Zach’s Theological Musings

  You and I are rich. By virtue of the fact that you are reading this blog, I can say with a very high degree of confidence that you are financially wealthy. You might not think you are rich. Almost nobody thinks they are rich. We compare ourselves to the next rung above us on the ladder of excessive wealth and bemoan our “poverty”. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bill Gates thinks about all of the countries and planets he can’t afford to buy and mopes about how poor he is. You may think, “Oh but I’m just barely getting by each month with the little that I make, and with the high cost of living who knows how I’m going to even be able to get by in the future.” But most people reading this come from America or other first-world countries. And an American who is “just getting by” is rich.

This is poor:

In contrast, you and I, my dear internet surfing friend, are rich.

Now that it is settled that you and I are rich, the question, for those of us who name Christ as Lord, is what instruction God has for us specifically as rich Christians. The word that is impressed upon me as I read about riches in the New Testament is this: tremble. As we survey the following passages on riches, it sticks out to me is that you and I, O rich friend, are in a very spiritually dangerous position.

Matt 19:23-24 And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Mark 4:19 [B]ut the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

Mark 10:25 “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Luke 6:21-25 And turning His gaze toward His disciples, He began to say, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied…. But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.”

Luke 12:20-21 “But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Luke 16:25 “But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.”

Luke 18:22-25 When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. And Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

James 1:11 For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.

James 2:5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?

James 5:1-3 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!

Rev 18:3 “For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”

It is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Here is one illustration. I used to belong to a church that was made up of mostly well-to-do university graduates. There came a point where I was distributing Bibles to Muslims and wanted to encourage others in the church to do the same. Well, in that country the church would risk losing their million dollar property if they became known as a church that was evangelizing Muslims. And some church members might risk losing their high-paying jobs. So in the end the elders of the church actually forbade me from distributing Bibles in the Muslim people’s language to my churchmates. Can you believe it? A church with a prohibition against Bibles!?! Of course, the elders tried to come up with excuses to justify such heresy, but in the end I believe that it ultimately came down to $$MONEY$$, and their unwillingness to risk losing it all.

Those elders still have time to repent, and I pray they do. But if a person reaches the end of their life and ultimately stands before God as one stubbornly guilty of prohibiting the distribution of the word of God and blocking the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to protect their pocketbook, then they have no grounds to expect to see God’s favor rather than His wrath.

Ephesians 5:5 No… greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

I’m not saying that it is impossible to be rich and still live as a disciple of Christ. God can bring camels through the eye of a needle. It is not necessarily the case that Jesus commands all of us, as He did the rich young ruler (Lk 18:22-25), to sell all that we possess and give to the poor, although that option should certainly be given serious consideration rather than being dismissed out of hand. Perhaps we would do well to start off by giving just half of all we possess to the poor, as Zacchaeus did and received commendation from our Lord (Lk 19:8-9).

In any case, it is Biblically clear that we absolutely, positively need to be ready to part with this earthly wealth at the drop of a hat for obedience to God and love for His glory. Most certainly, no doubt about it, 100% guaranteed, Jesus does demand that we at least be ready to part with all of our earthly possessions and property at His bidding (e.g. Luke 14:33, Matt 6:24). Will testifying to the truth cost us our high-paying job? Bye-bye job. Will standing in solidarity with a brother facing persecution result in the plundering of our own property? Bye-bye property, no questions asked. Will defending justice for the oppressed completely drain our bank account? Bye-bye bank account…. Bye-bye house, bye-bye church property, etc. “From now on… those who buy something, [should live] as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away” (1 Cor 7:29-31).

There may be wisdom in managing our wealth for the glory of God rather than giving it all away immediately (see e.g. 1 Cor 9, 1 Tim 6:17-19, and even Acts 5:4). There are issues here worth considering. But this blog post needs to wrap up and come to an end while leaving many issues of money unaddressed. At present I wish to stress only one point: a Biblically aware Christian recognizes the danger that attachment to money and the desires of this world will at the very least make him unfruitful (Mk 4:19), if not possibly even send him on a path for hell if his lust for the things of this world remain so strong as to prove that he never actually embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ to begin with (I Tim 6:10).

Luke 14:25-33 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: … “In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”

  The church-growth movement, whether the domestic American version, or the exported, American-based missions version, has a tendency to cheapen beautiful, challenging, life-transforming Scriptural principles into corporate-like methodologies for “success”. A prime example I see of this is when I Cor 9:19-23 is brought down to the level of a mere contextualization strategy. I would propose instead that, in context, this passage at its core is about love, not strategy. Love and strategy at times do indeed overlap. But there is a huge difference between having genuine love at the core of your being versus having a strategic orientation.

  Here is the passage:

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law, though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

Out of love Paul makes choices to sacrifice his own freedoms in order to “win” people to Christ. You might hear in that what sounds like a note of “strategy” as well, and if so I don’t completely disagree. But this passage does not cut down into us deeply enough unless we hear the note of love ringing louder than that of strategy.

  Consider, first, the context. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is largely a question and answer session, dealing with some issues that the Corinthians raised and some that Paul has raised and wants to remind them of. This letter is more topically structured than possibly any other book of the Bible, and there are several very clear transitions from one topic to the next (”now concerning…”). One way to outline the book as a whole would look like this:

  In particular, note that chapters 8-10 form one section. In verse 8:1 Paul takes up the topic, “Now concerning things sacrificed to idols,” and stays on that topic all the way to his summary comments at the end of chapter 10. Indeed, when Paul speaks in I Cor 10:31 of eating and drinking as activities which must be done for glory of God, he is not merely illustrating a general point by picking mundane daily activities at random to serve as an example. He specifically mentions eating and drinking for the glory of God because that is the specific topic he has been talking about. To supplement that specific case, he adds that of course whatever you do you should do for the glory of God.

  It is not hard to see that food sacrificed to idols is the specific topic behind chapters 8 and 10. But what happens in chapter 9? Ignoring the context, we might conjecture all sorts of ideas for what motivated chapter 9. But when we do look at the context, we see that the flow from chapter 8 to chapter 10 is not at all lost in chapter 9.

  The common thread is love. The Corinthians are asking Paul, “Paul, are Christians allowed to eat food sacrificed to idols or not?” As with the way that Jesus often responds to his questioners, Paul doesn’t answer their question directly because the heart attitude behind the question is wrong. A simple “yes” would give the wrong impression, and a simple “no” would give the wrong impression. Rather than give a simple (and misleading) answer to their question, he wants to retrain their thinking so that they learn to ask better questions.

  Paul’s response begins with this,

[W]e know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

The Corinthians’ question was knowledge-oriented. Paul wanted to turn them to a love focus. He goes on to say that, yes, we know that idols are nothing. Does that mean that Christians can eat food sacrificed to idols? Yes. Does it mean that Christians should eat food sacrificed to idols? Not necessarily. The bigger question is, “Am I behaving lovingly when I eat food sacrificed to idols?” Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.

  Are Christians allowed to eat food sacrificed to idols? Well, yes, all else being equal Christians do have freedom to eat food that was sacrificed to so-called idols. But Christians, unlike Americans, don’t focus on their rights. What I’m “allowed” to do is not my primary concern. The Christian criteria for a good decision is not, “I want it and I have the ability and freedom to get it,” but rather, “This is glorifying to God and loving to my neighbor.” Christians, unlike Americans, gladly sacrifice their rights and give up what they would otherwise be “allowed” to do, because doing something else is more loving to God and man.

  That is Paul’s point in chapters 8 and 10, and he illustrates this point in chapter 9 from his own example. First, Paul expounds the rights and priviledges he could hypothetically claim if he was inclined to:

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord?… Don’t we have the right to food and drink? Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?… If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?

If he was not walking in the footsteps of His Lord, Paul theoretically could “lord it over” those entrusted to him, and demand his rights. But he doesn’t. He instead makes a powerful counterstatement that strikes against the core of our selfish beings, and against the core of American culture in particular:

But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.

  “But we did not use this right.” Oh how refreshing to hear those words! Yes, I have many rights, but it wouldn’t be beneficial for the kingdom of God for me to exert those rights. So I won’t. Hallelujah, how refreshing to hear!

  Now we reach the passage in question, I Cor 9:19-23, and it is clear that Paul’s heartbeat throughout this letter is love. Paul is tapping into something deeper than what you would find at a cross-cultural business ethics seminar. Yes, take your shoes off at the door, only shake with your right hand, and don’t show the bottom of your foot. Yes, do those things. Be respectable. Even a greedy businesman will show culturally appropriate outward acts of respect so as not to lose business. But he is probably not motivated by love. Likewise, Christians can display certain “social skills” and to outwardly spiritual acts without the motiviation of love. Paul says that such behavior gains us nothing (I Cor 13).

  Consider, now, the application to the modern missions movement. We often hear that much of what happened in the name of (Western) Christians missions in recent centuries came in the form of a colonialism where people were called to conform to Western culture rather than to the image of Christ. True. But here’s the thing. Say that we had a colonialist missionary here in our living room and we had the chance to share with him an exhortation regarding what our generation has learned from I Cor 9:19-23. What would we say?

  The wrong thing to say would be this, “Oh colonialist missionary, don’t you realize that your colonialist approach is not strategic? Your extraction evangelism methodology is removing people from their natural socio-ethno-linguistic networks. Your only chance to trigger a self-propogating church planting movement is if you train people how to follow Jesus while maintaining their culturally-defined religious identities…”.

  No, that would not be helpful. Contextualization as a strategy is not the cure for colonialism. Compassion is. Again, the central problem with colonialism is not that it is unstrategic, but that it is unloving. A better direction for discussion with the colonialist missionary might be to ask whether his demands for the “natives” to take on Western habits is genuinely motivated by love. And if he thinks that imposing Western clothing, music, and architecture is an act of love, then again the central problem is a greatly distorted view of “love” more than anything else.

  Finally, consider Paul’s words, “To the weak I became weak.” Paul didn’t “become weak” by pretending to be weaker than he really was when he was around weak people. Rather, he became weak by loving the weak, not setting himself above them, and by using his strength to bless the weak for their sake rather than to manipulate them for his own sake. And that is the same way he “became” a Jew and “became” a Gentile (one not under the law). The concept of a follower of Christ calling themself a “Muslim” or “Hindu” and acting like a Muslim, Hindu, or pagan was the furthest thing from Paul’s mind in this passage. It doesn’t at all fit the context of this letter, or the context of Paul’s life. Loving the Muslim, Hindu, and pagan by sacrificing one’s own rights and desires in order to build them up in the faith is much more the direction of Paul’s emphasis in the context of I Corinthians and in the example of his entire life and ministry.

  The minute we reduce people to the objects upon whom our methodology is to be implemented we have missed the whole point, whether we do it as a colonialist or as a hyper-contextualist. As we listen to I Corinthians 8-10, and especially 9:19-23, we need to step out of our corporate America strategic-planning mindset, and instead pray that we might absorb a heart of loving self-sacrifice that is ever ready to say, “I have not used any of these rights…. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law… To those not having the law I became like one not having the law… To the weak I became weak….”

  Trust your feelings as a reliable source of “guidance” from God. From the LDS website:

Feelings from the Holy Ghost are personal revelation to you that confirm the truth of the Book of Mormon and the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith.

  Mormon missionaries will quote James 1:5 in support this “Moroni test” for receiving guidance. Don’t fall for it. Yes, the verse does instruct us regarding knowing God’s will and decision making. But it does not instruct us to listen to our feelings as the voice of truth. Indeed, it doesn’t even speak of “guidance” at all, but rather of “wisdom”:

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

  WISDOM. God-fearing, mind-transforming Biblical WISDOM (Prov 1:7, Rom 12:2), not feelings. Rejecting the true gospel of Jesus Christ in favor of a new substitute is not wise; rejecting the picture of God and Christ as clearly revealed in the Bible in favor of a new picture painted by demons masquerading as angels is not wise (Gal 1, II Cor 11:14). That is where Joseph Smith went wrong, and so do we whenever we follow in his footsteps.

  See also my post on Knowing God’s Will.