Some (Slightly Edited) Facebook Posts about Gay Marriage and Related Topics from Last Year

** In response to the Supreme Court's decision on gay marriage:

Okay, here's my rant-y, overly-long, and potentially incendiary post for the quarter (actually a cleverly disguised apology/call for love and understanding):

Thank you friends for being who you are. I'm proud to say that, given the recent Supreme Court judgment on gay marriage, Facebook pretty clearly shows I have friends on BOTH sides of the issue. This is a good thing (surrounding yourself only with those you agree with is not the best way to go about life). And frankly, you've all been, without any exceptions, extremely respectful and loving in every one of your posts on the subject, even when others may not be. Even the articles you share have been similar. On the one hand, you have been celebratory without being gloating or judging. On the other hand, you have been disappointed without being bitter or judging. Thank you for doing your part in making the internet and life in general a more respectful, friendlier, and generally more decent place for everyone.

In general, I get annoyed by debates over gay marriage or homosexuality in general. Not because I don't have an opinion on some matters (listen to my Cornerstone class on the Old Testament laws where I talk about biblical commands about sex) or that people don't agree with me but rather because of the tone and irrationality of the debate in most cases. Debates generally consist almost entirely in name calling, straw men, false analogies, condemnation for even making an analogy (without even considering the merits of the argument), begging the question, equivocation, ad hominems, genetic fallacies, etc.

On the debate over the legalization of gay marriage I just have a few points to make which, if taken seriously, would have at least as much chance as any in making things a bit more tolerable (though maybe not):

1) Just because someone supports the legalization of gay marriage does not mean they think it is morally permissible. You can think being a Jehovah's Witness is wrong, for instance, all the while thinking that people have a basic right to be a Jehovah's Witness. People can have rights to choose whether or not to do a bad thing.

2) Just because someone is against the legalization of gay marriage does not mean they think it is morally wrong. The majority of the legal and philosophical arguments against legalization do not depend in any way on the moral (or even religious) status of gay marriage. (Nor does anyone claim that gay marriage will harm their own personal marriage - that's a straw man) For instance, one argument is that marriage by definition excludes two persons of the same sex so that saying we should legalize same sex marriage would be akin to saying that we should legalize round squares. Whether the argument works or not, that has nothing to do with morality.

3) Similarly, just because someone thinks it's wrong doesn't mean they are against legalization and just because someone thinks it's morally permissible doesn't mean they think the law should recognize it. In other words, issues of legal rights and legal values are separate (though not always necessarily completely distinct from) issues of moral rightness and moral values. Just because it should be legal doesn't mean it's okay. Just because it shouldn't be doesn't mean it isn't. To repeat: these are distinct questions. How we relate the questions to each other will largely depend on the political and legal assumptions we adopt. It's not a matter of being a bigot or not, or being an approver of sin or not - it's about political and legal views, period. In general, Americans tend to confuse legal and moral values and jump to conclusions about one from a conviction about the other. "People should have the right to do X; it's none of your business if they do it, so mind your own business" quickly becomes "So doing X is okay"; and "Doing X is wrong" quickly becomes "We should outlaw X".

4) There's a distinction between what should or shouldn't be legal and what is or isn't constitutional. Someone can think the supreme court ruled correctly while also thinking that gay marriage should be illegal or think that it should be legal while thinking that the court ruled incorrectly. (A distinction that was lost on those who, simply because they thought it should be illegal, criticized Chief Justice Roberts for ruling in favor of "Obamacare")

5) The Bible does not explicitly and directly tell us which political and legal theories to adopt nor does it explicitly and directly speak about gay marriage, hence to say "the Bible says no to gay marriage", etc. is a bit misleading when we're talking about legal rights.

6) On the other hand, to say "The Bible says nothing about gay marriage" is also misleading since it does in fact (in my opinion) say direct things about homosexual acts and morality (note that I say "morality", not "legality"), which are topics obviously closely related to gay marriage.

Bottom line: As someone who has not chosen a specific political/legal reference point, I don't have a particular opinion on whether or not the Supreme Court made the right decision. I don't know - I haven't considered these reference points nor the arguments for and against gay marriage in enough detail to make an informed decision regarding legality. (I really can see both sides of the argument at the moment.) I make decisions based on warrant and right now I simply haven't acquired enough information. Some other people may have done this, but I haven't. I hope that's okay - it wasn't up to me to make the decision anyway. But let's be understanding of those who do not share our own views, whether of the legality or the morality of gay marriage. Let's listen and understand where they're coming from, WHY they hold the views they do, and let's see things from their point of view before we rush to condemn. Let's have empathy with others and drop the name calling, shaming, and judging. We're not enemies, we're family. We're people. Let's treat each other as such.

** In response to Kim Davis refusing to sign marriage licenses:

Not a popular opinion (feel free to disagree) - and I may be wrong about this - but I can't help but think regarding what's going on in Kentucky that recognizing that two people have met government requirements to enter into a government contract, regardless of whether entering into such a contract is sinful or unwise or otherwise inadvisable (and the clerk in question apparently has no problem recognizing other contracts she disagrees with), is in no way an endorsement or moral acceptance of such a contract. I'm a very strong supporter of religious liberty, but I don't think religious liberty has much of anything to do with what's going on here. That's just my initial reaction, though.

** In response to this bit of silliness:

Oy. Sorry, short rant: While I agree that Davis isn't doing the right thing here, I have to object to the way Huffington Post is trying to argue for that position. This is the sort of article you see again and again (not necessarily about this case, but in general), and it's really annoying since it completely ignores how biblical hermeneutics (the interpretation and application of the Bible) even works. The majority of these jobs are not "banned by the Bible". For one thing, most of the out-of-context quotes don't even match the job description given. Not eating pork, for instance, doesn't have much to do with selling other people pork (though if the former is wrong, one could argue the latter would be as well, but that doesn't follow automatically). For another, even if they did, it still wouldn't be relevant since lists like this ignore the fact that there are biblical and theological reasons why Christians follow some laws strictly and literally today and others not so much. Articles like this try to make it seem arbitrary, silly, and a case of picking and choosing. While many Christians might not be aware of the exact reasons WHY some laws are followed more strictly than others, that does not mean that there are no good reasons. This is precisely one of the many reasons why I did the Old Testament laws class I did, so people would understand biblically how to interpret these laws and how they are supposed to be applied today. Other than the psychic advisor or maybe the gossip columnist (which is kind of a scummy job to do anyway), I don't see how any of these would be a violation of biblical principles.

Notes on Philippians 3:7-16

For the Cornerstone sermon-prep study group.  Basically, I see the passage as  an application of 2:5-13ish, which helps organize and make sense of all the material in 3:7-16 and how it all fits together.



Quick summary of the passage:

7-9: Value is found in Christ, not Jewishness (or anything else!), because of what Christ did in 2:6-11.

9-16: Therefore, like, in 2:5-11, we follow Christ’s pattern both in life and in our thinking: humility and suffering and death, but ultimately glory and resurrection, becoming like Christ and truly knowing him. However, we even now have a foretaste of that finale and must live in accordance with this.


Long version:

7-8 We have here financial terms - an accounting metaphor using the idea of a credit (or profit)/loss ledger. Referring back to his activities and privileges in 5-6, Paul is not saying each of them were necessarily bad but compared to how great a financial gain Christ is, they may as well be on the loss side of the ledger! Paul’s privileges in his Jewishness (both in his ancestry or upbringing and in how he lived as a Jew) are nothing - next to worthless - next to Christ. Even if everything else in the whole world was gathered together into the loss column, with Christ in the credit column, the profits overwhelm the losses! (Contrast this with our own privileges and accomplishments - do we really always think of them as dung next to Christ (or at least, do we consistently act like it)?)

9 “Righteousness”: probably here a state of being right with God (and probably others as well, though that’s not the important part at the moment). Being Jewish and following the Law do not guarantee one is righteous - Paul had all of this but what he did not have was Christ and it is Christ who counts, not being Jewish or following Moses. Being in the right with God is a status from God given to those who are in Christ - who have faith(fulness) - and this is based upon what we learned about Christ in chapter 2 - Christ’s own obedience and faithfulness to God and his calling, even to suffering, even to death, as our representative in our place.

10-11 Like in chapter 2, then, the focus is on imitating Christ based on what he has done - being obedient and having faith even if and when that means suffering or even death. It means “having the same attitude as Christ Jesus” as in chapter 2. Suffering for his sake is to participate in his sufferings. And the power of his resurrection - God’s resurrecting, creation-restoring power by which he raised Jesus - is already at work in us and will raise us also just as it raised Jesus following his own humility and faithfulness. Paul says he will attain to the resurrection “somehow”, being hesitant to presume upon his own accomplishments. But the end result, which is guaranteed by and delivered by God’s own power, is not necessarily in question - rather, Paul is acknowledging that his life is a process of following Jesus in suffering and that God will do much in and through him to bring him to that point. As Paul said earlier, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”, knowing that it is God who both puts in the salvation and who is really behind the work. (No complacent Christianity here!)

12-14 As the “somehow” already admits, Paul’s final state of being in complete unity with Christ is still future - full knowledge of Christ, resurrection, and so on, await Christ’s return. Christ took hold of Paul for this final state and now Paul presses on to take hold of that state. Paul, however, has not yet arrived but he keeps moving in that direction. This process or activity is not so much a matter of earning merits or becoming a better person but rather running with one’s eyes on the prize - Christ. This is not an ordinary race with only one winner but where all who run may achieve the prize (but still they must run). With eyes focused on the prize, all else that might seem important pales in comparison (as he said several verses earlier) and this helps to order his life towards the goal, which comes from God’s call into his kingdom. This call into the kingdom is describe as “upwards”, which often has the idea of “heavenwards”. Paul is called to live in heavenly reality - divine reality - the reality of God’s kingdom, his will being done on earth as it is in heaven - the power and the presence of God. As he hints in verse 20 and says also in Ephesians (we are already seated with Christ “in the heavenly realms”), we are already in heaven, though it has not fully come yet to earth. So that final state discussed so far, Paul maintains, is one we have a foretaste of even now.

15-16 The adjective Paul uses to describe himself and others here (“mature” or “perfect”) is the adjective form of the verb Paul used in verse 12 to maintain that he has not yet reached his final state, his goal of Christ. Using this play on words, Paul affirms that though he has not yet reached his goal, he is already living in the light of it, with his eyes focused on it, in the foretaste of that goal, in the power and presence of God already available to Christians in Jesus. Those who are like Paul in this should take Paul’s same mindset, which is that of Jesus. Those in Philippi who might not think in such a manner will have that goal - that final state - revealed to them by God so that they may also have the mindset of Paul and Jesus. We are, however, to live according to what we have already attained - the power and presence of God that we possess in anticipation of that final state which is still future.

So we should set our eyes on Christ. (After all, we veer towards what we stare at - which is why when you’re driving on a cliff it is best to keep your eyes on the road and why drunks tend to crash into lights at night). God has given us his Spirit and empowered us even now in advance of the Second Coming - we should make use of that!

Genesis and Christmas

These are some half-formed, sometimes random, somewhat repetitive notes I made for the sermon prep study group at Cornerstone this week - enjoy!

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Genesis 2-3: Israelites would have seen their own story here, the story of Genesis-II Kings (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings were written as a direct four-part sequel to the Pentateuch to form a single story ending with Israel and Judah’s exiles but with a note of hope for ultimate restoration).  Like Israel, Adam was formed in a deserted place (Genesis 2:4-7), brought into a new, lush land – a garden, where they would be with God and take care of the land (2:8-15).  But, like Adam, they disobeyed the commandment given to them directly by God and allow themselves to be led astray by the evil they have allowed to stay in the land and are subsequently cast out of the land, failing to find life and instead bringing on themselves curse and death (Genesis 3). 

Israel was to have been the new Adam, God’s “do-over”, the new representative and embodiment of humanity restored, who were to be the vessels to bring life and initiate the completion of God’s creation-plan as Adam should have done.  But like Adam (since they were in Adam themselves and hence suffered also from sin and death), they failed in their mission.  If Israel was to be restored from its curse, its exile, and if their mission to fulfill Adam’s mission was to be fulfilled, God would have to intervene himself.  As Adam grasped for autonomy – to know good and evil through experience of them and doing both rather than under God’s lordship and through his wise instruction – so Israel also sought freedom from God, only to end in slavery.  So Israel looked to God as Savior to save them from their state of exile/curse and thus to restore all of creation through this – Israel’s restoration would mean Adam’s!  This promise of restoration fills the Old Testament.  For example, Deuteronomy 30:1-10 (all quotes here from NIV):

30When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, ² and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, ³ then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. ⁴ Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. ⁵ He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. ⁶ The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. ⁷ The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. ⁸ You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today. ⁹ Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors, ¹⁰ if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The longing for restoration, for God to act as Savior, comes in many places (it also is partly captured in the first verse of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”).  Here are a few – Ezra 9:6b-9:

6b“I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens. 7 From the days of our ancestors until now, our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today.

8 “But now, for a brief moment, the Lord our God has been gracious in leaving us a remnant and giving us a firm place[a] in his sanctuary, and so our God gives light to our eyes and a little relief in our bondage. 9 Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage. He has shown us kindness in the sight of the kings of Persia: He has granted us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and he has given us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.

Lamentations 5:

5 Remember, Lord, what has happened to us;
    look, and see our disgrace.
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
    our homes to foreigners.
3 We have become fatherless,
    our mothers are widows.
4 We must buy the water we drink;
    our wood can be had only at a price.
5 Those who pursue us are at our heels;
    we are weary and find no rest.
6 We submitted to Egypt and Assyria
    to get enough bread.
7 Our ancestors sinned and are no more,
    and we bear their punishment.
8 Slaves rule over us,
    and there is no one to free us from their hands.
9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives
    because of the sword in the desert.
10 Our skin is hot as an oven,
    feverish from hunger.
11 Women have been violated in Zion,
    and virgins in the towns of Judah.
12 Princes have been hung up by their hands;
    elders are shown no respect.
13 Young men toil at the millstones;
    boys stagger under loads of wood.
14 The elders are gone from the city gate;
    the young men have stopped their music.
15 Joy is gone from our hearts;
    our dancing has turned to mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head.
    Woe to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this our hearts are faint,
    because of these things our eyes grow dim
18 for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
    with jackals prowling over it.

19 You, Lord, reign forever;
    your throne endures from generation to generation.
20 Why do you always forget us?
    Why do you forsake us so long?
21 Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return;
    renew our days as of old
22 unless you have utterly rejected us
    and are angry with us beyond measure.

Daniel 9:1-19:

9 In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. 3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.

4 I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed:

“Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land.

7 “Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. 8 We and our kings, our princes and our ancestors are covered with shame, Lord, because we have sinned against you. 9 The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; 10 we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets. 11 All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you.

“Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you. 12 You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing on us great disaster. Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem. 13 Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth. 14 The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster on us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does; yet we have not obeyed him.

15 “Now, Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong. 16 Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us.

17 “Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. 18 Give ear, our God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. 19 Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.”

In 3:15, there doesn’t seem to be any direct reference to Christ and Satan.  Direct reference is to the serpent, its children, Eve, and her children (the word used is zara‘, which is a collective noun referring to a group of offspring, whether human, animal, or plant (seed)), but there is further, general symbolic reference as well, since the serpent would also seem to symbolize what is anti-God and anti-God’s-creation-purposes.  The enmity described thus also describes that between those with God’s mission – especially God’s people – and those who oppose that mission and seek to sway others from it.  The former will win in the end, but not without struggle and wounding.  In Israel’s own case, the anti-God forces came originally in the form of the Canaanites who led them astray from God’s Law.  Indeed, this is what we see in Genesis 9, where Noah is portrayed as Adam (a man of the soil, who consumes a form of fruit in a bad way, has his nakedness covered, etc.) and the descendants of the villain of the story, Ham, are cursed in a similar fashion to the serpent (referred to explicitly as Canaan).  Canaan was to function as Israel’s serpent.  This pattern, however, is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus’ victory over Satan – in Jesus, Adam and Israel’s missions are finally fulfilled and the pinnacle of evil and temptation is defeated though Jesus is struck (and precisely because he is struck).  This is the culmination of the principle of 3:15 – the ironic victory of God’s people over evil (as in Romans 16:20).  As the representative of God’s people, Jesus is Israel, he is the seed, who crushes the head of evil and takes on the identity and mission of God’s people and succeeds where they have failed (cf. Galatians where Paul identifies Jesus with the promised seed of Abraham (God’s people) and then calls Christians the seed – the former is head, representative, and completer of the latter).  The defeat of God’s enemies – the enemies of his people – means the removal of the obstacle to restoration and the fulfillment of God’s creation-purposes. 

In this light, Genesis 3-11 presents a long description of the continuation of humanity’s Fall that begun in chapter 3.  The solution – what I would call the real protoevangelium of Genesis – is in 12:2-3.  Blessing in Genesis represents the fulfillment of creation-purposes – this passage outlines God’s plan in choosing Israel and their mission as part of this, to undo chapters 3-11.  But first, Israel itself would have to be restored since it too suffered the consequences of those chapters  (Paul has a lot to say about this!).  The one who would do this – who would restore Israel and all of creation, fulfilling Adam’s and Israel’s missions as the new Adam, the true Israel – was, of course, God – specifically, God come in human flesh as the promised king of Israel to usher in this restoration – Jesus Christ our Lord!

Quick note on the etymology of “Immanuel” (“Emmanuel”, from the song, is how it was transliterated into Latin): ‘im is the preposition meaning “with”; with the added first person plural pronominal suffix (i.e., “us”), it has the form ‘immanu meaning “with us”; ’el is the generic word for “god”; so ’Immanuel literally means “with us God” – that is, “with us is God”.

Notes on Galatians 5:1-12

More study notes by me for the sermon prep:

In verse 1, Paul is drawing on the idea that the Law with its Jewish particulars was one of the things that enslaved the Jews in a sense (along with sin and death), separating them from other peoples until the time of Christ (3:23-25), and cursing them for violation of the covenant with God.  Christ, then, provided rescue from this curse and deliverance from sin and the division between Jew and Gentile.  Jesus gave freedom – a new exodus, deliverance, or rescue of Israel from its exile/curse of the Law, something promised in the Old Testament to bring with it the ingathering of the nations (i.e., the Gentiles) into God’s one family.  This freedom from sin, death, Jewish-Gentile division, and the Law’s curse on Israel, then, belongs to those who truly belong to God’s one promised family – as chapter 4 has it, they are the children of God’s promise to Abraham – the Sarah people, not the Hagar people still under bondage to sin, death, division, and curse. 

In other words, Jesus came to fulfill God’s promise to Abraham of a single family of all nations on earth by bringing God’s salvation to the ends of the earth beginning with his exhaustion of Israel’s curse which it had acquired for covenant disobedience.  This sets up verses 2-4, as this is precisely what the agitators are, in effect, denying by forcing Gentiles to become circumcised – God’s family, in their thinking, was supposed to be restricted to one nation, the Jews alone.  They in effect deny the work of Christ in bringing about God’s promises.  So to go back to the old use of the Law in dividing Jew from Gentile (as opposed to Jesus’ and Paul’s use) is to reject what Christ has already done, to deny his work on the cross in bringing redemption and reconciliation between the nations. 

Paul’s point in verse 3, then, is that since being Jewish means, for the agitators, following all the Law’s Jewish particulars, Gentiles who obey the agitators (to become Jewish in order to become part of God’s people) are not done there – Gentiles being Jewish will have to go all the way and add to circumcision food laws, and so forth.  This is not about circumcision itself per se but the motives and theology behind why these Gentiles were becoming circumcised (Paul circumcised Timothy and would not say these things in 2-4 about Timothy).  Unfortunately, for centuries Gentile Christians became a version of these agitators themselves when they used this verse to deny that Jews could be Christians unless they became Gentiles first, thus again denying the work of Christ.  Even today, Christians unfortunately use terms like “Jew” or “Jewish” as contraries of “Christian”, further pushing the un-Pauline view that one cannot remain a Jew and be a true Christian.

In 5 and 6, Paul turns to the true marks of God’s family.  What sets them apart are not whether they are Jewish or not but whether they have faith, which is itself expressed outwardly in love, not necessarily in works of the Law (circumcision, etc.) – a love which by its very nature welcomes both Jews and Gentiles.  On the basis of this life led in faith, led by the Holy Spirit (associated with freedom from sin, etc. – see, e.g., II Cor 3:17) who is the sign that the new time of faith and Israel’s rescue has come, believers may now hope for the completion of God’s work in us, fully bringing his kingdom and establishing his new people in his new creation, even among Gentiles. 

In verses 7-9, Paul turns from Christ’s work to that of the agitators.  These agitators are basically trying to counteract Christ’s work in bringing together a family of both Jews and Gentiles, free from enslavement.  And what grieves Paul most is that it seems to be working at least somewhat!  False teaching, if not checked, can easily poison the church and cause people to stumble when they are easily swayed not to attend to the truth.  It takes only a few bad influences to start affecting the life of the whole church if they are allowed to continue.  In verse 10, Paul is, however, confident in the Galatians’ case that they will ultimately side with him over the agitators, no matter what is going wrong at the moment, since it is ultimately the agitators themselves who are to blame for this mess. 

The false teaching, hinted at in verse 11, was that Paul had kept back part of the gospel and of the full Christian life from the Galatians – the part about having to become a Jew in order to be a Christian.  The position was that Paul agreed with their version of the gospel but had been too stingy and had not given the Galatians the whole thing.  Summing up his self-defense so far, Paul makes it clear that he does not agree with the agitators’ version of the gospel and he certainly has not left out what they wanted to put in since it was never a part of the gospel in the first place.  If he had agreed with them that Gentiles had to become Jews, he would not be persecuted by his fellow Jews (who thought he was betraying God and Moses with his message).

Paul concludes then in this section that cutting off part of your body (like in circumcision) does not matter since both Jew and Gentile are now accepted equally into a single family – why not just go all the way and be castrated rather than stop at circumcision?  According to Paul, there is no significant religious difference.  The irony here, of course, is that to be castrated would, by the stipulations of the Law, bar one from the religious assembly of Israel.  Only the time of Israel’s rescue and the ingathering of the Gentiles, as foretold by Isaiah, would break down that barrier and allow eunuchs in on equal footing with others – precisely the work of Christ that these agitators who think they are in a privileged religious position are now denying.  Paul is therefore being even cleverer here than it seems on first glance!

Notes on Galatians 4:12-20

More notes prepared for the Cornerstone sermon-prep study group:

In Galatians 4:12-20, Paul draws on a common Graeco-Roman discussion topic of true versus false friendship, showing that he and the Galatians had had a true friendship – he is the Galatians’ true friend (and, even greater, true family), whereas Paul’s opponents are false friends.  He appeals to them on the basis of that true and intimate relationship to be transformed into the true family of God they were meant to be, with no divisions or exclusions between Jew and Gentile. 

In verse 12, Paul echoes the common Greek idea that true friendship involved, in some sense, equality, unanimity, and likeness – becoming or being like the friend, sharing in their (mis)fortune.  As in I Corinthians 9, Paul became like a Christian Gentile in order to minister to them so they as Gentiles could also become Christians.  Hence they too should be free in Christ to be Gentiles as followers of Christ.  Paul shows that there are no hard feelings and that they have had a true friendship – true friends do no true harm to one another.  Instead, they did the opposite – despite all the reasons not to, they accepted him.  In verses 13 and 14, Paul notes that they passed the test of true friendship at the very beginning of their relationship, where it would have been a temptation to disregard Paul as cursed or wicked because of his illness.  Instead, Paul, as a representative of Jesus Christ, as an apostle proclaiming Jesus’ message, was received as a messenger of God and like Jesus Christ himself. 

While the relationship they had had involved blessing, in verse 15 we have Paul questioning the continued presence of such blessing.  Has so much changed?  Formerly they would have done anything for him – true friendship involves a willingness to undergo extreme sacrifice.  In verse 16, he wonders if the change is because he is speaking the truth to them, yet that should show that he is a true friend rather than a flatterer (a common Graeco-Roman contrast is between the true friend who is frank and truthful and the flatterer who is not).  Rather than an enemy, as the opponents may have made him out to be (since he would be seen as keeping them from becoming “real” Christians by becoming Jews), his truth-speaking marks him out as the complete opposite.

Verses 17 and 18 draw somewhat on the Jewish notion of zeal, which was often applied towards the Law and the covenant between God and Israel.  Unfortunately, in Paul’s time this often ended up being twisted into a hatred of Gentiles and could be turned into violence (the Zealots).  The opponents’ misguided zeal drove them to use the Law to force the Gentiles to become Jews lest they be excluded, and thus the opponents miss the true zeal which is for the God who welcomes the Gentiles into his family on an equal footing with the Jews.  By threatening exclusion, the Gentiles are forced to depend on the opponents for their spiritual status, following their guidance and what they say in order to be proper Jews, putting the opponents on a pedestal for revealing to them the things of the Law that Paul had supposedly left out or kept from them.  True friends, true family, however, do not maintain their relationships based on personal gain.  They have zeal, but it is for good things, not bad.  True friendship is reliable – in this case, it involves a zeal which always seeks good.  And this is precisely the zeal with which Paul meets the Galatians, a zeal which involves bringing the Galatians to meet the God who would have them as a part of his one family.

In verse 19, Paul shows how deep their relationship really goes – Paul is family, he is like their mother still laboring painfully to give birth to them.  He cares for them, wanting Christ to be formed in/among them.  The community is to be Christ-shaped, with Christ as true head, they as his true body, combined together as one family in him.  Yet the opponents are trying to prevent this formation by introducing divisions and exclusions within the community in the form of the works of the Law.  In verse 20, Paul thus reiterates his true friendship, his true parenthood of them, when he expresses his care for them, wishing to be present with them physically and not merely through the letter – they have seemingly cast aside their good relationship with Paul which involved truth and belonging and accepted instead accepted a bad relationship with the opponents which involved falsity and exclusion.  Paul is bewildered that they would opt for the latter over the former.

Some Notes on Galatians 3

I wrote these up for the pastor doing sermon prep at my church and then discussed some of this during the weekly sermon-prep study group thing that happens at our church.  Obviously, not all of this is uncontroversial (what in Galatians interpretation isn't?!), but it's the best sense I could make of the text after a long time spent wrestling through it.  Perceptive readers will probably note a lot of influence from N.T. Wright and other narrative-oriented scholars here, though the interpretation at the end of the day is still my own. 

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The general idea of Galatians 3, in my opinion, is this: What time is it?  Prior to Christ, the Law had an old function but this was only to prepare for Christ.  Now that Christ has come, the old function is completed and in the past.  The Galatians, however, are treating the old function as still in play, as if Christ had not come.  This is hence tantamount to a denial that Christ has come and brought the kingdom, fulfilling God’s promises to bring blessing through his people to all nations – a denial of the gospel.  The old function was necessary and needed prior to Christ but that time is past!

In other words, this does not say that the Law is bad or that its rules were overburdensome or bad or that the Law did not reveal God’s will or that there is no function left to the Law in governing Christian conduct or that Christians should not have rules to follow – no first century Jew, least of all Paul, would agree with any of that (Paul over and over endorses many rules and even says that both Christ and believers do fulfill the Law, which in its current function he calls the “law of Christ”), though these are “lessons” Christians often get from taking Galatians out of context.  Nor is this about legalism or earning salvation – it is about whether we live in acknowledgment of Christ and his work or instead live as if it has not yet happened, as if the kingdom had not been begun by Christ on earth and the promises of God fulfilled in him.  For the Judaizers this meant ignoring that Christ had come to make a single people out of Gentiles and Jews in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, requiring that the people be confined to Jews only.  Again, this was not about rules but about ethnicity and about one’s place in salvation history – the Judaizers were placing themselves and the Galatians in the wrong act of the play, so to speak.

For us today this might involve denying the power of God and the presence of the kingdom in our lives or denying that we too have been granted the Spirit of God in accordance with his promises.  We act as if we have not been redeemed or as if we do not have the resources of God in our daily lives.  We act as if the kingdom has not begun in Christ and in us and hence put it into the future and do not take responsibility for our part in it.  Or, like the Judaizers, we deny that Christ came to make a single family of all the families of the earth, and require that everyone look like, act like, or talk like us.

Paul in Galatians wants the Galatians to understand what time it is and not to live as if it was a previous time.  The Spirit of God is a gift of the kingdom and associated with Christ’s time, made available by his crucifixion, and not the previous time, something Paul emphasizes in 3:1-14.  If it is the eschatological gift of the age to come, then it is not associated with being a Jew (“works of the law”), which would instead associate it with the previous epoch.  The promise to Abraham was blessing for all nations as those nations, not as Jews – a promise of a single family made of Jews and all other nations.  Since this promise has been and has begun to be fulfilled by Jesus in his crucifixion, being a Jew and doing the works of the law cannot be tied necessarily to the reception of the Spirit.  Instead, it is trust and faithfulness to God that marks one out as a member of God’s people, not one’s ethnicity since the family is to be from every ethnicity on earth. 

Paul contrasts in this passage those who are “out of faith” and those who are “out of works of the law”.  These phrases get translated in English various ways – “rely on the works of the law”, “take their identity from works of the law”, etc. are various alternatives in the translations of “out of works of the law”.  These are fine as long as “rely on” is not taken to mean “rely on for salvation” or “rely on to earn salvation” since that would be an over-interpretation and does not actually fit the context, where – if we want to speak of “relying on” at all – it is a matter of people relying on works of the law to display their identity as God’s people (in other words, relying on their ethnicity to show that they are members of God’s people).  For Paul, who are the ones who are “out of works of the law”? Israel, of course – they are the ones to whom God gave the works of the law.  However, by putting its faith in Christ, ethnic Israel is able to become part of those who are “out of faith” – whose identity is determined by faith, not by ethnicity. 

This begins to make sense of verses 10-14, then, since the idea here is not an individualistic focus but one on Israel as an ethnic group.  In 3:10, we find that Israel is under a curse – the curse of the law, the exile which the Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish writings all declare to have ended geographically but not spiritually or in regards to the full restoration of God’s blessings and the ingathering of the Gentiles which was to come from this.  Israel has not been restored or come out from God’s wrath for its failure to abide by its covenant as enshrined in the Law.  In other words, if Israel fails to abide by the Law, it is cursed; Israel has in fact failed in that regard (as Joshua-II Kings repeat over and over); hence, as the Old Testament affirms, Israel has been cursed.  The quote from Habakkuk comes in the context of Israel’s unrighteousness and subsequent exile and the future need for a new identity based on faith.  So coming out from the curse will involve a new era of faith-based identity. 

The Law belongs to the old era, however, as Paul emphasizes in 3:12.  In 3:13-14 Paul says that that era is past – the new era has come through Christ.  Christ brought a new exodus (note the Exodus word “redemption” here) – a return or restoration from the curse of the law/Israel’s exile suffered by Israel (“us” here refers to Paul and his fellow Jewish Christians).  The blessing to the nations, which was to flow from Abraham’s descendants, had been blocked by their own sin, which brought the curse.  But now that Christ has exhausted the curse in his own self, taking Israel’s exile/curse onto himself on their behalf, that has opened the way now for the blessing to come to the Gentiles as well.  In other words, the restoration of Israel, the time of faith-based identity, and hence the gathering in of the Gentiles into a single people of God (and the pouring out of the Spirit) has come, and this has been fulfilled through Christ’s sacrificial death on behalf of Israel. 

3:15-18 is basically about how there was meant to be a single people made of both Jews and Gentiles, not just Jews, and that one should not misread the purpose of the law as if it was meant forever to exclude Gentiles and thus cancel the promise.  The earlier promise of a single people out of both takes precedence and is fulfilled in Christ, who takes on the role of the single people (Abraham’s seed) as their representative and king and hence all who are in him are part of that seed, whether Jew or Gentile (3:29).  This shows that the ethnic-specific aspects of the law were never meant for God’s whole people forever.

In 3:19-29 Paul tells us that the law did have a legitimate function prior to Christ but that the time for that function is over.  3:19 says that the law was added “because of transgressions”.  This cannot mean that it was to restrain transgression since, as Paul states in Romans, there is no transgression without the law (since transgression = sin + law).  Instead, the law creates transgression, it turns sin into law-breaking by making Israel aware of that sin as against God’s will and turns it into explicit rebellion against God.  In the words of Romans, it makes sin “utterly sinful”.  Paul picks up more on what this means a bit further on, but maintains that this function was meant to continue until Christ and the single people of God had come.  The law came via Moses as a mediator.  Verse 20 is difficult but should read something like N.T. Wright’s translation: “He, however, is not the mediator of the ‘one’ – but God is one!”  In other words there is only one God and hence he desires one single people – but Moses was not the mediator of that one single people since that people was still to come. 

The law, however, is not contrary to the establishment of that single family, despite all Paul has said so far.  The bringing in of righteousness and the establishment of God’s promises – the law could not bring these about because of sin.  Instead, the law both condemns and incubates Israel so that, as a result of exhausting the curse laid on Israel by the law, Christ, through his faithfulness to the covenant in doing what Israel could not because of the sin which blocked it (3:22, in the Greek, says “the promise by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ”, not, as in most 20^th-century translations, “the promise by faith in Jesus Christ”), brought the promise of a single family to fulfillment, a family marked out by faith, not ethnicity.  Prior to that time, as verse 23 indicates (that is, prior to Christ, not prior to an individual’s reception of faith – that is too individualistic of a reading here and out of context), Israel (note the “we” here again referring to Paul and his fellow Jews) was kept incubated or quarantined by the law.  The law made sin into transgression but also taught the people God’s will (and actually turned sin into even more sinful transgression precisely by teaching this) and helped to keep them separate from other nations. 

But now the time of faith has arrived – the Law, which watched over Israel until Christ (it does not say “to lead us to Christ” – “lead us” is not in the Greek but is read in as an individualistic, subjective reading) has reached its goal not in marking out God’s people by ethnicity but by faith.  And with faith comes the end of the old function of the law in keeping Israel separate to prepare for Christ.  All, Jews and Gentiles, are God’s people marked out by faith since it is now the time of the kingdom as foretold.  Christ, the one seed, the fulfiller of all the promises, is our representative and hence we are inheritors of those promises, the fulfillers of them – in Christ, there is a single people of God as God intended there to be.  Being Jewish or Gentile does not matter – all are equally part of God’s family – to which, Paul also adds that gender and social status are not determinative either.  There is one people, Abraham’s seed, marked out by faith alone – not by denomination, not by how we decide to use the word “justification”, not by race or ethnicity or gender or social status, not by culture or label, but by faith pure and simple.  The gospel is that Jesus is Lord – he has brought the kingdom of God, the new coming age, and we should not deny that in word or action.

An Abridged Introduction to Christian Ethics

From a paper I wrote for an Intro to Christian Ethics class I took during the Winter 2010 Intersession:

There are a number of different questions the study of ethics may address. One might want to know which things are good or evil, or right or wrong, and may also want to know what makes these things so. One may focus these sorts of questions on things as diverse as motives, actions, character, lives, even entire communities or social structures. To focus simply on, say, motives or actions alone, however, leaves the false impression that being ethical is simply a matter of, in each discrete situation, doing what is best or right in that situation in isolation from everything else. Instead, we should see that actions and motives are shaped by and in turn shape a person’s character. Actions are not simply isolated events but integral parts of a life-long process of character-expressing and character-building and hence cannot be considered apart from this project of self-formation.

Even this is too limited, though, since one’s character and character-building project itself falls into the broader scope of and provides a kind of personal frame for one’s life as a whole. It is not simply isolated actions or even actions as part of one’s character-project that matters but also the shape of one’s life as a whole – what kind of life, beginning to end, should I have? Given what has come before, how can I make the best overall shape for my entire life, taken in its entirety?

But we still do not have enough, for our lives are not lived isolated from others or from our environment – these are all closely interconnected, overlapping and interlocking. Ultimately, we must also ask how our lives, actions, and so on, ought to fit into the communities, social structures, and cosmos we find ourselves in. And this will ultimately involve our role and fit within the broader story of God’s interactions and interrelations with his created world. The goal of this paper, then, is to provide an Evangelical introduction to Christian ethics which will focus on the ethical task of our attempt to live ethically within the context of all of these various roles and responsibilities in which we may find ourselves. Due to space, some of these aspects of our ethical lives will receive more attention than others, but that should not be seen as a judgment that these aspects are necessarily more central or important.

I. The Biblical Story

An Evangelical ethic is based first and foremost on the belief in the authority and trustworthiness of Scripture in matters of faith and practice. Children of the Fall, we have finite minds corrupted by sin. God does not suffer such limitations and hence a reliance on the arbitration of Scripture, however treacherous working out how to apply it may be, is a must. In particular, the biblical story ought to be a key starting point in our understanding of ethics. The gospel – the biblical story of God’s mighty works and relations with his people, particularly as centered in Christ – is the key ingredient here. Creation, Fall, Exodus/Torah, Exile, Return, Jesus, Church, Eschaton – all of these are important for understanding our place in the unfolding story (and for understanding the place of various biblical commands in the story in relation to our own respective places[1]) and much of it is vital for thinking in Christian ways about our natures, roles, and responsibilities in a fallen world.

God created everything good, making humanity in his own image and giving them the great goods and awesome responsibilities of stewardship over the creation, marriage, relationships, and work. Humanity has fallen into sin, however, and all of creation is shaken and marred by our sin – we ruin creation, live in broken or destroyed marriages or relationships, and indulge in soul-destroying, unsatisfying, or unethical work. But God has redeemed us and creation, making a way for a renewed humanity and renewed creation set at rights, united by love for God, humanity, and creation. The new age, the kingdom of God, where everything is perfect, has come but is not fully consummated or realized – the age of sin and death overlaps with the age of righteousness and life. Christians live in the midst of this crossroads, having begun the life of the kingdom which they will live forever, but also remaining part of the sin-marred world.

The world and everything in it is God’s and God in Christ is bringing all things under his heavenly rule which has already begun with Christ.[2] The church is the new humanity for the new creation, called out of the old, composed of the old, and living amidst the old. God’s kingdom – his imperial rule that has been won in Christ and is now being applied – is not the same as the church and is not to be identified with a particular place, people, community, or nation.[3] It is an act of God and it is the church’s task to live in accordance with it as the people of the kingdom, the people of God’s current phase in the biblical story. The whole world is fallen and Christ died for the whole world.

II. Good reasons and good actions

Christian ethics is traditionally against the idea that it is only the consequences of an action that matters for assessing goodness or badness, right or wrong. The ends do not necessarily justify the means from the Christian standpoint. Instead, in deliberating about what to do, one thinks about and weighs all the various reasons for or against various courses of actions – the ethical agent is by definition a (at least minimally) rational agent. The sorts of reasons (or sources of reasons) we ought to consider in deciding what to do are many – moral principles, duties and responsibilities, context, consequences, non-moral facts, our own motives or emotions, character or roles, created human nature, revelation, etc. Scripture and the Christian tradition in particular are both excellent resources for various kinds of reasons that might be relevant in any particular situation.

When evaluating what to do, however, we need to always be careful of ethical consistency. All persons have dignity and are of infinite value – each is made in the image of God, is loved by God, and is purchased by his grace expressed on the Cross. Each person, then, is of incomparable worth and we should not treat ourselves as somehow privileged to special exemptions from moral considerations. This consistency, in dealing with others as ends-in-themselves like myself, requires me to be careful with the reasons I act on. If I would not want everyone else to do something in the same sort of situation for the same sort of reason (or if it would defeat the whole purpose of the action if this was so), then I am being inconsistent if I go ahead and do it anyway[4] – I am treating myself as a special exception over and above everyone else. This is the rational basis for the Golden Rule.

III. Good actions and good persons

In discerning the moral value of an action, there are different levels or contexts in which we may evaluate it. We may evaluate the deed on its own as a physical act, ignoring what is “behind” the action or what is going on inside the person who performs it. A more stringent context is to evaluate it also in terms of whether the agent exhibited proper motives or reasoning in performing the action. Going still further and deeper, we may ask whether the act expresses a good character trait which the agent has and from which they are acting. And finally, we may ask whether all of this is finally rooted in a regenerate heart whose foundational direction is towards God and exists in right relationship with him. Actions, then, can be good in a broader sense of being examples of proper physical actions or proper physical actions resulting from proper motives and reasoning but fail to be good in a narrower sense of, say, also resulting from a good character and proper relationship with God (cf., maybe, Romans 14:23).

We do not begin life with unqualified, fully formed good characters, however. Nor do we begin in proper relationship with God. As somewhat-free creatures, we have been given a limited power of self-formation. Our character constrains our options, depending on how deeply it is rooted, and even effects how we see, feel, or value things. At the beginnings of our lives, freedom expresses itself through the ability to form different characters and take a wide variety of actions. At the end, freedom or responsibility expresses itself through the inability to form a different character or choose from certain actions – the fixed character is itself a result of this freedom. On such a picture, we are responsible for our fixed character and the actions that flow from it.[5]

Our self-making projects proceed through a process of habit-formation. It is by doing virtuous actions of a certain sort that one develops that virtue[6] and the same goes for vice. Of course, at first one will not be doing such virtuous actions virtuously. For that, one must have a steady character – that is, a virtuous one – from which the virtuous action is flowing, one must have knowledge of the action, and must choose the virtuous action for its own sake.

Being virtuous, though, means not merely doing the appropriate actions but having the appropriate feelings in the correct proportions and with regard to the correct things, having appropriate motives, and taking pleasure and pain in the appropriate things in the appropriate amount. If one is not virtuous, one’s feelings will not always be appropriate, nor will one’s actions or the apportionment of pleasure or pain. Pleasure is the natural response to getting what we most want or from doing what is most natural to us and pain the opposite. The bad person will take great pleasure in bad things and will be pained by good things (or at least find them boring or unexciting compared to bad things) precisely because they are bad and their character is off. Certain things, after all, can only be understood from the inside. The person who does not already believe in or properly see right and wrong will not understand morality or see how or why certain judgments are true or why they should be followed. They will not see what the big deal is or why one should be moral (either generally or in a particular instance). The truths of Christianity are similar. The person who has not internalized such things simply will not have a mind appropriately formed to handle such things in the appropriate manner.[7]

Following in the spirit of Kierkegaard, we can thus distinguish three phases of life. In the initial one, one is not an ethical person and one does not grasp ethical truths or seek to be ethical. In the next stage, one seeks the ethical and can now have some understanding of it. The last stage of human fulfillment – the pinnacle of human life – is the religious life, how our lives were meant to be. Here we now seek the religious and have some understanding of it – our life is now organized under a single guiding light, it is focused, free, and unified and not divided or enslaved by all the various goals or external goods which vie for attention. In this stage you “become who you are” – that is, your most important identities line up in a single true identity in Christ. The less we line up with our design as bearers of God’s image, though, the less we live up to being human. To be fully human would be to make oneself into a complete human being – fully formed in complete perfection, something which will not likely occur within the course of our earthly lives. To tie all of these threads together, to become who you really are, to progress to the fullness of your own humanity, requires making yourself a virtuous, religious person, slowly progressing in understanding and knowledge but driven along initially in the faith that things will work out.

This discussion so far points out some of the reasons why, the more firmly a vice is entrenched, the harder it is to get rid of it – one’s character, actions, feelings, and so on get formed around and by performing these vicious deeds. And the more one’s character gets formed as a vicious one, the more one will be vicious and the more vicious one is the more one will form a vicious character, and so on. Both virtue and vice in this sense are self-perpetuating cycles. This is why it is so important to seek virtue as early as possible and to teach others to do likewise, wherever they are at – each vicious action forms one’s character and actions for the future and begins or renews or firms up a cycle of viciousness that could potentially destroy a person morally.

Since we do not begin with original flawlessness, however, and do not live in a perfect world, our processes of ethical formation will almost necessarily involve sinning – this will simply be part of the process that we should accept. Just as one learns to ride a bike partly through making mistakes, overcorrecting (and hence making more mistakes), slowly zeroing in on a proper way of doing things, so goes the process of learning to live. We must act in a timely fashion and hence cannot spend all our time analyzing situations to make sure we are always doing the right thing. If we analyze too much, we will miss opportunities to do good and will not grow. We never have perfect information, perfect reasoning, perfect character or emotions, or perfect perceptions of the values of things. Instead, the process of acting and living in the world will involve taking ethical risks and sometimes, frankly, falling down and then learning from our mistakes. Paradoxically, to over-analyze and make it one’s primary goal on each occasion to make as sure as possible that one is not sinning results in stunted ethical growth and a decrease in one’s ability to make sure one is not sinning or to fulfill one’s roles in life.

Instead, we lean on God and the power of the Holy Spirit to guide us in our formation process[8] and trust in his grace that he will forgive us when we inevitably do mess up and will aid is in getting back up on our feet again. God regenerates our hearts, our innermost selves, and then works from there. Only in his power can we hope to complete our projects of formation (Philippians 1:6). Until then, we practice living our eternal lives now, but in the context of our fallen selves and fallen world, slowly being conformed to the image of Christ, who is himself the image of God par excellence.[9]

IV. Good persons and good communities

Every person is in relationships and has roles and responsibilities in the context of these and in the context of the various social structures and communities in which they find themselves. As Christians, the task is to live faithfully and responsibly in these contexts in which God has placed us. Not everyone can do or help with everything, not everyone has been called to give of the same amount of their resources or in the same way, but everyone is still called in some way or another to do and be a light in their own contexts.

Of course, not everyone has the same vocation or calling either in the church or outside of it (cf. I Corinthians 12, Romans 12). The church itself is the community which provides a context for Christian ethical formation and cooperation both in communal formation and in transformation of the world – a springboard for the kingdom-transformation of the entire cosmos. The church is an instrument to create and seek out justice in the world, to spread the gospel in word and in deed, and to care for and promote our shared creation.

Government, family, marriage, and the world as a whole have all been instituted by God as special structures or contexts for responsible, ethical living. How we live in the particularities of our lives is in part dependent on where we find ourselves with respect to these different institutions. The kingdom of God, however, breaks into and onto these institutions, redeeming and reconciling and transforming. The church cuts across these just as the kingdom does. The church is therefore not a separate institution above, below, or beside these or belonging to some kind of hierarchy involving these institutions. Instead, it is a progressive eruption within them.[10] These institutions too are objects of God’s redemption and, as Christ has reconciled the entire cosmos, all aspects of creation and society are open to Christians to explore and renew. The sacred/secular divide has been abolished by his shed blood and all things are under his Lordship.[11]

V. Good God

Without love, none of this ethical stuff is going to work for long. Proper love of God, self, others, and creation ought to be at the heart of all that the church does, even if it cannot always be the only motivation or reason behind things. All things, at least in part, ought to be done for the love and glory of God, not merely for what we or others can get out of it.[12] Along with loving others, if we can do this, we will have “fulfilled the law”. In biblical terms, we might speak here of righteousness – right relations with God, self, other persons, and the rest of creation. Complete, universal love and righteousness awaits the Eschaton and the final consummation of God’s new creation.

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[1] For example: as the New Testament affirms, at least some of the Old Testament laws were accommodations to less-than-ideal practices and structures then present, trying to limit them even. These laws were addressed to Israel in a particular context but the Law still expresses God’s ethical will, particularly with regards to Israel, and one way something could be polluting or unclean was precisely by being immoral. The Prophets then applied, interpreted, and enforced this will revealed in the Law and Jesus, in this tradition, did similarly. Since the church is not Israel and has a different focus and is not composed of a single nation but is to be from all (in addition to the considerations mentioned above about accommodation), aspects of the Law will not be literally for today. This does not make the Law any less authoritative or any less of God, though. We can still ask about the ethical principles or values behind a commandment and look for exemplars of virtue throughout the Old Testament and Bible as a whole, Jesus of course being the virtuous exemplar par excellence.

[2] As such, we as Christians are stewards of what God has given us – of our money, our time, our skills, creation, our very selves, and so on. None of this is ours but has been given to us as a responsibility to take care of on behalf of God, who is working on the renewal of all creation. Cf. the Parable of the Talents.

[3] Thus identifying one’s own or one’s own nation’s cause or interests with God’s is not a good idea. Patriotism – proper love and sense of duty towards one’s own country – is good, but not at the expense of hatred or unloving neglect of other countries.

[4] Cf. Kant’s ideas here. Section III, meanwhile, will be more influenced by Aristotelian ideas, particularly as they have come down through the Christian philosophical tradition.

[5] Consider two kinds of perfection: perfection as original flawlessness versus perfection as completion. Adam and Eve, prior to their sin, were perfect in the first sense – there were no moral flaws since there was as yet no exact moral character (they had just begun their self-formation) and hence they were utterly blameless. Now consider the other end of the self-formation process. At this end, one might be perfect in the second sense by holding a fixed, maximally good moral character.

Suppose someone is on the road to completion – their character is neither fixed nor yet maximally good. Since they are morally incomplete in this sense, they may choose wrong or not. The complete, however, cannot – they have completed the ethical project. So freedom expresses itself in flawlessness through the possibility of falling into vice while it expresses itself in completion through the impossibility of the same. Our time of making, however, can be ended with ourselves ethically incomplete and so not able to go on to completion.

[6] Following many others in the virtue tradition, I include among the virtues not just the “ethical” virtues as we normally understand them but also personal excellences which may vary from person to person. The duty to develop ourselves into virtuous persons, then, includes not just developing a character that results in “good actions” but also developing our own natural talents and abilities. A good character, in this sense, will be slightly different, then, for different people since different people possess different natural talents or abilities. Stewardship of one’s own self will involve personal as well as more narrowly moral goods.

[7] Cf. this paragraph with some of Augustine’s similar ideas.

[8] Tradition, Scripture, other Christians, the promptings of our own hearts, etc. are all tools that the Spirit can use to communicate with us. The Spirit guides both generally and in specific situations where God is calling us to not just any permissible or correct action but a specific action he wants for us to take.

[9] Spiritual disciplines will play a key role – not as necessarily good ends in themselves but rather as important tools in eternal-life-training and in personal formation.

[10] Hence, it is like the first bursts of color across an otherwise colorless page of a child’s coloring book, enlivening various parts but not necessarily filling them fully yet with color either.

[11] Christians are therefore subject to those civil laws which are just and have a responsibility to them and to their nations and governments, but their first loyalty is always to God, not to their nation or its laws or government. Much of the way I have framed this section has been inspired by Bonhoeffer’s works.

[12] Hence, I have to disagree with John Piper’s notion of “Christian Hedonism”, which gets proper motivational structures, in a sense, upside down.