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I saw this on another blog the other day and it stirred me up. This is a great call to action for all of us in the “young adults” age group–we are perfectly positioned in our culture to affect the way people see the world, one person at a time. Our public witness for Christ and our message about the way the world really is can affect, not just our friend at work or school, but our whole nation (and therefore, the world…). Notice too the challenge here is not only to evangelize but to be intellectually engaged–to be thinking people who can articulate and communicate truth to those around us. We can not let the spirit of our age lull us into mental laziness and inactivity . As Jude says, we must contend for what is true, and that, my friends, takes energy. Read on for sound words:

We are all agreed that at least one great function of the Church is the conversion of individual men. The missionary movement is the great religious movement of our day. Now it is perfectly true that men must be brought to Christ one by one. There are no labor-saving devices in evangelism. It is all hard-work.

And yet it would be a great mistake to suppose that all men are equally well prepared to receive the gospel.

It is true that the decisive thing is the regenerative power of God. That can overcome all lack of preparation, and the absence of that makes even the best preparation useless.

But as a matter of fact God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favorable conditions for the reception of the gospel.

False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel.

We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion.

Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root. . . .

What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. In that second stage, it has gone too far to be combated; the time to stop it was when it was still a matter of impassioned debate.

So as Christians we should try to mold the thought of the world in such a way as to make the acceptance of Christianity something more than a logical absurdity. . . .

What more pressing duty than for those who have received the mighty experience of regeneration, who, therefore, do not, like the world, neglect that whole series of vitally relevant facts which is embraced in Christian experience—what more pressing duty than for these men to make themselves masters of the thought of the world in order to make it an instrument of truth instead of error?

—J. Gresham Machen, “Christianity and Culture,” in What Is Christianity? And Other Addresses, ed. Ned Stonehouse (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), pp. 162-163; emphasis added

I just finished a unique little book. It is 90 pages of excerpts from ancient Latin, Greek and Jewish writings surveying how people felt about crucifixion around the time Jesus was alive. The author’s name is Martin Hengel, and it’s titled Crucifixion (in the Ancient World and the Folly of Message of the Cross).

I decided to post a long selection of two main passages here for you to check out (thanks to Sara Gallagher for all the typing). If it’s too long to read online, you can download a Word document to print and read here.

It’s worth the time to read. The main thing to see is that, in every age, there has been something offensive about preaching Christ. We might get tempted to look at our cultural situation and feel that it’s especially hard to share the Gospel. But that’s probably not true.  For the first Christians, they had to deal with the fact that the very way Jesus died was itself an offensive and culturally taboo thing to talk about. Just to mention that Jesus was crucified was to make people want to stop the conversation.

Of course, it’s not as hard for us to mention the cross since we’ve been so culturally used to the idea (and because modern people are so unaware of what crucifixion really was). People find other things more offensive about the gospel. But then…is that really the case? If you think about it, isn’t it true that the idea of what the cross represents—the utter sinfulness of humanity and our inability to redeem ourselves—is an offensive concept? There’s lots to think about there. But enough of me, here’s Hengel:

 … for Paul and his contemporaries the cross of Jesus was not a didactic, symbolic or speculative element but a very specific and highly offensive matter which imposed a burden on the earliest Christian missionary preaching.  No wonder that the young community in Corinth sought to escape from the crucified Christ into the enthusiastic life of the Spirit, the enjoyment of heavenly revelations and an assurance of salvation connected with mysteries and sacraments.  When in the face of this Paul points out to the community which he founded that his preaching of the crucified messiah is a religious ‘stumbling block’ for the Jews and ‘madness’ for his Greek hearers, we are hearing in his confession not least the twenty-year experience of the greatest Christian missionary, who had often reaped no more than mockery and bitter rejection with his message of the Lord Jesus, who had died a criminal’s death on the tree of shame.  This negative reception which was given to the Pauline theology of the cross is continued in the anti-Christian polemic of the ancient world.” (pg. 18-19)

 1. Crucifixion as a penalty was remarkably widespread in antiquity.  It appears in various forms among numerous peoples of the ancient world, even among the Greeks.  There was evidently neither the desire nor the power to abolish it, even where people were fully aware of extreme cruelty.  It thus formed a harsh contradiction to the idealistic picture of antiquity…[as being a time]of ‘noble simplicity and quiet greatness’... 

2. Crucifixion was and remained a political and military punishment… 

3. The chief reason for its use was its allegedly supreme efficacy as a deterrent; it was, of course, carried out publicly.  As a rule the crucified man was regarded as a criminal who was receiving just and necessary punishment… 

4. At the same time, crucifixion satisfied the primitive lust for revenge and the sadistic cruelty of individual rulers and of the masses.  It was usually associated with other forms of torture, including at least flogging.  At relatively small expense and to great public effect the criminal could tortured to death for days in an unspeakable way.  Crucifixion is thus a specific expression of the inhumanity dormant within men… It is a manifestation of trans-subjective evil, a form of execution which manifests the demonic character of human cruelty and bestiality. 

5. By the public display of a naked victim at a prominent place at a crossroads, in the theatre, on high ground, at the place of his crime – crucifixion also represented his uttermost humiliation, which had a numinous dimension to it.  With Deuteronomy 21:23 in the background, the Jew in particular was very aware of this.  This form of execution, more than any other, had associations with the idea of human sacrifice, which was never completely suppressed in antiquity… 

6.  Crucifixion was aggravated further by the fact that quite often its victims were never buried.  It was a stereotyped picture that the crucified victim served as a food for wild beasts and birds of prey.  In this way his humiliation was made complete…   

7. In Roman In roman times, crucifixion was practiced above all on dangerous criminals and members of the lowest classes.  These were primarily people who had been outlawed from society or slaves who on the whole had no rights, in other words, groups whose development had to be suppressed by all possible means to safeguard law and order in the state.  Because large strata of the population welcomed the security and the world-wide peace which the empire brought with it, the crucified victim was defamed both socially and ethically in popular awareness, and this impression has heightened still further by the religious elements involved. 

8. Relatively few attempts at criticism or even at a philosophical development of the theme of the boundless suffering of countless victims of crucifixion can be found.. 

9. In this context, the earliest Christian message of the crucified messiah demonstrated the ‘solidarity’ of the love of God with the unspeakable suffering of those who were tortured and put to death by human cruelty, as this can be seen from the ancient sources.  This suffering has continued down to the present century in a ‘passion story’ which we cannot even begin to asses, a ‘passion story’ which is based on human sin, in which we all without exception participate, as beings who live under the power of death.  In the person and the one man Jesus of Nazareth this saving ‘solidarity’ of God with us is given its historical and physical form.  In him, the ‘Son of God,’ God himself took up the ‘existence of a slave’ and died the ‘slaves’ death on the tree of martyrdom (Philippians 2:8), given up to public shame (Hebrews 12:2) and the ‘curse of the law’ (Galatians 3:13), so that in the ‘death of God’ life might win victory over death.  In other words, in the death of Jesus of Nazareth God identified himself with the extreme of human wretchedness, which Jesus endured as a representative of us all, in order to bring us to the freedom of the children of God: He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with Him? (Romans 8:32)

This radical kenosis [Greek for “emptying”] of God was the revolutionary new element in the preaching of the gospel.  It caused offense, but in this very offense in revealed itself as the centre of the gospel.  For the death of Jesus on the cross is very much more than a religious symbol, say of the uttermost readiness of a man for suffering and sacrifice; it is more than just an ethical model which calls for discipleship, though it is all this as well.  What we have here is God’s communication of Himself, the free action through which he establishes the effective basis of our salvation.  In ancient thought, e.g. among the Stoics, an ethical and symbolic interpretation of the crucifixion was still possible, but to assert that God himself accepted death in the form of a crucified Jewish manual worker from Galilee in order to break the power of death and bring salvation to all men could only seem folly and madness to men of ancient times.  Even now, any genuine theology will have to be measured against the test of this scandal. 

10.  When Paul talks of the ‘folly’ of the message of the crucified Jesus, he is therefore not speaking in riddles or using an abstract cipher.  He is expressing the harsh experience of his missionary preaching and the offence that is caused, in particular the experience of his preaching among non-Jews, with whom his apostleship was particularly concerned.  The reason why in his letters he talks about the cross above all in a polemical context is that he deliberately wants to provoke his opponents, who are attempting to water down the offence caused by the cross.  Thus in a way the ‘word of the cross’ is the spearhead of his message.  And because Paul still understands the cross as the real, cruel instrument of execution, and the instrument of the bloody execution of Jesus, it is impossible to disassociate talk of the atoning death of Jesus or the blood of Jesus from his ‘word of the cross’.  The spearhead cannot be broken off the spear.  Rather, the complex of the death of Jesus is a single entity for the apostle, in which he never forgets the facts that Jesus did not die a gentle death like Socrates, with his cup of hemlock, much less passing on ‘old and full of years’ like the patriarchs of the Old Testament.  Rather, He died like a slave or a common criminal, in torment, on the tree of shame.  Paul’s Jesus did not die just any death; he was “given up for us all” on the cross, in a cruel and a contemptible way. 

 The theological reasoning of our time shows very clearly that the particular form of the death of Jesus, the man and the messiah, represents the scandal which people would like to blunt, remove or domesticate in any way possible.  We shall have to guarantee the truth of our theological thinking at this point.  Reflection on the harsh reality of crucifixion in antiquity may help us to overcome the acute loss of reality which is to be found so often in present theology and preaching.”  (pg. 86-90)       

Ran across this interesting sermon excerpt from D.A. Carson. Aside from some of his out-of-date comments about the economy (and it was only 2007!), he looks at the call of the prophet Ezekiel and makes some good observations on what it means to be called (as we all are) to preach the gospel in times when there is a lot of cultural opposition. Here’s a taste:

…you see, the first element in Ezekiel’s call is a call to see God and be humbled. Now that is always important. God help us. We don’t need preachers who have no vision of God before their eyes, for whom the whole business is merely an education exercise; skills nicely decked out from homiletics classes. In a declining culture this is non-negotiable. You see, in times of great revival everybody is talking about God. But in times when the whole culture is moving in other directions it is essential that those who proclaim the Word of God have their eyes so fastened on what God is like in all His transcendent glory that they are devoured by Him. And thus speak out of the fear of this living God.

Read the whole thing here.

This post follows one from last month where we looked at a common misconception about Jesus.  I was reading in Mark the other day (it’s what we’re teaching in the high school here at CCA) and ran into a story that made me think of another misconception about Jesus. This one basically says that the core of Jesus’ message was love and justice.  These are the “weightier” matters he rebuked the religious leaders about neglecting. He was unconcerned with discussing people’s personal morality, especially their sexual morality, and would have accepted anyone regardless of the choices they made about how to live their life.

 Again, this is one of the prevailing images of Jesus in our culture today. So when we as Christians discuss any kind of biblical view of morality, we’re accused of misrepresenting our own Messiah! But is this picture of Jesus accurate?

Much more could be said about this, but for today I just wanted to highlight one passage from Mark 7. Jesus is confronted by the religious leaders about His disciples’ failure to wash their hands according to the special ritual prescribed by the tradition of the day.

⁵ Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?” ⁶ He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:‘ This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. ⁷ And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ⁸ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.” ⁹ He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. ¹⁰ For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ ¹¹ But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), ¹² then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, ¹³ making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

First, it should be said here that there is a danger we need to watch our for, and it is what Jesus chastises the Pharisees for in this passage: adding to God’s word and teaching traditions as divine commandments. So in all our discussions of personal morality, we should seek to keep our thinking and language very biblical so we don’t fall into this same trap. We shouldn’t lay burdens on people that God never created. But the next section is where we get to our topic:

¹⁴ When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: ¹⁵ There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. ¹⁶ If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!” ¹⁷ When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable. ¹⁸ So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, ¹⁹ because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?”

Here Jesus goes deeper than we might have expected in His explanation of His opposition to the Pharisees and scribes. And even here, he seems to be going in the direction of the way our culture sees Him: “It’s not what’s on the outside, but what’s on the inside that counts.” This is true in a certain way. But the key to understanding what Jesus means when He talks this way is in verse 15. The issues, Jesus says, is not simply what “counts” but what “defiles.”

“Defiles” is a moral word. It carries the idea that certain things are morally (and therefore spiritually) polluting, and therefore repugnant to God. In other words, Jesus was not simply preaching a message of mass acceptance for any and all kinds of behavior. So what, exactly, are the things that “defile” a person? He explains in the next verses:

²⁰ And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man.

It is safe to say, then, that “it’s what’s on the inside that counts” is too simplistic to capture Jesus’ thought. There are things that happen “on the outside” that He’s very concerned about. Things that can defile. But it’s not where those things happen that’s most important, its where they come from.

²¹ For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, ²² thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. ²³ All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

Here’s where Jesus tells us which things defile. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it makes an important point for our generation. Jesus says that when these things are conceived in the heart, and then come out, through the body, they defile. They are morally repugnant and spiritually damaging. He is against them. Look again at the list. Notice the categories He’s working with:

1. Sexual morality (Adulteries, fornications, lewdness)
2. Wanting other people’s things (thefts, covetousness, evil eye)
3. Lying (deceit) 
4. Anger and violence (murder)
5. Speech (blasphemy)
6. Pride
7. Foolishness

These activities (these “choices people make about how to live their life”) affect whether in God’s eyes they are defiled or not. In fact, Jesus’ teaching throughout the Gospel’s is very clear: we are all defiled, because we all have these things living in our hearts and often coming out of us as actions as well. He doesn’t say, “If it’s your personal choice then that’s cool with me.” Instead, He says, “admit it, the defilements of heart and body are all over you, so I’ll die and take the penalty for your defilement. I’ll become defiled by what defiles you. Then, by trusting what I did for you, you can become clean in a way that ritual hand washing can never cleanse you.”

You see, the larger issue was that the Pharisees thought that the rituals cleansed them. Jesus’ point was that our defilement runs way deeper than that.  There’s a lot more in the Gospels that speaks to these same issues, but for now we can just say that it’s simply not historically accurate to say Jesus thought matters of personal morality are unimportant.  In fact, they’re so important to Him that they’re a matter of life and death.

The image of Jesus as a kind of green hippie revolutionary is so commonplace in our day that often it is not even questioned. This was brought home to me again with our recent trips down to Occupy Philly, where several times I heard someone remark that Jesus would have been joining the protests. Sometimes I agreed that, yes, He would have been down there, but even as a I said it I knew in my heart that I meant something different than the protesters meant. He would have been down there as a physician, for sure (as in Mark 2:17), but would he have been chilling in a tent talking revolution?

Last night I read something in a commentary on Mark that seemed to shed some light on the whole idea. It seems that in the ancient world there was a wandering preacher movement known as Cynicism. The Cynics (you can wikipedia them here) preached that:

1. The goal of life is happiness, which is to live in agreement with Nature.
2. Happiness depends on being self-sufficient, and a master of mental attitude.
3. Self-sufficiency is achieved by living a life of “Arete.”
4. The road to arete is to free oneself from any influence such as wealth, fame, or power, which have no value in Nature.
5. Suffering is caused by false judgments of value, which cause negative emotions and a vicious character.

Doesn’t this sound familiar? Isn’t this what so many people around us believe? I can say it is the dominant philosophy down at Occupy. And, even as you’ll see in the wikipedia article, some people try to say Jesus was a Cynic. But this opinion ignores the basic facts about who Jesus was. In the passage below, James Edwards makes some great observations about how Jesus relates to all this. He’s commenting on Mark 6:8-9, where Jesus sends out His disciples to preach and tells them to take only a few things.

It is fashionable in some circles today to portray the early Jesus movement according to the model of Cynical philosophers and preachers who wandered the ancient world ([one scholar] sees Jesus and His followers as “hippies in a world of Augustan yuppies.”)…The resultant picture of Jesus is that of a countercultural peripatetic [someone who walks around] who flaunts societal norms and encourages others to do so as well.

The correspondence of Jesus and His followers to wandering radical philosophers is a modern fantasy, however. There is, for instance, no evidence for the presence of Cynics in Galilee in Jesus’ day. This fact alone goes a long way toward refuting the Cynic hypothesis. But there is further conclusive evidence against it. More than one scholar has unmasked the ideological agendum of those who ply the Jewish-Cynic argument. [Here the author footnotes this quote: “Is not the aim of this entire venture to make sure that there was ‘nothing unique’ about Jesus, that he was ‘not a beginning’ of anything, and that his identity was ‘internal’ to the culture?”] A closer examination of Cynic dress, practices, and ideals reveals the correspondence between Cynicism and Jesus to be superficial, at best. The standard apparel of Cynic philosophers was a cloak, knapsack, or travel bag, and staff, but no shoes. The instructions to the Twelve, on the contrary, require staff, belt, sandals, and one tunic, but no travel bag. The differences in items are important, and not only because the recognizable Cynic travel bag is omitted. The four items required of the Twelve are, in fact, identical to the belongings that God instructs the Israelites to take on their flight from Egypt: cloak, belt, sandals, and staff in hand (Exodus 12:11). The parallel in dress, in other words, is identical to Exodus but only loosely similar to Cynic dress. These four items of clothing recall the haste and expectation of the Exodus. They suggest that the mission of the Twelve announces something as foundational and revelatory as the Exodus from Egypt, and that the disciples must be as free from encumbrances as were the Israelites, to serve God in a new venture.

The purpose of the wandering Cynic preachers were foreign to Jesus not only in dress but also in teaching and instructions. Cynicism was essentially an attack on civilization. The cynic preacher made himself uncouth and unkempt to protest the privilege and refinements of the patrician class, in particular [that is, the 1%!]. Above all, Cynicism sought emancipation from all forms of authority, and submission to nothing but the “royalty” of one’s own conscience. For Cynics, itinerancy and lack of attachments were ends in themselves. This is quite different from the program of Jesus and His disciples. The mission of the Twelve is not a crusade against civilization, nor is it free from authority. The mission of the Twelve is not a carefree nonattachment but fraught with danger, as we shall see in the subsequent story (vv. 14-19). It is a participation in a new authority conferred by Jesus. Its minimal baggage is not itself a virtue but a means for greater service and dependence on God, and its purpose is not protest but rather proclamation of God’s coming rule.

(James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, pp. 179-180)

Last night at communion Pastor Joe mentioned this, so I thought I’d post it. It’s pretty amazing to think of a sitting president publishing this…

The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln’s secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary how he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln