Did Jesus Think He Was Coming Back While His Disciples Were Still Alive?

QUESTION:  Mathew 16:28 seems to say that some of the people around Jesus would not die until he comes again. Can you explain this to me?

ANSWER:  Thanks, this is an oft asked question, and it is also asked about another time that Jesus seems to say to his hearers that they will live to see his second coming – in his Olivet Discourse, in Matt 24:34-35 when he says that “This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things take place.”

In both places it’s fairly easy to reconcile these statements with what actually happened, rather than assume that Jesus made a terrible error in promising his second coming within the lifetime of his disciples, when that clearly did not happen.

Let’s start with Matt 16:28: “I assure you: There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”  This does seem to indicate his second coming on first pass, and all the more so because the preceding verse directly references his second coming.

But in the parallel passage in Mark 9:1, we get an additional detail that gives us reason to believe Jesus is not referring to his second coming when he says:  ‘I assure you: There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come in power.’

Note here it’s phrased, Kingdom of God coming, in Power.  So the event is here in Mark described as a more general revealing of kingdom power, and less specifically the coming of Jesus at the end of time.  But Matthew did refer to the coming of the Son of Man, so this powerful revealing must be about Jesus in some way, even if it’s not THE coming, at the end of time.

We can find a way to fuse the two accounts when we consider the context.  Remember, in both gospels what precedes this promise is Peter’s stubborn refusal to accept Jesus prediction of his demotion and execution (Mark 8:32).  This doesn’t jive with Peter’s view of an exalted and conquering Messiah.  How can Jesus be the true Messiah of Jewish prophesy, if he surrenders to humiliation and death?

So, Jesus is giving assurance that Peter, while wrong about the immediate fate of Messiah, is in fact right about him as exalted and powerful Son of Man (as expected in Daniel’s vision).  To reassure him, he says, “make no mistake, I am that exalted and powerful Messiah of Prophesy and in fact I will reveal that power to some in this circle before they die.”  You won’t have to wait for some ethereal heaven to see me clothed in power, Jesus says, you’ll see it in this life.

Seen this way, it is not a promise relating to his second coming, but simply a promise to see the power of his Kingly, Divine nature, coming to them before they die.  In fact, one might say he is expressly promising to “come in power” BEFORE his second coming.  You won’t have to wait till the end or till after death, he’s saying, you’ll see it soon.

Transfiguration of Christ

The fulfillment of that promise then, comes immediately within a week of hearing it, for Jesus takes “some” of them up on a mountain and he is transfigured before them (Mark 9:2 & Matt 17:2) in power and light.  If they wondered if the humble Jesus, who predicted he was going to die a criminal’s death, could still be the long awaited, powerful and worshiped “Son of Man” of Daniel’s vision, the experience on the mount would have cleared it up!  The Son of Man did indeed come ‘in power’ and they saw it – not his second coming, but a coming in power all the same.  Jesus was who they expected after all, but also so much more.

Regarding Matt 24:34-35 when he says that “This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things take place”, we realize his promise is for his current hearers when we realize that “all these things” doesn't refer solely or even primarily to the end times and his 2^nd coming but rather to the Temple destruction.

We know this because the entire discourse was started with the disciples admiring the beautiful 2nd Temple.  Jesus responded by saying it would be destroyed and they immediately want to know when that would happen.  They further ask about the sign of the end and his 2nd coming. They tied the two together not doubt assuming that an apocalyptic event such as the Temple’s destruction must presage the very end and Messiah’s restoration.

So the discussion covers the Temple’s destruction and ranges into the signs of the end, but it BEGINS as an answer to that first question, “when will the destruction of the Temple happen?”  If that is true, then the statement in vs 34 about “this generation” is not only accurate but powerfully prophetic!  In fact, the Temple was destroyed before “that generation had passed away” for it happened in 70 AD, within the lifetimes of eye witnesses to Jesus.

As for Jesus including “ALL these things,” the two events (Temple destruction and 2nd Coming) are likely conflated in the minds of the disciples and Jesus doesn't counter this association.  Why not if the events are separated by 2000 years and counting?  Well, the terrors leading up to the coming of the Son of Man were in some sense inaugurated by the destruction of the Temple.  That event marked the beginning of the “last days”.  One might assume Jesus was saying, “This generation will still be alive when all these signs begin to come to pass.”

There is however another way to explain this passage and the NIVR translation resolves the conflict by rendering the Greek as follows:  “What I'm about to tell you is true. The people living at that time will certainly not pass away until all those things have happened. (Matthew 24:34 NIRV)

So the resolution may simply be that “this generation” does not refer to the people listening to Jesus speak at all, but rather to the generation living “at that time” when these terrible events take place.

Either way, I think there’s no reason to think Jesus was thinking only about his actual 2^nd coming in either case.

Is God Arrogant for Wanting Glory?

Maybe you've heard this one before:  God wanting honor and Glory makes him arrogant and I'd never worship a being that desired honor and glory for himself. 

What is the proper response to this?  This is a common objection and I think it’s built on the skeptic's inability to imagine a truly perfect being. The atheist builds this objection on a limited platform of what it means to be human – any person we know of, no matter how great, would be considered an egotistical megalomaniac if he demanded others to tell him how great he is. But God is not a human, not fallen, not in any way imperfect. God is the greatest conceivable Being. Therefore the atheist is here guilty of a failure of the imagination to consider the motivations and actions of a being of truly infinite power, wisdom and love.

So if we do start with such a Being, what should we make of a repeated desire that he be worshiped and that glory be ascribed to him? Well, if we reach in our minds for a PERFECT being, we reject out of hand a motivation as base as arrogance or insecurity. An all-sufficient being has no need to prop up a sagging ego. The atheist has in mind the flighty, petty deities that inhabited Mount Olympus when he sees the God of the Bible being worshiped. He thinks of a schoolyard bully who demands homage and we know why: he fears his own weakness.

But the God of the Bible never comes across like this. Instead, his glory (literally, his “weight”) is simply said to be a fact of his all loving, all holy, all powerful nature (Ex 24:16). His glory is not first a thing he seeks from us, it is first an unalterable fact of his very being. God IS glorious, whether you or I acknowledge it or not. So in that sense, his seeking to be worshiped by us, is not arrogance but a desire to teach a primary lesson in the nature of reality. If God is aback all things, this God is glorious, and when we align ourselves with this fact, we come into truth, and then it goes better for us. Far from being selfish then, God’s desire for glory is a gift to us.

Example: A person can live their life without ever knowing fully electricity really is. They see it, but maybe ascribe it to unknowable forces. But the more they find out what electricity is, the more they develop a healthy fear of its power, while at the same time developing more awe of the benefits of that power if channeled correctly. You can live OK without a really accurate view of electricity, but when you bring your life in line with reality, life takes off. If electricity had a “will” to bless us, it might instruct us to “glorify” the lightning bolt – for our own sake!

Just like that, it is God’s gift to us to show us (in Creation and Redemption) that behind the Universe is a First Cause, who necessarily must be all powerful, self-existent, eternal and spiritual. In a word, Glorious. When we get in line with this reality, we find the Source of our being, the Source of meaning, the Fountainhead from which we sprang, the Source of eternal comfort.

Moses, after being faced with the awesome power of God in the Egyptian plagues, had only one request, to see more of the glory of God (Ex 33). This request was not born out of a man being an obsequious runt, playing to Yahweh’s pathetic need to be feel “great”! Far from it.  Read the text, the OPPOSITE is true. His desire to see the glory of God was born out of God bringing him along in relationship and intimacy – in short, his desire to see more of God’s weighty splendor came as a result of God deciding to share that splendor with him.

How is this arrogant? This is the opposite of petty arrogance or insecurity. This is generosity! God wants to share who he is (his glory) with his creation. And only people who hunger for that glory, will get in on it – again a natural consequence of living in line with reality. Paul says that the people who will not so hunger (IE who did not glorify God) received in themselves all manner of troubles (Romans 1:21-25). Their chief error is that they believed a lie – and certainly if there is a God responsible for this grand universe, to ignore his existence and nature is a terrible oversight and will naturally lead to life not working right – and that's just how Paul's describes those who diminish or deny God’s “glory” (Romans 1:29-31).

As for people being somehow bullied by God into giving God this glory, two misunderstandings are probably happening.

Number one, the skeptic is probably incorrectly interpreting a specific Calvinistic branch of Christianity. They perhaps have a vague idea that Calvinists talk about God’s glory being the sole purpose of all his activity. And when one hears (as some Calvinists believe) that this God has pre-selected people for an eternity in hell, all for the “sake of his glory”, it’s not hard to imagine they have a problem with such a God. I won’t chime in here in on the debate within the church about predestination to hell, but suffice to say that most Calvinists struggle with “double predestination” (election to hell) and so the whole objection to God seeking Glory by sending people to hell, is probably a gross misunderstanding of A) how election works and B) God’s motives within election. We should rightly look at predestination as a separate problem to work out aside from the problem of God’s glory.

Number two, they probably are imagining this God saying time after time, “give me glory!” Perhaps some psalm or proverb in the Bible puts this sentiment in God’s mouth just like that… but I can’t think of even one time myself.  I’m ready to stand corrected on that point.  But the larger point is the repeated examples in Scripture of those human agents who have experienced the glory of God, who willingly and energetically “give God glory” and encourage others to do the same (Ps 29:1,2). Again, most of the time God’s glory is simply described as a simple fact of his perfect, splendorous and weighty nature – and how is that arrogant?

When the call is made to glorify the Lord, it’s usually not (if ever) God’s demand, but the fellow traveler’s plea to us: "I've seen the glory of the King, bring him worship, he’s worthy of it." This is therefore the furthest thing from an arbitrary, self centered demand from a petulant Deity. In Scripture we never find this formula from God’s mouth: “I'm great, say it, say it!"  Rather, the formula is something closer to, “I have greatness within my very Being, and if you will align with it, you will share in it.” (Romans 8:17)

So God's glory turns out to be awesome good news and speaks to God’s awesome liberality, not conceit.

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.