Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

 

Retired Bible Professor,

Bob Jones University

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On White Nationalism, Part 2: “Race”

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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.

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On White Nationalism, Part 1: Introduction

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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.

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

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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—

  1. 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).
  2. 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.

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

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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

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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, 12 so 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.

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Living in the Brightest Light, Part 1: Introduction

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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:

  1. Christ’s coming is going to right all the wrongs.
  2. Christ’s coming will happen on God’s timetable.
  3. 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.

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On My Time in Jail

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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.

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God of Law, God of Grace

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So which is it?

Is God all about law or all about grace?

Is God the heavenly tyrant who insists that we follow his rules, or else? Who constantly chases the kids off his lawn?

Or is he the kindly old gentleman who always has candy in his pockets for the children?

There are some who see law and grace as enemies—so much so that the God of the Old Testament must be different from the God of the New. And of course they like the latter better.

Even among less reactionary people, there’s the assumption that law and grace are at odds: you have to choose one or the other. The old-timers choose law, because you know, and the hipsters choose grace, because, well, it’s obvious.

But there’s no dichotomy—in fact, there can’t possibly be. The God of the Old Testament is also the God of the New, and he isn’t at odds with himself (Num 23.19; 2Tim 2.13), and he doesn’t change (Mal 3.6; Jam 1.17).

Law and grace are one.

When I was a child in Sunday school, I occasionally heard a teacher say that the Old Testament saints were saved by keeping the Law, and we’re saved by grace.

Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a wonder I didn’t grow up to be a flaming heretic.

So how are they one? Paul makes that clear in his two sister epistles Romans and Galatians. Abraham, he tells us, lived long before the Law even existed (Gal 3.17), and he was justified—counted righteous, though he was not righteous—by trusting God (Rom 4.2-3). By faith.

That’s grace. It couldn’t be Law, since there wasn’t any.

So if grace was working fine before the Law, why did God complicate the system by ordering Israel to keep the Law?

I’m glad you asked. Paul tells us why. The Law, he says, is designed to lead us to Christ (Gal 3.24).

All of us are really good at justifying ourselves. My case is different, you see; I have good reasons for my, um, idiosyncrasies. I’m a good person. I live by my own set of rules, and I conform to them very nicely, thanks.

God knows that if he doesn’t set the rules for us, we’ll never come to him. We’ll consider ourselves just fine—better than that other guy over there—and he knows that we’ll never be pure, never be fulfilled, never be joyous, unless we come to him. He can’t abide that; he loves us too much.

So he gives us a Law, and it’s impossible. You can try all you want, but you’ll never keep it. He’s not trying to frustrate us, to rub our faces in our own failure; he’s holding out his hands, waiting for us to come to him for forgiveness and cleansing, having realized that we can’t do It without him.

The Law brings us to Christ.

So guess what?

The Law isn’t in conflict with grace; it is grace. It’s the way God leads us stubborn horses to water, where we can drink all we want for free (Is 55.1-2).

The Law is grace. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the Ten Commandments, where God, as he is setting up the rules, reminds us of who he is, and what he has done:

I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage (Ex 20.2).

I’ve already delivered you, he says. That’s the kind of person I am; I rescue people who don’t deserve to be rescued.

And then he says something that sounds harsh:

I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments (Ex 20.5b-6).

But it’s not harsh. Look more closely.

How far does sin reach? To the third and fourth generation.

How far do mercy and grace reach?

Thousands.

Thousands of what?

Thousands of generations, of course.

How long is a generation?

Well, let’s say 20 years. These days couples are having their first child later than that, and in West Virginia they have them a lot earlier ( :-) ), but 20 should be close enough, conservatively.

How long is a thousand generations?

20,000 years.

I’m a young-earth creationist. I don’t think we’ve been here that long.

So what’s his point?

Sin has its day, but grace lasts for as long as you need it. It’ll never run out.

And that’s right there in the Ten Commandments.

The Law.

It’s grace.

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For My Angry Friends, Part 8: Concluding Thoughts

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Paul has certainly made his point in his letter to Titus. Believers ought to be different from the general population in specific ways—soberness, gentleness, kindness, humility, subjection—and for specific reasons—God’s undeserved gentleness and kindness to us, the presence of his Spirit in our minds, and our confidence in his faithful deliverance.

He ends the letter with something of a charge:

8 This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men. 9 But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. 10 Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, 11 knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned (Ti 3.8-11).

This charge has both a positive and a negative element. Positively, he says, pass these thoughts along (v 8). Encourage others to do the same. Make the concept go viral.

In a very small way, that’s what I’m doing, and I would encourage you to add your voice.

On the negative side, he says, don’t get into stupid arguments. Specifically he names “genealogies” and “disputes about the Law” (v 9)—that is, the Mosaic Law. That may seem a little odd to us; those aren’t typically things we fight about. It’s here we need to remind ourselves that Paul’s epistles were “occasional”—that is, they were written to address specific situations in specific local churches. On Crete, where Titus was overseeing a network of churches (Ti 1.5), these two things were apparently causing a lot of contention.

But clearly his larger principle is that we shouldn’t be fighting about anything that is “unprofitable and worthless” (v 9). That requires some judgment on our part, some soberness, of which Paul spoke back in chapter 2. In our current culture, it’s clear that many people careen from controversy to controversy, herded like sheep by the Arbiters of The Outrage of the Day.

Here’s an observation. We don’t have to care about the Outrage of the Day. Unless it’s an outrage by biblical standards. And even when we care, we engage in the public conversation with gentleness, kindness, and grace, remembering the pit from which we have been digged [sic], the undeserved kindness of our good and great God, and our responsibility to represent him well in a world that would much prefer to blaspheme him at any provocation.

Avoid foolish controversies. You don’t have to comment, like, or share.

Paul takes it a step further. When someone you know does that, he says, warn him, and then reject him (Ti 3.10). The word translated “reject” begins with begging someone to stop what he’s doing, then expressing disapproval and withdrawing your support. In the ancient world it’s used of declining an invitation and even of divorcing a wife.

Reject him. Paul says he’s “self-condemned.”

Yikes.

If more people took the current polarizing nonsense seriously enough to act this way on it, I wonder how long it would drive the public conversation. Social consequences bring changed behavior.

But as is always the case with biblical admonitions, we need to get the beam out of our own eye before we lecture our brothers. Back to self-assessment and repentance.

And then, certainly, spread the message. Pass the word. “Speak confidently” (Ti 3.8). Make this kind of evil have consequences.

Shalom, my friends.

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For My Angry Friends, Part 7: Foundation II

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As I’ve noted already, Paul is driving a point home in Titus chapters 2 and 3: believers should be different from unbelievers in specific ways, and there’s a solid theological reason for that. In chapter 2 he speaks to specific groups of Christians; in chapter 3 he speaks to Christians in general. We’ve looked at two ways all believers should be different from the general population: in the way they treat the government, and in the way they treat all people, specifically including unbelievers.

He spends most of the rest of the chapter explaining why we should act this way. The core of his explanation is verses 3 through 7:

3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. 4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Ti 3.3-7).

There’s a lot to digest here, but let me see if I can boil it down.

  • We used to be just like everybody else: sinful, depraved, hateful.
  • But now there’s a significant difference—a divine, infinite one. God himself loved us, and because he loved us, he showed kindness to us and in fact saved us, rescued us from all that nonsense, and gave us a new and different kind of life.
  • He did this despite the fact that we didn’t deserve it. After all, we were just like everybody else.
  • He has poured out his Spirit on us. We have God himself living in us, changing the very nature of who and what we are and the way we think.
  • As a result, we have standing with God—we are his heirs, his sons and daughters—and we have a completely different outlook, being focused not on the here and now but on eternal life.

Well, that ought to make a difference in how we behave, shouldn’t it?

  • It ought to keep us from being uppity toward those who are where we used to be.
  • It ought to keep us from being proud of our wisdom or understanding or position, because he didn’t save us because of who we were or what we thought or did.
  • It ought to make us mouthpieces for the Spirit of God himself.
  • It ought to keep us from freaking out about present short-term controversies. Our words and actions should demonstrate the calmness and peace of long-term assured victory.

In the next paragraph Paul is going to make some final application; we’ll get to that next time. But in preparation for that, it’s time for each of us to take inventory and do some self-assessment.

  • In what ways does my daily thinking, my view of the world and my life in it, reflect grace, mercy, and peace?
  • What things make me angry and/or frustrated? Are they things of eternal significance or short-term irritations?
  • If they’re of eternal significance, what is my frustration saying about the goodness, wisdom, and faithfulness of God, and my understanding and application of them?
  • What people do I think I’m better or smarter than? What does that thinking say about me?
  • Undoubtedly there are people I know who are troubled and looking for help. Will my public discourse make it likely that they will seek me out for that help? Will they expect grace, mercy, and peace from me?

Next time we’ll wrap this discussion up with a look at Paul’s closing comments in this epistle.

Part 8

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