Archives for August 2019

On White Nationalism, Part 4: Assertions of Anglo-Israelism

August 29, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Anglo-Israelism, the view that Anglo-Saxons are especially blessed by God and the people of his covenant, is based in the idea of “the lost 10 tribes of Israel.” It begins with the historical fact that the Northern Kingdom of Israel broke away from the Kingdom of Judah shorty after Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, ascended to the throne (1K 11.41-12.24). These two kingdoms lived side by side, sometimes in relative peace but often at war, for about two centuries, until 722 BC, when the Assyrian army invaded the North and exiled its people (2K 17.1-41). After that event, the Northern Kingdom was never re-established; it disappeared as an entity from the pages of history.

It was common in ancient empires to exile people you conquered. The reasoning was simple: a conquered people is always inclined to rise up in rebellion against its conqueror, because nationalism never dies. So what do you do? You pack up the people and scatter them to other locations around your empire. Over time they intermarry with other ethnicities, and they lose their sense of tribal identity. Nebuchadnezzar did the same thing more than a century later, when he conquered the Southern Kingdom of Judah (2K 25.11-12), and the practice is confirmed in archaeological records across the Ancient Near East.

The story told by Anglo-Israelites posits an unexpected outcome of this event:

When Jacob blessed his sons, the future 12 tribes of Israel, he gave the birthright to Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen 48.1-22).
These tribes were exiled in the Assyrian invasion.
Modern Jews are descended from Judah (as the name demonstrates), who does not hold the birthright. They’re the custodians of the royal line, but not chosen as inheritors of the birthright.
The Northern Kingdom was taken to Mesopotamia in exile. Eventually escaping, the ten tribes left evidence of their generational path northwestward, eventually to the British Isles.
The kingly line of Judah arrived in the British Isles as well after the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 586 BC, when Jeremiah the prophet secretly escaped with a daughter of King Zedekiah. She established the royal line in Ireland when she married Ireland’s king. That line became the royal line of the UK when James VI of Scotland became James I of Great Britain. Thus the royal line of Judah and the birthright line of Ephraim are united in Britain.
Many Anglo-Israelites also maintain that Manasseh, the older brother of Ephraim but placed second by Jacob’s decision (Gen 48.14-20), is the ancestor of white Americans, making the US part of Israel as well.

This is quite a claim—or concatenation of claims. There’s a lot to consider here.

Next time we’ll begin to work through these assertions.

Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

On White Nationalism, Part 3: Non-Adamic Races

August 26, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 Part 2

There are those who claim to believe the Bible but who allege that only whites are descended from Adam and Eve; other races allegedly descend from other sources. (This is the view that distinguishes Christian Identity proponents from Anglo-Israelites.) There are many suggested sources—

They’re an earlier stage of evolution, and therefore less well developed.
They’re the spawn of Satan or of demons, a situation perhaps alluded to in Genesis 6.1-4.
They’re “the beasts of the field” mentioned in Gen 1.24 and often elsewhere.

Of course there are problems with each of these suggestions. The first, as evolutionary, I would rule out simply on that basis. It’s been suggested that at least the early incarnations of Darwinism might have encouraged this kind of thinking.

As to the second view, there’s a whole industry of bizarre thinking that springs from the Genesis 6 passage. There’s a lot of interest currently in “the Nephilim,” allegedly giants who were produced from sexual relationships between fallen angels and human females. I don’t buy it, and I’ll observe generally that obscure passages make an exceedingly weak foundation for entire worldviews. If there are aliens among us, it’s odd that God hasn’t given us any means of identifying them, or even warnings about the situation in general.

I’d like to spend a little more time on the third view, which is fairly popular among adherents to Christian Identity. There are two primary problems with positing that the Bible teaches this—

The term “beasts of the field” is used in Scripture in contexts that cannot refer to humans or humanoids.
- 1Sam 17.44: David says that he’ll give Goliath’s flesh to the beasts of the field. But he clearly cannot have meant that Africans, Asians, or Pacific Islanders, for example, would eat Goliath’s body.
- 2Sam 21.10: Rizpah protected something from birds by day and the beasts of the field by night. No Africans, Asians, or Pacific Islanders in sight.
- Ezek 39.4: God speaks of dead soldiers as being devoured by the beasts of the field. Never in recorded history have conquering armies, or even human(oid) scavengers, feasted on the bodies of the slain.
- The term is often paralleled with “the fowls of the air,” an association that speaks more obviously of animals than of human(oid)s (Gen 2.19-20; 1Sam 17.44; Ezek 29.5; 31.6, 13; 38.20; 39.17; et al).
The Bible frequently speaks of non-Israelite peoples as within the sphere of humanity and God’s plan of salvation.
- Ps 22.27: All the nations will worship before God.
- Ps 67.4: The nations will rejoice before the Lord.
- Ps 72.17: All nations will call the Lord blessed.
- Ps 86.9: All nations will worship the Lord.
- Ps 117.1: All nations are called to worship God.
- Isa 2.2-4: “All nations” shall flow into the Lord’s house.
- Isa 55.5: Many nations will run to Israel because of the Lord.
- Isa 66.18-20: All nations will come to Jerusalem to see God’s glory.
- Rev 7.9-17: Believers from “every kingdom, tongue, tribe, and nation” will worship the Lamb before his throne.

This is a truly crucial point. What I’ve listed here is just a sampling of passages from 3 biblical books; there are scores of others, and the concept is pervasive across the biblical canon. The Revelation 7 passage is the climax of the biblical story and of cosmic history; it’s literally the whole point of the Bible. God is gathering to himself a people from every kingdom, tribe, tongue, and nation. He is bringing together people who by every human measure should be enemies, and making them all his sons and daughters, seated at his table, united perfectly by a power and grace that can be explained only by the existence of a good and great God (Eph 2.11-22; 3.10). The unity of the church is a testimony, even when silent, to the fact of God’s existence, his power, and his remarkable kindness to those whose only desire was to be his enemies. Making any of this about “race” is simply to miss the whole point.

So the foundational belief of Christian Identity is unbiblical—in fact it goes directly contrary to the whole point of biblical revelation. It’s false teaching.

Next time, we’ll begin looking at the evidence for the claim that white Europeans are “the lost 10 tribes of Israel.”

Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

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On White Nationalism, Part 2: “Race”

August 22, 2019 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Part 1

It seems to me that before we can think through arguments about race, we need to define our key term. What is “race,” anyway?

And immediately we run into deep, deep trouble.

There’s an old classic delineation of races as Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. Whites, Asians, Blacks. But is that accurate?

What are Indians? Latinos? Pacific Islanders?

You can see the indecisiveness all over the census form.

This lack of any meaningful definition for race has resulted in all kinds of confusion when we try to implement race-based policies. In South Africa, post-apartheid, the culture recognizes 3 racial groups: White, Black (or “African”), and “Coloured”—which is anybody who isn’t either White or Black. But that means that Indians, of whom there are many in South Africa, are lumped in with those of mixed race—what Americans used to call “mulattos”—who are culturally completely different from Indians. How does that make sense?

And speaking of “mixed race,” how do you define that? Back when Americans cared about such things, “mulatto” meant someone with a white parent and a black parent; “quadroon” meant someone who had 1 black grandparent; then there was “octaroon” and “hexadecaroon” and so on. At what point is the person just “white” or “black”? It just gets ridiculous; according to the “one-drop rule,” pretty much everyone in the USA is black. And I suppose that means we all ought to get along just fine.

Raced-based policy is simply unworkable and thus nonsensical. Or vice versa.

Does the Bible bring us any help?

Well, it begins by saying that all humans have 2 common ancestors, Adam and Eve (and, several generations later, Noah and Mrs. Noah). It doesn’t speak of “race” at all. We’re all “one blood” (Ac 17.26).

I highly recommend a book by my friend Ken Ham on this topic: One Race One Blood. It’s clear, understandable, and solidly biblical.

The New Testament does use the Greek word ethnos for “nation,” speaking of what today we would call “ethnicities” or “people groups.” I’m inclined to think that we’re more easily categorized by culture than melanin level, though history has demonstrated that cultural identities often arise from people’s general preference for others of their own ethnicity.

So where did the races, or ethnicities, or whatever, come from? Why are we all so different in appearance?

Nobody knows.

Really.

If the Bible teaches that we all have common descent (and for what it’s worth, my understanding is that many secular evolutionists would agree to a common human ancestry as well), then we have to conclude that all the variations we see today were contained in the original genetic code and manifested over time. How and when did they manifest?

Dunno.

We know that Noah had 3 sons, whose descendants populated the earth:

Shem’s people appear to have populated the Middle East (Gen 10.21-31).
Ham’s people appear to have populated the Middle East and North Africa (Gen 10.6-20).
Japheth’s people appear to have populated generally north and west of the Middle East (Gen 10.2-5).

So where did the Chinese come from? Sub-saharan Africans? Native Americans, north and south?

Don’t know. It doesn’t say. Better reserve judgment.

I doubt that Mongoloids came from Shem, and Negroids from Ham, and Caucasoids from Japheth . It’s clearly not that simple. Apparently those genetic characteristics manifested themselves over time, and certain features, melanin among them, tended to cluster in specific geographic areas (Africa, East Asia, and so on) largely because people weren’t moving around as easily as we do today.

Upshot?

Well.

Between the fact that there’s a lot we don’t know about ethnicity, and the fact that what we do know leads us to minimize rather than emphasize the distinctions, ethnicity is a really lousy basis for theological and doctrinal decisions. Particularly in the body of Christ, it ought to pretty much disappear as a factor (1Co 1.24; Gal 3.28; Col 3.11) .

But the fact remains that still today, in spite of all those billions of years of evolution (?), we’re still focused obsessively and passionately on the topic; and even within Christendom—broadly defined—people are making significant decisions based entirely on racial considerations. That fact suggests that there are serious needs to be addressed.

Hence the series.

Next time: some variations on the “common human ancestor” dogma.

Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

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On White Nationalism, Part 1: Introduction

August 19, 2019 by Dan Olinger 4 Comments

Nearly 40 years ago now, I wrote, and BJU published, a brief monograph refuting the alleged biblical evidence that white people—specifically Anglo-Saxons—are God’s chosen people. After a brief shelf life, it went out of print, for the sole reason that hardly anybody bought it. (That’s kind of how publishing works. ?)

I wrote on the topic because I had a relative who espoused the view. But eventually I lost interest and moved on to other things. The recent talk about “white nationalism,” however, has gotten me thinking about the topic, and it has occurred to me that it’s worthwhile to address it again, both because of recent emphases in the news and because we can all see that racism lives on in the human heart.

I’m a fan of listening to people who know what they’re talking about—and its corollary, ignoring, or at least devaluing, the opinions of people who are just shooting their mouths off—of which the percentage seems to be growing every day. As one of my daughters commented just recently, “People who say stuff often don’t know stuff.”

Which means that I should stick to areas where I have expertise. So let’s start by defining some issues, so I can safely set aside those where I’m ignorant and should consequently keep my thoughts to myself.

The dominant term today, the one I’ve used to title this series, is “white nationalism.” That’s technically the view that whites should preserve majorities and control in one or more nations. Hence resistance to immigration (legal or illegal) by nonwhites. Usually aligned with that is the idea that white culture is superior to other cultures, and therefore white culture should be preferred as better for the future of the planet. That view we call “white supremacism,” which of course is just one form of racism. It’s a modern descendant of the American practice of slavery before the Civil War and segregation in the years that followed.

A quick side note: My experience leads me to believe that the primary reason for disdain of other cultures is unfamiliarity: you think a practice of some other culture is “stupid” because you don’t understand what’s going on behind the practice. I note that cross-cultural ignorance tends to be a particular feature of Americans because we have oceans—big ones—on both sides. Lots of Americans have never left their country, and I think this is the primary reason for the overseas stereotype of “the ugly American,” who thinks people are stupid because they don’t speak English—and who thinks that they’ll understand if he just speaks more slowly and loudly. All the “ugly American” does is proclaim his own ignorance to everyone around him. Travel more, people. And listen.

Back to my main point. Though a great many racists, including white supremacists, are secular in their thinking, some integrate religious arguments or themes into their position. It’s at this point that my ears perk up, because while I have no professional expertise in anthropology or sociology or psychology or politics, I do know something about religion, particularly Christianity, and I have some facility in tools for research and thinking in that area.

So I’d like to spend a few posts addressing some of the religious arguments for white racism, specifically the ones allegedly based in biblical exegesis. While these posts won’t apply to all “white nationalists,” I’d like to think that they might direct well-intentioned Christians away from distortions of the biblical material, mainly by demonstrating the perversion inherent in the alleged biblical interpretation.

The bulk of these posts will address the arguments of “British Israelism” or “Anglo-Israelism,” which teaches that the Anglo-Saxons are the “lost ten tribes of Israel.” A more recent popular form of British Israelism is the Christian Identity movement, which holds additionally that other white Europeans are descended from the biblical Southern Kingdom of Judah. While the former group would recognize modern Jews as descended from Judah and therefore included in God’s covenant with Abraham, the latter group holds that all modern Jews are impostors and so is aggressively antisemitic. I hope to say some things about that view as well.

See you next time.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Living in the Brightest Light, Part 4: Occupy Till He Comes

August 15, 2019 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Thus far in our brief look into 2 Thessalonians, we’ve noted that when Christ returns, God’s going to right all the wrongs, and that he’s going to bring history to an end in his own good time, according to his plan and timetable.

So what to we do in the meantime? In the last post we saw a very brief statement of that, in 2Thess 2.15—we need to continue holding on to what we’ve been taught.

But there’s more to it than that—and Paul has more to say in the next (and final) chapter. He speaks of a couple of general activities first—

We need to have a prayer life. We need to pray specifically for one another. Paul asks for prayer for himself (2Th 3.1-2), and he confidently (2Th3.3-4) prays for them (2Th 3.5).
We need to have a consistent pattern of following Christ. That’s what he prays for them (2Th 3.5), and that’s what he’s so confident about (2Th 3.4).

Those two general activities can keep us plenty busy until he comes. But he gets more specific in the next paragraph.

We all know that Paul’s epistles are “occasional”—that is, they’re written to address specific situations or occasions. In this case, Paul has learned that there are people in the church who aren’t working to support their families. Some interpreters speculate that they’ve quit working because they think Jesus is coming back very soon and they want to be ready—but the passage doesn’t actually say that.

At any rate, they’re sponging off the church’s kindness. And these days we have a term for what the kind church is doing. We call it “enabling.” Sometimes love has to be tough; you can’t smooth the path for someone headed in the wrong direction.

And that’s what Paul calls for here. We’ve told you, he says, that if someone is unwilling to work, he shouldn’t eat (2Th 3.10).

Obviously Paul’s isn’t calling for hard-hearted starvation of the elderly and enfeebled. These were people who could work but were refusing to. And here Paul calls for tough love. He even notes that he had set an example of that when he was with them (2Th 3.7-9).

How should the church deal with the situation?

Don’t give the lazy guy food (2Th 3.10).
Don’t let him wear you down. Don’t cave. You’re doing a good thing (2Th 3.13).
Don’t associate with him (2Th 3.14). Let him feel the sting of social penalty for unacceptable behavior.
But don’t cast him aside (2Th 3.15). He’s your brother. Guide him toward the joy of repentance. That’s the whole point.
Don’t lose your peace (2Th 3.16).

Wise words for all of us these centuries later, in a virtually identical culture. We’re living in the brightest light, the light of Christ’s return. Anticipating that, we get impatient with the brokenness all around us—and within us—and we’re tempted to just find a quiet corner and hunker down waiting for the cavalry.

But God hasn’t called us to do that. He’s called us to live in a broken world, to deal with its brokenness every day, sometimes by doing hard things, things we’d rather not do. He’s called us to persist in those difficult things, and even more, to do them with grace, continuing to spread The Story even as we feel the frustration that long waiting brings.

People who live through that kind of frustration, and who do so with peace, are testimonies to the truth of what they’re persistently believing. Only God could bring peace to a person in that situation. Something supernatural going on here.

And maybe people will want to look into that.

Live on, my friend.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Living in the Brightest Light, Part 3: In God’s Good Time

August 12, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 Part 2

As we’ve noted, when Christ returns, God’s going to right all the wrongs, correct all the injustices. That takes care of a lot of anger and frustration for us.

But we need to be careful how we anticipate. When Paul wrote this letter, the readers had apparently received a letter claiming to be from Paul, giving the impression that Christ had already returned, and they’d missed it (2Th 2.2). Paul went to the trouble of signing this current letter himself, so they’d have his signature to compare to any future letters (2Th 3.17).

What does Paul tell them here? He says the Lord won’t return until several things have happened:

a falling away, or “apostasy” (2Th 2.3)
the revealing of a “man of lawlessness” (2Th 2.3)
the removal of a “restrainer” (2Th 2.6-7)

There a lot of stuff to argue about here. :-) As I’ve noted before, prophecy is hard, and we should expect to have our disagreements over the details without viewing one another as spiritually blind or weak on the authority of Scripture. Paul notes that he’s explained all this to the Thessalonians in person (2Th 2.5-6), so he doesn’t need to say any more. Many of us wish he had, but this is where God has left us for now.

Over the centuries people have tried to identify the “man of lawlessness,” which many assume to be the same as the one that John in his epistles calls “the antichrist.” The Reformers thought it was the pope; during World War II both Hitler and Mussolini were suggested; then Henry Kissinger; and even Ronald Reagan (6 letters in each of his three names, you know—666).

And who or what is the “restrainer”? Rome? the Catholic Church? Christians? the Spirit, who indwells Christians?

Nobody knows. Well, nobody but God, for now. And Paul, and apparently his readers, now long dead (2Th 2.6).

But there’s one interpretation of this passage I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t make.

Some people read 2Th 2.8-12 to say that if someone heard the gospel before the Rapture, then afterwards he won’t be able to believe and be saved. God will send him delusion (2Th 2.11).

I don’t think this passage says that. It says that God sends delusion to “those who are perishing” (2Th 2.10). Let’s not read anything more into it than Paul put there. If it’s the Tribulation period, and you want to come to Jesus, you come. He’ll welcome you. That’s what he does (Mt 11.28-30; Jn 6.37).

Paul’s word for his readers is the very opposite of off-putting. He thanks God for choosing his readers for salvation (2Th 2.13). He has every confidence.

And what should we do with that confidence? How do we occupy ourselves as we live in this brightest light?

Stand firm. Hold on resolutely to what the apostles have taught (2Th 2.15).

We don’t focus our efforts on when Christ is coming, or the details of how Christ’s return is all going to work out in the end. We don’t descend into wrestling matches about the details.

What do we do instead?

We live on.

We believe what God has told us, and we live out his plan for each of us individually, day to day.

Loving God (Mt 22.37).

Loving our neighbors (Mt 22.39). All of them.

Being ambassadors for Christ (2Co 5.20).

Taking the story of Jesus and his love to all who haven’t heard, starting right here in our town and extending to the very ends of the earth (Ac 1.8).

And how do you think that’ll turn out?

God’s going to give us the strength to be faithful till he comes (2Th 2.16-17).

And when the time’s right, he’s going to come.

Right on schedule.

Just as he has always planned.

Live on, my friend, this day, and however many more days he’s scheduled for you.

Part 4

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Living in the Brightest Light, Part 2: Justice Wins

August 8, 2019 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

As we live in the light of Christ’s return, in his brief second letter to the Thessalonian church Paul emphasizes three ideas that drive our thinking, attitudes, and choices. The first he gets to right away: when Christ returns, no injustice will be left uncorrected (2Th 1).

Paul begins all his letters with a standard 4-part introduction. First, he names himself (and sometimes others, e.g. 1Co 1.1) as the author(s). Here, Silas and Timothy are with him (2Th 1.1a). Second, he names the recipients (2Th 1.1b). Third, he offers a benediction (2Th 1.2). If you’ll compare his epistles, you’ll find that this third section is the most consistent from letter to letter. And fourth, in most cases he offers a prayer of thanksgiving for something about them.

These prayers are instructive. There isn’t one in Galatians; Paul is taking those folks straight to the woodshed (Gal 1.6ff). But with other churches he always finds something to be thankful for; even in Corinth, where they’re taking each other to court (1Co 6.1) and getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper (1Co 11.20-21), Paul manages to thank God that they have a lot of spiritual gifts (1Co 1.4-8)—even if they’re abusing them (1Co 12-14).

Here in Thessalonica, Paul rejoices that his readers are continuing to grow in Christ, even though they’re being persecuted. The persecution had started right at the very beginning of the church (Ac 17.5-10) and had continued after Paul left (1Th 2.14-16; 3.4). Paul doesn’t speak of this as though it’s a sign that something has gone terribly wrong; he mentions it matter-of-factly, no doubt because he knew of Jesus’ teaching that persecution would surely come to his followers (Jn 16.33).

So how should they respond to the persecution? I find it interesting that there are no calls to imprecatory prayer, no combat techniques, no legal advice. Paul sets forth just two Big Ideas.

Christ’s Coming Is Going to Right All the Wrongs

First, we don’t need to wrestle with our opponents. Those who oppose God’s people are dealing with an Opponent they can never defeat, who will most certainly call them to account for their evil choices, and who will carry out justice for all the injustices done (2Th 1.6-9).

Not our job. God’s better at it anyway.

And Paul points out that in that day, we will have “relief” (2Th 1.7)—but even beyond that, we will “glorify” and “marvel at” him (2Th 1.10). You know what it’s like when your team wins. The place just explodes, and everyone’s screaming and shouting and hugging and pumping their fists in the air. The fireworks go off, and eventually the party moves out into the street and around the block, and everyone’s just beside himself with sheer delight.

It’s going to be all right. Exponentially better than all right.

Some people scoff this off as “pie in the sky.” Bourgeoisie trying to keep the oppressed happy under their thumb. Trying to crush the proletariat.

And there’s no question that that sort of thing has gone on. But to suggest that here is a category error. It is to suggest that persecution is abuse by a hostile master rather than training by a supportive coach. And it assumes, without evidence, its most fundamental premise—that both “the pie” and “the sky” are fiction.

We have every reason to believe the opposite.

We Have More Important Things to Attend To

Since God’s going to take care of the unpleasant business, we can devote our time to more important things. Paul writes,

We pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power, ¹²so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ (2Th 1.11-12).

We have a calling, you see—one that our heavenly Coach—and I say that reverently—is exercising us toward through the very persecution itself. This calling involves several elements—

Goodness
Faithful (persistent, enduring) work—with power
Glorifying God—and being glorified by him

Wow. That’s a lot more fun than plotting the demise of my theological opponents.

I think I’ll work on that instead.

Part 3 Part 4

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Living in the Brightest Light, Part 1: Introduction

August 5, 2019 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

Christmas. Summer vacation. Birthday.

Marriage. Childbirth.

We love to anticipate things. Can’t wait. It’s gonna be awesome.

And the anticipation is half the fun, isn’t it?

When my wife and I were first married, one of the things I had to learn was that whereas I’m impulsive and like to do things on the spur of the moment, she enjoys the anticipation phase more. Rather than coming home from work and suggesting that we go out for supper tonight, I needed to learn to make the suggestion in the morning so she’d enjoy having time to think about it.

That’s a pretty simple adjustment, and an enjoyable one at that.

As a biblicist, I’m always asking myself, “What’s the biblical perspective on, or approach to, this or that topic?” So what’s the biblical perspective on anticipation?

Does God anticipate things?

Well, he certainly talks a lot about the future, and he seems to enjoy the prospect of what’s coming. Isaiah 11 comes to mind.

Theologians say that God lives beyond time—but then, no one really knows what that means. He certainly knows about time and understands it perfectly—having created it—and he speaks as though he’s thinking in terms of time, though he knows the end from the beginning (Isa 46.10).

Jesus endured the cross “for the joy that was set before him” (Heb 12.2). That sounds like anticipation to me.

Should we anticipate things?

If God’s doing all that anticipating in the Bible, he clearly intends that it should be part of our thinking as well. We ought to look forward to stuff. Excitedly, eagerly, expectantly.

What stuff?

What should we look forward to? Is there any biblical guidance on that?

I’m not asking what our purpose or goal for life is, though that’s an important question too—in fact, I think it includes our question, though it’s broader and more basic than it. The Bible gives us guidance on the larger question of purpose, reason for living:

Clearly the Prime Directive is, as the scholars say, “doxological”—we exist for the purpose of giving glory to God, both in this life (1Co 10.31) and the next (Rev 7.9-12). Even eating and drinking are things we should do for his glory.
- Sidebar: How do you eat and drink to the glory of God? You recognize food and drink as gifts from a generous God, creatively designed for our pleasure (color, texture, flavor, etc.) and given to us freely and abundantly. You delight in his supply and his artistry even as you delight in the food. Eating, properly done, should be an act of worship. But we’re not worshiping the food—that’s gluttony, a form of idolatry. We worship the Creator, not what he has created (Rom 1.25).
Along the way we consider other things. As just one example, Jesus said that he came to give us “abundant” life (Jn 10.10). We exist to live abundantly: joyously, committedly, living out all the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5.22-23) with delight.

Now, as part of that purposeful life, what do we anticipate? What do we look forward to?

The Bible speaks to that as well.

We look forward to the return of Christ; we are “those who look for him” (Heb 9.28); “from [heaven] we look for the Saviour” (Php 3.20); we look “for that blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Ti 2.13). We’ve been doing that from the moment he left (Ac 1.11). It’s the greatest of our anticipations.

So how do we live in light of that certain coming event? How do we live in light of it—the brightest light?

There’s a little book in the Bible that focuses on that question. It’s in the New Testament, a letter by Paul. We call it 2 Thessalonians—because it’s one of two letters he wrote to a church in Thessalonica (today’s Thessaloniki, or Saloniki), and because it’s the shorter. (Really; they put it after 1 Thessalonians primarily because it was shorter—though most commentators also believe it was written second.)

The book’s 3 chapters address 3 ideas:

Christ’s coming is going to right all the wrongs.
Christ’s coming will happen on God’s timetable.
We should be living as God’s stewards in the meantime.

There’s a lot to talk about here.

We’ll get to it next time.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

On My Time in Jail

August 1, 2019 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

The last few posts have been pretty serious. I think it’s time for a break.

I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences, and I like to tell stories. I think every so often, when we need a little break here, I’ll tell about an interesting experience.

When I was in college, the school required four semesters of physical education as part of its general education requirements. They had lots of offerings in the area, and for my four semesters I took two semesters of judo, a semester of karate (shorin-ji, to be precise), and a semester of security training. (Seriously.)

In those days there was an outreach group that used judo as an evangelistic tool, and after I got my brown belt I joined them. The Judo Gentlemen. (Judo means “the gentle way” in Japanese, in reference to the fact that you could practice it without hurting the other student, unlike jiu-jitsu.)

Some years later—I was in Seminary and a teaching assistant in English—we scheduled a meeting in Canton, NC. It was a church banquet; we’d entertain them with a funny skit, and one of us—that would be me—would bring a short devotional.

As we were en route, I realized that I had miscalculated the drive time, and we were going to be late. So I did what any good steward would do—I adjusted the speed to solve the problem.

The highway patrolman clocked me at 71 in a 55.

When he approached the car, which I had borrowed from my roommate from Ohio (and thus had Ohio plates), he asked for my license and registration. Couldn’t find the registration. I handed him my Massachusetts driver’s license. He asked where I was from.

I said Greenville.

It went downhill from there.

The fine was $36, $20 plus a buck for every mph over the limit. (That was a long time ago, friends.)

Though I was in a 3-piece suit, most of the guys were in their judogis, which have no pockets. I had my wallet, of course, and I think maybe 2 of the other guys did as well. We had $32 among us.

We followed the officer in to the Buncombe County Magistrate’s Office, where they told me that I’d need to stay until the guys could get the extra 4 bucks. Something about reciprocity between states.

One of the team members, Bobby, was an officer in the Marine Reserves. He tried to get me released on his recognizance, like he would do with Marines having too much alcohol on leave.

No deal.

OK then.

I sent the guys on, appointed one of them to play the clown in the skit instead of me, and Bobby said he’d preach. Also instead of me.

I don’t recall what I was planning to preach on.

The team went on to Canton and planned to take an offering to get $4 to get the originally scheduled preacher out of the pokey on the way home.

The police took my shoes, belt, wallet, and Bible (it’s a sword, you know) and put me in the drunk tank, which was relatively crowded on that Friday night. I settled in and made friends with a fellow who was in for driving moonshine down from North Carolina. The others, being in various stages of inebriation, weren’t much for conversation.

At one point one of them roused himself from the floor, looked blearily at the (bullet-proof) window, and decided to break out. He got going as fast as he could in the limited space, hit the window with his head, and immediately resumed his original position on the floor.

I’d preached in jail a number of times. This was my first time as a client. I suppose I could have preached, but your credibility takes quite a hit when you’re a client rather than a visitor.

After about 4 hours (seemed like a week), the guys came back with the $4. The desk clerk had some trouble finding my things—they were filed under “Clinger”—but soon we were on our way home.

I walked into my apartment, where my roommate was up studying. He glanced up and said, “How did it go?”

Oh, you know, the usual.

To this day I believe that I’m the only BJU faculty member ever to have been incarcerated while on the faculty and still be employed. But in my defense I must add that I was never actually convicted. Of a felony.

This story is entirely true. If you don’t believe me, check with my roommate. His name is Dr. Dan Nelson, and he’s the administrator of Bob Jones Academy.

Photo by Bill Oxford on Unsplash