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Philemon

So why is Philemon in the Bible?

What’s with Philemon? There’s no doctrine. There’s no history. There’s not really any ethical teaching. So why is Philemon in the Bible then? To ask those three questions and come up empty-handed is part of the reason! If our approach to the Scriptures is such that we are looking for everything to be s-p-e-l-l-e-d out in “do this, don’t do that” terms we will miss most of what God wants us to learn. Such an approach is actually quite shallow, and perhaps lazy also. Much of Biblical teaching is implicit not explicit.

For example, when reading the Old Testament you find respected men of faith living polygamous lives  -e.g. Abraham (Gen 16). If we took an explicit approach to the Scriptures we could say: So the Bible condones polygamy then, it must be OK – just look at Abraham. However, if we take an implicit approach we observe the outcomes of such a domestic arrangement and then gather up the evidence. So when we see the marital disharmony that resulted from two wives in the house perhaps we can conclude it’s not such a good idea. Look also at king David – great king, great poet, lousy husband. Seemed to be in the habit of not only marrying more than one woman, but going to the extreme of taking that woman from another man (2 Sam 3:14-16, 2 Sam 11). The family disharmony that swirled around David would make Jerry Springer blush. His approach to family life led to murder, incestuous rape, political crisis. Solomon, son of David and Bathsheba took polygamy to legendary heights (1 Kings 11:1-6) which eventually led to spiritual disaster… I think we can safely say that the Bible does not paint a glowing picture of a polygamous life-style. If we still want something explicit on the subject, see Gen 2:24.

So, back to Philemon. Who’s involved? Main characters are Paul – apostle to the Gentiles, author of great slabs of the New Testament, founder of Christianity in Asia minor and Italy. Also, we have Onesimus –  a runaway slave (Phm 16-18) who had stolen his bus money on the way out. And finally, Philemon to whom this letter has been written (Phm 1). The letter is a wonderful redemptive tale. Paul was in jail again – in chains for the gospel (Phm 13) and he crosses paths with Onesimus the runaway slave. They form a friendship and Paul shares the gospel with him. Onesimus then becomes a Christian (Phm 10-12). During their discussions (which would have included Onesimus coming clean about his past) they discover they have a mutual relationship in Philemon – a fellow gospel worker to Paul and erstwhile master to Philemon. Paul’s a Christian. Philemon’s a Christian. Onesimus is now a Christian too, but now there is the tricky issue of the fact that Onesimus was AWOL and stole from Philemon. How to resolve this tension?

How Paul handles this issue is the reason we have Philemon in the canon. Paul is a major major church heavy-weight. If we were to look to ecclesiastical history for guidance on how to deal with tricky issues, we would assume that the use of blunt instruments such as threats, murder, excommunication, spiritual abuse and other unsavoury techniques are the way to go, particular for someone who had some real clout as Paul did. However, that is not what we see here. Rather:

(Phile 1:8-9 NIV)  Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, {9} yet I appeal to you on the basis of love. 

Paul could have thrown his weight around. He could have ordered Philemon to accept  and forgive Paul’s new buddy Onesimus. But no! Instead, he appeals on the basis of love. He builds up Philemon (Phm 4-7) and then humbly makes his appeal (Phm 10). He gives Philemon the respect of providing reasons for accepting Onesimus back (Phm 15). Paul does not want to act unilaterally but in partnership with Philemon (Phm 14,17). He offers to make the restitution (Phm 18). He appeals on the basis of their friendship (Phm 17). He is intensely personal (Phm 19). Paul is making a strong and compelling argument but he is not overstepping. At every point along the way, the love and respect for Philemon is maintained.

So what we have in the book of Philemon is a wonderful example of how a godly leader is to exercise influence. Philemon is all about showing how the gospel of love can work when the rubber meets the road in a conflict situation.  Without God, the one in authority can over-exert and damage the dignity of those he wishes to influence. With God, the dignity of all is maintained, love prevails and the best outcome results.

Which evidently it did as we find Onesimus popping up as a useful brother in Colossae (Col 4:9). All is good and we get to have a great practical lesson in leadership style.

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The Kingdom – Introduction

From the The Kingdom series.


John said it. Jesus said it. “Repent for the kingdom has come near” (Mt 3:2, 4:17). But what did they mean? What is this kingdom all about, and who is the king? It’s a movable kingdom? How does it come near? And how does repentance fit in?

As a first century Jew, we know something about kings. We’ve had lots of them – some good, some not-so-good, and some were just awful. We were warned (1 Sam 8:4-22). These days we have the Romans calling the shots, they’ve been here for decades now. We really don’t like them at all, although they do let us have our temple in Jerusalem and our synagogues. Many of us dream about a king that will march into town one day and sweep the occupiers from our land in a blaze of glory. A messiah. Maybe that’s what this kingdom is about…

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Bottom-up Unity

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph 4:11-13)

So if there are unity problems in your church (or churches), maybe it’s related to not doing this well enough!

We know Paul is serious about unity in the church (Eph 4:3). If we took a guess at his top three priorities, based on his activity, they could well be:

  1. Preach the gospel.
  2. Plant Churches.
  3. Keep said churches unified. 

In this passage he lays out a blue-print for achieving goal #3. Christ has given people with teaching gifts to the church to equip the people in those churches. This activity  builds up the body until it becomes unified and mature. (Eph 4:11-13)

What this means is that unity must be built from the bottom-up, not from the top-down. If the people aren’t taught properly it is impossible for unity to exist. The primary role the leaders have is to do the equipping. They can have unity meetings with other leaders for sure, but there will be no actual unity without it existing throughout the membership of the whole church.

We have all seen and heard the rancour that can occur in the political world. Disunity in the electorate is often-times a completely desirable goal for some political operators. 

Features include having no universally accepted standard of acceptable debate. People vilifying and slandering one another. No standard of truthfulness is required – say whatever you want in the moment, true or not – the news cycle moves on much more quickly than the fact checkers. People speculate about the motivations of others. It can seem difficult to get politicians to face the spotlight in a serious media interview. Straw-man arguments, bare-faced denials, lies and distraction are the tools of the day. Concepts of honour, decency and equal time seem quaint. The market place of ideas looks more like a pawn-shop for alternative facts.

Why the political illustration? Because it shows what you can get if your people aren’t equipped with godly motivations or godly rules of engagement. The passage itself paints a picture of what can happen if you’re not careful. You will be: tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. (Eph 4:14)

The image is a frightening one. Hapless sail-boat in a violent storm, taking in water, miles from land and starting to sink. And the protagonists are scary people too – cunning, crafty, deceitful,…and motivated.

So, how to avoid all of this? By placing an intentional focus on equipping the church to be able to defend themselves and advance the quest for unity at an individual level. This type of equipping does not come from a one-shot seminar series. It’s an open-ended, ongoing process with an end-goal of the whole church attaining to the measure of the fullness of Christ. I think that’s Paul way of saying that this work never stops.

What should be the subject matter of this teaching then? The first thing the passage mentions is “knowledge of the son of God”. An ever-increasing and deepening acquaintance with the person of Jesus Christ – his heart, his character, his teaching, his way of life, how he dealt with different kinds of people, his strength, his compassion, his love, his courage. 

Tactics: Speaking the truth in love. This does not come that naturally to many people, particularly given that matters of faith and identity are involved. We might even need a few role-plays to teach this one out. What does it look like and sound like to speak the truth in love? Again, familiarity with Jesus will help (Jn 4:1-42, Lk 7:40-50, Mk 10:17-22). How can someone know when to use both barrels (Mt 12:34) or when to walk away instead (Mt 15:14)? This kind of situational assessment ability is not gained in a day. 

Ongoing:  we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. Every respect. What would it take for everyone in your local church to become in every respect like Jesus? I think about this a lot in my own life, and I know I have a fair way to go yet! My question at this point is, is this even an agenda item in your church? If you categorised all the sermon points you have heard in a year, what proportion would overlap somehow with the “becoming like Jesus” idea I wonder?

The key to church unity is  serious and deliberate equipping of the whole congregation towards maturity in Christ. Because when this pursued, something amazing happens: From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph 4:16)

Unity is achieved because each part can do its work. And each part can do it’s work because each part has been equipped to do so. It even becomes self-perpetuating when it reaches the “builds itself up in love” stage.

Biblical teaching and preaching should not primarily seek to be motivational. Shouldn’t be shoddy, inarticulate or boring either. But it should be an out-growth of the project to present everyone mature in Christ, and in so doing ensure the strength, unity and effectiveness of the church in its mission to be God’s partners in ministering to our broken world. The motivation will come all by itself if this path is followed.

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Unburdened

This is an article I wrote several years ago. It has been available also on Douglas Jacoby’s website.

Perhaps the key differentiator Christianity has in the field of world religions is the unique concept of grace. In a world driven by competitiveness, performance measurement and the relentless march for increased return on investment and corporate profits, God’s grace and everything it affects is not well valued, simply ignored or even despised. Yet it is at the very core of our religion. If we have no other virtue as Christians, we must at the very least explain grace to the world in our actions, our words, and in our very thoughts. Yet we are far from this being the case. It is my contention that we have fostered a culture long on performance benchmarks but short on promulgating grace. In the quest for fast growth in our churches, the message of God’s grace has often been distorted, ignored or even hijacked.

The stage of world history is littered with the corpses of men and women who have been trampled in the quest for world domination of an ideology. Christianity, Islam, Communism, Imperialism, Nazism and so forth have all sought worldwide influence and impact. The leaders of these movements in their respective day were driven by the deep belief of the superiority and excellence of their cause. But of course the excellence or purity of a cause in the minds of its leaders is not a sufficient measure of its excellence overall. The human costs of spreading social, political or religious doctrine has been enormous. A curious paradox has emerged’in the pursuit of something so “high” as the pervasiveness of a guiding ideology, the results have been so “low”. The collateral damage of untold millions of wrecked lives did not appear to enter into the calculations. After all, the world was being won…

The word of God however seeks to protect mankind from all of this. Yes, the stakes are high -eternal salvation, but the central tenet that provides this salvation in the first place must not be betrayed in the achievement of it. Paul expresses it succinctly “If I have the faith to move mountains but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor 13:1-3). World evangelism at the expense of love for the individual has proved to be a costly error. However apparently noble the mission may be, if it is one without true love and grace, it is in the final analysis and potential effects, no different to the worldwide spread of any other manmade ideology.

Many Christians in our churches today subscribe to a mindset of “burdened-ness”. They have been taught to equate a sense of spiritual acceptability or maturity with a notion of “feeling the burden” sufficiently. One’s burdened-ness can be measured by a blanket evaluation of one’s preparedness to “go anywhere, do anything, give up everything”. Any residual desire to place emphasis on other facets of life could be interpreted as not having an adequate love for the mission or the lost, or even as being ‘worldly’ in outlook. This dynamic is well recognised. The purpose of this article is to provide some Biblical help to embrace what I believe to be a state of heart and mind that God wants his children to have:’a state of being unburdened.

There is a pattern throughout both the Old and New Testaments, about the way God interacts with his people. What we find is a theme of God being all about being a lifter of burdens, not a placer of them.

GOD LIFTS BURDENS
(Num 11:11-17 NIV) He asked the LORD, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? {12} Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers? {13} Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ {14} I cannot carry all these people by myself the burden is too heavy for me. {15} If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now–if I have found favor in your eyes–and do not let me face my own ruin.” {16} The LORD said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. {17} I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone.

Here we get an insight into how Moses was feeling as the leader of an ungrateful nation and people of God. He complains of the heavy burden he feels leading all those people. How does God respond to Moses? Does God admonish him to stop his whining? “Be more faithful Moses!” No! Rather God acts to lift the burden. It was a burden. No wonder Moses was feeling it’he was understaffed by a factor of 70!

Let us now examine a key passage in the New Testament. In Mt 11:1-30. Jesus had send out the twelve, and was now on a preaching and teaching tour of Galilee. John sends his disciples with some questions to Jesus. Jesus talks about John, and goes on to address his audience. There seems to be confusion reigning in this passage: John is confused about Jesus, the people are confused about John, and about the nature of the Kingdom of God. Cities that saw miracles are cursed. Worldly seaports and the byword of Sodom itself are lifted up. Religion has blinded the people, and God wants that turned upside down.

There is a common thread running through these incidents. Jesus is challenging the concepts and ideas people have about their religion. John wasn’t sure about Jesus it seems. Healing the sick, curing the lepers, opening the eyes of the blind was perhaps not what John was anticipating. Jesus corrected that notion with a Scripture. Then Jesus addresses the people. “What were you expecting with John? A weak and insipid religious guy? Or a wealthy tele-evangelist type? You got more than you bargained for didn’t you!’ It’s always easier to complain about the messenger than to embrace the message and change.

Jesus goes on to denounce the Jewish cities of Korazin, Betsaida and Capernaum. The Bible belt of the Holy land perhaps. Sodom would be better off? What was Sodom known for? Sodomy. Imagine the furore in conservative religious circles today if Jesus came preaching this!

Jesus thanks God for hiding the truth from the “wise”, and revealing it to the child-like. Soft hearts are needed for this message, not hardened religiosity.

As the true explanation of God (v27), we are encouraged to listen again to Jesus’ message rather than continue to stumble along blindly with deeply held traditional but off-centre religious beliefs. Grace? Are you really sure that’s what the gospel is all about?…

Then there is the key passage of all:

(Mat 11:28-30 NLT) Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. {29} Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. {30} For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light.”

What are the burdens Jesus is talking about? Many people would quickly apply this passage to difficulties in their own lives: their busy job or difficult relationship perhaps. This might be possible, but the context of the passage as discussed above seems to demand that the application of these verses lies in the realm of one’s faith and relationship with God.

Consider also Psalm 146, referred to by Jesus:

(Psa 146:6-9 NLT) He is the one who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He is the one who keeps every promise forever, {7} who gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry. The LORD frees the prisoners. {8} The LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts the burdens of those bent beneath their loads. The LORD loves the righteous. {9} The LORD protects the foreigners among us. He cares for the orphans and widows, but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.

Jesus appealed to this Psalm when answering John’s questions. It portrays God as a keeper of promises, a freer of prisoners, and a lifter of burdens.

A true relationship with God is not about heavy burdens. Jesus makes this point clearly in his famous “woe to you Pharisees’ discourse:

(Mat 23:4 NIV) They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

(Mat 23:4 NLT) They crush you with impossible religious demands and never lift a finger to help ease the burden.

The religious world imposes burdens. Jesus states explicitly that he will lighten the burden.

A doctor working with leprosy sufferers in India wrote of burdens, stress and yokes:

Too much stress on ones body is detrimental. Conversely, too little stress also affects living tissue. Cells need exercise. Without it, they will atrophy’a condition common to anyone who has worn a plaster cast. I once treated an Indian fakir who had held his hand over his head uselessly for twenty years, as a religious act. The muscles had shrunk to nothing, and all the joints had fused together so that his hand was like a stiff paddle. Healthy tissue needs stress, but appropriate stress that is distributed among many cells.

Those principles apply directly to the stress caused by a joke on the neck of an ox. In the hospital carpentry shop in India, I helped fashion such yokes.

If I put a flat, uncarved piece of wood on an ox’s neck and use it to pull a cart, very quickly pressure sores will break out on that animal’s neck, and he will be useless. A good yoke must be formed to the shape of an ox’s neck. It should cover a large area of skin to distribute the stresses widely. It should also be smooth, rounded, and polished with no sharp edges, so that no one point will endure unduly high stress. If I succeed in my workshop, the yoke I make will fit snugly around the ox’s neck and cause him no discomfort. He can haul heavy loads every day for years, and his skin will remain perfectly healthy, with no pressure sores.

And now, I think I understand the strange juxtaposition of phrases in (Matthew 11:28-29). Jesus offers each of us a well-fitted yoke, of custom design. He does not call us to the kind of rest that means inactivity or laziness’that would lead to spiritual atrophy. Instead, he promises a burden designed to fit my frame, my individual needs, strengths, and capabilities. I come to him weary and heavy-laden. He removes those crushing burdens that would destroy any human being, and replaces them with a yoke of appropriate stress designed specifically for me. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,” he says, “for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

We are to take Jesus’ yoke upon us. The promise is that the burden will be light. This flows from the yoke being one of custom design, tailored to fit the needs and situation of the individual Christian. Managing such an inventory of one-off yokes does not fit with any man-made system, but it is typical of the glorious variability we see throughout God’s creation.

We however have sought to standardize Christianity and have taught or implied that everyone needs to perform to the same single standard in God’s kingdom. This teaching seems to be at odds with what Jesus is saying here. Jesus’ yoke is a snug fit, not an impossible fit.

If we take an area of spiritual activity such as evangelism for example, what we must acknowledge is that different individuals will have different evangelistic impacts throughout their lives. Some will influence many directly to become Christians. Others will influence only a few. Some may influence no one. The constant admonition to bear fruit evangelistically that has been a feature in many of our churches has produced an ill-fitting yoke on the necks of many disciples. Thy feel burdened, unable to measure up to this demand. Such burdens are not of God, they are of man and his programs. No wonder people feel burdened! They are not carrying Jesus’ load, but somebody else’s!

To add to this notion that God is a lifter of burdens, consider the following:

– (Psa 55:22 NLT) Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

– (Psa 145:14 NLT) The LORD helps the fallen and lifts up those bent beneath their loads.

– (1 John 5:3 NIV) This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.

– (1 John 5:3 NLT) Loving God means keeping his commandments, and really, that isn’t difficult.

LEADERS LIFT BURDENS
What then does God expect of his leaders? There are many examples of both good and bad leadership to be found in the Bible. Let us look at two of the good ones: Nehemiah and Paul.

(Neh 5:14-19 NIV) Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year–twelve years–neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor. {15} But the earlier governors–those preceding me–placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that. {16} Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall. All my men were assembled there for the work we did not acquire any land. {17} Furthermore, a hundred and fifty Jews and officials ate at my table, as well as those who came to us from the surrounding nations. {18} Each day one ox, six choice sheep and some poultry were prepared for me, and every ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this, I never demanded the food allotted to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people. {19} Remember me with favor, O my God, for all I have done for these people.

Nehemiah’s actions were in stark contrast to the worldly leaders that preceded him. He willingly forsook certain privileges available to him out of his reverence for God and for the sake of his people. The earlier leaders placed a heavy burden on the people, in the form of taxes. Encouraged no doubt by their superior’s attitudes, the assistants too lorded it over the people. Nehemiah however refused to be like that. Instead, he set a personal example by devoting himself to the work. Instead of dining off the backs of his countrymen, he fed 150 of them every night. He never made use if his rights.

What do we learn from the example of Nehemiah? Great leaders sacrifice for their people. Worldly leaders burden their people.

Let us turn to the example of Paul, perhaps best illustrated in his relationship with the Thessalonian Christians.

(1 Th 2:6-12 NIV) We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else. As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, {7} but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. {8} We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. {9} Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. {10} You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. {11} For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, {12} encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

(2 Th 3:8-9 NIV) …nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. {9} We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.

Paul writing to the Thessalonians, asserts that ‘as apostles they could have been a burden to them”. He means, they could have supported him financially while he was with them. But he chose to work night and day so as not to burden this fledgling church. Rather, he was determined to encourage, comfort and urge them as a father does his children. As it turned out, the Macedonian churches did end up supporting Paul financially as we see in 2 Corinthians 11:9.

(2 Cor 11:9 NIV) And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I needed. I have kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will continue to do so.

Such example teaches powerful lessons. Paul didn’t want to be a burden to those he was preaching to. His example taught The Macedonian churches (of which Thessalonica was one) well. We learn that after Paul had moved on from there, they were spectacularly generous despite their severe poverty (2 Cor 8:1-2). There seems to be a strong link between people’s willingness to give financially and the leaders willingness to not take advantage of it.

Time and time again we see godly leaders determined NOT to burden their people, but to serve them.

WE ALL LIFT BURDENS

Serving and burden-bearing leaders are not sufficient for a healthy church however. What is required is that we all become burden lifters in our relationships with one another. This will be a major cultural shift for some, but a Biblically mandated one.

One of the greatest burdens we routinely face in our spiritual lives can be in dealing with our sin.

(Psa 38:4-5 NLT) My guilt overwhelms me’it is a burden too heavy to bear. {5} My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins.

Paul talks of vulnerable women, burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by many desires (2 Tim 3:6), a spiritual condition not limited to women necessarily.

Sin can be a big deal to people. We are all familiar with the power of sin and guilt. It stops people from coming to church or reading the Bible. This is Satan’s home turf. When people need the succour of spiritual encouragement, they feel more driven to avoid it. It is like saying “I am too sick to go to hospital”.

Sin in our lives is certainly a burden. Some however, are over-burdened with “imagined sin”. Every act or thought is put under the microscope and examined for the slightest trace of sin. ‘You’re not submissive enough, faithful enough, bold enough, humble enough, committed enough. Sin, sin ,sin ,sin, sin, sin!’ This type of thinking has also been a feature of our church culture unfortunately, and needs to be reversed.

As Christians, we need to take sin seriously, but not neurotically. Mark 9:42-45 shows that we must deal decisively with the causes of sin, yet we do not see a continual scrutiny on the sin in people’s lives in the pages of the New Testament.

As an example of this, the apostles had a great opportunity to spell out moral requirements to the Gentile churches when they circulated the letter that bore the landmark outcomes of the Jerusalem Council in the mid first-Century. What we see however is just four sins mentioned!

(Acts 15:28-29 NIV) It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: {29} You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

The focus was not on burdening people, but on freeing them. The name the sins to avoid and then encourage them by saying ‘You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell!’ They didn’t berate the point. The apostles did not want to burden the people turning to God. We shouldn’t either.

Finally, the Bible has some advice for us in our relationships with one another, in dealing with sin in each other’s lives.

(Gal 6:1-2 NIV) Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. {2} Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

The first lesson here is that if you are not spiritual, perhaps don’t get personally involved. But more importantly, we are taught to restore your brother gently. Some of us are more likely to burden people down than to effectively restore. We draw ourselves up to our full height: “Brother, that’s a disgusting sin. How could you. You need to go away and repent. You make me sick.” Such words spring from a false notion of God’s attitude toward the sinner. The ‘go away and don’t come back until you repent’ school of theology is not of God. It does not reflect God’s graciousness and it carves out a deeper foothold for Satan.

We are to restore our brothers gently. Draw him in. Build him up. Point him to God. Carry his burden.

CONCLUSION
The message of the gospel is good news. It is unburdening news. God is a lifter of burdens, not a placer of burdens. Our teaching and our example need to reflect this strongly. We have some work to do in our churches to reverse an ingrained mindset that is the opposite to this. It starts with our individual relationship with God and view of God as a burden lifter. It requires leaders who are prepared to be burden-bearers and it ultimately devolves to how we interact with one another on an individual level as channels of God’s grace, mercy, love and peace.

(Mat 11:28-30 NIV) “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. {29} Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. {30} For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

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Drawing Lines

 We love to draw lines. Lines of affiliation. Lines of identity. Lines to be defended. Lines not to be crossed. We see them in the political world, the sporting world, the technology world, and sadly, in our religious world.

Christians will tell you they believe the church is the body of Christ – and rightly so (Rom 12:5). But, along with this spiritual reality there also seems to be an unspoken belief that there are some very real physical boundaries as well. “We need to be able to determine and control who is part of our fellowship”.  I wonder if Jesus agrees with that. Let’s us look at a few passages from the gospels.

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” (Mt 13:24-30)

Jesus is wanting to explain what his kingdom is like. And he needs to explain it because it is so unlike anything that mankind could come up with. It is radically different – so different in fact that we might take a life-time to really understand it.

In this parable, the farmer seemed remarkably relaxed about his enemy’s economic vandalism attempt. His loyal servants want to go and fix it, but the master just instructs them to leave be,  we’ll sort it all out at harvest time. In fact, the very process of trying to separate the weeds from the grain may do actual damage to the good crop.

This is one of the parables that comes with a handy explanatory guide. We shouldn’t be too upset with ourselves if we don’t quite get it. It seems the disciples didn’t get it either on the first pass.

Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”

He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear. (Mt 5:36-43)

Jesus sows the good seed of the gospel in the world. Over time, it germinates and grows, producing kingdom people. There is an enemy hard at work also, sowing a different kind of seed yielding different results. At the end of the age there will be a harvest and it’s going to matter which message you listened to. Here is your chance.

The second parable I want to consider is the Parable of the Net.

Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“Have you understood all these things?”

“Yes,” they replied.

He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old. (Mt 13:47-52)

Again we see Jesus painting a picture of the good and the bad co-existing until their day of judgment. Both the whole field and the entire catch were harvested and divided.

The disciples understood. They had probably seen a harvest or two in their lives and remembered poking sticks into the bon-fires. And the fishermen’s sons knew everything there was to know about what to do with a haul of fish. But then Jesus says something really interesting about the teachers of the Law – the highly trained Jewish teachers with detailed knowledge of the Torah and oral tradition. It was possible for someone like that to become a disciple in the kingdom. Rare, maybe, but certainly possible. Maybe Jesus was saying to his disciples – “you are up there with the teachers of the Law boys!” Or, the teacher who becomes a disciple is up there with you. This kingdom stuff is new treasure. We are not throwing away the Law – that’s a real family jewel, but what I am talking about now is a treasure also – hidden in a field or found in an oyster.

One of the unfortunate features of the church landscape throughout history  has been the tendency to line-draw. Who’s in and who’s out. Who is in fellowship and who is not. Who is a member, who can be part of our group, and who can’t be.

Reading these parables, this spirit does not appear to be a concern Jesus shared. “In my kingdom”, Jesus said, “we leave it be and sort it all out on judgment day. Don’t try and dig out  the weeds – you risk damaging the good crop”.  Perhaps “church membership” is an over-rated, possibly harmful, and un-kingdom-like concept.

 Young John received a practical lesson about this idea:

Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward. (Mt 9:38-41)

Jesus was not bothered at all by the demon-buster who hadn’t signed the franchise agreement. ‘Whoever is not against us is for us” you see.

Of course, there are some passages which discuss church discipline and how it should be applied to “protect the flock”. 1 Cor 5:11 says “But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.”

Fair enough – you don’t want people controlled by these sins, calling themselves a brother or sister anywhere close to your fellowship. 

Trickier however, is Paul’s advice to Titus to “Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned”. (Tit 3:10). This verse is probably the acid test. Fresh ideas or a progressive agenda can feel threatening in a church setting, but is it divisive in this same sense?  The line-drawer can invoke such a verse to maintain a status quo, but worth noting that Jesus and Paul, (and indeed a long list of prophets) both found themselves on the wrong side of the line (Lk 6:11, Acts 13:44-46), so perhaps it’s not a bad place to be.

The gold-medal line-drawer in the New Testament would have to have been Diotrophes.

I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not welcome us. So when I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, spreading malicious nonsense about us. Not satisfied with that, he even refuses to welcome other believers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. (3 John 9)..

Diotrophes uses a trifecta of tried and true line-drawing techniques. Not welcoming others in, spreading malicious lies, and expelling those who don’t follow his way. Yet, somehow he is running that church. At every turn he has shown himself to be operating totally outside God’s kingdom through his toxic mix of lack of hospitality, lack of love, and lack of truth. John’s response is instructive, he says he will “call attention to what he is doing”. Not a tit-for-tat reply, but a bringing into the light.

 Jesus did draw some lines… The gate is still narrow (Mt 7:13-14). You still need to love your enemy to be a son or daughter of the kingdom (Mt 5:44-45). Still need to obey Jesus (Mt 7:21-23). However we would well to remember that we are not the gate-keepers- that is the spot Jesus has reserved for himself  (Jn 10).

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Connection

 And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph 1:18-19)

Think about what it would be like to be completely connected with God, with our spouse, with our kids, with our wider family and friends. We would know with certainty how we fit into the fabric of those around us. We would feel totally loved, totally secure, totally certain about the point of life.

Problem is however that many of us suck at connection! Awkwardness,  uncertainty or self-absorption get in the way. And what is the motivation anyway? It takes a lot of effort to connect with people,  and our overtures may not always be well-received. For some of us, connection may simply be outside of our lived experience – disconnection, violence and dysfunction may have been the norm for us growing up. 

Yes there are many barriers, but isn’t connection something we all still crave? We may not say it out loud, but the desire we each feel for connection is inside all of us. It is  a universal need. It’s what it means to be human. A deep longing inside all of us, but as we peer into that particular well, many of us see that it is far from full, and we have no idea where the bucket is.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is written to a church in which members were struggling to properly connect. There were two groups in this church – Jews and Gentiles. They came from very different religious and cultural backgrounds (Eph 2:11-22). Old ways of thinking and cultural differences died hard. So much so, it could be said that this was the number one problem, not just there in Ephesus, but in the first century church as a whole. 

Yet God has done his bit (Eph 2:14-16), and paraphrasing Ephesians 4, Paul is saying: 

”C’mon guys – think about it! How many bodies are there? One. How many spirits are there here? One. Lords, faiths, baptisms? One. Are you getting it? … How many groups should there be in your church then? Multiple choice question: one… or two? “

They needed to connect… with God and with each other.

So much for the theory lesson. How’s this actually going to work?

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph 1:18-19)

The number one New Testament problem is to be met with the number one New Testament solution – love. Starting point  for them was to be rooted and established in love. Some digging required! Breaking up some rocky ground maybe. Deliberate spiritual gardening… getting to being rooted and established in love. 

Paul’s number one prayer for them was that they would be able to come to an understanding of just how massively cubic Christ’s love for them is. To really know it. Even though the extent of it is actually unknowable. Why? So they can be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.. Now that kind of filling sounds like you don’t have to bend down very far at all to get a drink from that well.

And so, when you have resources like this to draw from, cross-cultural unity doesn’t seem like such a big problem any more. 

So, connection, that thing we all crave, doesn’t happen by accident. We must be individually deliberately determined. Intentional. Could be as simple as setting up a coffee or lunch with a friend. Make a time. Spend some time. Connect.

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The Good News

Jesus came talking about a message of “Good News”. So, what is this good news? Many people have looked into Christianity hoping to find it, but have found it didn’t seem to live up to the advertising. It didn’t feel like good news, sometimes it didn’t even sound like good news, and even the people talking about it didn’t seem that happy either.

But perhaps we haven’t heard it right. That’s what I am are trying to do here – taking a fresh look at what Jesus was actually saying in the gospels. We will park our western post-reformation theological outlook for a while and see if it gets us somewhere.

This has been my own journey. Four decades or so of evangelical and restoration views. But then I tipped the Lego box over, and have now started to put the pieces back in one at a time. So welcome to the blog, and I hope we can get to know each other and learn something transformative here in our own walks with God.

Andrew Kitchen

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