In the image and likeness of…

And yet there is something in the world that the Bible does regard as a symbol of God. It is not a temple or a tree, it is not a statue or a star. The one symbol of God is man, every man. God Himself created man in His image, or, to use the biblical terms, in His tselem and demuth. How significant is the fact that the term tselem, which is frequently used in a damnatory sense for a man—made image of God, as well as the term demuth—of which Isaiah claims (4o:18) no demuth can be applied to God—are employed in denoting man as an image and likeness of God!

Human life is holy, holier even than the Scrolls of the Torah. Its holiness is not man’s achievement; it is a gift of God rather than something attained through merit. Man must therefore be treated with the honor due to a likeness representing the King of Kings.

Not that the Bible was unaware of man's frailty and wickedness. The divine in man is not by virtue of what he does but by virtue of what he is. With supreme frankness the failures and shortcomings of kings and prophets, of men such as Moses or David, are recorded. And yet Jewish tradition insisted that not only man’s soul but also his body are symbolic of God. This is why even the body of a criminal condemned to death must be treated with reverence, according to the Book of Deuteronomy (2 1:23). He who sheds the blood of a human being, “it is accounted to him as though be diminished [or destroyed] the divine image.”—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 84–85

<idle musing>
He keeps going, but that's enough for today. This section reminds me of the C.S. Lewis essay/sermon entitled "The Weight of Glory," which also gave it's title to the book, Weight of Glory (the other essays are well-worth your time, too).

We are all image-bearers of God. Whatever happened in Gen 3 didn't erase that image. It might have defaced it, making us "cracked eikons," as Scot McKnight puts it, but it didn't erase that image. Remember that as you face what you think are your enemies. Remember that when you are tempted to hurl insults at others. They, too, are images of their (and your) creator!
</idle musing>

Just a bit of leavening…

One can serve God with the body, even with one’s passions; one must only be able to distinguish between the dross and the gold. This world acquires flavor only when a little of the other world is mingled with it. Without nobility of the spirit, the flesh is full of darkness.https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374524951 —Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 76

Chaos, waiting at the doors

One of the lessons we have derived from the events of our time is that we cannot dwell at ease under the sun of our civilization, that man is the least harmless of all beings. We feel how every minute in our civilization is packed with tension like the interlude between lightning and thunder. Man has not advanced very far from the coast of chaos. It took only one storm to throw him back into the sinister. If culture is to survive, it is in need of defenses all along the shore. A frantic call to chaos shrieks in our blood. Many of us are too susceptible to it to ignore it forever. Where is the power that could offset the effect of that alluring call? How are we going to keep the demonic forces under control?

This is the decision which we have to make: whether our life is to be a pursuit of pleasure or an engagement for service. The world cannot remain a vacuum. Unless we make it an altar to God, it is invaded by demons. This is no time for neutrality. We … cannot remain aloof or indifferent. We … are either ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil. The only safeguard against constant danger is constant vigilance, constant guidance. Such guidance is given to him who lives in the reality of Israel. It is a system in which human relations rest upon two basic ideas: the idea of human rights and the idea of human obligations.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 75

The spoken word

Many of us detest the idea of holiness and consider it to be a waste of time, a meaningless concept, the invention of primitive man, notwithstanding the fact that this concept is rooted in the heart of every cultured person. Everyone knows the power of the spoken word. What really happens when a person opens his mouth and promises something? Superficially, only sounds emanate from vocal cords, and the lips are merely moving. So what of it? Why do we assume that loyalty to one’s word is the basis of all human relationships? The promise that was given, the contract that is made——is sacred, and one who desecrates it destroys the foundation upon which all of communal life is established. Until the moment I speak, the choice is mine, but once the words have left my mouth, I may not rescind or desecrate them. Willingly or unwillingly, the word spoken by me controls me. It becomes a sacred power which has dominion over me, lurking at my door and compelling my compliance. 61

Partnering together

We are partners with God, partners in everyday actions. We do not walk alone. We are not solitary in our toils or forsaken in our efiforts. The smallest one is a microcosm of the Greatest One. A reciprocal relationship binds each lowly one with the One on High.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 60

How to judge value

All values are esteemed only to the extent that they are worthy in the sight of God, for only through the Divine Light is their light seen. Treasures of the world, though they be marked by beauty and charm, when they diminish the image of the divine will not endure. Fortunate is the person who sees with eyes and heart together. Fortunate is the person who is not entranced by the grand facade or repulsed by the appearance of misery. This is the mark of the spiritual personality; chic clothes, smiling faces, and artistic wonders which are filled with evil and injustice do not entrance him. Architectural wonders and monumental temples, which seem to testify to glory and honor, power and strength, are loathsome to him if they were built with the sweat of slaves and the tears of the oppressed, if they were raised with wrongdoing and deceit. Hypocrisy which parades under the veil of righteousness is worse to him then obvious wrongdoing. In his heart any religious rite for which the truth must be sacrificed is revolting. Deeds … are for the purpose of coupling the beautiful and the good, for the sake of the unification of grace and splendor. The criterion by which we judge beauty is integrity, the criterion by which we judge integrity is truth, and truth is the correspondence of the finite to the infinite, the specific to the general, the cosmos to God.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 59

The measure of a person (or society)

How does one measure dominion, beauty wealth, power? The soul of every human being possesses within it the tendency to value those things that it likes, and to bow down to that which appears to be valuable. This is a test that everyone passes. How easy it is to be attracted by outward beauty, and how hard it is to remove the mask and penetrate to that which is inside. If a Greek poet, for example, had arrived at Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom of Israel, he would have been surprised and overcome with emotion; he would have praised and lauded in verse the idols, the beautiful temples and palaces which the kings of Israel and their ministers had built. But the prophet Amos, after visiting Samaria, did not sing, nor did he bow to the glory of the ivory buildings. When he looked at the buildings of carved stone, at the ivory temples and the beautiful orchards, he saw in them the oppression of the poor, robbery and plunder. External magnificence neither entranced him nor led him astray. His whole being cried out in the name of the Lord: “I loathe the pride of Jacob, and I detest his palaces." Could it be that the prophet Amos’s heart—the purest of that generation—was not captivated and did not tremble before beauty? Was the prophet Amos lacking all feeling and appreciation for beauty?

When the annual congress of the Nazi Party convened in Nuremberg in 1937, journalists from all over the world, such as The Times of London, described with enthusiasm the demonstrations of the various Nazi organizations. They could not find enough adjectives to praise the physical beauty, the order, the discipline, and the athletic perfection of the tens of thousands of young Nazis who marched ceremoniously and festively before the leader of the “movement.” These writers who were so excited by the exterior splendor lacked the ability to see the snakes in the form of humans—the poison that coursed through their veins, which not long after would bring death to millions of people.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 58-59

<idle musing>
Not a whole lot has changed in the last 85 years, has it? We still bow before the gods we've created, be they silicon or flesh. We embrace the lies and become zealous to route the enemy, which unfortunately, is all too often a neighbor or family member.

Even if we happen to be right, which is usually not the case!, we have no right to seek vengeance. As scripture says, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord." Note that, it isn't ours. It is his. We, on the other hand, are called to pray for our enemies. And I don't mean praying an imprecatory psalm over them the way so many did over Obama. I mean a heartfelt concern for their spiritual and physical well-being.

And that just might mean doing something for them, too. Scary thought, isn't it? God might be calling you to embrace that person who disagrees with you! OK, scratch that, not he might be—he is callling you to embrace them.
</idle musing>

The siren call

The satan of publicity dances at the crossroads, moving with full strength. Who is the wise man who has not gone out after him, following his drums and dances? We tend to lick the dust of his feet in order to gain fame. In truth, the soul has only that which is hidden in its world, that which is sealed in its treasure houses. The quality of a person is internal. He does not live by what his mouth says but by the secret. The honor of a person is a secret. —Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 56

<idle musing>
Remember satan in Hebrew means "temptor"—and who hasn't heard the siren call of publicity in our fame-hungry world? This quotation follows-up on yesterday's, on the secret life.

True wisdom is cultivated out of the public eye, which is difficult to do in our media-saturated world. Taking the time to actually think is frowned upon. The fear of missing out is a very real thing. Who wants to be embarassed when someone mentions some little tidbit from the latest gossip or news mill and you don't have a clue what they are talking about? But that stuff is just hebel and shwa, vapor and nothingness, it passes away and what are you left with?

This pandemic and its associated lockdowns gave us a chance to be alone and cultivate inner strength. Instead far too many either used it to protest the imposition on their rights or to binge-watch whatever their favorite shows were.

As image-bearers, we should know better. We do know better. But that's too much work, isn't it? Binge-watching or binge-whining is far easier—and initially more rewarding. But, just like the scroll that John eats in Revelation, it turns sour in the stomach.
</idle musing>

True nobility

What is the meaning of nobility? A person possessing nobility is one whose hidden wealth surpasses his outward wealth, whose hidden treasures exceed his obvious treasures, whose inner depth surpasses by far that which he reveals. Refinement is found only where inwardness is greater than outward appearance. The hidden is greater than the obvious, depth greater than breadth. Nobility is the redeemed quality which rises within the soul when it exchanges the transient for the permanent, the useful for the valuable.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 56

<idle musing>
Indeed! And a rare thing to find now, isn't it? What with all the social media apps, it's rare to find someone who doesn't "let it all hang out" as we used to say many years ago. And, unfortunately, what "hangs out" is far too often less than noble : (

</idle musing>

Thorn in the flesh?

Our historical experience has taught us that our existence as Jews is not in the category of things which neither help nor hurt. The opposite is true: to be a Jew is either superfluous or essential. Anyone who adds Judaism to humanity is either diminishing or improving it. Being a Jew is either tyranny or holiness. Moreover, the life of a Jew requires focus and direction, and cannot be carried out offhandedly. One who thinks that one can live as a Jew in a lackadaisical manner has never tasted Judaism.

The very existence of a Jew is a spiritual act. The fact that we have survived, despite the suffering and persecution, is itself a sanctification of God’s name. We continue to exist, in spite of the scorn of the complacent, the torrents of hatred, and the dangers that constantly lie in wait for us. We always have had the option to solve the “Jewish Question” through conversion, and had we stopped being Jews, we would not have continued as thorns in everyone’s flesh, and we would not have remained an object of scorn. As individuals we would have tasted a life of serenity and security. After all, the Jew is an expert at adaptation and assimilation, and it would not be too much for him to mix with the nations, without their taking note of his joining them. Nevertheless, generation upon generation have withstood the test of their faith. Many blows could not douse the flame. With dedication we guard the fire, the truth, and the wonder.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 55

<idle musing>
Change "Jew" to "Christian" and I wonder how true it would be? It should be true...but is it?
</idle musing>

Created equal?

The most urgent task is to destroy the myth that accumulation of wealth and the achievement of comfort are the chief vocations of man. How can adjustment to society be an inspiration to our youth if that society persists in squandering the material resources of the world on luxuries in a world where more than a billion people go to bed hungry every night? How can we speak of reverence for man and of the belief that all men are created equal without repenting the way we promote the vulgarization of existence?—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 31

<idle musing>
How much truer this is today than it was in the 1950s when he penned it!

Lord, have mercy on us and awaken us to the hypocrisy of our ways!
</idle musing>

Aim high!

The cure of the soul begins with a sense of embarrassment, embarrassment at our pettiness, prejudices, envy, and conceit; embarrassment at the profanation of life. A world that is full of grandeur has been converted into a carnival.

Man is too great to be fed upon uninspiring pedestrian ideals. We have adjusted ideals to our stature, instead of attempting to rise to the level of ideals. The ceiling of aspiration is too low: a car, color television, and life insurance. Modern man has royal power and plebeian ideals.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 31 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
Indeed. Adjust the expectations from 1950 to 2020, but other than that, it's about right. We've set our ideals on material things and aiming low, we hit a target even lower. God has greater things in mind for those who bear his image!
</idle musing>

What's the problem?

I do not believe that repression is America’s major problem, as some writers maintain. America’s problem number one is the self-profanation of man, the perversion of the eighteenth-century conception of the pursuit of happiness, the loss of reverence, the liquidation of enthusiasm for the attainment of transcendent goals.

Our conception of happiness is based on an oversimplification of man. Happiness is not a synonym for self-satisfaction, complacency, or smugness.&tninsp;. . . Man’s true fulfillment depends upon communion with that which transcends him.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 30–31 (emphasis original)

Ummm...really?

I only have one comment on the golden Trump at CPAC. Everyone seems to be relating it to the golden calf in Exodus. Personally, I think Daniel 3 is a better analogy. My response? The same a Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego:

Know this for certain, Your Majesty: we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you’ve set up. (Dan 3:18 CEB)

That is all.

Perfect diagnosis

It is our duty to do our utmost in restoring physical health, but it is sinful to ignore the most essential requirement of being a person: the sense of significant being. Our community’s need of thought, understanding, intellectual expansion is profound and urgent. If not satisfied, we will all be bankrupt.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 28

<idle musing>
Yep. He diagnosed the current malaise of christianity in the US perfectly (even though he was talking about Judaism). And not just christianity, but the culture in general. While we are (sort of) fighting this pandemic, what of our intellectual and spiritual wasteland? Material goods don't give meaning to life!

The pulpits and the talking-heads in christianity are offering up a Trumpism that will never feed the soul with anything other than lies. We slice the budgets to universities, hiring only adjuncts. We expect public schools to function when we only offer them a reluctant slice of cash and then complain that the teachers are whiners and don't really want to teach when they are legitimately concerned for their (and their students') health.

Yep. Heschel was correct in his diagnosis.
</idle musing>

Prophetic Words

We all pay heavily for earlier disregard of the power of evil, of the essentially unredeemed nature of society, of the dangerous tensions of being human. I was unprepared for the shock of the sudden realization that progress is not automatic, that it may involve climbing a ladder of absurdities. Modern man’s discovery of the fundamental aloneness and solitude in a universe indifferent to his fate is due to an expectation that it was in the universe where care for what is ultimately precious was to be found. He now suffers from the collapse of naive self—deception and oversimplification.

Our era marks the end of simplification, the end of personal exclusiveness, the end of self-defense through aloofness, the end of a sense of security. We find ourselves in a situation in which the distinction between the affluent and the indigent, between the successful and the shlemiels, is becoming obsolete. In the realm of character, in the depth of the soul, in groping for a way out of a creeping sense of futility, in moments of being alone and taking account of our lives, we are all indigent and in need of assistance.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 22

<idle musing>
Indeed! How much truer today, after enduring four years of unrelenting lies, the even now are being repeated and amplified? Progress is never simple and automatic, as anyone who has studied history can tell you. And what we consider progress today isn't necessarily progress at all. We need the discernment that can only come from the Holy Spirit. May we be up to the task!
</idle musing>

It's hard work!

Most people think only once in their lives, usually when they are at college. After that their minds are made up, and their decisions, utterances are endless repetitions of views that have in the meantime become obsolete, outworn, unsound. This applies to politics, scholarship, the arts as well as to social service. Views,’ just as leaves, are bound to wither, because the world is in flux. But so many of us would rather be faithful to outworn views than to undergo the strain of reexamination and revision. Indeed, intellectual senility sets in long before physical infirmity. A human being must be valued by how many times he was able to see the world from a new perspective.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 20

A short summary of history

To the discerning eye the incidents recorded in the Bible are episodes of one great drama: the quest of God for man, His search of man, and man's flight from Him.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 16

Thought for the day

12 The LORD proclaims:
Begin each morning by administering justice,
    rescue from their oppressor
        those who have been robbed,
    or else my anger will spread like a wildfire,
        with no one to put it out,
        because of your evil deeds.
13 I am against you,
    you who live in the valley,
        like a rock of the plain,
            declares the LORD,
    and who say, “Who will come down to attack us?
        Who will breach our fortresses?”
14 I will punish you based on what you have done,
    declares the LORD.
I will set your forests on fire;
    the flames will engulf
        everything around you.

Blind chance?

The claim of the Bible is absurd, unless we are ready to comprehend that the world as scrutinized and depicted by science is but a thin surface of undisclosed depths. Order is only one of the aspects of nature; its reality is a mystery given but not known. Countless relations that determine our life in history are neither known nor predictable. What history does with the laws of nature cannot be expressed by a law of nature.

Among many difficulties is this: There would have to be a leak, a flaw in the perfect mechanism of mind and matter to let the spirit of God penetrate its structure. To assume that the world for all its immense grandeur is a tiny cymbal in the hand of God, on which at certain times only one soul vibrates though all are struck; in other words, to assume that the entire complex of natural laws is transcended by the freedom of God would presuppose the metaphysical understanding that the laws of nature are derived not from a blind necessity but from freedom, that the ultimate is not fate but God. Revelation is not an act of interfering with the normal course of natural events but the act of instilling a new creative moment into the course of natural events.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 14

Thought for the day

 13 I replied, “Lord God, the prophets are telling them: ‘You won’t see war or famine, for I will give you lasting peace in this place.’”

14 Then the Lord said to me: The prophets are telling lies in my name. I haven’t sent them. I haven’t commanded them. I haven’t spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, worthless predictions, and deceit they have made up on their own. 15 Therefore, this is what the Lord proclaims concerning the prophets who are speaking in my name when I didn’t send them, and who are telling you that war or famine will never come to this land: Those very prophets will die in war and by famine! 16 And the people they are prophesying to will be thrown into the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and war. There will be no one to bury them or their wives and children. I will pour out on them their own wickedness. (Jer 14:13–16 CEB)

<idle musing>
Let those who have ears to hear, hear!
</idle musing>

An active and living God

The God of the philosopher is a concept derived from abstract ideas; the God of the prophets is derived from acts and events. The root of Jewish faith is, therefore, not a comprehension of abstract principles but an inner attachment to those events; to believe is to remember, not merely to accept the truth of a set of dogmas.... To ignore these events and to pay attention only to what Israel was taught in these events is like tearing out a piece of flesh from a living body.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 12–13

Hope for the world

Indeed, life appears dismal if not mirrored in what is more than life. Nothing can be regarded as valuable unless assessed by something higher in value than itself. Our survival depends upon the conviction that there is something that is worth the price of life. Our survival depends upon a sense of the supremacy of what is lasting. That sense or conviction may be asleep, but it awakens when challenged. In some people it lives as a sporadic wish; in others it is a permanent concern.

What I have learned from Jewish life is that if a man is not more than human, then he is less than human. Judaism is an attempt to prove that in order to be a man, you have to be more than a man; that in order to be a people, we have to be more than a people. Israel was made to be a “holy people.” This is the essence of its dignity and the essence of its merit. Judaism is a link to eternity, kinship with ultimate reality.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 6–7

<idle musing>
If that is true of Judaism (and I'm sure it is), then it is even truer of Christianity. Would that those of us who call ourselves "Christians" would live like we believe it!

And that is truly possible by the power of the Holy Spirit!
</idle musing>

Sound familiar?

One of the maladies of our time is shattered confidence in human nature. We are inclined to believe that the world is a pandemonium, that there is no sense in virtue, no import to integrity; that we only graft goodness upon selfishness, and relish self—indulgence in all values; that we cannot but violate truth with evasion. Honesty is held to be wishful thinking, purity the squaring of the circle of human nature. The hysteria of suspicion has made us unreliable to ourselves, trusting neither our aspirations nor our convictions. Suspiciousness, not skepticism, is the beginning of our thinking.

This sneering doctrine holds many of us in its spell. It has profoundly affected the character and life of modern man. The man of today shrinks from the light. He is afraid to think as he feels, afraid to admit what he believes, afraid to love what he admires. Going astray he blames others for his failure and decides to be more evasive, smooth—tongued, and deceitful. Living in fear he thinks that the ambush is the normal dwelling place of all men. He has failed to pick up in his youth the clue of the unbroken thread of truthfulness that would guide him through the labyrinth.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 6

<idle musing>
Remember, this was written in 1951! It could have been written yesterday. Watch for his solution tomorrow...
</idle musing>

The wrong prescription

It is absurd to assume that we can heal our shattered souls by outlawing aggressive thinking, that we can revive our suppressed faith by substituting frantic nostalgia for sober conviction or worship of rituals for walking with God.—Abraham Joshua Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, 6

<idle musing>
Truer now than when he first penned it in 1951! His was truly a prophetic voice from which we can still learn much.
</idle musing>

It's even colder!

Yesterday was cold. I looked at the temperature at 8:00 AM and it was -20ºF. Then, at 8:30 last night, I checked the weather. Here's what I saw:

It's kind of scary when a prediction of 9ºF is considered "much warmer" out! But, it wasn't as bad as they said. I checked at 8:00 AM this morning, and it was only -18ºF! Heat wave!

Imago Dei

If we are created in the image of God, each human being should be a reminder of God’s presence. If we engage in acts of violence and murder, we are desecrating the divine likeness.—Susannah Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, xxv

A cross perspective

Even though the cross is essential to the development of true spirituality, it does not hang over the life of Jesus and should never cast a pall over the life of His followers. Joy will always be the predominant spirit of Jesus’ approach to our life with God. Jesus was above all else a happy person, and a person remarkably free, free from the grip of material things, free from unhealthy attachments to people, free from obsessive hang-ups and neurotic needs. It is a pleasure to watch Him move so easily through life, even with His knowing the troubles that were always impending. He never allowed Himself to be obsessed with worry or with a sense of doom. Problems He handed over to His Father, as if that was His business. He just did what He knew He had to do each day. In living this way He was able to manifest a remarkable detachment and continually radiate a spirit of joy.— Never Alone, 111–12

<idle musing> And so ends this little book. Tomorrow we'll start going through Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays, by Abraham Joshua Heschel.
</idle musing>

Peace, the gift of God

Once Jesus establishes His place in our souls, the first gift He shares is peace. That is why forgiveness is important to Him, it preserves our peace. Inner peace is the fertile soil in which our spiritual garden can grow. Where there is turmoil it is almost impossible to develop an inner life. There is just no room for the thought or reflection which is essential for the development of a spiritual life. Jesus talks to us in the peacefulness of our souls.— Never Alone, 96–97

Baby, it's cold outside

Just checked the temperature, and it's -4ºF. But that's not what was the worst. Check out the screen shot. Tomorrow is supposed to be "much cooler" than today!

Be Perfect! But in what way?

He then tells them to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect. The perfection He is referring to here is not perfection in the keeping of laws, but to what is mentioned just before, perfection in expressing genuine love even of your enemies. God’s perfection is not about the keeping of commandments, it is about the expression of His ineffable love. Love is the definition of God. It is His essence. It is What makes God God. So, in enjoining us to be perfect like His Father, Jesus is challenging us to love as completely and as unselfishly as His Father, particularly with the unrelenting forgiveness of His Father’s love.— Never Alone, 93–94

Practical Holiness

Spirituality is not developed in a vacuum. All of our lives are intertwined and closely tied up with one another. God does not create us to live in isolation. He created each of us incomplete, so we would need one another, so we could help one another, so we could reach out and touch one another’s lives. Holiness is growth in godliness, and God is not self—centered. He is a giving God, always sharing the immensity of His infinite goodness with His creatures. Our holiness, then, is authentic when it is reaching out to others, sharing with others what God has poured so lavishly into our own lives. Though He works with each of us personally, molding in us His own inner life, He channels through ourselves and others what we all need for our survival and our growth, so we become the woof and warp of life’s tapestry. The real work of our spiritual life lies essentially in what subconsciously takes place beneath the surface of our daily life, as God uses events and circumstances as well as people to alter our thought patterns, clarify our vision, reset the direction of our life, and realign our personality to harmonize with Jesus’ own inner life.— Never Alone, 79–80

Es macht nichts!

There are sins a lot less honorable than prostitution, but we do not penalize their perpetrators. Take an upstanding judge who mercilessly sentences to ten or twenty years a poor black who cannot pull strings to plea bargain, when he would give perhaps only a suspended sentence to a middle-class white person with connections in the exact same circumstances. In the eyes of God that kind of sin is heinous compared to prostitution, but the judge will still be highly respected in the community, while the prostitute will be looked upon with contempt. The remarkable thing about God is that He will still take the judge as He is and see goodness in him as well, and will work to transform his life into something ultimately God-like. 84

An easier way

We have to get past a preoccupation with our sins. The thrust of our spiritual life should not be sin- oriented or Satan-oriented. It should be God-oriented. We should concentrate on developing a personal relationship With God, and through openness in our prayer lives, let God into our lives so He can guide us. As we get to know Him we cannot help but fall in love With Him. The intimacy and warmth of that relationship will deepen our insights and understanding and will help us outgrow our sinful tendencies, one by one. As an example, before we met God we may have been envious of the success and accomplishments of others, eating our hearts out because we could not have the same good fortune that they had. Now that we have met God and know how special we are to Him and that He has a very special work for us that nobody else can accomplish, our lives are given a meaning and a value that takes all the envy out of our hearts. We could not care less what someone else has. We now know we are special and are important to God. The same thing happens with our other vices. One by one we outgrow them, and in outgrowing them we get rid of them. That is a psychologically healthy way to attack our weaknesses and our limitations, by getting rid of the underlying problems which cause the sins.— Never Alone, 71

Thought for the day

15 Everyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that murderers don’t have eternal life residing in them. 16 This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 But if someone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but refuses to help—how can the love of God dwell in a person like that?

18 Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth. 1 John 3:15–18 (CEB)

<idle musing>
Let those who have ears to hear, hear!

I've been seeing a lot of activity by so-called christians of late that certainly doesn't meet the criteria of those verses.

'Nuff said.
</idle musing>

Self-centered spirituality

Concentrating on self-perfection and rooting out sin can become an almost total absorption, and can develop into a very self-centered spirituality. This was the spirituality of the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus criticized so vehemently, a spirituality that deteriorated into an obsessive pursuit of self-perfection, and self-adoration rather than a life of self-forgetting love that flowed spontaneously from a deep relationship with God. That is the kind of spirituality Jesus was trying to instill in people’s hearts. And that is the path we should travel. 69

Transformation!

Besides reading, prayer is essential. Our relationship with God grows from our constant awareness of His presence in our lives. At first it is difficult to think of Him. But as His presence becomes more real, our sense of His nearness blossoms into an intimate communing with Him in a beautiful kind of prayer. It may be a monologue, or it may be perceived as a kind of dialogue. In prayer God works on our attitudes. He alters our vision, our understanding of life. Over a period of time spent communing with God, we will notice our attitudes changing toward everything. We think differently about God. We think differently about material things. We think differently about ourselves and others. We think differently about rich people and poor people. We see God’s creation and everything in it as sacred. Given the time God will eventually transform our whole life. He does this so subtly we do not even know it. Others see it and might on occasion make the remark, “What a beautiful person you have become!” and the remarkable thing is that you do not even know what they are talking about, because God has accomplished this so quietly that you were totally unaware of what was happening. This is what St. Paul meant when he wrote, “I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me.”— Never Alone, 63–64

The problem of "self-sufficiency"

The more practical and independent we are the more difficult it is to be reliant on God. We are so used to analyzing situations and working out solutions to problems that to abandon ourselves to God and be open to His grace seems almost like a cop-out and shirking responsibility. Many people find it near impossible to understand. Yet, it is necessary if we are to develop a partnership with God, and that is what spirituality essentially is. We can do nothing without God because He has the key to the complex mystery of our lives, but He also needs us to fulfill His own plans for the development of His creation, which by His intention is imperfect and incomplete. It is our function to help perfect His creation. He will not, however, violate our free will and force us to work with Him, even though He needs our cooperation to accomplish His goals in the world.— Never Alone, 44–45

Tozer for Tuesday

An important aspect of intentional Christian living is purity. This purity is the absence of additives. The evangelical Church has become most ingenious in this area of additives. We have so encumbered the Christian life that the average Christian is weighed down with such religious trappings they never get around to living the life Christ designed for them. Purity of life is a life free from additives. The intentional Christian life is not diluted with elements of culture or religion. The purity of our life is simply the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. No other level of purity will be accepted. As I intentionally live the Christian life, I am focused on His purity, and He is living His life through me unencumbered by other things or interests.—A.W. Tozer, The Dangers of a Shallow Faith, 210

<idle musing>
So much of what passes for "purity" in the Christian world is anything but! Tozer pegs it here, or in the words of a chorus that used to be popular:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace.

That is purity. That is holiness. Christ living his life through you. Or, as 2 Peter 1 puts it, "3 By his divine power the Lord has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of the one who called us by his own honor and glory. 4 Through his honor and glory he has given us his precious and wonderful promises, that you may share the divine nature and escape from the world’s immorality that sinful craving produces." (CEB)

Or, as some translations put it, "partakers in the divine nature." That's a pretty big promise!
</idle musing>

Let go!

We are so used to being in control. We are brought up to be independent, self-reliant; “to be responsible” we call it. It is not easy to abandon that control and let God into our lives, much less submit to His control. But it is the only way we can function successfully, and indeed survive. It is even more difficult for parents to turn over to God control of their children’s lives. Parents often feel the only way they can protect their children is to control and direct their every move. When a child’s life gets completely out of control, an overly protective parent can fall apart. They are so afraid their child is on the road to destruction. Yet, to turn the child over to God is the only way to really help the child, who may after all be twenty-five, thirty, or many years older.— Never Alone, 43

It all has a purpose

You see the same thing in the lives of so many people who have had profound influence on others’ lives. What made them great was not an accident. It was the years of painful preparation and training as God steeled their souls for the future. They were scorched and burned and tried by fire and pain as God worked secretly in the depths of their souls sharpening their vision of life and focusing their wisdom and understanding for the work they were to do.— Never Alone, 37

<idle musing>
I was reading 1 Peter this morning. He has a lot to say about that. But it seems that christianity in the US has forgotten that part of the gospel, doesn't it? Or version of christianity is nothing but a vending machine god. And when he doesn't give us what we want, we do what you do with all machines that don't work: You kick it. If that doesn't work, you kick it harder. And if that doesn't work, you throw it away and find a new one...
</idle musing>

On letting go

So, from personal experience, I can see in a powerful way the value of detaching ourselves from our personal needs and ambitions and placing ourselves in God’s hands so He can guide us. It works.

Some might object that this approach detracts from the self-reliance we should have, and places us at the mercy of uncontrollable forces in our lives. That might be true if there were no God who cares. That would be blind abandonment to irrational forces. Our whole approach to spirituality, however, is based on the premise that there is a God, and that He is a God who cares. Now that I am older I can see the orderly way God works in people’s lives. Our early years, while they may seem rife with turmoil and pain and so many loose ends, when viewed from the distance of later life and our personal development, we can see as being the foundation and the training process for the rewarding work God has planned for our future. I don’t mean the job we may have for our subsistence. I mean the thrust of our personal life with all its encounters and relationships and the various ways we affect people as well as the influence we have on the world around us in our family and in our social as well as our business life.—Never Alone, 35–36

A genie in a bottle?

People get frustrated with prayer because they are looking for an instant response and when it doesn’t happen, they get discouraged. It is as if God should be like a genie, rub the lamp and get immediate action. God does not work that Way. He is not a God of quick fixes. He is a very patient God who heals gently and thoroughly.— Never Alone, 31

Scared?

Many people are afraid of giving themselves to God, and letting God into their lives, because they think all their fun will come to an end and life will become a bore. There is one thing God is not, though, and that is boring. The creative imagination of God is beyond comprehension, and the real fun in our lives just begins once we find God and He becomes an active partner in our lives. My own life became a whirlwind when I made up my mind that I was not going to forge my own way through life but instead would let God guide me. And it makes good sense. God didn’t create us haphazardly. He made each of us for a purpose and He is determined that we accomplish that purpose. He does, however, need our cooperation, and when we give Him our goodwill and open our hearts to Him (which is really all we have to offer), He sets in motion all the machinery we need to fulfill the task He has planned for us. That is always exciting and rewarding, because the gifts and talents He has given us are perfectly adapted to the work He has designed for us. That is the perfect blueprint for success, happiness, and fulfillment.— Never Alone, 26–27

Thought for the day

Your prophets gave you worthless and empty visions.
They didn’t reveal your sin so as to prevent your captivity.
Instead, they showed you worthless and incorrect prophecies.
Lamentations 2:14 (CEB)

<idle musing>
Let those who have ears to hear, hear!
</idle musing>

Tozer for a Tuesday

Much is being said of faith these days that is not the focus of the Scriptures. We must shun all ways contrary to Scripture. Faith is not the key to get you What you want. Faith is not some magical formula that no matter who uses it, saved or unsaved, God has to act upon it. Such is religious lunacy and borders on witchcraft. I firmly believe that true faith rises in the soul of the man or woman who will fall on his face before an open Bible and allow God to be God in his life.—A.W. Tozer, The Dangers of a Shallow Faith, 209

The core

This is the essence of Christian spirituality, the living presence of Jesus in our souls. He is there, not as a dummy, neither hearing nor speaking, but as an active partner in our lives, guiding and comforting us when we need Him. It is this mystical friendship with Jesus that is the core of Christian spirituality, and makes Christian spirituality a unique custom-designed journey fashioned after the uniqueness of each individual person.— Never Alone, 25

Peace, peace, but there is no peace!

If there was one thing Jesus held out to his followers it was His promise of peace. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.” He never tired of speaking about the peace that He would give to those who accepted His way of life. This theme threads its way through the whole Gospel message. It is a trademark of His spirituality, and should be a trait that singles out His disciples, in whatever age they live.

Why, then, we might wonder, do Jesus’ followers not stand out for their peacefulness? The answer is simple. His disciples through all time are not familiar with the message as Jesus delivered it. We are brought up to follow unquestioningly the practices of our religion, whatever our denomination. But obedience to customs and dictates of religion does not make a follower of Jesus. Though many talk about accepting the Lord Jesus and about commitment to Him, frequently that acceptance has little to do with Jesus Himself. It is acceptance of the teacher who has delivered the message and the way of life laid out by the teacher that people follow. It is not the message of Jesus that is being followed, but the guidance and interpretation of the teacher. He or she becomes the way of life. This is not an immediate personal relationship with Jesus.— Never Alone, 24

Fear not, little flock!

That is the beginning of spirituality, recognizing the need for God in our lives, and placing ourselves in His hands with complete trust, confident of the tenderness of our Father’s love for us. We may have a difficulty with this, because all of us are only too conscious of our many failings and feel we do not have a right to God’s kindness toward us. But that is precisely what makes God’s love so beautiful. It does not spring from the goodness He sees in us, but from the overflowing goodness of His own love and the compassion He has for us in our weakness and sinfulness. The crowd Jesus addressed on that occasion when He spoke of the birds of the air were just ordinary people, sinners like ourselves, if you want to call them that, although Jesus didn’t call them sinners. Jesus called people God’s children and “little flock.” It is touching the tender way Jesus spoke to the crowd that day assuring them of His Father’s concern, even though He was only too aware of the serious moral defects in their lives. So, when we begin our adventure with God, it is with the assurance that He is open to us and kindly disposed toward us. We do not approach Him as a nuisance. In spite of our past lives and frightful weaknesses, He is glad we are turning to Him. Like the prodigal father of the prodigal son, He greets us with open arms, and is only too ready to share with us His friendship and His boundless mercy. All is forgiven, all is renewed. Though our sins be as scarlet, He will cleanse us and make us white as snow, through a baptism if necessary, or through a reawakening of the baptismal life we have already received, and a healing reconciliation.— Never Alone, 15–16

You're trying too hard!

The mistake many people make when they start trying to be holy is they multiply religious practices and burden themselves with a host of activities, attending endless religious services, thinking that the more good things they do, the more spiritual they become. Spirituality doesn’t work that way. The spiritual life is something that grows slowly, imperceptibly, way beneath the surface of our lives. Pressuring ourselves to do all kinds of nice things for people and performing a multitude of good works does not make us holy. It can, if we are not careful, make us extremely nervous and pressure us into commitments that can overload our already overburdened lives.

Real spirituality begins by finding God, feebly, perhaps, in the beginning, but then more confidently as we travel along the way. At first, we may be driven to Him out of desperation. But that’s all right. God uses all kinds of circumstances to lead us to Himself. Or we may just feel a need to draw closer to God. Whatever the reason, God is calling us to a deeper intimacy with Himself. Jesus teaches us the attitudes we should have when we establish contact with His Father. We must have a childliketrust. This isn’t a command, but His attempt to teach us how to establish a healthy relationship with His Father whom He knows so well.— Never Alone, 14

You can't always see it

Real spirituality and spiritual growth, however, have to be distinguished from religious activities and pious exercises. These exercises merely mimic spirituality. Unfortunately, many people think that they grow close to God by performing religious practices and doing religious things. That is not spirituality. They may even get a reputation for being pious. Jesus lived for thirty years in Nazareth, and you would think the townsfolk He grew up with would have been impressed with His holiness. Oddly enough, they were surprised when He began His public mission and began to preach the Good News. “Where did he get all this from? Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” Obviously, His holiness didn’t make a big impression. You might wonder how Jesus could have kept His exquisite spirituality hidden during all those years, so that even His playmates were shocked by His apparent newfound interest in religion. What made it possible for Jesus to keep His spiritual life hidden from the eyes of those who lived so close to Him was that His holiness was genuine. It did not de- pend on showy external practices.— Never Alone, 13

It starts young

Parents may teach religion to children. Churches may do the same. But that is not spirituality. That, too, should begin in childhood. Children should be taught about God in a simple, loving way so they can learn to trust Him and begin to know Him as a kind and loving Father who made them, not perfectly but with all they need to grow in His love. They could be taught about Jesus and about His life and how He lived and how He loved people. They could be taught about Jesus as the Good Shepherd who cared for the hurting and the troubled sheep, so they can learn to run to Him when they have problems, and when they fall and make mistakes.— Never Alone, 11–12

Tozer for a Tuesday

Lady Julian of Norwich (ca. 1342–ca. 1416) understood this about as well as anybody I have read. She wrote, “O God, please give me three wounds; the wound of contrition and the wound of compassion and the wound of longing after God.” Then she added this little postscript, which I think is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read: “This I ask without condition, Father; do what I ask and then send me the bill. Anything that it costs will be all right with me.”

We of the evangelical persuasion want God to do all the work and we get an easy ride to glory. Certainly, Christ has paid the full price for our redemption, but our walk with God on a daily basis will cost us much. Are we willing, cheerfully, to pay the cost?.—A.W. Tozer, The Dangers of a Shallow Faith, page 207

Breathe the fresh air of the mystics

What’s so troubling about our religion today is that the clergy either don’t recognize the people’s hunger for spirituality or are unfamiliar themselves with Jesus’ way Of life and Christianity’s rich tradition of mysticism and asceticism, all well tested through the centuries. This is Christianity and application of Jesus’ teachings at its best, and we don’t teach it to our people. At the height of the Protestant Reformation, St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, St. Ignatius Loyola, and others were delineating the path of interior holiness through mystical union with God in such practical detail that even today their approach to holiness is still taught in theology courses and spiritual retreats. Sadly, the masses of the people are not taught this in their churches, so not even knowing that such guidance exists, they look outside Christianity.— Never Alone, 11

It's more than a theological system

If Christianity is merely a theological system, it will at most produce a highly educated elite devoid of anything resembling the living Christ in their personal lives. We saw this recently in the presidential campaign [1980s], when one of the candidates, well educated theologically, was spewing forth the most shockingly un-Christ-like invectives and ridicule against homosexuals and homeless people, showing a lack of sensitivity and compassion that betrayed a poverty of spirituality that shocked most decent people.— Never Alone, 7–8

The good shepherd

He Himself got a reputation for going to the homes of excommunicated people for parties, because as the Good Shepherd He continually reached out to the bruised and hurting sheep. We, on the contrary, tell the bruised and hurting sheep they cannot approach Jesus because they are not worthy.— Never Alone, 7

Oh no! It's a new kind of dinosaur!

Via Ryan, our son.

Tozer for a Wednesday

It's been a while since I posted any Tozer, so I think it's about time...

Remember that without prayer, you cannot win; and with it, you cannot lose. Granted, of course, that it is true prayer, and not just the saying of words; and granted that your life is in harmony with your prayer. If you fail to pray, you cannot win. For the Lord gave us the example of anticipatory prayer—getting ready for any event by seeking the face of God in watchful prayer at regular times.—A.W. Tozer, The Dangers of a Shallow Faith, 202

Theology dead? No way!

During my years of theological studies I could filter what I learned in theology through my experiences with Jesus. This made it possible for me to take the cold, finely chiseled theological concepts and transform them into a living expression of the way Jesus thought and envisioned life. Though theology was cold and sterile in its intellectual expression, it was for me a vehicle for understanding the mind of God and for developing a precise sense of God, and a healthy realization that God could not be defined or limited by human concepts.— Never Alone, 6

<idle musing>
Exactly! I love theology, but only because I love the God who is the object and source of theology. I find that theology deepens my love for him.
</idle musing>

Alone? (New book)

Many years ago, I read the Joshua books and really enjoyed them. The other day, I was in a thrift store and saw a book by the same author, Joseph Girzone, that I was unfamiliar with. It's a slim little volume, and for fifty cents, what could go wrong? So I bought it and started reading it. I found it delightful and also encouraging. Join me over the next few weeks as I post excerpts from Never Alone, published in 1995.

I used to think I was odd. As I grew older, though, and saw so much of others’ pain, I began to realize that the whole world is filled with pain. I was not unique in feeling alone on a planet way out in the middle of space. Everyone eventually has the same experience in life. Friends come and go, passing in and out of your life. Strangers establish a friendship when they need you, then when their need is resolved, they drift. If you are sincere in your friendship this is hard to understand. People you love remain for a time, then they too leave when they outgrow their need for you. If at the twilight of your life you have one dear friend who has endured the fickleness of existence and remained in your life you are blessed. But, for the most part, you walk alone, very much alone. 4— Never Alone, 4

It's about the whole person!

It therefore becomes clear that we cannot with impunity “spiritualize” Jesus’s message to make it only internal, about people’s inner attitudes or states of being. Rather, Jesus is addressing the entire complex situation of his hearers, which includes both their inner bondage (which is why he called people to repent) and their oppressive external situation. So when Jesus claims that he has come to announce “good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18), or when he says in the Sermon on the Plain, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20), we need to take seriously that he literally meant to include those who were economically impoverished and politically marginalized in first—century Israel.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 260–61

<idle musing>
Sounds an aweful lot like social gospel, doesn't it? Might be because Jesus didn't just teach a "spriritual" gospel of go to heaven when you die but do what you want now version that is popular in the US. His was a whole-orbed gospel that includes the whole person. Systemic evil and individual evil. Wesley had it right, as does the Salvation Army, to name just a couple. The Gospel Coalition people miss it by keeping it cerebral and individual.

That's the final excerpt from this book. Tomorrow I'll start a new one, well actually an old one that I recently picked up at a thrift store. It's a bit off the normal for me to excerpt, but I think (hope?) you'll enjoy it. I am.
</idle musing>

Escapist theology

This resolute focus on the church’s imminent exit to heaven has the effect of inclining believers in the rapture to treat the future (and thus the present) of the earth as unimportant. This lack of concern for our earthly future in the early part of the twentieth century was clearly tied to an otherworldly heavenly—mindedness, but as the century progressed, it has resulted in the free reign of consumerism and greed among North American evangelicals, since there is little theological ground in a rapture—oriented eschatology for ecological or social responsibility.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 303

It was inevitable

The violence yesterday in Washington DC was inevitable. You can't go around stoking conspiracy theories for years, and intensify it in the last two months and not expect some other outcome. You sow the wind and you will definitely reap the whirlwind. I'm just thankful that so few died—although one would be one too many.

So now what about the senators and representatives who knowingly fanned the flames of nonexistent voter fraud? I'm going to propose an idea that has absolutely no chance of passing, but should.

Everyone of them who objected to the Electoral College vote should be impeached, convicted, and not allowed to hold a public office again—ever. No, not ever. They have shown that they are more interested in their power and playing to worst side of humanity than they are in governing justly. They are traitors to the constitution, pure and simple. Special elections should be held to replace them.

And, I would even go so far as to say that the 100+ representatives who spinelessly signed on to the buffoonery of election fraud that the president pushed around a week or so ago should also be impeached and convicted. They should not be allowed to hold office higher than the state level.

If you argue that they didn't see that what they were doing would end as it did, then I would say they are unfit for office. If they don't see the consequences of their actions, they shouldn't be passing laws!

And, to curb some of this nonsense, the fairness doctrine needs to be in place once again. That would at least require some sanity on the Fox News and company networks. In an ideal world, I would shutter them, but I fear that such an action would be used incorrectly in the future against any network that the party in charge didn't like. Selfishness isn't limited to the far right! It is equally present in every single person. Only God, through the power of the Holy Spirit can remove it.

It's not us vs. them

I do not seek to pontificate about what particular issues Christians should support or oppose today in the so-called culture wars. In fact, I want to do precisely the opposite. We need to extricate ourselves from these wars, which are predicated on an oppositional dualism of “us versus them” (or “in-group versus out-group”), since this dualism is antithetical to the gospel of the kingdom. The Christian gospel understands the true antithesis between good and evil (between the kingdom of God and the powers of destruction) to run not between groups, but rather through every human heart. Therefore, as an antidote to unthinking involvement in the culture wars, Christians need to have their imaginations grasped by the radically holistic vision of redemption that the Bible teaches, and to engage their world, at individual and communal levels, with daily acts of courage and love on behalf of those in need, even if—especially if—they are different from us.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 280–81

It's easy—when you dichotomize things

What we have in many sectors of the church is the insidious temptation to combine an otherworldly two-realm worldview with the “us versus them” sociological dualism in a most pernicious way. The hybrid worldview allows us piously to affirm the ideal of the equality of all people in the sight of God (as a “spiritual” truth), while continuing with our entrenched and self—serving “us versus them” framework in the “real” world of politics and economics, in matters of the social order and the nation—state (and even in the family, in relationships between males and females). In the realm of the “sacred,” we are quite willing to declare the equality of all people and to share the gospel (understood in a minimalist sense, as the way to “heaven”); but in the “secular” realm of realpolitik on earth, we horde our wealth and cling to our (national, class, economic) privilege. Granted, perhaps we might give away some of our wealth as charitable giving or tithing, but this requires no substantial change in our way of life, in our this-worldly (well-nigh idolatrous) commitments to success, Inaterial progress, and national identity.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 274–75

<idle musing>
I would go further and say it isn't "well-nigh idolatrous"—it is idolatrous!
</idle musing>

Not a chance!

The difference between advocating on behalf of others (even if it means self-sacrifice) and the self-righteous protection of privilege is particularly evident in recent political movements throughout the world. On biblical grounds, we should be willing to declare that any movement founded on protecting one’s own privilege is fundamentally un-Christian in its motivations and program.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 280 n. 23

<idle musing>
Think that attitude has a chance? Me neither. It requires death to self, absolutely taboo in today's culture—both Christian and non-Christian. Self and self glorification are the absolute gods of our culture; to put someone else first? Nope, ain't gonna happen. I wish it would, and pray that it might. But outside of a mighty move of God? Not a chance. Sadly.

Just an
</idle musing>

Nope. That's not the gospel

The impulse behind the Tea Party movement is the very opposite of the motivations of the abolitionists, like William Wilberforce in eighteenth—century England, who tirelessly opposed the West African slave trade on the basis of Christian principles. Indeed, the self—interest of many conservative Christians in America today is in direct contradiction to the impetus that drove the nineteenth—century evangelist Charles Grandison Finney, who, while president of Oberlin College—along with other faculty members—broke the recently enacted fugitive slave law and harbored escaped slaves in defiant acts of civil disobedience, rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 280

<idle musing>
Wow, that's progress, isn't it? We've managed to gut the gospel and do the exact opposite of what Jesus commanded and still claim to be christians. Reminds me of the cigarette commercial in the late 1960s for Virginia Slims, "You've come a long way, baby!" But to where? If smoking a cancer stick is progress, I'm against it! Same here, if gutting the gospel is progress, then I'm opting out!

What does James say? "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." (James 1:27)

Sadly, that kind of religion seems to be as unpopular now as it was back then. Something to think about… Just an
</idle musing>

That's not enough!

The point is that the transition from otherworldly salvation to a holistic understanding of the kingdom of God is impossible without personal transformation. The shift to a truly biblical understanding of salvation cannot be limited to head knowledge without moral responsibility. To put it another way, we cannot separate eschatology from ethics.

If we omit the ethical challenge of the kingdom, our newly found this-worldliness will simply confirm our selfish consumerist/materialistic, upwardly mobile, late—modern lifestyle; that is, our affirmation of the world (our holistic vision of salvation) will be construed to benefit us (whoever we are), while we ignore the needs of the wider world, especially the concrete needs of people who are different from our favored in—group. The tragedy is that many upwardly mobile North American Christians today often hoard and guard their religious identity and economic privilege, with little concern for the poor or for immigrants, or those of other nations, cultures, or religions. This problem is, of course, not limited to North Americans or even specifically to Christians. But, given the primary audience of this book, and the extraordinary religious and economic privilege of those living in North America, we need to take this challenge seriously.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 273

Not yet, but getting there…

The fact that John died in prison should warn us of the difference between a biblical understanding of the kingdom and the triumphalistic assumptions of much that goes under the name of the “health—and-wealth gospel” or the “prosperity gospel.” Jesus himself endured rejection and death before resurrection, thus paralleling Israel’s experience of bondage in Egypt before deliverance and their exile in Babylon before return to the land. Paul himself says that we must suffer with Christ in order to attain to the resurrection (Phil. 3:10–11). Indeed, all creation is groaning in its bondage, awaiting liberation (Rom. 8:18–25). In other words, while resurrection, healing, and holistic restoration constitute the appropriate Christian hope——and there is substantial healing and restoration possible in the present—“hope” means that we trust in what is coming but is not yet with us in its fullness. We live between the times, after the inauguration of the kingdom but before its final consummation.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 272 n. 11

Great News!

But this vision of holistic salvation is only initially disorienting. It is ultimately good news—even great news! For if we are honest about it, the kingdom of God is exactly what we need, since it addresses both our present brokenness and our deepest yearnings for restoration and renewal. We know that brokenness pervades church and society, at individual and communal levels; this includes failed marriages, drug addiction, sexual promiscuity, domestic violence, racism, poverty, disease, war, genocide, greed, and despair. And we yearn and hope desperately for God’s healing and shalom. If only we would dismantle our ingrained bifurcated habits of mind and life (our division of reality into sacred and secular, into spiritual and earthly), then we could begin to open our hearts to the power of God’s holistic salvation; for the good news is that God wants to heal all our brokenness, both internal and external, whether personal or social.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 272

There's more to the gospel than that!

What John [the Baptist] did not understand was that the kingdom does not come all at once. John was in danger of stumbling over Jesus on this point. He expected too much, too quickly.

Historically, however, many Christians have had the opposite problem. We have not expected enough. And what we have expected, we have often delayed until “heaven” and the return of Christ. We have not really believed that God cares about this world of real people in their actual historical situations, which often are characterized by oppression and suffering. Our understanding of salvation has been characterized by an unbiblical otherworldliness. So our expectations of the future have often not reflected the full-orbed good news that Jesus proclaimed at Nazareth.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 271

Ad fontes!

Whereas in the beginning Israel was simply one (admittedly unique) nation among the other nations, the term “nations” (= gentiles) came to be reserved for non-Israelites. This parallels the split between clergy and laity in the history of Christianity. Although originally those with a pastoral leadership role were simply one group among the people (laos) of God, the term “people” (= laity) came to be reserved for those who were not clergy. In both cases this terminology serves to distance one group (with a distinctive mission) from the larger group of which they were originally members. Election for ministry or service becomes transformed into an elite or even oppositional sense of identity, which ends up subverting the original purpose of the distinction (which was about function, not status).—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 266

Don't limit the good news!

But the message of Jesus was good news not just for his original hearers; it is good news for us today as well. Jesus’s proclamation of the kingdom at Nazareth can help us unlearn dualistic habits of mind that shackle our reading of the gospel and limit the scope of God’s salvation. But it does more than change our understanding, important as that is.

The message of the kingdom that Jesus brings is good news most fundamentally because we, no less than his original hearers, desperately need the healing and redemption that he came to bring, a redemption that touches all we do. For we are, in multiple ways, caught up in the brokenness of the world, complicit in sin not just at the individual level but also as part and parcel of the fallen social order, which is out of whack with God’s purposes, living in a creation that is groaning for redemption. And we yearn for healing. The good news is that the coming of God’s kingdom impacts the entirety of our lives—our bodies, our work, our families, all our social relationships, even our relationship to the earth itself. The good news of the kingdom is nothing less than the healing (literally, the establishing) of the world (tikkûn 'ôlām), in which we are all invited to participate.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 261–62

But you are starting with the wrong assumptions!

The trouble is that many contemporary Christians understand eternal life primarily as a reference to life after death (often connected to the idea of dwelling in heaven forever) and then use this un-biblical concept to interpret the kingdom of God. But this puts matters precisely the wrong way around.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 246

Nope, that's not heaven!

Note that “the air” (where believers are to meet Christ) is not “heaven” in contemporary Christian theology. Classical Greek authors often used the term aēr (which Paul uses here [1 Thess 4:17]) to refer to the lower atmosphere (below the moon), characterized as dense and misty, in distinction from the aethēr (the pure upper region of the stars). While we cannot simply attribute this understanding of the air to Paul without further ado, the New Testament sometimes associates the air with the domain of Satan, who is called “the ruler of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2), a phrase essentially synonymous with the Johannine expression “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30). Note also the association of birds (which inhabit the air) with the evil one/Satan/the devil in different versions of the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:4, 19; Mark 4:4, 15; Luke 8:5, 12). If any of these associations is relevant to 1 Thess. 4, Paul may be intending to say that redemption occurs on the devil’s “turf,” and he is powerless to impede it.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 222–23 n. 12

You don't want to hear this

The apocalyptic pattern emphasizes that until Christ returns, salvation is only partial; Christian hope thus involves waiting patiently for the unveiling on the last day. To be faithful in the interim, as we live toward the parousia, Christian discipleship will be cruciform, following the pattern of Christ’s life, and will therefore often be characterized by suffering and sacrifice; this is because of the ethical tension between the promised kingdom of God and the powers of the present age. The cruciform pattern of the Christian life is very hard for contemporary Westerners to hear, since we (and I include myself here) typically want quick fixes, and we somehow think that our (presumed) faithfulness should make us immune to suffering. It turns out, on the contrary, that faithfulness to Christ and our love for others will often require a voluntary taking up of suffering on our part in order to live ethically in this fallen world.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 211

It's being prepared

N. T. Wright nicely illustrates this point [about the city of God being prepared in heaven] with his analogy of a parent telling a child in advance of Christmas that there is “a present kept safe in the cupboard for you.” This does not mean that once Christmas comes, the child has to “go and live in the cupboard in order to enjoy the present there.” Rather, the present will be brought from the cupboard to enrich the life of the child in the day-to-day world.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 220

Public service announcement

Authors: Please, please, please remember this:

In a title/subtitle and bibliographies, the word "Its" and all forms of the verb "to be" are capitalized!

That is all. Thanks! It would save copyeditors a ton of time.a

Here's the table of contents for all the copyediting stuff.

Colonizing the earth

It is worth noting that Philippi was a Roman colony and that many in the Philippian church would have been Roman citizens. In drawing on the analogy between Roman citizenship and citizenship in heaven, Paul not only was designating Jesus as the true “Savior” and “Lord” in contrast to Caesar (who was often described by these titles); he was also undoubtedly aware that Rome was crowded (indeed, overcrowded), and its citizens who were spread throughout the empire did not expect to settle in Rome one day. Instead, they expected to live out their citizenship wherever they were, as representatives of the empire. Likewise Christians, whose citizenship is in heaven, are expected to live as representatives of the kingdom of God on earth, manifesting Christ’s rule, until the day when the true Lord returns from heaven (the mother city) to liberate them from their enemies and fully establish his rule in the colonies. Or, to put it in terms of the Lord’s Prayer, the day when God’s kingdom comes and God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 218

Is it broken? (the heart rate monitor, not the system!)

Last week I went to the doctor because I couldn't get rid of an infection; it required anti-biotics. I rarely use them, as I don't want to assist in the creation of super viruses, but sometimes they are necessary. But that's not the story here…

After going through the Covid-19 verbal questions and sitting in the appropriately spaced waiting room, the nurse called my name and escorted me back to the preliminary screening area where they check your weight, height, pulse, temperature, and who knows what else those things monitor now. Anyway, the pulse monitor said my pulse was 55, which is high for me, but I suffer from "white coat syndrome," which is a fancy term for the fact that I get elevated blood pressure, faster pulse, and all the rest of the stuff related to stress, when I visit a doctor. But that pulse caused the nurse to look at me and ask in somewhat alarmed voice, "Do you normally have a low pulse?" I assured her that my resting pulse was actually lower than that (about 45–50). She shook her head, readjusted the finger monitor, and then, because it didn't change, she manually checked my pulse. In an unbelieving tone, she said, "Hnh. It's correct."

OK, I thought it was humorous. Your mileage may vary. But I guess it just shows that clinics aren't used to getting healthy people—or maybe there just aren't enough of us left anymore? After all, they say that 2/3 of the people in the US are overweight and 1/2 of those are obese. There's no way that someone carrying around all that extra weight will have a pulse rate below 60!

On the throne!

And Paul, living after the death/resurrection and victory of Jesus, understands this risen and ascended Messiah to be presently reigning as Lord of all; yet Paul anticipates a further stage in redemptive history when the Messiah, having subdued all powers that oppose God (including death, the final enemy), will hand the kingdom over to the Father (1 Cor. 15 :24–26). Then, according Revelation 11:15, the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of God. And God, says Paul, will be all in all (15:28). Then the created order will once again respond in obedience and praise to its maker. In the end, the Bible envisions nothing less than the eschatological transformation of heaven and earth.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 210

Universal? Yes, the call is, but…

The call [to salvation] is absolutely universal. But you need to be thirsty; you need to want that water. And both the Bible and human experience suggest that some are not thirsty. Not all yearn for that water. I would like to think that universal salvation might be true—and surely God’s mercy is beyond our understanding¶mdash;but a biblical understanding of holistic salvation suggests that this is wishful thinking.”—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 208–9

There will be no more sea!

For example, the disappearance of the sea in Revelation 21:1 (“and the sea was no more”) is not making the point that no one goes swimming in the new creation. Rather, the sea is a traditional symbol in the ancient Near East for the forces of chaos and evil (thus in Rev. 13:1 one of the beasts comes from the sea). The point is that the forces of evil and chaos will be eradicated. Beyond the traditional background of this image, the book of Revelation previously mentioned the exploitative sea trade of the Roman Empire, which will end when Rome, the great city (called, symbolically, “Babylon”), falls (18:11—18); that is why among those who mourn the passing of the city are “all shipmasters and seafarers, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea” (18:17—18). It is therefore good news that in the eschaton the sea (which facilitated the economic expansion of the Roman Empire) will be no more.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 169

Cool of the evening? Or in the midst of the storm?

It is traditional to interpret Gen. 3:3 (which introduces God’s judgment) to mean that the first humans heard the sound of YHWH God walking in the garden in “the cool of the day” (literally, in the ruaḥ of the yōm), which makes some sense since ruaḥ can mean “wind,” and a wind brings lower temperatures, while yōm normally means “day.” This interpretation goes back to the Septuagint, which renders the phrase “in the evening” (to deilinon). However, there is a secondary (less common) meaning for yōm given in some lexicons (derived from an Akkadian word), “storm” (hence the expression might mean “the wind of the storm”). Thus, instead of describing God as taking a leisurely evening stroll in the garden, the “sound” the first humans heard might well be the trees whipping around in a tempest, which is the physical effect of God’s coming in judgment. This would fit the pattern of theophanies in the Old Testament, which areloften accpmpaniedi by a storm, with great noise.(for a classic storm theophany in a forest, with trees splitting and crashing, see Ps. 29).—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 164 n. 16

Look in the mirror! You are pharaoh…

It is important here to understand the logic by which Paul includes the nonhuman creation in God’s salvific plan. In Paul’s picture the human race implicitly takes the place of Pharaoh; we have subjected creation to futility or frustration, much as the Egyptian king oppressed the Israelites. According to the first chapters of Genesis, humanity was granted stewardship over their earthly environment. But then came the fall, which distorted but did not abrogate our stewardship. Just as an abusive parent can destroy a family or a dictator can devastate a nation, so human corruption has affected that which has been entrusted to our care, with the result that the nonhuman realm is now “subjected to futility. There are echoes here of the curse on the ground in Genesis 3:17, stemming from human disobedience, and the effect of rampant human violence in corrupting or ruining the earth at the time of the flood (Gen. 6:11).—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 160

Your God is too small!

Sure, that's the title of a (very good) book written by J. B. Phillipps (Epworth Press, 1952), but he's correct. How wide is God's plan for salvation? This wide:

Salvation is here conceived as reconciliation or making peace between those who are at enmity, presumably by removing the source of that enmity, namely, sin. Indeed, [Col 1] verse 20 contains the idea of atonement through the blood of Christ; this is how reconciliation is achieved. But in contrast to much Christian preaching, which emphasizes that the blood of Christ was shed for “me” (and we are told to put our name there), Colossians 1 does not myopically limit the efficacy of Christ’s atonement to the individual or even to humanity. Without denying that the atonement suffices for individual people, the text applies the reconciliation effected by Christ’s shed blood as comprehensively as possible, to “all things, whether on earth or in heaven.”

This wording brings us back to verse 16 (just four verses earlier), which affirms that in Christ “all things in heaven and on earth were created.” When Verse 17 goes on to say that “in him all things hold together,” we are warranted in thinking that the reconciliation spoken of in verse 20 continues and brings to completion Christ’s unifying work as creator, which has been disrupted by sin. The point is that redemption is as wide as creation; it is literally cosmic in scope.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 158–59

<idle musing>
That's pretty big, isn't it? And you are worried about anything? Then your god (lower case "g") is too small!
<idle musing>

The restoration

It is in God’s purposes from creation that the unbreakable linkage between resurrection and the restoration of rule is forged. From the beginning, God’s intent for human life was centered on the royal status of humanity and our commission to image our creator in loving and wise stewardship of the earth, which has been entrusted to our care (Gen. 1:26-28; 2:15; Ps. 8:4—8). This is the cultural mandate, our sacred calling to develop earthly life in a manner that glorifies God and reflects his intentions for a world of shalom (as we saw in chap. 2 above). God’s intent was for the holistic flourishing of embodied people in the entirety of their earthly, cultural existence. Since resurrection is God’s restoration of human life to what it was meant to be, it naturally requires the fulfillment of the original human dignity and status, which have been compromised by sin. Resurrection, therefore, when biblically understood, cannot be separated from the fulfillment of the cultural mandate.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 154

That elusive hope (no, not political!)

Hope of the resurrection is thus able to inspire believers to expect that God's original purposes for human life will ultimately come to fruition, despite what suffering we experience in the present. Paul’s affirmation in Philippians 1:6 is apropos: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” Resurrectlon is the ultimate completion of God’s purposes.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 154

Upside down world

Paul’s focus is the humble use of power to serve one another, as Jesus served sinful humanity by his sacrificial death (Phil. 2:5–8); in a fallen world, service often leads to suffering. This clearly calls into question any superficial, triumphalistic understanding of the kingdom of God or the restoration of rule, especially to engage in “culture wars” on behalf of the Christian faith (a powerful temptation in some varieties of contemporary Christianity).—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 146

It's coming! Wait for it…

That a great reversal is coming is basic to the biblical picture of God’s justice. As Mary sings in her song known as the Magniflcat, God “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, / and lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52). But before the Magnificat, there was Hannah’s Victory song in 1 Samuel 2, on which Mary’s song was modeled.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 140

It's official!

I announced in Ancient News that I would be leaving Eisenbrauns/PSU Press at the end of November. Today, it was officially announced that I have begun working for Lockwood Press. Below is the announcement that was posted to the Agade list via Jack Sasson.

Shake, rattle, and burn!

Yet Psalm 104 is clear that while God’s judgment of evil (temporarily) destabilizes the cosmos, this is not God’s normative relationship to the world he loves. Earlier in the psalm we are told that God “waters the mountains” and that “the earth is satisfied from the fruit of [God’s] work” (v. 13). Indeed, at creation YHWH “set the earth on its foundations, / so that it shall never be shaken” (v. 5). The paradox is that God’s initially unshakable world, now distorted by evil, will indeed be shaken when evil is removed, but that is precisely so that creation can once again stand secure.—J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth, 126