What Should I make of disturbing Bible verses about Children?

Question:

So i was on FB this morning and someone posted (after the shooting tragedy) something about bibles in school - and someone quoted all these Bible verses in response to shut them down. What should i make of them? Children who refuse to obey their parents must be executed. If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die -- Deuteronomy 21:18-21 He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death. -- Exodus 21:15 He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. -- Exodus 21:17 Children who mock their parents will have their eyes plucked out by ravens and eaten by eagles. The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. -- Proverbs 30:17 Like Abraham, parents should be willing to kill their children for God. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and ... offer him there for a burnt offering.... And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. -- Genesis 22:2,10 God killed all the firstborn children in an entire country. The LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon.... And there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. -- Exodus 12:29-30 Sometimes God kills children for misbehaving. And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. -- 2 Kings 2:23-24 Someday God will force parents eat their own children. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. -- Leviticus 26:29 And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters. -- Deuteronomy 28:53 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend. -- Jeremiah 19:9 And then there`s this statement, which could only be found in the Bible: Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. -- Psalm 137:9

Answer:

The person is obviously trying to tell you that the Bible isn't a good book for children - and frankly no thinking Christian believes that the Bible is kid friendly on every page. It was not written as a children's story. It can and should be taught to children at age appropriate levels (I make no case here regarding public school curriculums), but like with all human history, the details need to be spared depending on your audience.

However, I think the person is not merely saying these verses prove the Bible isn't fit for children. What they're really saying is that the Bible has a barbaric attitude toward children, and further, that you could derive an attitude from the Bible about children that would justify the horrible events in Sandy Hook Elementary. That's the real objection that must be faced in explaining these verses.

The person has nicely organized the verses into categories for me, so I'll keep their heading, but note that the heading itself is misleading in places which I'll make clear:

1. "Children who refuse to obey their parents must be executed."

These are the most difficult passages to explain, since they are prescribing (as opposed to mere DESCRIBING) the execution of disobedient children. We wince at the harshness of these laws, but three things help us dampen our outrage.

First, our attitude in the West about the preciousness of children and childhood is owed almost exclusively to Jesus who validated children, women and old age in a way never before seen. So whatever moral superiority this person feels over the Bible's attitude toward children must be viewed through the fact that if it weren't for the Bible, we wouldn't have a high view of children. So we have to read these Mosaic prescriptions through the teaching of Jesus, not the reverse.

Second, it takes only a very cursory reading to realize that none of these laws applies to what we would today consider "children". Notice, the children here are clearly grown. They are "gluttons and drunkards" (know any 5 years olds that fit that description??), and harshly violent, they strike their parents! We call that 1st degree assault in our world - a very serious crime that nets years in prison. It just so happens that today, we have this artificial cut off of "childhood" at 18 where we think parents are no longer responsible for their children (and visa versa). But in the agrarian culture of the Ancient Near East, you were attached to your children for a lifetime, since you even chose their spouses! Parents also, were your responsibility when you were grown. So the importance of maintaining honor into adulthood was far greater, since the contact between parents and children remained intact, underlining just how important it was for grown children to "honor their father and mother". Thus, these laws are speaking about grown children, who fail in their duty to honor their parents in the worst: turning violent and abusive in their disobedience. The community justly saw the need to intervene, to consider such breakdowns in the social order to be devastating and to justify the harshest of punishments.

Third, while we have in the Bible capital punishment prescribed for disobedient children, we have no instance in the entire bible of it ever being enacted. Which suggests that, like today, some laws are mostly symbolic. These express the common moral standard of the community, but the community realizes that the laws themselves are rarely enforced. Sodomy laws were like that in the early States and today where they still exist. These were mostly unenforceable, and so we have only rare cases of them being broken or people being charged, yet they stayed on the books as a statement of the moral consensus of the community about sex. It may be that the lack of descriptions of disobedient children being brought to court by Hebrew parents may reflect the fact that the law itself was largely symbolic of the importance they put on parental honor - a reflection of the community ideal - but rarely if ever followed through on. Remember, in the Mosaic legal system, the burden of proof in all legal matters was very high. You needed two or three witnesses for conviction. So when you read a law, like Exodus 21:15 you might not realize the due process that had to be gone through before you could get to an actual execution. We might assume a parent could have their kid killed willy-nilly! But it was never like that. It is likely you rarely ever had two parents who would prosecute their own children, regardless of how disobedient. We are told Eli, for example, had very awful sons, but even as a priest in Israel, he never prosecuted his own sons, even though we know for a fact that they met the burden of proof as disobedient children under the Mosaic law. But again, even if they HAD been executed as "disobedient children", keep in mind: they were probably grown men in their 20's and 30's, guilty of sexual predation and extortion etc. (1 Sam 1:3ff)

2. "Children who mock their parents will have their eyes plucked out by ravens."

This is a Proverb - a pithy, wise saying, but it contains no prescription for what parents should do with their young children. It's a poetical, hyperbolic description of the evil that befalls people who mock their elders. Notice, again the age of the children is not given. It's not meant to bring to mind a young child of 6 being torn apart by a wild bird! It's meant to bring to mind the seriousness of parental dishonor and the judgment that will ensue.

That judgment is a vivid play on the word "eye". The eye, just as easily as the mouth, can mock. We have a saying about that too: "rolling our eyes" at someone. Well, the Bible is saying in colorful language that even this kind of disrespectful heart mocking that comes out the eyes and not the lips, is deplorable. And it's saying, such persons will reap what they sow in a one for one kind of way, IE. The eye mocks, the eye will be destroyed. Scavengers did not kill, they ate already dead carcasses. So this is suggesting people who dishonor their parents will end up dead in some lonely place. It's not a prescription for how we should treat sarcastic kids.

3. "Like Abraham, parents should be willing to kill their children for God."

This heading for the story of Isaac is a completely wrong headed interpretation of the impact of the text. Many scholars have poured over this story and most agree that the lesson of the story is not, "child sacrifice is a good thing." The lesson is, "God says, no more child sacrifice!" The context of Abraham's world was that every culture and religion practiced infant sacrifice. It was considered the HEIGHT of devotion - what higher act of piety to one's gods could there be? So while we might be horrified that God called Abraham to offer his own son, Abraham apparently was not. It's not unreasonable then, to believe that to get Abraham to understand the heart of God, and that God takes no delight in such sacrifice, and that he forever wants his people to reject it (See Jeremiah 7:31 for God's thought on child sacrifice), he has to play to Abraham's cultural expectations for what a tribal deity would demand. And then, when the moment came, God provides a ram, and in a miraculous confrontation with an Angel, God calls Abraham off. Thus He calls all humanity away from such hideous acts. The lesson then is not "children are worth nothing and you should kill them for God." The lesson is, no more child sacrifice! This is not what I want! True religion with the one True God will never require this, as do the religions of the gods of this earth.

When it comes to Abraham we also have the New Testament writer of Hebrews insight into his mind. He is not thinking that Isaac can truly be killed, for "he must have surmised that God would raise him from the dead." (Heb 11:19) Which mitigates our horror at potential infanticide in this unique case, because Abraham may be thinking something like: "in this special case, my God, who loves life and hates murder, has tested my loyalty to him and my confidence in the certainty of his promises, by asking me to kill the very vehicle of those promises. So my God, who loves life and who is faithful to his promises, will make my sacrifice null and void somehow, someway. I trust him, so I will do this, as an act of obedience, believing that God doesn't need or want Isaac dead, he wants my heart of devotion, and thus he'll reverse this hideous thing.”

4. "God killed all the firstborn children in an entire country."

When someone dies because of an "act of God" this really can't go on the pile of "the disturbing way the Bible talks about kids." The judgment on the firstborn was directly an act of God and as our Creator, this is his right to do. He gives life, he has the right to take it. Especially because from God's perspective, he knows our earthly lives and bodies are temporal.

In this way, God doesn't actually KILL anyone, because the human spirit cannot be killed. God knows this. SO when he “kills” the firstborn children of the Egyptians, what he’s really doing is taking them. Or should we say, transporting them, from one dimension of existence to another. From our temporal perspective, murder is wrong because we END the lives we kill. And we didn’t give that life so it’s not ours to take. God on the other hand cannot murder anyone, since his perspective is eternal, and he doesn't end our existence when he chooses to end our earthly lives.

The fact that he took the lives of these children as children is a tragedy for the parents (it was MEANT to be!) certainly, but again, from God's perspective this might have been a grace to the children. How so? If they grew up in that hideous culture of evil, they would surely grow up outside his grace and would therefore come under his judgment and then wind up suffering eternally, instead of momentarily.

5. "God kills children for misbehaving."

There is some unfortunate translation work in this passage in the KJV. The Hebrew should more accurately be rendered "young men" rather than "little children" Same phrase is used of Joseph when was 17 and of others up to the age of 30! Also, the reason for the curse is not the "baldhead" comment. Baldness was extremely rare in the ancient near east and it was used as a term of utter contempt. Like we might call someone a "Retard" regardless of their mental state. In this case, as they disagreed with Elisha's message, the name calling would be really more about the God who gave the message than the Prophet. But it's the other part of their repeated taunt: "go on up" that's the key to understanding this. That was a reference to Elijah (Elisha's mentor) who had just been taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire. Evidently that event had become well known and the mob of youths was basically jeering at the man of God saying, "Blast off! Blast off! You go too, get out of here, we're tired of both of you and your messages from God." These are not a couple innocent children condemned for good-natured teasing. This is closer to a mob of youths who are indicative of a sick culture in rebellion against God. (see Lev 26:21-22) And so it is God who takes them, (not Elisha) so again the problem does not go back to "the bible's barbaric attitude toward children" but rather "does God have a right to take life" (especially non-innocent, condemned lives) that he himself grants? Answer: Yes.

6. Someday God will force parents eat their own children.

These verses are a powerful prediction of what would happen if God’s people rebelled against him. And amazingly, this exact thing did happen about 700 years after these word were given, at the siege of Samaria. The writer totally misrepresents these predictions as God forcing parents to “eat their children.” As if the parents are tied to a post and God is cutting their children up and force feeding them to a screaming mom and dad. Uh, no.

What happened in direct fulfillment to these prophetic statements is that when God's people rebelled so far from him that there was no return, he sent the Assyrians to conquer the land (2 Kings 18:9). When they laid siege to the Israeli capital, the food became so scarce that these wicked parents turned on their own children, cooked them and ate them to survive. God forced no one to do this. They did it, in fulfillment of what God said would happen IF his people turned from him.

7. And then there's this statement, which could only be found in the Bible:

As if to say, the Bible is the only place to find harsh sentiment about children. This person hasn't read very broadly. See my point above about the actual impact of the Bible on cultural attitudes about childhood.

Of course, these "imprecatory psalms" are very difficult, but as hard as this sentiment is to read, it does not carry the weight of God's endorsement of infanticide. It's a heart cry for God's vengeance on the wicked. Many of these are in the blustery, expansive, hyperbolic language of the Middle East. But this has nothing to say about childhood, nor does it carry some implicit endorsement of infanticide with it.

One further note: CS Lewis saw this passage through the lens of all Scripture's context of spiritual battle of good versus evil. So the subtext behind all Scripture is that the evil of our world is backed by demonic powers of evil. Taking this passage in that context of spiritual warfare then, he saw metaphorically the wicked angels have "little ones" - their ideas, their temptations, their whispered lies, which are so innocent looking and sweet. But, the Bible warns, when temptation has "given birth" to sin it leads to death. So happy is the man who sees this deception, sees those little, lovely cherubs - and the only right thing to do is to smash the little buggers for they are from the pit of hell!

Why the longer purification period for girls than boys in Lev 12?

Question:

In Leviticus 12 a women must be purified for 8 days then 33 more days for the birth of a boy and then double those numbers if she gives birth to a girl............why the difference?

Answer:

This one has scholars a bit stumped. The first assumption of some scholars was that because the period of time was about purification for uncleanness, the longer waiting period indicated a greater uncleanness in the thing that defiled you. Thus this longer purification period meant that girls made you twice as "dirty" as boys. They assumed this was about women’s inferior status in Hebrew society.

However, this view has mostly been rejected today because of it`s inconsistencies with everything else in Mosaic law. For example, touching a dead human defiles you for 7 days more than touching a dead pig! (Lev 11:31 vs Num 19:11). So clearly, the length of purification had nothing to do with the inherent "worth" or lack of worth of what defiles you. And the fact that both women and men get to offer sacrifices, and were subject to exactly the same penalties for uncleanness as men (chp 15) shows a remarkable equality of worth and value in ancient Israel for men and women – far more than the surrounding nations, for sure.

So what is the answer? Some possibilities:

1. It`s a refection of Eve`s role in the fall. This view ties itself to 1 Tim 2:15-17 for support, but there`s no connection made to Eve in Leviticus at all. A similar view refers to apocryphal Jewish writings that had Adam entering in the Garden of Eden on week one and Eve after two weeks - and thus girls had to be quarantined longer... But both these views suffer from being too speculative and reading later material back into an older work...

2. It`s a reflection of medical views current at the time... For example, it might have been assumed that the birth of a girl was commonly believed to be accompanied by more complications than a boy, and/or that the vaginal discharge was greater or lasted longer for girls than boys. That would fit with the fact that usually uncleanness is related to the touching of blood (Lev 15:25). It`s not birth that makes you unclean, after all, it`s the blood involved in the birthing process.

3. It`s a refection of the anticipation of the baby girl`s future role as a mother. Meaning? Well, motherhood was so critical and valuable in those days that they would look at the birth of a daughter as involving TWO mothers - the one giving birth, and the one being born. Thus because two women (who are generators of uncleanness by their menstrual cycles AND their birthing role) are involved in the birth of a girl, the period of purification had to be twice as long.

4. Another view is that male children`s purification is shorter because of circumcision. They bleed only once in their life, on day eight, and are thus more formally included in the covenant community and come under God`s grace more explicitly, therefore, their purification is half as long as that of girls who are not circumcised.

No one knows for sure why the double waiting period for girls... but I think the 3rd view is the strongest or perhaps some combination with the 2nd and 4th. Without a reason stated in the text we are left to speculate. However, behind all of these purification laws, despite their confusing details, is something amazing: Here is God commanding fastidious washing for his people 3500 years before we found out how much disease is spread through micro organisms found in blood and unclean conditions... that’s pretty cool!

Does 1 Corinthians 7:36 justify premarital sex for Christians?

Question:

I have a Christian friend who’s rendition of 1 Cor 7:36 roughly comes to "if a man is sleeping with his committed girlfriend/fiancé, they are of age, and need to, let him do the things he wants to with her (have sex), it isn`t sinful: let them be considered married." Does that interpretation have any merit?

Answer:

Thanks for the note. Glad you’re interacting with your friend on this, but I do think he’s very wrong about Paul in 1 Cor 7.

First problem in using 1 Corinthians 7:36 to justify anything, especially a very contentious idea (essentially he’s saying premarital sex equals marriage) is that this verse is notoriously difficult for Christians to understand/translate/interpret for just the 2000 years. It might not be expected of the average Christian to know this about this particular verse, but taking up just 4 or 5 different translations will show that the language here is far from clear. So making a bold statement about Christian sexual practise based on this one verse is ill advised out of the gate. The broad scope of possible meanings is shown in this sampling of translations:

NIV: If anyone thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if she is getting along in years and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married.

KJV: But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry.

ASV: But if any man thinketh that he behaveth himself unseemly toward his virgin (daughter), if she be past the flower of her age, and if need so requireth, let him do what he will; he sinneth not; let them marry.

Darby: But if anyone think that he behaves unseemly to his virginity, if he be beyond the flower of his age, and so it must be, let him do what he will, he does not sin: let them marry.

God’s Word: No father would want to do the wrong thing when his virgin daughter is old enough to get married. If she wants to get married, he isn't sinning by letting her get married.

NLT: But if a man thinks that he's treating his fiancée improperly and will inevitably give in to his passion, let him marry her as he wishes. It is not a sin.

The key to understanding this is understanding three Greek phrases, translated “his virgin” and “past the bloom/flower” along with “needs require”. As you could see from the above translations, “his virgin” could have THREE possible meanings.

- It could refer to a man's daughter.

- It could refer to a man’s fiancé or

- It could refer to man’s own virginity. (Side note: when translations say “she” is “past bloom”, the gender is inferred from “virgin”, there is no gender assigned in the Greek. So it could be “his” virginity.)

Let’s look at the strength of each these interpretations: Darby sees this verse as a natural follow up to Paul’s whole conversation in chapter 7 about virginity where he promotes celibacy. This verse then, would be the “application portion” of that whole argument. So, if a man finds he is violating his own virginity (IE. experiencing the ‘burning with passion” Paul mentions 7:9) and he’s getting along in years, the man is free to marry.

This is probably weakest of the three because the possessive of virgin is almost never attached to one’s own virginity but to a person, usually (but not always) a woman whom you, in some sense, possess.

So the second idea is that “his virgin” is his fiancé. This is how most modern translations see it and your friend would agree. This is probably stronger than the first view, weaker than the last view. But even in this view, your Christian buddy has inserted two ideas that aren’t in the text and have never been inferred by any translators or commentators that I’ve read, ever. His assumptions are

- that behaving improperly means “having sex with” and

- that “let them marry” means “let them be considered married.”


Three things militate against this view. One is the question of why Paul would call premarital sex "behaving improperly" and then turn around and tell those engaging in it, "let them do as they please." This is very perplexing.

Two, is that the "behaving improperly" is connected to the “past bloom” in some way. The way early Christians did engagement” was through arranged marriages. Moderns assume that cohabitation was an option back then, but it was almost unheard of. Why? Because a man sleeping with a woman was always sleeping with someone else’s property. So no one willy nilly “shacked up” – a father wouldn’t allow it. It wasn’t just dishonorable, it was economically disastrous – unless he was paying for those services through prostitution. Yes, it was not unheard of (see John 4) but very rare, usually with widows (which precludes 'virgins' obviously).

So most men would be engaged to a woman, selected by their parents, sometimes for years ahead of matrimony. This implies that the “past bloom” comment is connected to not treating her marriage rights correctly, rather than “having sex” with her. The man in question is delaying marriage (because of Paul’s encouragement of celibacy) but he finds that his fiancé is getting older and “needs require” he do something. Again, why? Because she (or he) is not fit or suited for single life.

Therefore it needs to be said by Paul to such a man – you can go ahead and take her freely as your wife. Get married, it’s not a sin. The verb tense in Greek will not allow, “let them be considered married”. The context makes this obvious. He’s considering what a man WILL do, not renaming what someone has already done.

Third, your Friend has not understood other Scripture. There is no state of cohabitation that Paul ever endorsed as lawful sex. Widows were perhaps cohabitating with renegade elders in Ephesus (see 1 Timothy) and there he doesn’t say, “let them be considered married” if they want to make it right. He considers them fornicators, and calls them to repent, “settle down and get married” (1 Tim 5:14). The only other cohabitating we know of was the one that came under discipline when a man simply took his father’s wife (I Cor 5). If the marriage arrangement was so slippery to Paul that we could wave our wands over any two fornicators at will and say, voila, “married!”, then why not say that about the man who took his father’s wife and avoid the scandal? (We incorrectly assume that the scandal was that the father was still alive, in all likelihood he was not.)

After all is said and done, there's a strong case to be made that this isn't even about a man and his fiancé. It’s might be about a parent and “his virgin” which would be a daughter still under a father's authority. There's much to commend this view, since it takes historical context and all the language here into account. If a reference to a parent, the “behaving improperly” makes clear sense attached to “past bloom”. This would mean a Christian father has heard Paul extoll the benefits of celibacy, but the father knows this isn’t “proper” for his daughter. And seeing that she is moving past marrying age, this requires him to make a decision. And Paul then grants such a parent the freedom to do as he sees fit: Give her in marriage, let her be married to her affianced, despite the benefits of the single life.

Most early commentators saw this as the obvious meaning (Paul had talked to singles, marrieds and divorced, it makes sense that he apply his message to one final group: Parents!) As one example, this is John Calvin on this passage:

But if any one thinketh that it were unseemly for his virgin. He now directs his discourse to parents, who had children under their authority. For having heard the praises of celibacy, and having heard also of the inconveniences of matrimony, they might be in doubt, whether it were at all a kind thing to involve their children in so many miseries, lest it should seem as if they were to blame for the troubles that might befall them. For the greater their attachment to their children, so much the more anxiously do they exercise fear and caution on their account. [439] Paul, then, with the view of relieving them from this difficulty, teaches that it is their duty to consult their advantage, exactly as one would do for himself when at his own disposal. [440] Now he still keeps up the distinction, which he has made use of all along, so as to commend celibacy, but, at the same time, to leave marriage as a matter of choice; and not simply a matter of choice, but a needful remedy for incontinency, which ought not to be denied to anyone. In the first part of the statement he speaks as to the giving of daughters in marriage, and he declares that those do not sin in giving away their daughters in marriage, who are of opinion that an unmarried life is not suitable for them.

In all likelihood then, this isn’t even about engaged couples at all, but about fathers and daughters and reflects the authority in 1st century culture that father’s had over “their virgin daughters” until marriage and the responsibility they took in seeing them well wed in that culture – in conjunction with Paul’s encouragement of singleness. In any event “do has he please” cannot be referring to two unwed people continuing to sleep together and have it ‘considered’ marriage. This is a pretty blatant example of reading into the text what you want it to say, instead of letting it speak for itself.

How Did Jesus become aware of his Divinity?

Question:

At what point was Jesus “aware” of his divinity? Now I mean that as, was he always aware of himself and from the time he was born was he just waiting for his body to catch up with his mind? Or was his divinity something that someone would have had to tell him early in his life, prior to the accounts of him when he is 12 at Passover.

Answer:

You ask an interesting question and one that has set Christian pens ablaze in speculation over the years. As you state, there's almost nothing we know of Jesus early life before he started his ministry, and so into that gap in our knowledge, people have inserted some amazing mythology and speculation. Some early Christian works (2nd Century), have stories of the boy Jesus making birds out of clay, striking other children dead and raising them again. Clearly these writers thought Jesus was aware of his divinity right away, and not afraid to use his powers like we might imagine a kid would act if given superman's abilities.

But what do we actually know from the more sober, earliest sources? The account in Luke says the boy Jesus, "grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him." (Luke 2:20). Later, after the incident in the Temple you mention, Luke again says, "as he grew up, he increased in wisdom, and in favor with God and people." (2:52). Clearly, if Jesus is growing in wisdom, his upbringing is much like a normal child in the growing awareness of people, things, limits, language, and knowledge. He did not come out of the womb with the Scripture (which he had, in one sense, inspired) all memorized, for example. He had to learn to walk and talk and read.

The most startling thing about him would not have been his supernatural powers (which no reliable source says he ever used until he was 30), it would have been his moral perfection. Anyone who has raised a 2 year old knows how astounding it would be to have a sinless child! Imagine a child perfectly compliant once a rule or moral limit had been absorbed. We know that some teaching would have been needed - for the baby Jesus was fully human. He did not come out of the womb knowing not to use sharp knives, or stand on tables. He likely scraped his knee and felt all the pain of learning. But it must have startled everyone to have a boy who was curious, but had no innate rebellious streak, was a survivor, but had no desire to impose his will was self assured without an inherent violent urge or anger.

When he is twelve, he stays behind at the Temple, and his parents, worried, lose him for 3 days. Luke alludes to the fact that by this time, he knows that he is the Son of God, when he responds to his parents, “did you not know I had to be in my Father’s House?”. In fact, his response baffles his parents (2:50). Surely, his “father's” house (Joseph) was in Nazareth! But Jesus said it was really in Jerusalem - showing a self understanding of his intimate tie to God. While his parents likely told him about angels and prophesy surrounding his birth, and infused a belief in his specialness early on, they could not fathom that their son was indeed FULLY God

So I think the evidence shows that Jesus awareness of his full Sonship grew as he grew. it may not even have been complete until his baptism and it required the voice from heaven in that moment (3:22) to fully convince/remind Jesus of his true identity and preexistence. We know that he went from this stirring moment directly to temptation which surprisingly focused on questioning this one thing: are you REALLY God's Son? Perhaps it was because Satan knew that having been made fully aware of his true Self, Jesus only now was the preeminent threat to his hold on the earth, and not before. All we can be sure of is that from that moment of baptism and temptation, Jesus walked forward with an unshakable conviction that he was “one with the Father” - a belief he carried through the horror of abandonment in Gethsemane and the cross until he was vindicated resurrection Sunday.

I recommend you read Anne Rice's book (yes the former erotic horror writer, turned committed Christian recently), Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt - which is some very fine historical fiction. She writes about that tantalizing gap in our knowledge, Jesus early years, using Scripture and extra biblical sources, and she focuses on this very question of when he knew his Identity. This is of course, speculative, and a bit audacious as she writes in the first person from inside Jesus' mind – but I think it's the most sober and reasonable guess out there as to the inner journey of Jesus as he discovers he is in fact, the Christ.

What happens to Christians when they die?

Question:

When a Christian dies where does he or she go right away? Does a Christian go to heaven right away and see Jesus, or does a Christian go to sleep for while and not go to heaven until the end, with everyone else who is a Christian?

Answer:

Please check out the article at the end of this response from Bishop NT Wright, from England. I think he nicely addresses a common misunderstanding that the thing Christians are looking for is a disembodied heaven that we come into right after death.

Rather, he says, the real deal is the life AFTER life after death. That is, the resurrection of the death on the restored earth, AKA the new heavens and the new earth (Rev 21:1,2 – notice the city of God comes DOWN – the dwelling of God will be with men, literally heaven ON earth). The great hope for NT believers was not heaven, harps and clouds and all that. The great hope was Jesus appearing, his saints coming WITH him, TO EARTH to establish his reign and rule here and we, with new and resurrected bodies, as his coregents; not disembodied, not harps on clouds etc and NOT directly after death.

Now, those that die in Christ are assured to be WITH Christ (Phil 1:23,24; 2 Cor 5:8), but they “sleep” until they come with him in glory (1 Thess 4:14-17 ) resurrected, embodied, coregents with the Master over a restored earth where all the promises to the Prophets about Israel come to pass.

Wright believes this “soul sleep” (so called by many theologians) is conscious and I think he’s probably right. There seems to be a conscious relationship implied, even when Jesus says to the thief on the cross, “you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). But again, Paradise, is not the new heavens and new earth – a different meaning should be understood from Jesus use of that word rather than ‘heaven’. In fact, the thief himself is thinking of the future restoration when he asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. Jesus death brings this hope directly into the present (“today”) but that doesn’t mean there won’t still be a final consummation as the thief understood. This Paradise I think is what Paul refers to, being apart from the body but still with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8). This is also what Jesus is referring to in John 14 when he speaks of “many rooms” in my Father’s house

So, this state of “soul sleep” is not final but intermediate. If we’re not conscious during it, some speculate that we may “wake” at the moment of Christ’s appearing, the moment of our resurrection from the dead. The idea of sleeping for hundreds or thousands of years may seem like a bore – but anything happening in the heavenly realms is surely not bound by the same rules as our time/space reality where the clocks slowly ticks by. Either way, it’s a preferable estate to Paul to a fallen world (Phil 1:23), but not as great as the great appearing (Titus 2:13).

What we must not do, is to allow our vision of afterlife to be more influenced by Greek thinking than by Jewish thinking. The Greeks were into a spiritual heaven that they thought was better than a banal, ugly, corrupt and inherently evil physical creation. But the Jews were creation-friendly folks who thought God made the world “good” – they were looking for the restoration, not the annihilation of earth. So we must read the NT first through the lenses of the Prophets who constantly envision a restored earth ruled by Messiah (Isa 11:2-9) and that all flesh would be raised from the dead (Dan 12:2).

Then we put our hope where it ought to be – and as a side note, Wright says, this biblical understanding breaks down the unhealthy wall we erect between the spiritual and physical aspects of our Gospel work. Whether we are feeding the poor, stewarding the earth, healing the sick, or preaching good news of forgiveness to the guilty, ALL of these activities are participation in God’s plan, begun in earnest with the “Firstborn from the dead” Who will one day bring ALL creation under His redemptive rule at the restoration of all things.

Heaven Is Not Our Home

The bodily resurrection is the good news of the gospel—and thus our social and political mandate.

N. T. Wright | posted 3/24/2008 08:57AM

There is no agreement in the church today about what happens to people when they die. Yet the New Testament is crystal clear on the matter: In a classic passage, Paul speaks of "the redemption of our bodies" (Rom. 8:23). There is no room for doubt as to what he means: God's people are promised a new type of bodily existence, the fulfillment and redemption of our present bodily life. The rest of the early Christian writings, where they address the subject, are completely in tune with this.

The traditional picture of people going to either heaven or hell as a one-stage, postmortem journey represents a serious distortion and diminution of the Christian hope. Bodily resurrection is not just one odd bit of that hope. It is the element that gives shape and meaning to the rest of the story of God's ultimate purposes. If we squeeze it to the margins, as many have done by implication, or indeed, if we leave it out altogether, as some have done quite explicitly, we don't just lose an extra feature, like buying a car that happens not to have electrically operated mirrors. We lose the central engine, which drives it and gives every other component its reason for working.

When we talk with biblical precision about the resurrection, we discover an excellent foundation for lively and creative Christian work in the present world—not, as some suppose, for an escapist or quietist piety.

Bodily Resurrection

While both Greco-Roman paganism and Second Temple Judaism held a wide variety of beliefs about life beyond death, the early Christians, beginning with Paul, were remarkably unanimous on the topic.

When Paul speaks in Philippians 3 of being "citizens of heaven," he doesn't mean that we shall retire there when we have finished our work here. He says in the next line that Jesus will come from heaven in order to transform the present humble body into a glorious body like his own. Jesus will do this by the power through which he makes all things subject to himself. This little statement contains in a nutshell more or less all Paul's thought on the subject. The risen Jesus is both the model for the Christian's future body and the means by which it comes.

Similarly, in Colossians 3:1–4, Paul says that when the Messiah (the one "who is your life") appears, then you too will appear with him in glory. Paul does not say "one day you will go to be with him." No, you already possess life in him. This new life, which the Christian possesses secretly, invisible to the world, will burst forth into full bodily reality and visibility.

The clearest and strongest passage is Romans 8:9–11. If the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus the Messiah, dwells in you, says Paul, then the one who raised the Messiah from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies as well, through his Spirit who dwells in you. God will give life, not to a disembodied spirit, not to what many people have thought of as a spiritual body in the sense of a nonphysical one, but "to your mortal bodies also."

Other New Testament writers support this view. The first letter of John declares that when Jesus appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. The resurrection body of Jesus, which at the moment is almost unimaginable to us in its glory and power, will be the model for our own. And of course within John's gospel, despite the puzzlement of those who want to read the book in a very different way, we have some of the clearest statements of future bodily resurrection. Jesus reaffirms the widespread Jewish expectation of resurrection in the last day, and announces that the hour for this has already arrived. It is quite explicit: "The hour is coming," he says, "indeed, it is already here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Man, and those who hear will live; when all in the graves will come out, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."

Life After Life After Death

Here we must discuss what Jesus means when he declares that there are "many dwelling places" in his Father's house. This has regularly been taken, not least when used in the context of bereavement, to mean that the dead (or at least dead Christians) will simply go to heaven permanently rather than being raised again subsequently to new bodily life. But the word for "dwelling places" here, monai, is regularly used in ancient Greek not for a final resting place, but for a temporary halt on a journey that will take you somewhere else in the long run.

This fits closely with Jesus' words to the dying brigand in Luke: "Today you will be with me in paradise." Despite a long tradition of misreading, paradise here means not a final destination but the blissful garden, the parkland of rest and tranquility, where the dead are refreshed as they await the dawn of the new day. The main point of the sentence lies in the apparent contrast between the brigand's request and Jesus' reply: "Remember me," he says, "when you come in your kingdom," implying that this will be at some far distant future. Jesus' answer brings this future hope into the present, implying of course that with his death the kingdom is indeed coming, even though it doesn't look like what anyone had imagined: "Today you will be with me in paradise." There will, of course, still be a future completion involving ultimate resurrection; Luke's overall theological understanding leaves no doubt on that score. Jesus, after all, didn't rise again "today," that is, on Good Friday. Luke must have understood him to be referring to a state of being-in-paradise. With Jesus, the future hope has come forward into the present. For those who die in faith, before that final reawakening, the central promise is of being "with Jesus" at once. "My desire is to depart," wrote Paul, "and be with Christ, which is far better."

Resurrection itself then appears as what the word always meant in the ancient world. It wasn't a way of talking about life after death. It was a way of talking about a new bodily life after whatever state of existence one might enter immediately upon death. It was, in other words, life after life after death.

What then about such passages as 1 Peter 1, which speaks of a salvation that is "kept in heaven for you" so that in your present believing you are receiving "the salvation of your souls"? Here, I suggest, the automatic assumption of Western Christianity leads us badly astray. Most Christians today, reading a passage like this, assume that it means that heaven is where you go to receive this salvation—or even that salvation consists in "going to heaven when you die." The way we now understand that language in the Western world is totally different from what Jesus and his hearers meant and understood.

For a start, heaven is actually a reverent way of speaking about God, so that "riches in heaven" simply means "riches in God's presence." But then, by derivation from this primary meaning, heaven is the place where God's purposes for the future are stored up. It isn't where they are meant to stay so that one would need to go to heaven to enjoy them. It is where they are kept safe against the day when they will become a reality on earth. God's future inheritance, the incorruptible new world and the new bodies that are to inhabit that world, are already kept safe, waiting for us, so that they can be brought to birth in the new heavens and new earth.

From Worship to Mission

The mission of the church is nothing more or less than the outworking, in the power of the Spirit, of Jesus' bodily resurrection. It is the anticipation of the time when God will fill the earth with his glory, transform the old heavens and earth into the new, and raise his children from the dead to populate and rule over the redeemed world he has made.

If that is so, mission must urgently recover from its long-term schizophrenia. The split between saving souls and doing good in the world is not a product of the Bible or the gospel, but of the cultural captivity of both. The world of space, time, and matter is where real people live, where real communities happen, where difficult decisions are made, where schools and hospitals bear witness to the "now, already" of the gospel while police and prisons bear witness to the "not yet." The world of space, time, and matter is where parliaments, city councils, neighborhood watch groups, and everything in between are set up and run for the benefit of the wider community, the community where anarchy means that bullies (economic and social as well as physical) will always win, where the weak and vulnerable will always need protecting, and where the social and political structures of society are part of the Creator's design.

And the church that is renewed by the message of Jesus' resurrection must be the church that goes to work precisely in that space, time, and matter. The church claims this world in advance as the place of God's kingdom, of Jesus' lordship, and of the Spirit's power. Councils and parliaments can and often do act wisely, though they will always need scrutiny and accountability, because they in turn may become agents of bullying and corruption.

Thus the church that takes sacred space seriously (not as a retreat from the world but as a bridgehead into it) will go straight from worshiping in the sanctuary to debating in the council chamber; to discussing matters of town planning, of harmonizing and humanizing beauty in architecture, green spaces, and road traffic schemes; and to environmental work, creative and healthy farming methods, and proper use of resources. If it is true, as I have argued, that the whole world is now God's holy land, we must not rest as long as that land is spoiled and defaced. This is not an extra to the church's mission. It is central.

The church that takes seriously the fact that Jesus is Lord of all will not just celebrate quietly every time we write the date on a letter or document, will not just set aside Sunday as far as humanly and socially possible as a celebration of God's new creation, will not just seek to order its own life in an appropriate rhythm of worship and work. Such a church will also seek to bring wisdom to the rhythms of work in offices and shops, in local government, in civic holidays, and in the shaping of public life. These things cannot be taken for granted. The enormous shifts during my lifetime, from the whole town observing Good Friday and Easter, to those great days being simply more occasions for football matches and yet more televised reruns of old movies, are indices of what happens when a society loses its roots and drifts with prevailing social currents. The reclaiming of time as God's good gift (as opposed to time as simply a commodity to be spent for one's own benefit, which often means fresh forms of slavery for others) is not an extra to the church's mission. It is central.

Whatever is Holy

One of the things I most enjoy about being a bishop is watching ordinary Christians (not that there are any "ordinary" Christians, but you know what I mean) going straight from worshiping Jesus in church to making a radical difference in the material lives of people down the street by running playgroups for children of single working moms; by organizing credit unions to help people at the bottom of the financial ladder find their way to responsible solvency; by campaigning for better housing, against dangerous roads, for drug rehab centers, for wise laws relating to alcohol, for decent library and sporting facilities, for a thousand other things in which God's sovereign rule extends to hard, concrete reality. Once again, all this is not an extra to the mission of the church. It is central.

This way of coming at the tasks of the church in terms of space, time, and matter leads directly to evangelism. When the church is seen to move straight from worship of God to affecting much-needed change in the world; when it becomes clear that the people who feast at Jesus' table are the ones at the forefront of work to eliminate hunger and famine; when people realize that those who pray for the Spirit to work in and through them are the people who seem to have extra resources of love and patience in caring for those whose lives are damaged, bruised, and shamed—then it is natural for people to recognize that something is going on that they want to be part of.

No single individual can attempt more than a fraction of this mission. That's why mission is the work of the whole church, the whole time. Paul's advice to the Philippians—even though he and they knew they were suffering for their faith and might be tempted to retreat from the world into a dualistic, sectarian mentality—was upbeat. "These are the things you should think through," he wrote: "whatever is true, whatever is holy, whatever is upright, whatever is pure, whatever is attractive, whatever has a good reputation; anything virtuous, anything praiseworthy." And in thinking through these things, we will discover more and more about the same Creator God whom we know in and through Jesus Christ and will be better equipped to work effectively not over against the world, but with the grain of all goodwill, of all that seeks to bring and enhance life.

What`s Your Take on this CS Lewis quote about the soul?

Question:

Hi Rick. I was looking up a quote often credited to CS Lewis...the one that reads, "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." But upon a Google search, I found this link: thomasthurman.org/body It states that the quote is a slightly altered version of one found in the noted book. It then goes on to state that such a quote doesn't align with Scripture for the reasons stated within the link. What's your take on this? More-so the non-Biblical assertion?

Answer:

Thanks for your question about Lewis. Yes, it appears that the quote (from what i can determine) is not authentic Lewis. The clever couplet sounds like Lewis, which is how the attribution must have started. However, the slight change was also necessary to make it sound "Lewisian" because it required a change to sound genuinely orthodox - which Lewis was.

The change I'm referring to is that in the popular version attributed to Lewis, it leaves out the one word: "temporarily." This appears to be the original quote:

Abbot Zerchi smiled thinly. You don't have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.

The theological problem with the quote in this version, is that Christians have always believed in resurrection. Not just a metaphorical resurrection of the soul into a heavenly existence, either. No, the surprising facet of Christian teaching about eschatology (the study of "last things") is that we believe that there will be a resurrection of the body. In fact, Jesus' own experience of being raised physically from the dead was taught over and over again by the early church as the model and harbinger of the fate of everyone who dies in him. (Romans 6:4,5; Act 23:6; 24:15)

So the website is correct to note that the quote as it was ORIGINALLY written by Walter Miller in Canticle for Liebowitz is not technically orthodox, for with the one word "temporarily" it posits a view of the afterlife where we die and the flesh is permanently left and we go to a disembodied heaven where we float as incorporeal spirits or mists forever. This is NOT the Christian hope.

The Christian hope is that when we die, we may go to "be with the Lord" but that this is only intermediate. In the end, the Lord will go to be with us! That intermediate state of "sleep" in the Lord, is what is temporary, Scripture teaches. What is permanent is the restoration of the earth, when the "sons of God" will be revealed in glorious new resurrection bodies, enfleshed as before, but now, incorruptible. See 1 Cor 15). So the website is correct - the quote with the word "temporarily" undermines or denies the hope of the resurrection of the body.See this post for a full response on what happens to Christians after death:

http://ac3askanything.blogspot.com/2015/04/what-happens-to-christians-when-they-die.html

However, if we delete the word "temporarily" from the quote, it then reflects the truth that our essential self, is not material, but rather immaterial. When we think we HAVE a soul, but we ARE a body, we begin to slide into the view of naturalism, which reduces our whole being to the physical. In this view, we are chemical reactions and atoms - that is what we are ESSENTIALLY - and if we have a soul, it only emerges out of this biology, it is not independent of it. Thus the quote (modified and attributed to Lewis) helpfully contradicts this thinking. Your primary self is NOT physical, but immaterial, spiritual and non-corporeal.

This essential, spiritual self is attached to a body, and operates in one (and will again after death in a NEW body), just as information is attached to ink and paper or to tiny lights on an LED screen. But the screen or the paper is not what is primary. They are secondary. The INFORMATION is primary. However, the information always requires a vehicle of transmission - and just like that, Jesus taught that God's design is that the human soul be permanently carried in a body.

To the extent that the modified quote gets us to see that our essential self transcends our biology, and the atoms and chemicals that make up our body, it is a helpful corrective to the pull of naturalistic philosophy. When you add the word "temporarily" however, the quote slides a bit into Greek dualism, denies the essential goodness of the created physical world and sees the ideal future as a place where the earth (and bodies) are destroyed - whereas Christian orthodoxy sees the ideal future as a place where the earth and bodies are restored.

Compare Catholic and Protestant exorcism

Question:

What are some key differences in the way the protestant church performs exorcisms compared the catholic rituals? Is their way right or wrong in some ways?

Answer:

The key difference is in the level of ritual and pre-scripted liturgy which defines the Catholic rite, and a much less formal and unscripted nature of Protestant exorcism. There is much that is similar in how Protestants and Catholics go about exorcising a demon once a person has been identified as being “demonized” (a better word than “possessed” to translate the Biblical term, ‘diamonidzomia’). Both use scripture, both (often) call for the demon to identify itself (though many Protestants feel the less interaction with the demon the better), both command the demon directly by the name and authority of Christ to depart the afflicted person. Both often call for the preparation of the Exorcist in times of confession and prayer and sometimes fasting (Mark 9:29, see footnote). Both usually encourage the Exorcist to have an assistant or helpers present to establish the power of Christ in the gathered church at the time of prayer (Matthew 18:20).

The Catholic rite has been defined by the Roman Church over time and involves invocations, prayers, creeds and responsive readings. You can find an example of the elaborate and lengthy rite online here:

http://www.catholicdoors.com/prayers/english/p01975b.htm

The strength of the Catholic rite is that by it’s ritual it diminishes any sense in the Exorcist that they work under their own power or authority. Their total dependence on the power of Christ is explicitly stated in the given formula, and by the very act of repeating a formula, the Exorcist doesn’t put any stock in his own eloquence or special ability to make a devil comply. But this is also it's weakness, since a formula may also mean that a person may think the script is magical somehow, and the Exorcist may be challenging Satan directly when they have no personal relationship with Christ, and thus are not functioning with the indwelling Spirit as their power and authority. The Bible tells of a time when someone reduced exorcism to a simple formula of “the right words” but without personal power through Christ, the results were disastrous. (Acts 19:13-16)

Having read the Catholic rite I would add that most of it’s scripted prayers are beautiful, and biblical, relying on the authority of Christ and not the worthiness of the pray-er. For example:

I command you, unclean spirit, whoever you are, along with all your minions now attacking this servant of God, by the mysteries of the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the descent of the Holy Spirit, by the coming of our Lord for judgment, that you tell me by some sign your name, and the day and hour of your departure. I command you, moreover, to obey me to the letter, I who am a minister of God despite my unworthiness; nor shall you be emboldened to harm in any way this creature of God, or the bystanders, or any of their possessions.

The only real problem I would have with any of this is that some of the prayers contain what I see as inherently problematic in all Catholic theology and that is a dependence on the power, merit, and authority of Mary, the Apostles and dead Saints. Christ drove out demons by his Word alone, and Christ's name was enough authority for his Apostles, surely it should be enough for all who are priests in His Kingdom.

There is no standard Protestant formula, which again is a strength and weakness. The strength is that a person praying for a demonized individual must not think that “magic words” make the devil comply. The devil is subordinate to Christ alone – who defeated him in a great and mysterious victory on the cross (Col 2:15). He is not subordinate to you or I, EXCEPT as we are IN Christ by faith and are clothed by Christ (Gal 3:27) and have his mind and authority (1 Cor 2:13) as his Priests (1 Peter 2:9) by that same trusting, humble dependence.

So even though Christ’s power is the important thing, the state of the Exorcist’s faith matters deeply. The very nature of demonic activity implies that spiritual warfare is real, and is just that: warfare! While God is almighty, his servants do still experience loss and resistance from a real enemy who can win battles (1 Thess 2:18). Thus, the equipping of the solider, (Eph 6:10-18: His faith in Christ, his love of Truth, his borrowed righteousness, his soul being saved, his love for the Gospel, his handling of God’s Word) is critical for him to stand in any fight with the Enemy.

Therefore, the weakness of the Protestant approach is that with such an emphasis on the believers authority, an ill-equipped but emboldened Saint may tackle a devil head on and not succeed in driving it out. This even happened to Christ’s Apostles (Mark 9:28), thus it will and does happen to modern saints as well. They pray in the authority of a Christ they themselves are not fully subordinate to, and thus they do not carry his authority and there is no lasting effect from their ministry.

Some find fault with the call to repeat the Catholic formula if there is no result, and this also has a Protestant version whereby the pray-ers increase their emotional/spiritual intensity during the exorcism if it’s “not working” (getting louder, praying in tongues etc). They see this as frenetic, human attempts to manufacture power, instead of a simple dependence on Christ. It may be that in many cases, however, I don’t see inherent fault in having to repeat exorcisms or for them being drawn out affairs. We all want such healing work to be permanent, effective and simple, but let us remember we are not dealing with Computer Viruses! These are powerful, willful, personal spiritual agents – who also are evil. Again, this is warfare, not charades. Jesus himself said a healing work could be effective only to need repeating – there are free wills involved here, that of the victim, and the demon(s) (Matthew 12:43-45). God has chosen not to usurp these, thus he chooses to work with the faith not only of the Exorcist, but also the victim, whether Catholic or Protestant.

Does being Christian and gay require Celibacy?

Question:

I appreciate your teaching on homosexuality - walking a line I often can`t always articulate or even fully grasp in the Tug of War with Biblical Truth and modern culture. I still struggle with asking anyone to remain celibate. It`s a lot to ask. For now, I for one am just grateful to acquire more real people in my life who are lesbians and gay so the whole thing can be taken out of theory into Love in action.

Answer:

This is such a difficult discussion for many, myself included, as we all have gay friends, and gayness is front page news every day. This is doubly difficult when loved ones either struggle with same sex attraction or are deeply convinced this is a civil rights issue and being on the “wrong side of history” is the newest unforgivable sin.

If so, this is a “sin” we Christians will steadfastly continue to commit, simply because we surrender to a wisdom higher than our own. On my own, I’d go with the flow. I don’t care to make homosexuality illegal, and I don’t care to want to proscribe it as another form of sexual expression – if that’s what a person wants to do. But I’ve taken my cues from a better Mind, one that I believe invented sex, so the core of my commitment to believe homoerotic sex is inherently “disordered”, lies there. Him, I've learned to trust.

But note, the “lifelong celibacy” requirement for gays turning to Christ, is not quite the dire picture we imagine. We imagine it’s dire, only because we have bought the whole package of what “gayness” is from a confused and defensive gay culture. Namely this idea that orientation is some inviolable, sacrosanct biological wiring that has no bend, no flex, no morph-ability.

Look, all arguments about “born gay” aside, the truth is people who have certain sexual preferences can choose to have sex successfully in ways that don’t align with those preferences. Some people prefer masturbation to copulation, but choose to not self-sex because they come to believe it’s a violation of a higher design, that sex was designed to be interpersonal; an intimacy building activity between persons, not narcissism.

Likewise, some people have been in heterosexual marriages for years, had children, then come out of the closet, announced they were gay the whole time, and left marriage and children behind. Whatever is true about their orientation, their actual experience (repeated by millions of gays) is that they were perfectly capable of heterosexual sex. Was it what they preferred? I guess not, but they CAN engage in such sex as they did so in the past.

And so, for the sake of Christ, lawful sex is readily available for the person with same sex attraction as it is for anyone else. It’s only in our current climate of torturous adherence to self actualization and constant self fulfillment that we could think a person eschewing one kind of sex for another because they believe it better for them, for others and for society in the long run, even if they prefer it less, is a terrible, immoral act.

It used to be that rejecting sex that you preferred for “lawful sex” that honored God and blessed human society was considered noble. Not any more, I guess. All that to say, a Christian struggling with same sex attraction is not cursed to a life of celibacy, unless the only sex they would ever consider engaging in, is homoerotic. Then, yes, celibacy is the only way to honor God with their sexuality.

But as I said, they can choose to participate fully in God’s sexual design, even if they harbor other desires. And let us not forget the transforming power of the Holy Spirit and good Christian counsel that may affect the “strength or direction of sexual desires” - contrary to popular dogma.

By the way, EVERY Christian who wants to walk faithfully in Christ does some of this "rejecting of sexual preferences". No one is “oriented” to always do sex God’s way. No one. So the homosexual is not in a unique position. Sexual preferences (and that’s all an “orientation” is after all) are quite literally legion. God’s sexual design is singular.

Now, is it less a stretch to discipline an unlawful heterosexual desire into God’s design than a homosexual desire? Perhaps. But Jesus did predict that the path of the disciple would at times strain the bounds of what we think is humanly possible (Matthew 19:26) And let's face it: everyone finds some parts of God’s sexual design agreeable and other parts less so. Most playboys are perfectly happy with the "Hetero" aspect of Christian sexuality but have a huge internal, physical preference problem with the monogamous part, or the permanent part. Some homosexuals are agreeable to the monogamy part, but clearly struggle with the heterosexual part.

It's only because we bought the culture's packaging of this issue that we think the Christian position on sexuality uniquely targets or is uniquely onerous for gays. It does not and it is not.
By the way, I love your attitude to be relationship with people who are gay and to be Love in action. Way to go. May God show off both his grace and truth through you. People need Jesus, not because they are gay, but because they are sin-separated rebels – a condition which predates sexual outworking. When we see all people that way, gayness fades to the background and God’s mercy can take center stage.

When was Jesus actually crucified?

Question:

I have been wondering about the actual time of the Crucifixion of Christ with Easter almost here. In John 19:14 it seems to say that at the 6th hour Jesus was crucified where in Mark 15:25 it says the 3rd hour. Also, John seems to suggest that Jesus died on the Preparation Day for the Passover where the other Gospels say the Last Supper was the Passover Feast. I believe the Bible to be infallible, but I want to know how the two stories fit together? Hoping you can help? Thanks.

Answer:

The problem with the hours mentioned around Christ’s crucifixion are fairly easily answered. Your other question about the exact meal that was eaten at the Last Supper has been the subject of much more wide ranging debate and opinions. Let me attempt to give you the best explanation I have for these apparent discrepancies.

The difference in the time of Jesus being crucified in Mark versus John is most likely the result of Mark reckoning the time in Hebrew mode and John in Roman mode, which is how we in the West do it today. The reason for this difference is that Mark is writing to a mostly Jewish Christian audience, probably before 60 AD, and John is writing much later, to a mostly Gentile Christian audience, around 90-100 A.D. We know John is concerned for his non-Jewish readers’ perspective as he translates Hebrew terms for their benefit often (John 1:38, 9:7, 20:16).

The difference in the two methods of telling time is that the Hebrews marked their day sunset to sunset, the Romans, midnight to midnight. To understand Mark then, we must understand the day begins with the watches of the night (6 PM on). The night was broken up, not into hours, but into these “watches”, standing for military sentinels who remained on duty for 4 periods. The last period (or 4th watch of the night) ended at sunrise. For the Hebrews, this would be hour zero. Near the Equator, the sun rises around 6 am all year long. So when Mark says Jesus was crucified at the 3rd hour, that’s the 3rd hour from hour zero (6 am). Thus, he was crucified at 9:00 am.

This reconciles perfectly with John’s record, if John is marking time in Roman time, from midnight. Thus, the 6th hour in John refers to 6 AM. Now, why is it not 9 AM as in Mark? Well the context reveals that the actual event that John says happened in the 6th hour was NOT the crucifixion. It’s the trial before Pilate. It stands to reason then, that it took another three hours to beat Jesus and drive him and his cross outside the city to Golgotha for execution, which happened around 9 AM.

Later, Matthew and Mark will say that Jesus died at the 9th hour, which again, from a Hebrew reckoning would be 3 PM (9 hours from 6 am), thus he hung on the cross for 6 hours until he died.
Now the question about whether the Last Supper was a Passover is explained partly by the Jewish reckoning of time and mostly by understanding Jewish Passover traditions from Moses. If you read in Exodus 12 about the first Passover, you realize that the Passover begins in the Jewish month Nisan, the 14th – the Day of Preparation (Ex 12:6). The week Jesus was killed, Nisan 14 was a Friday. On this day each family was to sacrifice a lamb in the afternoon and eat it that night after sundown. But remember, by Jewish reckoning a meal that evening was actually taking place on the next day – Nisan 15. In this case, the next day was Saturday – the Sabbath – making it both a 7th day Sabbath and a Passover Sabbath – hence a special Sabbath (John 19:31).

So John has it right, Friday night (when Jesus was dead) was the Passover meal. But if so, what was Jesus eating with this disciples on Thursday night? He seems to think of it as a Passover meal:

Luke 22:8 Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover ." NIV.

This tension is resolved in a few ways by scholars, but the best is to understand that there is more than one meal that might qualify as a Passover meal. Looking back into the first Passover commands, we see that the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Ex 12:18) ALSO starts on Nisan 14. The Bible says it was eaten on the evening of the 14th day, which is the beginning of that day by Jewish reckoning, not the end. Thus it corresponds to Thursday night of the passion week. It's that meal that Jesus ate with his disciples.

It launches Passover week. As such, it might be called a Passover by Jesus, even though it was not the time to eat the actual Passover lamb. So if the Lord's supper took place on what we would call Thursday night, the evening (beginning) of the 14th of Nisan, the meal would have no roast lamb but only unleavened bread and wine. Interestingly, roast lamb is never mentioned at the Last Supper, only bread and wine.

The only other plausible explanation I've heard is derived from Luke 22:15-16. It says,

I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.

Some scholars feel Jesus is not actually calling the meal they are eating the Passover but that his actual meaning is, “I wanted to eat the Passover, but I won't until I come again." They note that Luke 22:15 can be rendered as follows:

I have longingly desired to eat this Passover with you before my suffering; 16 however, I tell you that I shall not eat of it, until it can be administered in the Kingdom of God." (The Holy Bible in Modern English)

That he still has them prepare for Passover (Mark 14:16) is no problem since they need to prepare for it, but Jesus doesn't reveal that he’ll be dead when it’s time for them to actually eat it. What they eat is some other meal, perhaps the first meal of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, launching Passover, or perhaps a meal of Jesus' own original design.

The second explanation is weaker, but both explanations indicate that the Lord’s Supper was probably not the actual Passover Lamb feast.

What is very interesting to note is this: Moses commanded that the Passover lambs were to be killed on Nisan 14 (the Day of Preparation) literally “between the evenings" (Ex 12:6). The Jews traditionally understood this to be around 3PM to 5 PM. So on Friday, the Day of Preparation for the Passover, around 3 PM, the day before the Sabbath, as hundreds of lambs were being killed at the Temple site, at that very moment somewhere just outside the city gate, surrounded by only a few brave women, Jesus’ blood was spilling out on Golgotha and he breathed his last.

Kind of lends new and awesome significance to 1 Cor 5:7 where Paul says:

For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. NIV

Is predestination contrary to free will?

Question:

There are many verses that indicate there is no free will, however I was raised to believe in free will. Now I am at a loss to explain why i believe. The doctrine of predestination seems so contrary to free will.

Answer:

This is a big question so it gets a big answer.

First of all, I don’t think it would be fair to characterize the doctrine of predestination as contrary to free will – not even for those who hold to Reformed Theology. Even for very strict Calvinists, the idea that God predestines some to heaven and others to hell is not mutually exclusive of the idea that people choose to go to heaven or to hell freely. They would hold that somehow, people are choosing exactly what they really want, while at the same time, God has predestined and chosen that fate for them from before the creation of the world.

So also no Christian who believes in free will denies the doctrine of predestination. As you said, many verses talk about this concept, so to deny it would seem obviously heretical. Thus, all Christians hold the two ideas in tension, free will and predestination… and a perennial debate for centuries has been, how to put them together without violating Scripture, logic or both.

Some verses (ones I’m guessing you are referring to) seem to affirm a kind of predestination that violates free will. But do they really? Read in context we begin to understand what predestination means – or specifically what it does NOT mean: predestination in Scripture is not a default affirmation of DETERMINISM, which DOES undermine freewill. Determinism is essentially the same as Fate, the idea that all things play out according to a pre-written script and real freedom is illusory.

Let's deal with 3 of the texts that deal with predestination and I think you'll see we have reasons to doubt that these passages really do "indicate there is no free will" as you fear. Let's begin with: Ephesians 1:4,

"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight."

Here it looks like God chooses everything ahead of time. But some have read this verse with deterministic lenses for so long that they miss what exactly it is that God has chosen ahead of time. Paul doesn’t say, “God chose who will be in Christ.” Rather he says, “God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in his sight.” The thing God has predetermined from before all time, is the end state for all the elect who are in Christ. That thing which he has predetermined is that we be perfect and set apart.

To help understand this, imagine if I give a sermon and showed a movie clip to illustrate my point. You could say I predestined that people who came to church that day would see the clip. Let’s say 4 months ago I planned and chose the clip. But the showing up in the building, was a matter of someone else's choice, not mine. Or maybe it was a joint effort. Let's say I asked people to come, advertised the event, and influenced them to be there. But they decided to agree with that call, or not. But once here, it is MY choice and unalterable purpose that all who are in the building, will experience that clip.

Now it should be pointed out that a few verses later (1:11) Paul seems to double down on freedom-denying predestination when he says,

"In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will."

To understand this we have to pay attention to the repeated use of "in Him" in the context of "choosing". The choosing God does is always tied to Christ. One theologian said that this must mean that the ONLY one who is truly Chosen, the One who is Loved and Predestined by the Father to rule over all things, is Christ alone. Prior to verse 11, Paul is emphasizing Christ as the center of God's love, plan and will. Thus it is simply and only "in Him" that we have any part of the Father or his Life and Love.

So when Scripture talks about predestination, it is the glorification of Christ that is in view, and us by association with him and that by faith.

This explains why there's no mention in Ephesians of the "un-chosen". It would be strange indeed if Paul was underlining here that everyone's eternal destines have been predestined without their complicity, to not mention the non-chosen who are equally locked in by the plan of God. When talking about how Christians appear to the saved, in 2 Cor 2:16, he mentions the corollary fact of how we appear to the unsaved. Why no corollary here? Because there is no corollary to talk about!. There is no un-choosing, there is only God's choosing of Him and us "in Him" - and that through faith, which he will detail at length in the next chapter.

The choosing which creates the "Elect" is never a simple business in Scripture. Sometimes, it sounds as though the Elect are those who choose God as in 2 Thessalonians 2:13. And twice when the Bible mentions God's choosing us, it also mentions his "foreknowing us" - giving indication that the choosing is in concert with His omniscience - his seeing us in advance (1 Peter 1:2; Rom 8:29). This suggests some kind of concert between our choosing and God's choosing. And again, in Romans 8:29, we see the foreknowing and the choosing in advance are towards a purpose or end state (which is conformity into the image of Christ), not a choosing of some and an "un-choosing" of others, without regard for their faith.

You cannot read these sentences half way and expect them to make sense. "God chose us" or "God predestined us..." is only half a sentence. The other half is always, "...in Him" or "... to be holy", or "conformed to the image of his Son."

When talking about what it means to be chosen, Jesus himself gives a parable to help us understand how God's choosing works. In Matt 22 Jesus says the Gospel banquet invitation goes out to everyone. Not just to the expected or worthy, but to the outsiders and the unworthy too. Everyone. And in the parable, it's the response to the invitation that determines if one becomes one of the chosen or one of those cast out. Jesus’ own conclusion is this:

"many are invited, few are chosen." (Matt 22:14).

This is in keeping with the overwhelming theme in Scripture that God in some sense "chooses" everyone. That is, He calls and woos all, and His love is universal, his love is impartial, and his love desires all to be saved (e.g. I Jn 4:8; Duet 10:17-19; 2 Chron 19:7; Ezek 18:25; Mk 12:14; Jn 3:16; Acts 10:34; Acts 17: 27; Rom. 2:10-11; Eph 6:9; I Tim 2:4; I Pet 1:17; 2 Pet. 3:9). To take Eph 1 texts about God's choosing to imply that God predestines some to salvation others for damnation without regard for their faith forces you to radically bend these texts or ignore them altogether.
Another key text used by Determinists is John 6:44

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,"

It is of course, obvious biblically that for a person to choose Christ, God must be involved in their broken desires, to enlighten and to draw. But this doesn’t violate their free will, nor does it affirm a Fatalistic universe where he sets us up to want what he wants us to want. Nor does it assume that if a person DOESN’T come to Christ that the Father never loved them or drew them. It simply means that God is among the free wills operating in the world, and one of the things he freely does is draw people and gift them with the ability to respond to his offer, and without his help, none would respond.

But does this verse mean (as Determinists would argue) that God never "draws" or woos or calls people to reach out for him, who do not ultimately choose grace? In fact, we're told Jesus has “mercy” on the rich young ruler and calls him specifically to discipleship and salvation. But that man turned away. Jesus also looks at Jerusalem in a stirring lament and says,

“how I longed to gather you... but you were not willing.” (Matt 23:37)

In the Determinist world, God never really drew the rich young ruler nor all the lost in Jerusalem and they were destined for hell from before all time. Well, this doesn’t jive with the text. Jesus is clearly drawing Jerusalem – but they are freely rejecting the gift of God’s offer. If this rejection was not just seen, but PLANNED by Jesus from before all time, why is He crying over their damnation? In the Determinist view, it is Jesus after all, who MADE them to reject him! This view violates everything about this text..

A final key verse used to under-gird Determinism is Romans 9:14-15:

"What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."

The entire chapter of Romans 9 is seen by many as a blueprint for understanding God’s negating of free will. They say God chooses unilaterally who is saved and who is not, and if you happen to raise the issue of logic (“how can God rightly condemn a person whom he predestines from all eternity past to be hardened?”) then you are simply directly to this passage where God has mercy on whomever he wants. If you press the matter further and say, “but that’s not fair”, you are told, “who are you talk back to God?” (vs. 19).

At first this seems to be persuasive for a Deterministic view. But then we step back and see Paul’s overarching argument from Romans 9 thru 11, and that argument is not about individual salvation, but about God’s faithfulness to the nation of Israel, and their role in salvation history. The question being answered in Romans is, why have the Jews by and large rejected their Messiah? This is a disturbing question that caused many Jewish Christians to wonder if God’s Promises to Israel had failed.

Paul's argument then is to establish that the Jewish rejection of Messiah, and God's subsequent picking of a covenant people from among the Gentiles is not unfair or a failure or out of pattern. Paul is reminding his Jewish audience in Romans 9 that God has always chosen nations for service based on his own choice and not on inherent goodness in them or their pedigree.

He proves this by reminding them that God did not choose ALL Abraham's descendants as his covenant people, but only those of "the promise"; sons of Isaac. And then afterwards, God chooses Jacob and not Esau. But this is not referring to individuals for salvation, but nations for service. The quote from Malachi proves this. "Jacob I love and Esau I hated" is specifically about the nation of Edom, not one man, Esau. So Paul is arguing that God has a right to pick any people he wants for such service. In both Isaac and Jacob, God picks them unexpectedly, out of birth order, and both are rascals, which shows God's mercy and lack of concern for human works or family background.

What he's saying is simply that the Jews should not be shocked that God is now including Gentiles into his covenant people. Why not? He delights in showing mercy to whomever he wants, and this is his established pattern of upside-down grace. Yet we're talking about broad people groups, not individuals.. If it were about individuals, we have to imagine that God is saying here that every Edomite and every Moabite and Ishmaelite was eternally condemned because God didn't choose them when he chose Isaac and Jacob. No, it simply means that they were not chosen or preferred for service as Israel was.

The strong reprimand then, "who are you to talk back to God..." is reserved for those who question God's right to pick Gentiles based on their faith (he makes that clear in a second), and who are upset that God is not (as he never was) impressed with Israel's works or her genetics.

What should cement this case is simply that Paul concludes his own complex reasoning with a simple thought. So we should let him speak for himself and not impose Determinism on his thinking, when he is very clear that that's not what's driving this argument in this chapter. He wraps by saying,

"What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal..."

This is incredibly important. If the Deterministic view was right, here we should expect Paul to summarize by saying, "so then we see that God sovereignly chooses who is saved and who is damned randomly and mysteriously and don't question him." Instead, Paul says God's picking and granting righteousness is not arbitrary at all. It is based on the condition of faith which God has always been looking for, and not on a genetic pedigree from Abraham, or even meticulous law observance. In other words, in the end, Paul appeals to free will, and grace, not Determinism.

The charge of God being arbitrary or unfair is, in fact behind the whole flow of Romans 9-11 - but not unfair because he picks who is saved and no one should talk back to him. The Jews Paul is addressing here would probably like that line of thinking, assuming God has always picked them and anyone who questions that favoritism should be slapped. No, Paul clearly doesn't want to play into that hand. Rather the charge he's dealing with is that God is unfair because he allows the Gentiles into the Kingdom and he at the same time has hardened the Jews.

For the Jews would see God's hardening of them, the law keepers, and the granting of mercy to the Gentiles, the sinners, as very arbitrary. In fact, Paul is arguing, this is perfectly consistent with what God has always done. This is why Pharaoh is brought into the argument in 9:17. Now, you Jews, Paul is saying, have taken Pharaoh's role. God hardened him BECAUSE OF HIS UNBELIEF (Ex 8:15). He hardens those who harden themselves.

So just as Paul concludes that the picking of the Gentiles was NOT arbitrary, so the hardening of the Jews was also not arbitrary. They pursued righteous by works instead of by faith (9:32). So this hardening was perfectly consistent with the criteria of faith God has always worked with. He gives mercy in response to faith and he hardens in response to unbelief. It’s not the other way around. People don’t have faith as a result of God having mercy on them, and people don’t have unbelief as a result of God hardening them. So the person making the "free will" argument against God (9:19) is a Jew complaining that God has hardened them without cause.

Interestingly, when he brings in the Potter analogy to emphasize the, "don't talk back" point, if we understand the Old Testment reference, it's opposite of the "God predestines your destiny and just shut up." In Jeremiah 18, the Prophet is taken to a Potter who starts with a lump of clay and then starts over. God tells Jeremiah that God too has the right, to start over with Israel. God can announce a plan to bless, but he reserves the right to change that plan, BASED ON the stubborn disobedience of that nation. And visa versa - and he has this right to change his plan, based on the repentence or the condition of that nation.

Now, transpose that clear allusion to the overarching conversation of Romans 9 and Paul's point clears up. He's not saying to those who wonder why God elects some for damnation against their will, shut up and don't talk back, God does whatever he wants. He's saying to those who wonder why God elects some nations and hardens others, "God can change his mind if he wants to, based on the changing conditions in people. If the sinful Gentiles belive on the Christ, they will be elected for salvation despite their past. if the chosen Jews disbelieve in the Christ, they will be hardened, despite their past glory (9:4.5).

Paul seals his case by quoting Isaiah, "see, I have placed in Zion ... a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him [not the one whom I predetermine without regard for belief] will never be put to shame." And later we’ll find out that even God’s hardening of the Jews in response to unbelief is not determinative because all they have to do is stop their unbelief, and God will change his plans for them (11:32)! Which again underscores Jeremiah 18:8.

So predestination is agreed to by all Christians, but what does that idea mean? We’ve seen that it doesn’t have to mean that God has fatalistically planned all things out and removed free will in the process. It’s more likely that it means God sees all, and sees those who would believe in him, and since God calls all to reach out for him (Acts 17:27), and desires all to be saved (2 Peter 3:9), we can say that those who respond in faith, complete his salvation offer and BECOME the chosen. And God has predestined, and planned for this Chosen People to be holy and like Christ, and nothing will stop that plan from being executed.