in personhood but holds that there are no gender-based limitations on the roles of men and women (Christianity.com)
If you are complementarian, you need to define what those “roles” are, and that is where it gets sticky. One role is “silence in church.” Complementarians believe that women are forbidden by God to teach or govern in the church.
And then they need to justify that belief. I know, I used to be there myself. Some soft complementarians, like I was, believe that women and men are equally gifted, equally human, but for reasons inscrutable, God has forbidden women from holding office. But, if they are like me, they cannot hold that position for long because it is troublesome. I can only say, “ummm – for reasons…” for so long before I have to abandon that position.
Others come up with reasons for positing different roles using poor exegesis and analytical skills. They say,
“Women are more emotional than men”
“Women are called to stay home and submit to their husbands”
“Women simply cause trouble and if you give them power, they want to take over everything”
“Someone has to be in charge, and God gave that position to men”
“Because men are rational, masculine, god-like, non-emotional – and…reasons”
These are all the arguments I heard growing up. I never accepted any of them. It just took me years to realize that my rejection of those arguments were really a rejection of complementarianism.
So this is my “coming out” if you will.
I ask all of your forgiveness for my previous statements that women cannot hold office in the church. There is nothing either in the scripture or in the confessions of the church that mandate such a position.
But why is it that holding a complementarian position is not only unbiblical, but dangerous to women? Why is the almost universal climate in complementarian churches an unsafe climate for women?
And here is the answer: When a man abuses, degrades, or assaults a woman, he never does it in front of witnesses.
And complementarianism teaches that women are unreliable, untrustworthy and too emotional to witness the truth – at least not to the extent that a MAN can.
Any argument that one uses to keep women out of the pulpit ALSO keeps them out of the discussion as reliable witnesses.
Bishop Budde was rejected, ridiculed and shut down by Denny Burk simply BECAUSE she is a woman, NOT because she was wrong, and this is important for us men to understand.
When a woman seeks to complain that a sermon made her uncomfortable, that she feels unsafe at church, that something about the pastor is off – complementarian husbands generally will listen – if they love their wives – but deep inside there is a place where they will discount her experience because she is emotional, irrational, of just didn’t hear it right. Just as Burk and so many others shut down the Bishop – she is wrong because she is a woman, and women cannot teach men – so also even good men in a complementarian environment tend to shut down their wives. If they listen, then they have been taught by a woman. And everything that they hear in church is that it is WRONG for a woman to teach a man, especially her husband.
My wife went to the hardware store to buy a water heater this week. She did the research and asked the man at the store if he could explain the difference between the 45000 BTU and the 30000 BTU heater. He gaped at her. Patted the machine and said, “This is a WATER HEATER” in his best mansplaining voice.
Expected in a hardware store. An absolute crisis when it happens in the church.
Barak was only given one choice. Listen to the woman or die.
Josiah only had one choice. Listen to Huldah or die.
The wise woman who threw Sheba’s head over the wall saved the city – Joab listened to her.
Abraham was commanded to listen to his wife.
Lydia brought the gospel to Philippi.
The women brought the good news of the gospel to the men.
And we wouldn’t know anything about the virgin birth if we do not hear Mary’s voice.
We wouldn’t have Romans if Phoebe wasn’t a brave, capable godly woman.
Because when it comes down to it, whether the voice is male or female doesn’t matter. Is it true? is the only question that matters.
Brothers, your sisters have been telling you for decades that they are not safe in complementarian churches.
They are telling you that they are not safe in complementarian circles.
They are not safe in the current political climate.
We haven’t listened, and we are being overrun by the chariots of Sisera. Baal worship is filling the temple of God and we have erected our orange idol in the Holy of Holies, because he promised us power.
The state of the evangelical church is dismal. It is buried under the bones of our sisters, as was every temple of Baal.
The victims are clawing at the threshold, dying at our doorsteps but our religion forbids us to hear them, to rescue them, to even listen to them. We would rather die and rot than be “taught by a woman”.
That is the fatal flaw in complementarianism. In order to protect ourselves from the imaginary witch of feminism, we have thrown Jesus outside the church and made it a safe place for the worst sort of scum and villainy. In order to make ourselves “safe” from the opinions and thoughts of women, we threw them out of the Holy Place and into the kitchen and when they tried to be heard over our self-congratulations, we called them “Jezebels” and cast them out completely.
And now the sheep are gone, and only the wolves remain.
The church has become a den of thieves, a safe-haven for criminals.
We were warned. And the women who warned us over and over again were cast out.
So forgive me if you say, “Not all complementarian churches”. If you WERE a danger to women, how would you know when you won’t allow them to speak except to a room full of abusive men who have already decided that women are too emotional, too deceived and too irrational to be believed?
For you men out there who truly love your wives and daughters, please ask them that question and be open to their responses:
When was the first time that they were sexualized at church?
When was the first time they didn’t feel safe in Sunday school?
When was the first time they were dismissed and silenced?
When was the first time they felt as if a man was shunning them as if they were unclean?
And ask them this question – if they were assaulted by a leader in your church, would she go to the pastor or to the other elders for help?
And please listen to her.
If she is not safe at church, it doesn’t matter how “orthodox” they are. You will know them by their fruit.
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The end of an era
It’s time for boldness as well as encouragement for the people of God. There are Christians like me all over the world who are grieving. They watch their Savior’s name being dragged through the mud by the worst sort of men – adulterers, liars, abusers, rapists, con-men – and these same men then take the name of God on to their filthy lips for the sake of power. It grieves my heart.
That being said – at the end of every era, By God’s design, wickedness becomes exposed as it grows more powerful and seemingly omnipotent. It is a terrifying time when an age ends.
But in God’s design, the exposure is necessary before judgment. First the exposure, then comes judgment.
Before God’s time, wickedness is restrained, hidden, in shadows and corners and down alleys. Those who have tried to speak are not believed, silenced, ridiculed, shut down – and wickedness grows and becomes more emboldened.
How many spoke up before Luther and died at the stake?
How many spoke in ancient Rome and died in the circuses?
How many were executed by wild beasts and furnaces BEFORE God brought judgment to Nebuchadnezzar?
But then the time of judgment and exposure comes.
The darkness bursts out in all it’s ugliness and hatefulness and power, crushing the soul and leaving the innocent crying out in agony. “Does anyone hear? Does anyone care?” But that is the sign that the end is near.
Follow me – God told Abraham that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete. And we have followed this pattern ever since. Revelation speaks of Armageddon, when the forces of evil are at their most deceptive and most powerful.
And so the ages come and go.
One power is exposed and falls, the next rises and continues until its injustice and wickedness is complete, then it is exposed before all and destroyed by the breath of God, and another kingdom takes its place.
It is always darkest before the dawn.
We are, I believe, at the end of the age. We are in for a bit of darkness, but let’s take a look at it from the throne room of God:
This hatred and fear and contempt will grow worse and worse. The iniquity of American Evangelicalism is not yet complete. It has crushed the enslaved, destroyed humans in the Native genocides, crushed women and children in mines and factories, raped children in the Sunday School rooms and Bible camps, and has turned God’s house into a safe-haven for robbers, adulterers, and thieves.
God has sent prophets, but has not yet come in judgment, because the iniquity is not yet complete. But it is coming.
This facade of religiosity will soon be peeled back and we will be left with unmasked Baal – worship, throwing its victims into the furnaces and ghettos and death camps and will reach the height of its earthly power.
But do not fear. It is as it has always been as we approach the coming Day of the Lord.
God still has angels with swords. He still has the breath of his mouth. And when the time has come, and the evil is fully seen for what it is, it will tumble down in a moment.
Until then, my friends, do not fear.
There will be mouths to feed. Victims to sit with. Refugee families to house and hide. Neighbors to love. People to clothe. Escapees to sit with, and so so many left outside the camp.
Do not mistake what you see in the halls of Power as Christianity. It is not there. You have never found Christ in Christendom. It is a different kingdom with a different master. Jesus said that you will know his disciples by their love.
Look for it. Show it. Shine it out. Don’t be afraid.
Firing squads may come. It will be the organized church and the power-hungry religious leaders that lead the violence. This will not be where Christ’s people are.
Christ’s people will be following him. Outside the camp. On the cross. Taking the lowest place of all. Waiting for resurrection.
Hold on to that, and don’t be discouraged.
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My Only Comfort 