Dan Olinger

Second King, Part 4: The King Gets What He Wants

June 2, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: We’ll See Who’s Boss | Part 3: Selfish Aims

The beautiful girl Esther is now effectively a member of Xerxes’ harem, but a lot has to happen before he even meets her. The court official responsible for the harem—or at least for the “contest” to determine who replaces Vashti, the banished queen—who is named Hegai, oversees a preparation process for the women that takes a full year (Es 2.12). We’re told that it involves fragrances, but undoubtedly many other things were included; it was likely a “finishing school” to refine the women’s skills in beautification, in court decorum and culture, in sexuality, and in whatever else would please the king.

After the year of preparation, each of the women would spend a night with the king. This was clearly a sexual tryout, as well as an opportunity for Xerxes to engage the woman in conversation that would tell him something about her personal qualifications to serve in the official role of queen, which pertained only to the one woman so chosen from the harem. After that night, the woman would be a concubine (Es 2.14), available for the king’s pleasure at any time.

This was the way kings operated in the ancient Near East. They had exclusive rights to any woman they desired—and the glory of their kingdom was demonstrated, among other ways, by the size of the harem. It’s likely that a significant number of concubines never returned to the king’s presence after the initial sexual tryout; as we noted in the previous post, this meant “perpetual widowhood.” But they were fed, clothed, and sheltered, and their material circumstances were doubtless better than those of the common people, given that, theoretically at least, the king could request the presence of any of them at any time.

He’s the king. He gets what he wants.

When Esther’s time came, she delighted the king (Es 2.16-17). We’re not told what it was about her that took her to the top of the list, though the text does say that she “obtained favor in the sight of all them that looked upon her” (Es 2.15)—so physical attractiveness was certainly a significant factor. Given that Xerxes had observed his father’s rule as a younger man, and that he had been king for several years, he certainly knew what other qualifications were necessary in a titular queen and evaluated Esther for those as well. She likely would communicate with poise, confidence, and authority in court, as well as making a personal connection with the king. She was no jewel in a pig’s snout (Pr 11.22). She must have been quite a woman to evidence all that in a single evening.

The king is so delighted with what he has found that he proclaims an empire-wide celebration for the accession of the new queen. There’s a party in Susa, of course, but there’s also “a release to the provinces” (Es 2.18), which may have consisted of “either a remission of taxes [as reflected in the ESV and CSB] or a remission of labor (a holiday) [as reflected in the NASB, NIV, and NET].” Or perhaps a release from military duty. But all across the empire, people are celebrating.

The chapter closes with what sounds like an off-handed bit of court trivia. Esther’s cousin, Mordecai, is seated at the gate of the court (Es 2.21). As we’ve already noted, government officials often sat there, in order to be available for any command or need of the king. Maybe he’s the same “Marduka” named in a Persian text; maybe not. But from his strategic post he learns something: two high-ranking court officials are angry with the king and are planning to attack him physically. Whether Mordecai heard them talking—which is unlikely, if he’s a court official himself—or simply heard it through the grapevine, he reports it to his cousin, who is now the queen. She tells the king, and the conspirators are summarily neutralized (Es 2.23). And somewhere, deep inside the cogs of the bureaucracy, a scribal functionary presses a stylus into a clay tablet to record the event.

It will become apparent later that Xerxes doesn’t even remember this threat to his life. Apparently this sort of thing happened a lot. But somewhere, in a Persian warehouse archive, a nondescript clay tablet is filed on a shelf.

And the king, the supreme, the sovereign, lives on.

Photo credit: Xerxes’ tomb; dynamosquito from France, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Second King, Part 3: Selfish Aims

May 30, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: We’ll See Who’s Boss

As we noted last time, the feast at which Queen Vashti refused to appear may have been Xerxes’ effort to get the backing of his nobles for his planned invasion of Greece; the timing works out nicely.

We know how the Persian invasion of Greece went. First there was a problem crossing the Hellespont; a storm destroyed the Persian bridge, and Xerxes had the water scourged just to teach it a lesson. Then a confederation of Greeks bottled the Persian army up at the pass at Thermopylae—though only temporarily. After Xerxes conquered Athens, however, the Greeks decisively defeated the Persian fleet at Salamis, leading Xerxes to head for home. The campaign had taken 3 years.

Back in Susa, Xerxes sought comfort in his harem. It would make sense for the elevation of Esther to take place at this time.

Xerxes cannot restore Vashti (Es 2.1), because the law is irreversible. But his advisers want Xerxes happy, so they devise a plan certain to be appealing to a lecher. He would select a queen not from his existing harem, or even from the families of the council of 7, as tradition dictated, but from all the virgins in the empire (Es 2.2-4). Josephus (Antiquities 11.6.2), whose historical reliability is … uneven, reports that about 400 young women were collected. One commentator notes, “Though this sounds like a beauty contest, it was not a very happy assignment for most of the women. They were uprooted from their communities, which implied confinement to the king’s harem, and moved to what would actually be perpetual widowhood.”

Such are the ways of ancient Near Eastern potentates.

And now (Es 2.5) we meet Mordecai. He’s a Jew, specifically a Benjamite, whose exiled great-grandfather was named Kish, likely for the father of the Benjamites’ favorite son, King Saul (1Ch 9.39). As I commented in the first post of this series, the name Mordecai appears to be derived from the name of the Babylonian god Marduk. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Mordecai’s parents had adopted pagan ways; it may simply have been a common name in that culture, or his parents may have known and admired another man with the name. We know that there was another man named Mordecai in the first return (Ezra 2.2; Ne 7.7)—and we suspect that those returnees were likely to be devout Jews. Another possibility is that Mordecai himself, like Daniel before him (Da 1.7), may have had a second, Babylonian name given to him by the king or someone else in the court. Interestingly, there is a record of a court official about this time named “Marduka,” who would have good reason to be in regular presence at the gate outside the court.

At any rate, Mordecai is raising his younger cousin, Esther, whose parents have died (Es 2.7). (Note that Esther has two names as well.) Esther, being in the top percentile for attractiveness, is swept up in the empire-wide collection for the king’s harem (Es 2.8).

Some have questioned whether Esther should have cooperated in such an arrangement. I’ll note, first, that she really didn’t have a choice. Second, polygamy was not viewed in that culture with the horror we see in it today; Esther, like everyone else who has ever lived, is a creature of her time. And third, the question is moot; the point of the story is not that everything Esther or Mordecai did was right and virtuous. I’ll get to the point eventually—see the title of the series—but I’ll just say for now that in terms of the story, it really doesn’t matter whether what she did was right or not.

And so Esther joins the harem of the most powerful man in the world. Unlike Daniel (Da 1.8), she apparently eats whatever food is set before her (Es 2.9)—with the result that her Jewish identity remains under wraps. And that will become a key part of the story.

As we shall see.

Photo credit: Xerxes’ tomb; dynamosquito from France, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Second King, Part 2: We’ll See Who’s Boss

May 26, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

The last episode in the Old Testament story takes place in Persia, in Susa, the winter capital and royal residence. (In the summer, Susa was unpleasantly hot and thus inappropriate for a capital.) The king is Ahasuerus—more popularly known by the Greek version of his name, Xerxes. The episode begins in the third year of his reign (Es 1.3), which was 483 BC. The Greek historian Herodotus records that after his conquest of Egypt, which would have ended about this time, Xerxes convened an assembly of his nobles and announced his desire to invade and conquer Greece (Histories 7.8). Whether this is the occasion for the party in Esther 1 is just conjecture, but the timing seems about right, and it would make sense for Xerxes to display his wealth if he wanted to convince his nobles to support an invasion of Greece.

In any case, it was some party. The palace and banquet hall at Susa have been excavated, and the roofed hall was about the size of a football field. The hundreds (thousands?) of guests could eat, and drink, as much as they wanted. For six months. This king’s resources—and therefore his powers—are endless.

Right?

In a climactic, boastful display of power and pride, Xerxes calls for his wife to parade in front of his guests.

And she refuses.

The text doesn’t tell us why. Perhaps she was expected to appear nude. Perhaps she was pregnant; if the biblical Vashti is the same as Amestris, she was the mother of Artaxerxes, who would have born along about this time. Or perhaps she just didn’t want to be paraded around in front of a pampered, privileged, drunken mob.

But refuse she does. And so “Xerxes’ action is a parody on Persian might, for the powerful king could not even command his own wife” (HCBC). Xerxes, determined to punish her, seeks counsel from his advisers. Their immediate reaction shows that they are as self-obsessed as Xerxes himself; if Vashti can refuse her husband’s command, then—horror of horrors!—our wives can too. So, they advise, pass a decree—which in Persia is unalterable—banishing Vashti. It’s a broken world if a decree issued in drunkenness binds the rulers’ hands forever.

And the decree goes out “into all the king’s provinces” (Es 1.22), translated into all the recipient languages with the efficiency of the United Nations or the BBC. We won’t have anyone, not even the queen, disregarding the power of the One Great King, Xerxes.

It’s a big empire, stretching from India in the east to Ethiopia in the west (Es 1.1). But the Persians had ways of getting the message out efficiently. They had a sort of “Pony Express,” which Herodotus describes in something approaching wonder. Allegedly the riders could deliver a message from Susa to Sardis, in western Turkey, in 9 days or less. That’s 1200 miles.

Well. I guess we’ve solved that problem. Nobody’s bigger than Xerxes. Nobody tells him what to do. Not even his wife. Nosiree.

To be continued.

Photo credit: Xerxes’ tomb; dynamosquito from France, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Second King, Part 1: Introduction

May 23, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

At its heart, the Bible is a story. In the Old Testament, the story, which runs from Genesis to Esther, is about the nation of Israel, with a couple of appendices; the poetry and the prophets both give us background information and enrich the story in many ways, especially as they elucidate the nation’s relationship with God. But the story itself begins with creation and ends with … well, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Most Christians are familiar with at least the broad arc of the story. God creates the world perfect, and soon man disobeys him, plunging himself and his environment into a life of death. God promises to restore life—and his first narrated move, perhaps surprisingly, is to bring more judgment in a global flood and then in scattering Noah’s descendants across the planet.

But with one of those descendants, Abram, God begins to make a special people, soon naming them “Israel.” He makes grand promises to them, but in the short term at least, he doesn’t appear to be keeping them. Israel spends 400 years outside their gifted homeland, much of that time in slavery.

Then God calls an Israelite, Moses, to lead his people out of Egypt and back to The Land. Under Joshua they conquer Canaan, but they seem unable to govern themselves. After a long cycle of failure, they receive from God a king, David, and a promise that his line will never end.

But it does end. Or at least it seems to. Just a generation later David’s kingdom is divided by civil war, and most of the land—and the people—give sovereignty to an upstart, non-Davidic king. For 200 years there are two nations instead of one. And both sink into idolatry.

Then more judgment. God sends the rebel kingdom into exile in Assyria and warns the remnant Davidic kingdom, Judah, to straighten up. They don’t. And 150 years later they too go into Mesopotamian exile, this time in Babylon.

What about the promises—to Abram? to David?

One of many things we learn from this story is the danger of making snap judgments about God. As Creator of time and Lord over it, he has no need or inclination to hurry, and like any good teacher, he gives his students time to discover things for themselves—even if they’re slow learners.

The exiled Israelites never return from Assyria. But 70 years after Judah’s initial deportation, their enemies the Babylonians are dethroned from their regional domination when Persia overruns the capital. The Persian conqueror, Cyrus, is relatively enlightened for his time; he figures that the best way to achieve peace in an empire of conquered and displaced people groups is just to let them all go home.

And so, two years after the exiled Jews change emperors, the new guy says they can return to their homeland. Many people are surprised that the vast majority of exiles don’t take up the offer, but they shouldn’t be. It’s been at least 50 years since any of these people have seen their homeland—which means, of course, that most of the exiles had been born in Babylon. In a real sense, Babylon is home to them; they don’t feel like exiles at all.

So most of them stay. A relative few, under the leadership of Zerubbabel, and later Ezra and Nehemiah, return and begin the arduous task of rebuilding everything from scratch. But most stay.

And 50 years later, long after Zerubbabel and Haggai and Zechariah have fulfilled their ministries in Jerusalem, there is in the Persian capital of Susa, more than 200 miles east of Babylon, a Jewish man, apparently a government functionary. He is named for the Babylonian god Marduk. And his story is the last episode in the biblical story of the nation of Israel, the spine of the Old Testament.

We’ll spend a few posts looking more closely at the story of Mordecai, his king, and his cousin.

See you next time.

Photo credit: Xerxes’ tomb; dynamosquito from France, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On Lions—and The Lion

May 19, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking about lions. The Bible mentions lions 150 times; the poets and the prophets particularly like to use leonine imagery, and we shouldn’t be surprised by that, since Asiatic lions indisputably lived in Palestine in biblical times. (Nowadays they’re pretty much limited to India.)

Several biblical characters interacted with lions—most famously David the shepherd boy, as he related to King Saul just before dispensing with Goliath (1S 17.34-37). But there were others, including Samson (Jg 14.5-18), Benaiah (2S 23.20; 1Ch 11.22), an unnamed prophet from Bethel (1K 13.24-28), the neighbor of another unnamed prophet (1K 20.36), and the ancestors of the Samaritans (2K 17.25-26).

Lions are the kind of animal that would tend to make an impression. It’s no surprise, then, that they show up as decorative motifs in important places—specifically in Solomon’s Temple (1K 7.29, 36) and in his palace (1K 10.19-20; 2Ch 9.18-19), next to his throne. That’s the image you might use if you want to make an impression on foreign visitors—or, for that matter, on your own people.

It also makes sense that significant people would be compared to lions. Three of the tribes of Israel are—Judah (Gn 49.9), Gad (Dt 33.20), and Dan (Dt 33.22)—as is the whole nation of Israel (Nu 23.24; 24.9). David, mourning over King Saul and Prince Jonathan, compares them to lions (2S 1.23), and some of David’s famed “mighty men” are compared to lions as well (1Ch 12.8). Interestingly, those men are from the tribe of Gad, which has already been mentioned.

In the New Testament, the devil is compared to a lion (1P 5.8)—which might give us pause when we read later that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” is none other than Jesus Christ (Re 5.5).

Seeing lions up close certainly enriches one’s appreciation of the metaphor. I’ve been privileged to take 7 different trips into the Serengeti, both as a treat for BJU students on my mission teams and as an opportunity for Tanzanian orphans to see their country’s rich resource. We have seen lions up close on all but one of those safaris. One of the groups had the extraordinary opportunity to see a lioness take down a wildebeest literally right in front of our vehicles, not 20 feet away. As she choked it to death, she looked unflinchingly right at us, as if to say, “You really don’t want to mess with me …”

Which brings me to the characteristic of lions that has most impressed itself on me.

They’re absolutely fearless.

They have no predators. Top of the food chain. They’re not called “the king of the jungle” for nothing.

(And, by the way, the Serengeti, like virtually all of the rest of Africa, is not jungle. It’s savannah, much like the grassland prairies of the American West.)

You drive the safari vehicle up to a pride of lions, and they just ignore you. They look away as if bored. Occasionally one will get up and sidle around the vehicle, rubbing against it as though marking its territory. But as long as you remain quiet, you’ll be ignored.

They know you can’t hurt them.

But they are not to be disrespected. On one trip, as a male lion and one of his mates were ambling around our vehicle, the well-experienced guide, Vincent, whispered, “If you want to die, get out of the car.”

We didn’t.

On another trip we saw 17 lions lounging under the shade of an acacia tree—the second-most our guide had ever seen together. They, too, ignored us.

Confidence. Pride. Seeming disinterest.

But awesome power and speed and potential for violence and destruction.

Respect the lion.

Jesus, our Savior, is not just a lion, but the lion of the royal tribe of Judah. He has no enemies that can cause him concern; he has no predators; he has no equals. He can be calm and peaceable, just as he went to his death with no resistance (Is 53.7). He is the Lamb of God (Re 5.6).

But do not take his gentleness, his mercy, for weakness. Even as a Lamb, he displays wrath that brings desperate fear to his enemies (Re 6.16).

The Lion will deliver his people.

… and Back Again

May 16, 2022 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Ten weeks ago I tested positive for COVID, and two weeks later I took a break from blogging. The disease wasn’t overly bad for me—just a noticeable sore throat and some coughing—and I’m glad that I didn’t appear to get the Long variety. (I know a few people who did.)

But I could tell that the brain wasn’t at 100%, and I didn’t want to be posting my thoughts publicly when I was more likely even than usual to say something I’d later regret.

Providentially, right then we entered a point in the semester where I was crazily busy, busier than at any other time during the year. Fortunately, it’s a time I can see coming and get prepared for, but for several days it’s just Katie bar the door.

After that, the papers started to come in.

I’m one of those teachers who believes fervently in the importance of assigning writing, and specifically writing that requires thought (as opposed to those “discussion posts” you see the kids cranking out in their sleep for their online courses). As every teacher knows, the inescapable consequence of assigning thoughtful writing is that at some point you’re going to need to grade, or at least read, the output. Some of it grades pretty easily. But not all, my friend, not all.

My school used to have a policy that all major papers and projects needed to be due a few weeks before the end of the semester. That policy doesn’t exist anymore, but I still hold to the practice, for a couple of reasons. First, I need time to grade the work effectively, and the kids (or their parents) are paying a pretty penny for my due diligence. And second, it gives the students an opportunity to see their post-project grades when there’s still enough time in the semester to do something about them.

So. COVID, then post-COVID, then crazy busy, then paper-grading season. At that point I decided to just let the blog lie until the semester was done.

Commencement was a week ago, and we sent our 650 graduates off to take the next step. I had several faculty responsibilities that occupied the week following Commencement. But this past Friday I completed the last of those, and now it’s Summer Vacation.

When I began teaching full-time in 2000 (at the age of 46), I was delighted to discover that I had options for how I spent the summers. Early on I decided to look for opportunities to teach pro bono (as the lawyers say) in small Bible colleges overseas that could use some help. The first was in the summer of 2000 in the area of Cape Town. It was delightful, and not just because of the rooibos, biltong, and koeksisters.

Other opportunities followed. Saipan. Mexico. China. St Vincent. India. Haiti. And several delightful summers leading BJU student teams to minister in Africa, from Ghana to Kenya to Tanzania to Zambia to South Africa.

For six years I was my father’s caregiver during his dementia, and I was privileged to do that. Having the summers free really helped.

Well, the pandemic put the kibosh on international teaching, and in much of the world the situation’s still iffy. It’s simple enough to go teach overseas, but what if they change the rules in mid-trip? What if we can’t get back? These are not questions to dismiss lightly.

So this summer is a sabbatical. Not working anywhere officially. Teaching a handful of classes at my church, serving there in other ways as well. I have a study plan laid out, with fair amounts of reading and thinking and planning. And best of all, no inflexible deadlines. No reason not to be interrupted. Something needs to be fixed? Well, why not? Need something at the store, and traffic’s pretty heavy right now? No problem. All the time in the world. Smile and wave at the other drivers, and let that guy cut in.

Now, that environment’s just perfect for getting back into the rhythm of writing two blog posts a week. I’m looking forward to it.

Drop by the site in the days ahead if you care to.

Covid …

March 21, 2022 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

I got Covid. It was pretty mild, but since then I’ve had some issues that have led me to decide to set aside the blog for a bit. Publishing things publicly when your brain isn’t at its best just doesn’t seem wise. :-)

So let’s see what happens. I’ll be around.

What Church Is For, Part 3: Maturity in Christ

March 17, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Grow Up | Part 2: No Longer Children

We can’t stop our problems by just gritting our teeth and trying harder not to be bad. We need what Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection,” a love for something good that drives out our earlier affection for what was destroying us.

In Ephesians 4.14, Paul has focused on the negative behaviors, but he doesn’t leave us there. In verse 15 he moves on to the new affection.

“But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ” (Ep 4.15).

The verb here is interesting. Our translation, like most in English, says “speaking the truth.” But the word “speaking” is not technically in the text. The word is a participle, all right, but it’s just the verb form of the noun “truth.” We might woodenly render it “truthing.”

Now, I’m not criticizing the translations. We don’t say “truthing” in English; we say “speaking the truth.” That’s the way the verb ought to be rendered.

But I would suggest that what Paul is commanding here is not just the surface-level, outward conformity that “speaking” might imply. It’s not just saying things that are technically true but (intentionally?) misleading.

It’s truthfulness. A deep, lasting commitment to being genuine all the way down.

If Jesus is the truth (Jn 14.6), then being committed to the truth is the only sensible way to be. Anything short of that is treason.

Note that the contrast in the context is being deceived, the way simple-minded children can be. We’re not supposed to be like that. We’re supposed to be controlled by the truth—to recognize, believe, accept, practice, and, yes, speak it.

How?

Paul gives two simple descriptors—

“in love.” That may mean “with love as our motivation,” and certainly our love for Christ, which issues in love for one another, can help us determine how we live out genuineness and authenticity. But it may also mean “by means of love” (what theorists call “the instrumental use”)—which means that we demonstrate our genuineness outwardly, by actions on behalf of others that serve as evidence of our inward love and compassion.
“into Christ.” Christ is to be our target, our goal. That means, of course, that we measure ourselves by him, that we love as he loves. But I suspect that it goes far beyond simple imitation. Christ is our focus, our aim, our goal; he is the reason we do what we do, so much so that we transcend thinking about our own interests and act sacrificially, as Christ himself “gave himself a ransom for many.” Now, we’re not going to be paying for anybody’s sins, but we can follow his example in thinking of others rather than ourselves.

Study Christ; learn Him; focus on Him; make Him the top priority (that’s what love is). As you then grow up into Him, you’ll be a person of truth rather than a victim of trickery.

If we do this kind of thinking, one person at a time, what kind of churches would we have? What kind of spiritual, mental, and emotional health would we have there?

Interestingly, Paul goes on to describe something almost like critical mass. The church fits together, with each part doing what it’s designed to do, until the body begins to construct itself. It doesn’t have to think about growing, or try harder to grow, or obsess about why it’s not growing. It just grows, because that’s what bodies do when they’re healthy.

And eventually, one great day, the church will be the kind of body that reflects gloriously on its Head.

May that day come soon.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

What Church Is For, Part 2: No Longer Children

March 14, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Grow Up

We have some growing to do.

We’re not there yet. Even Paul says that he’s not where he needs to be (Php 3.12), and that he knows “in part” (1Co 13.12).

Paul now gives us our response—the medicine we’re supposed to take. In verse 14, he begins with the negative—“Stop this practice”; and then, in verse 15, he gives us the positive—“Here’s what you can do about it.” Today’s post focuses on verse 14.

^“As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ep 4.14).

God’s people are supposed to stop being children.

Now, I should note that there’s nothing defective about a child’s being a child. We all start out as children, and for a time that’s the right and natural place to be. We love children’s simplicity, and joy, and insight. Social media is filled with videos of children’s delightfulness.

Jesus even said that we grownups need to become like children, in some sense, before we can enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18.3-4; 19.14). The simple trust of a child for his parent is a powerful thing.

But children aren’t supposed to stay children. They’re supposed to grow up.

Specifically, they’re supposed to outgrow

Inconsistency

Paul describes a boat, “tossed here and there by waves,” at the mercy of its circumstances. Children can be like that. We all know that if one child in the church nursery starts to cry, we need to get him out of there fast, or else before long every child will be crying, and the more part will know not wherefore they are come together.

We’re supposed to get over our childlike tendency to be governed by what’s going on around us.

I think of that when I see my friends on social media given over to the Outrage of the Day. Somebody somewhere decides what we’re all going to be upset about this time, and we follow like sheep, sharing posts on issues about which we know nothing but immediately have an opinion. I saw a meme the other day that said something to the effect of, “And just like that everybody went from being expert epidemiologists to being experts in international relations.”

Yeah.

Paul’s context is more specific than just general inconsistency; he’s speaking specifically about “every wind of doctrine,” or teaching, specifically teaching about the faith. I have known people—and still do—who take up every half-witted heresy that comes down the pike. It’s like distortions of Scripture get all knotted up in their brains and just hang out together like they’re the last great hope of mankind.

We need to do better. We need to develop adult judgment—wisdom—that prevents us from being tossed around like that.

Naivete

Paul changes his image in the middle of the verse. He moves from natural forces—waves and winds—to moral ones—“by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.”

The fact is that in a morally influenced world, the things calling for our attention are not always neutral distractions. Often they’re the schemes of people with evil intent. The distractors are up to something.

I’ve mentioned the delightfulness of a child’s naivete. Decades ago Johnny Carson was interviewing a boy, and the child pretty much took over the interview. He asked Johnny to do a magic trick for him, and Johnny obliged. The look of wonder on the boy’s face was pure innocence, just delightful. He really thought that quarter had come out of his own ear.

But again, children should grow up. Naivete is not a virtue in adults. We shouldn’t be buying what the ne’er-do-wells are selling. We should know the Scripture—and the world—better than that.

This post has been pretty negative, because this verse is negative. Next time we’ll look at the positive side.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

What Church Is For, Part 1: Grow Up

March 10, 2022 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

“Experts” tell us that we can’t be productive or successful without goals. We should write down our daily, weekly, monthly, and annual goals, and check them off when they’re completed. We should constantly re-evaluate our goals to be sure that they match our priorities.

In Ephesians 4 God gives His goals for the church. Church isn’t just something we go to as spectators, a place where we meet people and perform rituals. It’s a living organization with a specific mission. In this passage God lays out his goals for the organization of which He is chief executive officer.

He says first that he has given to the church all different kinds of people (Ep 4.11), who by their diversity, and consequent interdependence, will enable one another to minister effectively (Ep 4.12), which in turn will bring the whole body to maturity.

His first goal is pretty straightforward: he wants us to grow up. He measures that growth in two ways (Ep 4.13).

First, he says, we “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.” “The faith” is the doctrinal teaching of the Scripture; the church should be a teaching institution, and while some of us should be there to teach, all of us should be there to learn. Do you arrive at the services of the church each Sunday with that goal in mind? Do you lean into the teaching and preaching (and conversations in the hallways) with the intention of hearing and learning what the Bible says and how you should apply it?

But Paul doesn’t leave this merely an academic exercise; we also need to grow in our knowledge of Christ. Of course that means learning facts; you interact with friends and loved ones based on facts you have come to know about them over the years. But we all know that relationship is about more than facts. There’s a personal side, and an emotional side, and a volitional side; you want to be with the person, and you love being there.

And that changes how you live. Over the years I’ve learned that there are certain things my wife doesn’t like—things that I used to do comfortably and routinely before I knew her. I don’t do those things anymore. And I don’t miss them. I value my relationship with my wife more than I value those things.

Similarly I learn about Christ from the teaching and preaching at church, and from conversations with other believers. But I also learn about him by being around my fellow travelers and watching them, consciously or subconsciously. We share our relationships with Christ with one another, and we all grow closer to him.

Next, Paul says that we “attain to mature manhood,” and specifically “to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Commentators are divided on just how we should translate this phrase, but I would suggest that it is not “until we measure up to Christ,” or “until we’re as tall as Christ,” but rather, “until we show how tall Christ is.” I take that from later in the passage, where Paul says that the church is the body, and Christ is the head (Ep 4.15-16). If someone’s head is much too large for his body, the image can be grotesque. Our job is to grow as a body until we’re just the right size for the head, so that the overall picture is proportional and graceful.

I would suggest that pretty much every church has a lot of growing to do before it stops making Christ look unattractive. As I watch various people deconstruct their faith these days, I find that the motivating factor is often not something that God did, but something that his people did.

And thus has it ever been.

Next time we’ll continue in this rich passage to see what “mature manhood” looks like more specifically.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash