Indroduction to Philippians

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby,

Also Levi and Valerie,

With great pleasure, I completed Philippians. Pleasure, because the message was quite beautiful and simple, and full of Grace. It gave me the peace I hope to rediscover every time I open up the Bible.

Recently, I attained a Bible in which I intended to use my highlighters and occasionally scribble notes in the margins. It has always been a sacrifice for me to leave marks in a Bible. Sometimes, I didn't want to spoil a perfect little antique; other times I would be too humbled to add my own thoughts; but most importantly, I really didn't want to highlight or emphasize anything that would bias my later readings and make it difficult for me to see something new each time.

So this current Bible represents the thoughts I'm having now. I have it color coded, and I my commentary on Philippians starts with this small little anecdote: I had to introduce a new color into the highlighting system.

Specifically, I put various verses in pink that emphasized the church, the relationships believers have with one another, and our shared mission. The body of believers in Macedonia was Paul's pride and joy – with emphasis particularly on joy. It's not just that he uses that word more often, but it's also what John said in 1 John 1:4 when talking about fellowship. They already have joy, but fellowship really completed it. It reaffirmed their reasons for being joyful.

Joy, fellowship, and mission work form a prominent theme in the letter. We know this because it's how he chooses to open it. This is how he chooses to set the tone:

After this, all of the specific issues Paul covers are extensions of themes planted here, right in the beginning.  Most prominent on them - and this can never be stressed enough - is Grace.  All of this means nothing unless he begins and ends on the letter with this context.  For Paul, a proper letter is like a Big Mac, with Grace in the beginning, the middle, and the end.

Everything else, all of the specifics of what it means to be saved by Grace, is really only a continuation of that thought.  Levi, we've both heard the Christian life as the constant metabolizing of forgiveness.  That means, every profound philosophy we have is derived from Grace.  It's an ongoing reaction, and ongoing realization of how profoundly Grace has changed us.  This entire letter, in fact, is really just an expanded version of this singular thought:

God's plan for us is Grace.  Perhaps our understanding of the ticks and tocks, the dotted i's and the crossed t's, requires an understanding of the Trinity, but until those concepts have actually touched us in our lives, we don't actually experience these theological concepts as a reality.

Relationship: Yes, this reflects that we are made after the image of a God who, being triune, is in Himself a relationship.  But true joy in this doesn't come until after we've accepted Grace.

Joy: Is just a word.  Until we've discovered that we're promised everything that's good, and that the means of this promise is through Grace.

Love: We grow in this only as we continue to grow in our appreciation that God has loved us first.  We could not love because our value was conditional upon it, because we were slaves to the law.  Once we accept the new covenant, we still can't technically love because we're sinners.  How, then, do we grow in love?  By leaning on Grace and knowing that Christ through the Holy Spirit starts a good work in you, a good work that you cannot take credit for, and God still credits it unto you.  That's Grace.

Missions: Ahhh...

This is where we can credit this letter with a special emphasis.  Our lives don't have a mission, a purpose in the here and now until one is given to us.  While that, on its own, requires Grace, let's look at the components that make up missions, and how each and every one of those goes back to Grace.

First, it is possible to accept Grace as an individual.  Your salvation is not conditional upon your brothers' and sisters' salvation.  It is also possible to keep that salvation to yourself.  Lord knows that most of us do that, and it's unfortunate.  Still, every life matters.  Your life matters.  That you have accepted salvation is a good thing!  You don't need to evangelize.  God doesn't need you to evangelize.  Other people need you to evangelize.

Yet when you begin to understand Grace more and more, and realize that it's saving you for a relationship with a communal God, sharing that salvation makes it all the better.  

Our very reasons for evangelizing changes.

Since the dawn of time, people have proselytized their philosophies and cultural values.  There's a certain component of spiritual greed and pride in that, and a lack of respect for people different from you.  Even if you proselytize for the good of others, such as advertising a healthy diet or spreading the belief of God, there's an underlying prejudice; you don't actually love the people you're reaching out to.  You're trying to change them and control them.  Graceless missions only makes Christianity indistinguishable from the Borg.

"We like the way we are.  We will make you the way we are so that you will like it, too."

The Gospel is instead merely offering people a gift.  Grace frees us up to like people for who they really are, no strings attached.  Grace allows us to truly build on our desire for relationship.

Only through Grace can missions be a fulfilling means to itself.  Otherwise, it is nothing more than evolutionary theory applied to religion.  Evolution posits that everything must breed and reproduce.  The fittest will survive.  A good species of animal is one that multiplies and carries on from generation to generation indefinitely.  Each generation is really only a collective gene donor that exists for the purpose of donating to the next donor, which is really no purpose at all.  A proper virus is one that spreads more and more until it's everywhere.  This doesn't fulfill anything.

With Grace, we have salvation.  We offer people something.  There is a reason to share it, rather than sharing it first and then backtracking to see if we can add meaning to the chain reaction we started.

Finally, Grace allows us to fail  It allows us to be weak.  It allows us to not only enjoy one another, but to depend on one another.  Grace allows us to say that we're willing to accept that we're pretty sloppy evangelists and have let Jesus down, and look to others for support.  It allows us to persevere even when we're not charismatic enough to complete the mission.  It allows us to work together as a church instead of trying to make it on our own because "We're Christian and empowered and that ought to be enough."  It allows us to be disempowered.  It allows us to heal from the tragedy of a person rejecting Christ, because Grace tells us that we don't have to be Saviors or to bear all the same emotional burdens that Christ did.

And if you get tired of me saying it, too bad.  Paul thought it necessary (3:1).  And it is.  We have to keep on telling ourselves this every day.

All is Grace.

Sincerely,

John Hooyer

The Keepsake Parchment

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby

Once upon a time, someone wrote a letter to a man named Gaius. It was a short letter, short enough to take up only one page. Much shorter than anything I would write, personally.

You would think that with a length like this, he might have written down a concise creed that summarized the Gospel teachings into a power punch. He didn't.

Instead, what we have is a regular letter. It truly is just that. He says hello to Gaius, and that he's glad to hear that he's doing well. While Gaius's worldly security isn't the best, he wishes him protection nonetheless, just as God has protected his spirit so that he may live in the truth – Gaius is a healthy person at his core. That satisfies the writer more than anything. Although he could wish for more, he knows that Gais has enough.

He then warns Gaius against Diotrephes, who ignored a previous letter he had written, presumably 2 John. Diotrephes, from what John has heard of him, isn't to be trusted, to the point of being an enemy of the church. He is really not fit to be a spiritual leader.

Then, like a blip on the radar, John commends a man named Demetrius. Truly, he says nothing more than that Demetrius has his approval. Approval for what? He doesn't say.

Just as fast as it began, the letter ended. He would like to write more, but he won't. He has more to say that he does believe to be important, but he's keeping that for later, when he meets Gaius in person.

I turn the next page and it says “Jude.”

What a treasure chest of information! John didn't mention much about Jesus, nor salvation. In spite of his theological angle toward things, he doesn't seem to be directly handing down any doctrine. After reading this through a third time, a fourth time, I fall further and further under the impression that he's really just socializing with this letter, that it really is just a letter to Demetrius. It just so happens that the author is likely John the Apostle.

So why did the early church keep this letter on the Canon? Or perhaps I'm asking the wrong question.

Why not?

Sure, it doesn't reveal much. It isn't one of the greatest essays of the faith. But think of a photograph you might have with a loved on that came from a very special time in your life. You look at it, and it's nostalgic. You put it in a scrapbook more as a keepsake than anything else.

That's what this letter is. Don't get me wrong, I do believe you can gleam things from it. While it's purpose isn't to teach, you can still get a glimpse inside the mind of John and how he reacted to a particular set of circumstances. Still, it's a keepsake, and I will get more to that in a moment.

First, John hasn't seen Gaius in a while. He just says that some Christian brothers came and told him good things about his friend. They probably told him a lot of things. There's probably a big story here with fifty talking points. In any case, certain things stood out to John. First, that Gaius believed in the truth – that is, that Jesus Christ is God's son, that he physically died and resurrected, and that he is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. Gaius's life and his attitude must have been strongly characterized by this belief. While I doubt that Gaius was a perfect example of a Christian (Really, who is?), he was nonetheless faithful to what he believed.

It's hard to say how this truth characterized Gaius's life. The only thing that we know for sure was that Gaius welcomed fellow Christians, even strangers, into his home, and he did it lovingly.

It should be noted that hospitality was nothing particularly Christian. Hospitality was an absolute virtue in ancient Greece. Mitchell, I remember being in class together and reading the Odyssey. Do you remember how hospitable Odysseus' wife was expected to be to her suitors? And there are other stories of people who were hospitable to strangers only to find our that they were gods, like that one couple (I forget their names. Do you recall them?) who got turned into trees so that they could preserve their love forever.

However, something seemed different about this hospitality. It wasn't that non-Christians couldn't be sincerely hospitable. After all, I can imagine a pagan Greek, having grown up with the virtue all his life, growing quite fond of it and sincerely living by that principle.

So it wasn't the hospitality that was authentic, or at least not the hospitality only.

It was Gaius who was authentic.

Now we can also assume that Gaius is a church leader. Of course, it would be interesting if he was merely a lay person, because I wouldn't put it beneath John to write letters to the most ordinary of people, but people would look more often to church leaders to be hospitable. He also asks Gaius to help believers continue walking in their faith, although he doesn't phrase it as “leading” them.

So really, much of what we could know about Gaius has been lost in time, and we just have this old crinkled-up photograph. The most important thing we could say about Gaius, the most real thing we can say about him, is that he had a relationship with John.

John then brings up a touchy subject with Diotrephes. Like with Gaius, he hasn't seen Diotrephes or his ministry for himself, but he has heard things. And here, I think it's really important to try and imagine the context and the other side of the phone call.

Take yourself out of this letter. The letter isn't what's real, it's the person writing it. So imagine, just for a moment, that you're writing this as a quick reaction to news about a church you helped start in a distant land.

Well, you hear some good things about a friend of yours, and you're pretty happy. You also hear things about someone else. How was that news presented? For all we know, the people who told him about Diotrephes might have boasted about him. They might have thought that Gaius and Diotrephes were both exceptional individuals. They might have thought that Diotrephes was a great Elder Brother and that Gaius was the Prodigal Son of the congregation. They might have been matter-of-fact, or they might have been of the same opinion as John. We don't know.

I really think that John formulated his opinion on Diotrephes on his own. Nobody needed to tell him what to think, and his opinion would have been the same regardless of how the news had been presented to him.

As strongly as he feels about the subject matter, however, he doesn't have much to say about it in the letter. He even says so himself. Yes, he does have a lot to say. The only thing he specifically mentions, though, are that Diotrephes tells lies and that he doesn't accept his Christian brothers as they are.

Alright, then. Diotrephes tells lies. We're not sure what kinds of lies. Possibly Gnostic, but for all we know he could have been a Judaiser. Maybe they are personal lies about John. Perhaps they're lies specifically about Christ. Again, we don't know.

However, I have seen something like this before. I understand that there are few of us that would actually take strangers in, but interestingly the least hospitable people I have known are those who cherish their hospitality. Their downfall had its roots in legalism. And of course, I can hear them saying “legalism is good if you're careful.” Yes, because by being careful you'll avoid certain mistakes. Nonetheless, certain mistakes will fall through the cracks and reveal who you truly are.

In various different situations, I have seen several different churches decide that they would play God with who was “in” and who was “out.” Eventually, some people, even if they were Christians, would get kicked out. They would condemn people when it wasn't their business to condemn them, and when there was nothing to condemn.

Think about it. Why would Diotrephes kick out Christians? John specifically says Christians. Diotrephes has an ideological prejudice. He dislikes the values of Christians, and he will apparently invite others into his house whom he finds more commendable. "Just looking at those Christians, though – they have some shaping up to do."

He probably even thinks that it's for their own good. He probably justifies it saying that he can't maintain any true relationships except with the most righteous sort.

And of course, his definition of righteous could follow Gnostic lines of thinking, or he could be judging this based off of conformity with the Ten Commandments. We don't know. We just know that he's condemning people, and John says that this is the result of a lie. The enemy is not poor character, but a lie

It sounds as if Diotrephes has a following. He's certainly important enough that someone spread the news to him. He may have been popular enough to lead most of the flock astray. I do not imagine that popularity like this comes from being a person who only cares about himself. Diotrephes must have had a visible passion, good relationships with other people, and his message must have been appealing. I personally imagine it sounding something like this: “You don't want to be one of those Christians who compromises, do you? One of those Christians who selfishly asks for salvation but doesn't work for it, do you? You don't want to take advantage of God, do you?”

Yes, I imagine him being very sincere and very spiritual. I imagine Diotrephes being an examplar.

I also imagine him being an Older Brother.

Remember how in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the older brother reacted quite differently than the father did in the end? The father rejoiced that his son had returned. He didn't ask anything of his lost son and only loved him unconditionally. He followed every convention of hospitality and more. The older brother, however, resented his sibling. He thought that it wasn't fair, and he didn't want to see him get so much attention. Sure, it was good that his brother wanted to return, but at the end of the day, the older brother was realistic. Was it really likely that the younger brother would reform? That he would shape up and be the kind of son who would make up for all the hurt he caused his father, and that he would be worthy of the fatted calf and the party all expended for his sake? No, of course not. His father made a nice gesture, but he was convinced that it was misguided. He resented his younger brother for the unconditional hospitality he had received, and because of that he also resented his father.

This is how I imagine Diotrephes being. He's an exemplar, a pillar in their society, someone that everyone was inclined to give much credence to. He was never such an outright jerk that the Christians could simply cast him out and be done with him.

Yet, there were those who felt hurt and turned away. They would confide in people like Gaius, and they would have a close relationship together.

I can also imagine John arriving and personally saying “You, Diotrephes, have performed works that do not come from the Holy Spirit. Everyone sins, and everyone still has the flesh, but you live by an extra poison. That which you do, you do in the spirit of the Antichrist! We have had it with you. We are sick of you. Not leave us alone.”

And who knows. Maybe John would have been rather harsh in saying that. Maybe he might have broken down and decided to pray vainly on the matter. I wouldn't put it past an Apostle to slip up and make a subtle mistake like that again, even after having known Jesus personally. It happens. Or maybe at that point he isn't condemning Diotrephes, but Satan. I have trouble personally seeing where the line is drawn.

His thoughts on Diotrephes are quite absolute, however. He has nothing good to say.

The one other person worthy of mentioning, Demetrius, doesn't even have any of his good qualities mentioned. John says nothing about him otaher than that “people speak well of him.” Except, that's not good enough. He needs to clarify that truth speaks well of him as well. This leads me to think that people spoke well of Diotrephes also, but otherwise John saw the truth, and the truth didn't speak well of Diotrephes.

Fact is, though, we don't have all the facts. We have John's assessment. Because he was an Apostle and because this book made its way into the canon, we assume this assessment to be true.

But let's talk about that.

First, yes, this letter in and of itself doesn't contain much information. It's a gateway to further information, yes, but first and foremost it's a keepsake. Imagine if you got a Valentine's Day letter from the love of your life. Would you throw that away? No!

Yet, it's not the letter that proves that he or she loves you. It's not the words. It's the person behind the letter. The letter doesn't love you. Your lover loves you. Letters serve as reminders of that, especially when there's distance between you two.

In the same way, there's distance between John and Gaius, and them and us. We're connected in spirit, but we have a lot to overcome. We either hardly get to see each other, or we never get to see each other at all. Within this lifetime, there's a fat chance that I'll see the Apostle John – unless his fellow Apostles were right and he is indeed still alive today, which I always thought would make for an interesting story.

In any case, you look down at any keepsake. A photo. A love letter. And you remember good times because of it. You think of a beautiful relationship you had or may currently have. Then, if you think about it, you realize exactly what that relationship means to you, why it means that to you, and then you understand what that relationship is.

This letter is not the source of truth. In and of itself, at least. This is why I can't quite call myself a biblicist. The Bible points to truth, but it is not truth in and of itself. Not with every verse, at least. You might be tempted to read every verse as if there's profound meaning behind it, and I know a few people who like to say that every verse in the entire Bible is their favorite (really? Every last verse of Leviticus inspires you? Or how about “This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria?”). This turns into worship of the letter over the spirit.

And furthermore, John's ending to this letter shows that what he really had to say was more appropriately preserved through interpersonal relationships. He didn't just have more things to say, but I believe that he had better things to say than what he would have otherwise merely preserved in a letter. He had followed Jesus for three years and surely had more to say than what he had ever written down. He said so himself at the end of his gospel account.

On a Catholic website, in a Q&A section, one of the questions asked why Jesus never kept a journal. The Catholic who answered that question said (and I paraphrase) “It surely would have been useful. We would have learned a lot. However, He decided to let His Word live on through His followers. He wanted a living Word. Let us assume that God knew all the options and went with the best one.”

Or, as I would say, God went with the option that best conformed to His perfect will. That, and I think that there's a lot of credibility to what that website said.

Shannon, I once talked with you and came to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit's preferred mode of action was through relationship. He can, of course, spontaneously and directly inspire you, but I believe that since the Holy Spirit is relationship, He prefers to work through relationship. He reveals Himself further in relationships. And for that reason, I believe that reading the Bible like a hermit can only do so much for your soul.

I believe in the importance of Christian community. Is it an absolute necessity? I don't think so. Some people, due to circumstance, live lonely lives. However, it is right and proper that we live as a community, and that we have others.

And this brings up something doctrinal, actually. It's a very heavy, very mainstream question that truly deserves much consideration, and we can't dismiss it simply because we don't like it. That is, the ending of this letter suggests that most of what John had to say got preserved in traditions.  Through apostolic succession.  That is to say, both history and the Holy Spirit itself testify that the fullness of truth is preserved not in the Bible only, but in the living Church. And what church has the oldest traditions?

But I'm going to end abruptly before I can complete that thought.  Because I'm feeling facetious.

I will still say certain things about the validity of the church in general. The Bible is the great revelation unto man, but sometimes fundamentalists will insists on reviving the importance of the Bible in the Christian community instead of returning to the importance of Christ.  It's a beautiful document, possibly the only revelation we need, but sometimes the Bible is just a small piece of parchment that testifies to the ongoing relationship that we, the church, have with God.

Sincerely,

John Hooyer

Moments of Friendship

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby

Think about how much we are preoccupied we are with having.  I know that sounds like a cat poster but it's true - Morgan Freeman said it in Lucy.  Mitchell, I know you saw it.  It was pretty dumb but fun.

And actually, we briefly talked about that, among other things.  It was a good time, and I was glad to have that opportunity.

It was also in the past.

Brody, you and I would hang out.  That was in the past, as well.

Shannon, Shelby, same for you guys.

I don't live in the past.  The past is dead, and lives only through its effects in the present.  The present is the only thing that's alive, that's real.

Except I never quite appreciate the time I have with friends, even when it's in the present, because the present is infinitely short.  It's passing away, always to be replaced with the future.  It's an illusion, and one I'm always escaping.

Right before I got off work today, someone was complaining about his schedule.  He said that he had to work with someone he hated, except for only three hours per day.  Three hours is a lot, though.  Or hardly any time at all, depending on how you look at it.  I imagined what it would be like to be married, and only to be able to spend three hours per day my spouse.  That's disappointingly little time.  It hardly allows you to get intimate.  But then, that's a dozen times longer than any prolonged moment I have to really enjoy quality time with my friends.  Three hours a day, especially if it's consistent, is a lot.

Yet it depends.

The moral of the story isn't that it's all relative.  It's that at the end of the day, it's dust in the wind.  It's all vanity, all meaningless.

Because every good moment in your life is doomed to pass away.  It may not have passed away yet, but it will in the future.  The future is bigger than you.  It is bigger than any of your friends.

A year ago, I spent every moment I could with my friend Justin Gloudemans.  Often enough, I would spend time with Cait Vaags as well, another senior with a year left in her Dordt career.  It was a very good time in my life, and I'm glad that I had it.  Yet, I remember already missing them.  The future was more real to me than the present, and I constantly pursued what I couldn't have.  Even then, even when my worries for the future already tainted my ability to enjoy the present (now my past), I'm still glad that it all happened.

We grow up, get married, and work, work, work, work, sleep, work, work, work, work, sleep, and work some more.  Incidentally, someone's there in the bed with us, but we don't have time to socialize or have quality time.  Then, one day, you've worked enough.  You're established, and you can spend some time with your kids.  Good.  Then they grow up, and they're working and working, and nobody's schedule ever meets up, even when they themselves become fairly established.

Then, one day, maybe on Christmas, everything comes to place.  There's that one moment.  Everyone's together.  You have each other.

And it's gone.

Secretly, some people were quite sad that the moment couldn't last.  They were looking forward to the moment, but once they had that moment, they were always aware in the back of their head of how it wouldn't last.

We are future oriented beings.  Why do you think that we have to be told to not worry about tomorrow or what it shall bring?  Why is such wisdom important?

More importantly, how is such wisdom possible?

Do you want to know why we're future oriented beings?  It's because God created us for eternity.  He created us so that our identity in the present is rooted in the faith we have for our future.  So He tells us the Kingdom is coming, and the Kingdom is now because we have hope for it.

Some of you may know that the most meaningful friendship I ever had, the Great Moment, only lasted for two months.  Part of the reason why it was so great was because I always thought that it would be there, that I had security in it.  That sounds beautiful, but don't fool yourselves - it's what we commonly call taking something for granted.

It's an even better memory because I can still hope for it.  "How can you hope for something that's already happened?" you might ask.

Simple.  I'll just tell you that I eagerly anticipate the continuation of every good moment I ever had in this life into Heaven.  And more.

One day we will all die.  That does not comfort me.  Even if it's only temporary, the death in and of itself doesn't comfort me.  Still, one day we will all live.  We will live fully.  To some extent, we all live fully now, because our identity in the present is rooted in the future.

There's some troubled times ahead, but always hope for the future.  Whatever good moment you're already missing, know that it has been secured for all eternity.  Then you can truly, truly say "It is good."

Sincerely,
John Hooyer

How Righteousness Became a Lie

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby,

A little while back, I had a friend who, for the sake of anonymity, I will call Pacman. Don't read into that name, by the way. I just pulled it at random from the Rolodex in my brain.

Pacman and I, we were okay, I guess. I met him in a Christian group, although he began coming less in favor of another Christian group where he began getting more and more active, because they prioritized walking the walk. I began to trust him because he didn't struggle with the particularly embarrassing sin that the leader of my current group practiced unrepentently, and which genuinely affected me. Pacman wasn't affected by it, but he gave me his number, in case we needed to talk.

Now eventually I got invited to his church, Zorgon. This name doesn't necessarily from from my Rolodex, though. The name “Zorgon” is a slang term I use for an alien planet with particularly exotic features. In many ways, that's what this church was. He told me that it was unlike other churches, that it was incredibly formal and serious, and that the sermons were all about the facts.

In other words, I imagined a congregation being led by Mark Verbruggen.

Well actually, Zorgon was a wild safari with loud contemporary music, people speaking gibberish and calling it tongues, and younger church goers up front before the altar and praising so hard that they looked like they were having epileptic seizures. Such was the personal magnetism of their executive pastor, Zordon. He was the big floating head in the center of this, the “I am Oz!” off the church. His humility and his passion drove him to become the lead singer in Zorgon's bombastic worship band

In and of itself, these things are just style. I'm a bit more of a stoic Dutchman in my worship. If music gets a bit energetic, I stop singing altogether and just listen to everyone else.

What did become an issue for me, though, was that they looked down on others who didn't speak in tongues. It was subtle, but it was there.

Other issues came up. For all their love of the Holy Spirit, they focused more on its gifts and fruits than on its testimony that Christ died so that we may be forgiven. Every once and a while I would get lip service to that fact, but it would always be phrased in such a way that they could claim the semantics pointed toward righteous living being the central pillar of Christian faith. A statement like “Jesus died for your sins,” to them translated as “Jesus died to convict you to be more righteous.”

A certain emphasis became apparent when Zordon said that ideally, he would go for a whole year and preach nothing but his thoughts on Psalm 119. It was so obvious, that I once asked an average layperson of Zorgon what they thought of Psaml 119, and they said “That's Zordon's favorite chapter of the Bible!”

When hanging out around Pacman and his friends, I noticed a great deal of worshiping God, a lot of trust in God, and a lot of sincere thanks to God and credit given to Him for many of the good things that happened in life. Nonetheless, I noticed a tendency of them to speak of the dangerous heresy of “cheap grace,” or what they would sometimes call “hyper-grace.” One of his friends, “Wayne,” seemed to shame people who put a little too much emphasis on the important of grace and forgiveness in our salvation. Anyone who had any unresolved problems, Wayne would pressure to change and reform on a moment's notice.

Since I am who I am, you might not be surprised to know that I slipped Grace into every conversation I had about God. What I noticed was that people would greet me when I came to their youth groups, but something seemed off. They seemed excited to see me, but if they weren't perfect actors, I could see in their eyes that they felt conflicted about something. They were thinking about how to interact with me. We would hang out, have good times, but I knew that I never belonged in their group. They couldn't truly accept me, and even though they acted as if I was part of them, I understood that it was out of hope that acting in such a way would potentially work its way into my inner thinking so that I would begin to identify with them and therefore begin to think like them.

At least, that's how it feels. You know how it is when you can't quite put your finger on it, but something's off? I think that this is what Paul meant when you can see who has the fruits of the Spirit and who doesn't. Yes, he lists certain fruits, but they are attitudes, not overt actions. Often times with attitudes, you need a good intuition to see them.

Anyway, I found out that my spider-senses were right, when someone who also felt like an outcast among them told me that they spoke a lot behind my back.

One night, after finding out that I did not believe that it was possible for a man to go without sinning, Pacman confronted me in his home. At first it seemed incidental, but I noticed how he intentionally had a couple of his friends there with him.

“Of course you can go without sin,” he said, pointing to the questionable verse in John that where Jesus says “Go and sin no more.”

“Why would He tell us to do something that we couldn't do? Our God isn't a God of confusion. He wouldn't tell us to do something we couldn't do.”

“That's the point,” I said. “He's telling us to do these things, knowing that we can't fulfill them, so that we'll be forced to confront ourselves with the fact that we can't make it on our own.”

“Exactly!” said Pacman. “That's why He sent the Holy Spirit, so that we'll be transformed and no longer inclined to sin!”

“Are you honestly telling me that you don't sin anymore?”

“No, but I'm no longer inclined to sin. I haven't sinned all day, and I hate sinning! I'd like to get to the point where I no longer sin at all, and I'm getting there.”

“Everything a man does is tainted by sin,” I said. “Corporeally, anything we do is tainted by insecurity, an insecurity that we aren't enough, because until the Perfect Day we will always have an imperfect faith and feel that some part of our identity is in our actions.”

“You're just speaking philosophical mumbo-jumbo. You're just making this up. You are not getting your views from the Bible!” said Pacman. “When I wave my hand in front of your face like this, that isn't sin, is it? In and of itself, that isn't sin, is it?”

He said this with a smug grin. In fact, I did believe that what he had just done was inherently sinful. He violated my bubble. He swelled up with pride. He was arrogant, spiritually greedy, and disrespectful. He would have denied it if I had accused him of it, so I didn't bother bringing it up. You know how we all are when we're accused of these things. We almost always have a perfect way of rationalizing our behavior, because we know what the ideal attitude to have is and we've labelled ourselves as having that right off the bat so that we don't have to plague our conscience with the negative attitudes that we all carry around in reality.

I kept on insisting on my point and that we are saved by Grace through faith alone. I was quite adamant on it. Eventually – I can't remember correctly – he either through a Bible at me or slammed it on the table, shrieking “PROVE IT!”

I picked it up, turned to 1 Corinthians 13, and read “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

The idea, as I tried to explain it, was that on this side of Christ's return, we have a dim realization of righteousness in us. It is a reflection of the perfection to come, but we are only partially transformed. God isn't judging us on our reflections, though, or how brightly we reflect. He's crediting us already for the perfect bodies we will have in Christ in the world to come. At least, so was my view.

Pacman's view was different, and he believed that I was ignoring the plain meaning of the text and what the rest of the Bible had to say about his. According to him, the message was “Do better, try harder. Just stop being that person.” Interestingly, “Just stop being that person” was also his advice for how I should handle my depression. “Stop being that person” was his advise for how the church should approach gays. “Stop being that person” was his advise for dealing with insecurity.

One of his friends was particularly good at quotemining the Bible and did so with a smug look on his face. This also drove me crazy.

Then, of course, I had accusations against my character. Accusations which, by the way, I didn't defend myself. It wasn't that I took them as a compliment, but they proved my point.

“You want to hit me right now, don't you?” said Pacman. “I can tell because you're all tense.” Then he would go on to criticize me for how angry I was.

Yes, I was angry. I get a little angry writing about it right now, and I won't try to hide that fact. If I did, then I would be manipulating you, wouldn't I? I can be honest and up-front about my sins and where I have poor attitudes. I know where I'm being unforgiving when I should be more graceful. Those things are hard to change. I also understand that I can keep this in check and relieve the symptoms, but destroying these habits altogether won't be possible in this lifetime.

Therefore, I never took the moral high ground. I merely said what I believed, even if I couldn't quote the Bible. I just knew that what I had to say was consistent with the Spirit of what was being said in the fine print on its pages.

Then, the tortoise poked its head out of its shell. A moment of truth. Pacman stopped and asked me “Have you ever been baptized with the Holy Spirit?”

“I'm not sure what you mean.”

“Do you not have enough faith? This is what Pentecostalism is all about. You have to receive the second baptism via the Holy Spirit, Who makes Himself visible through tongues. The Bible says that true believers in Christ will speak in tongues, heal the sick, and survive bites from poisonous snakes!”

Pentecostalism, eh? The way he said that, it was almost as if Pentecostalism was interchangeable with Christianity. Did it occur to him that not all Christians are Pentecostal? Did it occur to him that I might be a Calvinist, or a Catholic? A Presbyterian?

“Last I checked, you only spoke English,” I informed him.

“No, it's really quite simple. It's like ehbleadionfgadgoubaenadlnavoeo@!($*&$#adojnaovai. I just spoke in tongues right there. It's the most beautiful thing.”

Alright, at this point, I would like to say that the point of this story is not to condemn anyone who gives credence to the gift of tongues. It may very well be like that. It may very well be a beautiful thing. I'm humble enough to suppose that I may be wrong about tongues and that it really is similar to how Pentecostals imagine it.

However, in this context, you can't convince me that he just spoke with the voice of an angel. Was it his arguments that set me off? No, I think that it was mainly the look in his eye. The greed.

The reason why I write about this is because of the prayer he offered me afterword. I saw the tension in his body. If only I could show you his body language right now, but this is unfortunately only a letter. He had a formal pose, with his hands clasped before him in a way that reminded me of some sort of ballet position. A sign of righteousness? I was under the impression that this was how he thought of himself, and how he suspected that he had the moral high ground and hadn't sinned throughout this entire discussion.

I knew better. We had both sinned. A lot.

Personally, it also seems to me that he subconsciously chose his righteous body language specifically to look annoying and demeaning and to further anger me. Interestingly, I chose my sarcasm and irreverence in such a way as to achieve something similar. I could see that he was being driven up the wall and was far more furious than what he was willing to admit to himself.

“May we pray for you?”

He and his friends set their hands on me. I, the big angry tall guy, the stoic Dutchman, and the enigma with a background that they couldn't quite understand, being prayed for as someone in need. In need. As in, I was given a plentiful gift by people who had much. I was needy, and they were not.

“God, I pray for this man, that he may receive You and be transformed by You...”

I understood what was going on here. He was basically appealing to God. It almost felt as if he felt that God was another friend and witness he could pull in for support.

I warned him. I told him that he could pray for me, but for the love of God, he should not pray simply that I may come to have the same opinion as him. It was demeaning, vain, and selfish. It was disrespectful to me, especially when I knew I was right.

At least, I suppose I was right.

That night, I considered praying for him as well, although in private. I didn't have a group of friends who would help me corner him so I could place my hands on him. Even if I did, I knew what my real purpose in praying for him would be if I did it that way. It would be to humiliate him and to put him in his place.

For a little while there, I put off the prayer. To myself, I hoped that he had a change of heart, but I didn't make that part of my formal petition to God. I thought that his prayer was wrong, and if I did the same thing it would be just as wrong. Even if I was praying regarding the right beliefs, I thought it was wrong. Something just seemed off about it.

So when I got around to talking to God about it, I said “God, I'm really angry right now. I know I should forgive Pacman for how angry he made me, but I really don't want to. Just make sure he's alright, and do whatever it is in Your will to do in his heart. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to pray for. Forgive me.”

I never prayed that he would receive salvation through faith. When I did, I waited until I was more emotionally distant from the situation. Still, I just couldn't get it out of my mind how he had prayed for me, how uncomfortable it made me feel, and wrong it all seemed. I didn't speak too often with authority in that argument, but I remember just how earnest I was when I said “for the love of God, don't pray that I will agree with your beliefs.”

In other words, such a prayer is basically a religious way of saying “I want him to lose this argument.” It isn't a petition to God, but a very presumptuous proposal to Him. It's a prayer spoken as if one has authority, as if one would think “Of course God's listening to me and saying 'Preach it, John Doe!' How can He otherwise? I'm one of His saints.”

My friends, pray for your brothers and sisters in faith wen they fall short. This means to pray for them all the time, for all their sins, visible and invisible. Yet, I do not say that you should run to God and gossip about sins that you find particularly egregious. Among other things, He will be the final judge on that. Furthermore, He is not some parent who will sympathize much with a child who runs and tattle-tales on their sibling. They hope that by exposing their sibling's behavior, they will gain favor with their parent, and that the parent will put the sibling in their proper place. Yet, the parent sees past these things, and punishes both the good child and the bad child. So it is, then, that when praying to God, ask that He should save you with the same sincerity that you ask Him to save others.

I know what you're thinking. “That doesn't apply to me. I'm mature enough and gentle enough not to slip into that form of reasoning.” Really? Be careful, and be honest with yourself. I think we need to take this seriously, and be careful whenever offering up prayers for disbelievers. We should evaluate and confess any contempt we may have and admit it to ourselves if our prayers are really just righteous ways of justifying that contempt.

Shortly after this argument, I fell out with Pacman and we didn't talk with each other much after that. The last thing I remember him saying was “Stop being that person!” It was really that simple, to him. Some people had heard of the falling out that we had gone through. One of the Zorgons, a beautiful woman who I knew agreed with him, had heard about the disagreement from him personally. I would assume that naturally she would now assume the worst of me and no longer want to be my friend. Yet, to my surprise, she said “That's too bad,” and carried on. We retained the visible signs of friendship.

Yet, something was off. “God bless you!” people would say. Yet they wouldn't say it to the others who were in their flock. They would say it to me, but it was odd. “Amen, John! God bless you!”

It was as if by complimenting me using religious language, they expected me to conform with their religious views. Either that, or it was a way of avoiding the argument and pretending that no disagreement existed. If they acknowledged on their inside that there was a disagreement, they found dishonest ways of going about it. They would be friendly to me, but not because I was their friend. They would reenact all the symptoms of hospitality, and they would feel even to themselves like they were hospitable but it wasn't because they were hospitable.

So when they said “God bless you,” I noticed two different hidden meanings behind it. The first was a means of avoiding conflict and pretending that things that mattered to them weren't at stake. The second was a means of passive aggressive evangelism, used often by the man named Wayne.

If I said something like “Be gentle and kind,” he would say “Amen, John! The world may think that we're being judgmental by holding them accountable, but it's really our gentility that we cannot suffer to see them continue sinning. Preach it! God bless you, John, and have a great day!”

If I said “You are saved by Grace alone,” he would say “Define Grace, John. Jesus renewed the Ten Commandments and one simply cannot get into Heaven without obeying them fully. Do you really want to see people continue on sinning? Of course, I know that you don't really mean that, John. As always, continue in your righteousness and preaching the Bible. God bless you, John!”

If I said “I have an outright disagreement with you because you're reading heresies into something someone said when they didn't say anything controversial at all, and you're judging him and calling him out based off of something you heard from him out of context” he would say “This conversation is a waste of God's time. God bless you, John!”

When a friend of mine said “Does anyone want to go biking?” he would say “I will not have anything to do with you, friend, if you are not biking for Christ. I suggest that you focus more on Him. God bless you, friend!”

These blessings never really mean what their words contain. Right away, something seemed off about them. Just as before, it was a way of avoiding an argument and pretending that everything was fine. Yet, there was something more. It was as if by constantly saying “God bless you!” he was ensuring himself the high ground. It was actually an insult. “I said it, but you didn't.” And if I did? It would still be his way of authenticating the righteousness of his attitude in everything he says. If I accused him of being a bully, he could just as well say that he was only being led and convicted by the Holy Spirit in everything he did, and was therefore blameless, and that I was reading into things. I was the aggressor, I begot any negativity in our relationship, and I was seeking an ungodly fight. In all this, he had bought himself a Victim Card that he could play should it ever be necessary.

In turn, because I cannot afford further conflict, I avoided outright criticizing them, but I also avoid validating anything they said. I did not say “God bless you” or any other signs of approval, although I sincerely wished them peace. Instead of approaching them with praise or criticism, I asked that I may be true to who I am and express that, not through preaching, but through my actions.

What is the point of all this, and why do I share it with you? I am very negative, am I not? Read this, and tell me that I'm not in some ways bitter. This whole story, while proving an inherently positive point about why we should be careful about how and why we pray for or bless one another, in spirit serves the purpose to put down those enemies I have made over time. I am not very forgiving of them.

You see, this judgment created a circle, and it goes around and round and folds in on itself. It doesn't go anywhere and only repeats what has already been done. We feel the circular movement, and we call it progress, but some of us get dizzy and we know better. He judged me and I judged him. I'm keeping him in check from keeping me in check, and so forth. Somewhere along the line, I know I offered up a vain prayer, if not in word, than in my attitude.

“Lord, fix this mess of a person.”

“Lord, humiliate him so that he has to come to terms with his beliefs.”

“Lord, I say that I dislike his attitude, but I actually dislike him as a person. I offer up this prayer so that you may change his attitude, but also that you may change him so that he won't be that person.”

This circle keeps on going, and we always come back to the same points. We always teach ourselves lessons when we get something wrong, when we sense ourselves being too arrogant, suspecting that we might be in the wrong,and we swear that we'll avoid making that problem again by going further along the circle. It's contagious, because if one person gets caught in the circle, it's so easy for him to pull be along with him, and in turn I think I've both reinforced that circle for those already in it and pulled a person or two into it myself.

How do I ever get out of that circle?

In the movie Looper, something similar happened. A bad thing happened in the future, and Joe goes back in time to prevent it from happening. Ironically, his attempt to kill the person who would eventually kill his wife caused that person to grow up and, seeking revenge, kill his wife. The younger Joe, in a moment of clarity, saw the circle, and he made a decision to end it. Young Joe took a gun and shot himself, preventing any of this from ever happening.

In a similar way, we must die to ourselves and accept Jesus' death in order to leave this world of judgment and failed convictions behind.

So when I pray about them, I still avoid saying “May they find the Truth,” lest I get trapped in the circle again. At the very best, I ask “Give them Grace.” Even then, I think it's best to simply say “Give us all Grace.” In other words, I simply offer the general petition given to us by Jesus: “May your Kingdom come.”

Therefore, when I read things like 1 John 5:16-17 or 2 John 10-11, it hits home with me. I have a deep, personal knowledge of what that sort of painful experience is like. He's describing something gone wrong, and I've witnesses it. I've touched it, and it has literally laid its hands on me.

The effects this circle has on me are still palpable. Mitchell and Brody have known me long enough to know that it's changed me. Because of the continuity of person, I'm still the same person as I was when I traveled around that circle. Some of that bitterness carries over, but sometimes it's as if this never happened, because I talk about Grace. Real Grace. It makes me happier and at peace. By finding life in Grace, I died to the circle. It no longer has authority over me, and I can speak of God's character and mercy quite freely.

Freely.

I'm no longer nervous, no longer pent-up, no longer measured and careful about how I talk about Grace. I'm up-front, radically transformed. Instead of focusing on how to get out of that circle, I rejoice that I am out of it. Whenever signs of bitterness still shine through, my heart tells me “Thank God that's not what He sees in me!”

We have all made those vain prayers and given insincere blessings. We have all been fake with each other. Not only in the past, but in the present. We still make mistakes, which makes for all the better reason for God to be disappointed in us. Instead, He says “You are righteous as Christ is righteous.”

The answer to these questions about prayer and Christian interactions is in Grace. It always is. It always comes back to that. Always hope for Grace, and always trust in it. In all my life, I don't know if I have ever encountered anything that makes me happier.

Sincerely,

John Hooyer

Prayers for False Witnesses

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby,

2 John is mercifully short.  I will cover this, and then I plan on moving on to Paul's letter to the Philippians.  That should also be a chore, but it should be of particular interest to you, Shelby.  The Elevate Conference will center around discussions and mission statements taken from Philippians, and since I will not be able to be there for the whole conference on account of Rebekah's art reception at 4:37 pm, I will be there in spirit and share my thoughts at the very least through literature.  For all intents and purposes I will be there, because I brought these future discussions into my personal present by writing about them.

Perhaps there's an analogy in there somewhere.

Meanwhile, my thoughts on 2 John are as brief, just as the letter is brief.  First, I noticed that John opens his letter with "grace, mercy, and peace."  It's a powerful greeting because it confirms something that we already have.  It says that everything is right.  He's happy for what they have, and he blesses them with goodwill and certainty that what peace they do have is true and eternal.

Every time I have troublesome questions, I come back to statements like that and assure myself that everything logically must be consistent with these value - especially since these are so prominent that the words "grace, mercy, and peace" solely make up his greetings.  And greetings in letters are like eyes, giving us a glimpse into the soul of the person speaking.  In which case, if a greeting represents the fundamental nature of a relationship, of a communion, then the essence of this relationship he has with the church, as well as with God, can truly be summed up with the words "grace, mercy, and peace."

Like his previous letter, John clarifies that Jesus is indeed the Son of God.  He commends people for living lovingly, and more importantly for living in love.  Furthermore, he says that anyone who does not preach that Jesus came as a human being is a deceiver.  You can subtract many things from the Gospel, but this in particular upsets John.  He finds other alterations to the Gospel abhorrent, but in particular he condemns additions to the Gospel.

Who wants to bet that these additions specifically affect the the simple relationship between the words "grace, mercy, and peace?"

Right after that, though, John does say something rather peculiar.

10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. 11 Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work.

The translation I've been highlighting in specifically says to not even say "Peace be with you."  This reminds me of the peculiar verses of 5:16-17 back in 1 John, in which he says to pray for people who have committed venial sins, but he doesn't actively encourage people to pray for people who have committed mortal sins.  That doesn't seem loving at first, so we have to look at that.

First, in cases like these, it's a good idea to check the original Greek for several reasons.  On the surface, it contradicts things Jesus said about turning the other cheek, handing your cloak over to someone wishing to rob you, and the parable of the Good Samaritan, so a contradiction of this nature has to be investigated on semantic levels in order to ensure that we are truly getting the spirit of what is being said.  Also, his description of this seems vague.  He's describing an overt action, but not the attitude in which is should be done.

Back in 1 John 5:16, I came across some interesting research.  For the most part, the Greek word John used for "pray" was αἰτεῖν (aitein), but when he said "I do not say that you should pray about one's mortal sin," he switches to another word, ἐρωτᾷν (erotan).  After some careful research, I looked up the individual definitions for these words and then found them in context.

Just as Greek has several words for love, it has a few words to describe prayer.  Aἰτεῖν means "to beg; to ask."  Ἐρωτᾷν means "to question God."

It's more than just the technical definitions that matter, though.  When writing of Jesus, John prefered to use ἐρωτᾷν.  When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gesthemene, John used the word ἐρωτᾷν.

Then Pulpit Commentary had this to say:

The change from αἰτεῖν to ἐρωτᾷν is noteworthy. The former is used in verses 14, 15, and the beginning of verse 16; the latter at the end of verse 16. The latter is the less humble word of the two, being often used of equals or superiors requesting compliance with their wishes. Perhaps St. John uses it here to indicate that a prayer of this kind is not a humble one. 

In the same commentary, it also puts critical emphasis on the importance in understanding that "the prayer of one human being can never cancel another's free-will."

Keep in mind, John writes these letters in a fairly heated climate.  Passions run high on both sides.  Have you ever wondered why there is animosity between certain Christian denominations and yet almost no ongoing debate between Christians and Buddhists?  That's because matters such as Jesus' identity and finished work hit close to home.  If I takled to a Buddhist, almost immediately we recognize that we're different and that there's no reason to expect that we should come at life's questions from the same angle.  Whereas with Christians and Gnostics, they both recognized that something special happened in Jesus, and they both used the term "Christ."  They would run into each other, think that they would have a lot in common, believe that they shared a faith and that it was the most important thing in their lives.  Yet, all of a sudden, things come tumbling down as the differences pop up.  One will take the intimate faith of the other in vain, in language that the one can't quite shrug off.  Resentment builds, and infighting happens.  A believing Christian would feel far more distressed when he saw someone come so close to understanding the faith, yet take it and distort it.

So what John said in 1 John 5:16 and assume that he's speaking in the same spirit here.  It sounds very much like he's discussing something similar, how to approach complicated, often tragic relationships with Matthew 7:22-23 Christians.  He isn't saying to give up on them, but he's still reminding Christians to abide by certain principles:

1. Don't develop a savior complex.  Accept that you can't control what these other people put their faith in.
2. Don't let the sun rise on your anger.
3. Don't pretend that there's no major issue when there really is one.
4. Don't be passive aggressive with your prayers for reconciliation and obligatory blessing.
5. Don't be vain.  You chose your faith correctly thanks to the Holy Spirit, but that does not make you better than them.
6. Don't assume that as a Christian you have special spiritual authority others.

As much as I think this interpretation is sufficient, I do feel that I need to illustrate these verses in action by telling stories.  Commentary on the Biblical text can be a beautiful thing, but I'm not a biblicist, because I believe in the significance of what John says when he ends the letter abruptly after this point, saying that he would much rather speak in person than record them all down in a letter.  The Word of God is a living Word, so I think it's more important that I be able to truly say how I feel about this matter not by explaining the text, but by exploring these themes in my own unique language from the way this truth was revealed in my own life.

So I end this entry here, because I would much rather cut it off and let my little anecdotal stories be their own thing and stand on their own.  It would be a little more authentic of me, because it's through this mode of communication that I truly feel at home and like I'm more truly alive.

Sincerely,

John Hooyer

The Outliers

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby

Reading through and confessing the struggles I have had with this letter has fleshed out my understanding of it as a whole, and I can be at peace with the questions I had before. This letter isn't as legalistic as it first seem, even though it's very easy to quote it out of context if you wish to hold guilt over someone's head, because it's inevitable that we'll all accuse someone sometime of not being loving while using vaguely defined criteria that wouldn't personally incriminate us.

The letter isn't about exposing our sinfulness in order to explain to us why we need to repent. Unlike Jesus' most famed opponents, John isn't writing against Pharisees. Instead, he's arguing with off branches of the Christian faith – inspired by Greek teaching – that would eventually turn into historic sects known as Gnosticism and Marcionism. So John isn't using the law to expose the hypocrisy we all have when we live by the Law, and he isn't defending Grace specifically, although it does become an indirect issue.

The main question was whether or not Jesus actually physically died for our sins, and the implications that has for one another. The great “therefore” of this letter is in our views on others with relation to our service to God. To a Greek thinker, it would be tempting to suppose that serving people would get in the way of serving God. In fact, any material pursuit would take away from service to God, and that service to God had to be done in the mind. Mind over matter. To love people would be to love them at the expense of God, and to acknowledge the world would distract from acknowledgment of its Creator. So John writes an Ethics 101 for them and gives them a refresher in old Jewish ideas, dating all the way back to Genesis, that love of God's creation naturally flows from love of God, and that no one can say “They're more preoccupied with loving God than with loving people.”

Does that sound familiar? It's a criticism that the church gets in our current culture all the time. “They love God more than they love people.” And John says, quite simply, that if God is properly understood, that will not be the case. Loving God and His children go hand in hand. Furthermore, when John writes of the new command (2:8), beyond what has existed from the very beginning, it isn't so radically different, and in fact I had a hard time pointing out exactly what it was, since the whole while he still speaks of love. It seems to me that the new command, to hope in Christ, solidifies his point, because Christ's incarnation proved that God so loved the world that He was willing to become a part of it. Surely this should prove that a Christian, logically, had every reason to live as Christ did. We were meant to be in this Creation (Genesis 1:28), and the natural birth and death of God Himself should prove this beyond all doubt.

It is very difficult to live the same way knowing this. More importantly, thinking that people do not matter to God creates a problem, because it insults the finished work of Christ. It insults it – to the point where the logical outworking of this is to conclude that Jesus was not the Messiah.

Our logical understanding of what is right and wrong, then, should flow from that fact. We are to live as Jesus did, and how did Jesus live? In his epistle, John doesn't go into as much detail as he did with his gospel. What he does say about Christ focuses on the incarnation, and while not mentioning any specific works He performed, he lets it hang. If Christ was incarnate, he loved people. It was a Godly love, but also a very human love, and a physical love. Jesus did more than just give people faith; he gave them life. Spiritual? Certainly. John 4:14. At the same time, Jesus reached down, made physical contact with the pus-covered skin of lepers, and physically healed them. He gave them physical life. Hence 1 John 3:18 – love if more then just an abstract spirituality, but something you do.

Many critics of Christianity criticize us, and rightfully so, for “giving people Bibles instead of bread.” While the importance of spiritual food cannot be neglected, I think that I do often see a natural tendency of some people to focus only on that to the exclusion of loving people with a physical love. This attitude naturally occurs even in people who believe in Christ's death and resurrection, as most Christians do. Yet, our attitudes toward that historic, physical event, and the works of Jesus haven't changed since the time of the epistles. That pattern, to only care for people's physical needs, is something we struggle with today just as much as we did yesterday. “Every 30 years, there's a new humanity.”

So we give them Bibles so that they may have living water. Yes, it is true that this living water gives them eternal life. No, they don't always accept it. They may be skeptical. For that reason, we often help them physically, help them out on their worldly problems, but only as a precursor to sharing the Bible with them. Are we ever actually sincere about it? With a legalistic framework, no. We care about results, about means to an end. Nothing is ever free to happen spontaneously.

Sometimes I feel that we give them spiritual water and not physical water in hopes that they will die soon and get it over with. Writing in prison, Paul felt that way about himself (Philippians 1:21). Then, of course, if those people do end up living longer, then it's for the greater utilitarian good. The Gospel gets spread. We're happy for that. Never mind the fact that physical life is also good in its own right, and physical death is jut as unnatural as spiritual death (Compare Genesis 1:31 with Genesis 3:19). Yet, if they don't receive Christ? Are we still happy for them? No, we're disappointed, because to us, our physical love meant nothing, and those improvements we made to their lives apparently had no ultimate meaning. We can't be happy for that. We only ever allow ourselves to be happy for their physical life if it contributes directly to their spiritual life.

Except John is eschatological. Everything has an ultimate meaning, because our works are reflections of the Coming Kingdom. They are very real manifestations of it. So John believes that yes, you can be happy for someone's physical well-being. Unconditionally, you can be happy when a rich man gives to the poor (3:17). Even if the poor man doesn't receive Christ, the Kingdom nonetheless became more real through the rich man's actions. Is spiritual death still a tragedy? Yes. John writes so that they may have eternal life (5:13).

The question we naturally have, then, is “How do we then prioritize our actions? What is our game plan for living? What play shall we make in order to love properly?” To which, John doesn't give them the luxury of an instruction book. He says, quite simply, to have faith and be guided by the Spirit. Believe in Jesus, and have eternal life. Then, in its own mysterious ways, the Spirit moves you. You will feed others with both spiritual and physical food, and it will be out of love, not an ethical theory that constantly second-guesses itself.

Now look at this from another angle. This letter applies to more than just Platonism influenced theologians who reject the physical world. Even more fundamental to who we are, even more dangerous to our ability to accept Jesus at face value, is our lingering suspicion that His work wasn't enough. “Yes, he covered my sins in order to get me into the door, but if I'm not careful, I can lose that Grace!” Like an elephant in the room, we always stand in the shadow of a monolith of Law. The old legalist always tells us “You're not good enough. You ought to. You have to. Why don't you try harder? Do more? Love more? After everything He's done for you!”

We know instinctively that this is wrong, but sometimes we look at the Bible and have trouble seeing how it doesn't fit in. Letters like this, after all, implore love. Doing more. Walking the walk.

So legalism takes this and implies it, and in Jesus' name for good measure.   It will go out, and love people.  You know how this often turns into?  Spiritual policing.  Often times, a savior complex. We'll help other people out, and then give them spiritual instructions. Pretty soon, the height of our “loving” consists of doing nothing to help them physically because we're doing them a favor by focusing on their spiritual needs, which consists of, among other things, of prodding them to see to the worldly needs of others.

Or it may not lead to that at all.

Legalism might lead to the same fruits as Platonism, but sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes it's smarter than that.  It looks at these verses, and figures out the wisdom behind them.   Therefore, there are legalists who never get any rest, because we always sacrifice we for others, outwardly content but unwilling to admit to ourselves that it will never be enough. If we're lucky, we will collapse and have to confront the reality, that our love isn't sufficient, and that we never loved in the first place.

Hence, the two main points of the letter.  When I looked at an introduction to 1 John in one of my Bibles, the commentators summed it up similarly:

“The First Letter of John has two main purposes: to encourage its readers to live in fellowship with God and with his Son, Jesus Christ, and to warn them against following false teaching that would destroy this fellowship. This teaching was based on the belief that evil results from contact with the physical world, and so Jesus, the Son of God, could not really have been a human being. Those teachers claimed that to be saved was to be set free from concern with life in this world; and they also taught that salvation had nothing to do with matters of morality or love for one's fellow-man.”

More or less, I would say that I agree with the commentary.  It explains why his direct references to Grace-centered theology are brief, why he illustrates a conflict between the clearly righteous and the clearly wicked instead of a conflict between the “righteous” and the outcast “sinners”, as Jesus often did.  And now, I find myself in a full understanding of this letter.

Or do I?

Because, you see, there are a few passages that brought up outlying questions not answered right away within the main narrative of the letter. I didn't have answers for these, and they present enough of a challenge for me that I decided to take an extra few days to digest them and mull it all over in my mind.

Outlier No 1:

1 John 5:3-4

3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

What specific commandments is he referring to here? Whatever he's talking about, it isn't burdensome. It's easy. Except keeping ever last letter of the Law is impossible, therefore by definition not easy. And if you try to convince me with that cop-out that need to obey the spirit of the Law, “Love God and thy neighbor,” stop it. It says right here that if one truly kept the spirit of the Law, he would also keep the letter of the Law. Which we don't do.

So that are these “easy” commands? Could they be the sacraments? Is he referring to baptism, confession, and confirmation unto faith?

The commandments have to do with something worldly, because of v. 4. They overcome the world. It is easy – nay, inevitable. The fourth verse takes what the third verse said and escalates it. Could this escalation suggest that he's merely speaking with hyperbole?

Curious, I took my questions to Bible commentaries and looked online. I received several interpretations for these verses, but they weren't asking quite the same questions I was asking. Mostly, I just received Christian sabre-rattling. However, I did encounter Pulpit Commentary on Biblehub.com, which was the only comprehensible commentary it offered. While still not asking the same questions I was, it mentioned 

“These are the words, not merely of an inspired apostle, but of an aged man, with a wide experience of life and its difficulties. 'Difficult' is a relative term, depending upon the relation between the thing to be done and the powers of the doer of it.”

No, that still doesn't answer my questions. It actually gave me more, because I wonder how this affects how I read all of the other verses in this letter. How should I read this in light of John's age and experience? How is this letter different in tone than it might have been if he had written it on the day of Pentecost? What exactly were John's innermost attitudes? And really, is he being relative here? Is he merely saying that Christians generally sin less?

Shelby, you and I talked about this last night, and it helped to be able to personally go over this with one of you. If I remember correctly, you put it this way (and I paraphrase):

“Well, I can't follow the law, but because God has forgiven me, I'm freed.”

The emphasis (again, presuming I remember correctly), was on “being free.” Which again, is up to all sorts of interpretation. Still, I understand what you mean. We're saved by forgiveness – furthermore, forgiveness that has its roots in substitution. Because of substitution, any righteousness that God accredits to us becomes very real.

Furthermore, did John really just say that our faith needs overcoming? “Even our faith?” (I added the emphasis to the what I just read from the NIV, but as it turns out, the KJV emphasizes that word, too) So our faith is the hardest thing to overcome? I really assume that this means that our faith, in its most natural state, rejects Christ. So perhaps the revelation of the Person, presented to us as a physical historic reality, allows us to believe. It allows us to know (Take that, Gnostics!).

Is he saying that we don't need that much faith in order to be saved? That even a token of confession is enough to put us in right standing with God?

Maybe what he's saying is that it doesn't take much to get our foot in the door, after which point we're far more rooted than we realize. Pretty soon, we begin living with much more faith, although we don't feel it happening in us. Subjectively, we feel as doubtful as ever, but objectively, we'd be surprised at the people we've become.

Then there's the Good News translation, which I said that I've been reading in order to help make my way through, but I haven't been quoting it lately because it hasn't been my study version. In that translation, it says “And we win victory over the world by means of faith.” Several others say something to the extent of “And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith.”

At this point, I think it's essential to approach this verse by going all the way back to the original Greek, and that's beyond my scope.

Outlier No. 2:

1 John 5:6-8

6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

What does it mean that he “came by” water and blood? That verb. That preposition. It makes no sense to me. It came completely out of nowhere, and there are so many ways I could take this, and each feels as if they would be as valid as the other. Whenever people say “The Bible clearly teaches this and is always clear,” I point out verses like this. No one can offer be an interpretation that I will accept as 100% doctrina infallibilis. If anyone looks down on someone else for having a different interpretation on that verse, then they are without humility.

Maybe I'm being too hopeless. Maybe the Christian community has a pretty solid consensus, coming from years of tradition, on what this means.

Except Pulpit Commentary says “Few passages of Scripture have produced such a mass of widely divergent interpretation.” Ergo, no consensus, and therefore any interpretation I gleam off it must be taken with utmost humility.

The Good News translation makes this less mystical and says: “Jesus Christ is the one who came by the water of his baptism and the blood of his death.” Except at this point, it isn't translating, but rather interpolating. This was, by design, meant to be an easy translation to read, and it tries to be user-friendly. That has helped me on numerous occasions, but it can be a fault. When a passage is genuinely challenging, it's better to admit that up front.

Just because the interpretations vary, though,, that does not mean I can't safely conclude certain truths from this passage. From everything John said thus far, we already know that what he's saying here is, if nothing else, a reminder that Jesus and Christ are one and the same. The eternal did not merely encounter the temporary, but became the temporary. This is his main treatise from beginning to end in the epistle.

Based on context, I can also further that point. In 5:7-8, he talks about testimony, and they all testify toward the same thing. That is: God has given us eternal life, and its source is through His Son (5:11). So I can safely say that these verses, in addition to giving us further reason to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, also reinforce the implications of His mission, i.e. the Gospel According to John 3:16.

Outside of that, the firmness of my interpretation isn't so firm as to call to mind Winston Churchill. In fact, I don't even have any specific interpretations, only speculation.

Questions like why John mentioned water and blood specifically. That refer to His baptism and His death. On the other hand, it could refer to the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. It could also refer to the water and blood that poured out from His ribcage after one of the Romans stabbed Him. It could even refer to all of these things, and my experience shows me that poetry (and God) is most certainly capable of communicating multiple things with one statement.

It should be mentioned here that the Good News translation has the Imprimatur, which means that the Roman Catholic Church has officially authorized this translation. It does not have the nihil obstat, but nevertheless, the Church has endorsed it. So I would assume that this means that, according to Catholic tradition, “baptism and crucifixion” is the appropriate interpretation of this verse, or at least an acceptable one. As such, I give this interpretation heavy credence.

Still, wouldn't a better way of phrasing this be that “He came, was baptized, and crucified?” Instead, these translations and interpolations still say that He “came by water and blood.” I don't quite know that that means.

Whatever the case, 5:7-8 only makes this more confusing. The Spirit, water, and blood are in agreement. While the testimony of the Spirit inherently makes sense to us, how does the water and blood testify to Christ's identity and mission? If John were to point toward anything about the historic Jesus, the wouldn't the ultimate testimony be in His resurrection? The resurrection that he “saw and touched?” How exactly do these three testify, and why does he cite these testimonies specifically? After all, Jesus' baptism had given people such as the Gnostics to suspect that Jesus was a mere man with no divinity about Him, and that Christ descended upon Him in that incident. The baptism was an awkward and hard to explain incident that, in spite of the difficult questions it brought up, the disciples preserved through Gospel literature and tradition. That Jesus died was actually a reason why some would be inclined to not have faith in His identity, and that death really would have been pointless anyway if not for the resurrection. One of the false teachers that this epistle addressed was a man named Cerinthus, who taught that the divine entity and purpose of Christ came upon Jesus during His baptism, guided Him in His ministry, and left Him at the cross because Christ could not truly suffer death. So to the Gnostic, these historic events proved the opposite of what John is saying here.

While reading the paraphrasing Living Bible, I encountered a possibility. Though I again think it engages in just as much interpreting as translating, it says that three voices in each case testify: “The voice from the Holy Spirit in our hearts, the voice from heaven at Christ's baptism, and the voice before he died.” Holy Spirit – that one is self-explanatory. Voice from heaven: it's safe to assume that “This is my beloved Son” indicates that the voice in question comes from the Father. Jesus' last words on the cross were “Father, into Your hands I commit My s(S?)pirit,” hence, the final testimony.

In the Textus Receptus, which is the Greek print from which the Luther Bible, the King James Bible, and many other Bibles base their translations on, the text reads:

“ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, ὁ λόγος,καὶ τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα, καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσι. καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ,” or “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth.”

Thank you, Living Bible. I can see why Rebekah likes you so much. Thank you also, Textus Receptus. That was actually quite helpful, even if it rendered some interesting thoughts I had rather obsolete. As in, I had some interesting thoughts on what the testimony of the blood might have meant, but now that I look at it, I think it might be incoherent.

1 John 5:6-8 provides possible proof of the early doctrine of the Trinity. While I can't prove that this is what it meant (there is still room for interpretation), the case seems solid enough, and it is interesting.

Independently, I considered certain other interpretations. For example, in context, John writes this immediately after saying that a follow-up question to the previous outlier of mine: “Who is it that overcomes the world?” Then he says, “Only the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God.”

Then we come to the current verses being studied. “This is the one who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ.” He did not say “Jesus Christ is the one,” but rather he tacked on the name at the end. The name is being used to define something. Already, we know that Jesus Christ can be equated with “the one,” but John placed Jesus Christ's name immediately after mentioning the water and blood, as if that was what he is equating with Jesus Christ.

Suddenly, I can see a different interpretation, that John might not have been talking about the Trinity in this, but instead of the sacraments. That is to say, Jesus is in baptismal water and is in the wine of the Eucharist. This just might completely explain what he means when the Bible says that he “came by” water and blood. Also of important note, it would also explain why he lists water and blood in that specific order; when I previously thought I saw a potential correlation between this and the phrase and the blood and water coming from the wound that he mentioned in his account of the Passion, I neglected to note the order – blood/water vs. water/blood – carried any significance. Thus, the Catholic teaching on baptism and the Eucharist might completely true on account of this verse.

This carries even more weight, because I did some research. Dr. Daniel B.Wallace writes of a textual problem with 1 John 5:7-8. The problem, to be frank, is that these verses were never in the eariest Greek manuscripts. Neither were they in the next generation of manuscripts that might have filled in the blanks memories preserved by tradition. In fact, these two verses, with all their potential to prove the earliest Christian doctrines of the Trinity, only appeared in the sixteenth century.

The manuscript used for the Textus Receptus were compiled by the Dutch Catholic named Desiderius Erasmus. He published in in 1516, not so shortly before the Reformation, which inherently had less authenticity than the church in Rome on account of starting its traditions afresh and independently centuries after the apostles stated the church – in person, and using more than just letters. The reason I say this is that the Textus Receptus was the first widely used manuscript to use verses 7 and 8! The earliest manuscript to include this is the tenth century codex 221, which included this verse in a footnote – and that footnote was added some time after the codex was originally recorded.

You could say that God corrected course and divinely preserved His Word through Erasmus by inspiring him to pick out an obscure addition to the first epistle of John and bring it back to the mainstream, because the very earliest manuscript would have used it. If you're a Biblicist, that's fair game. Go ahead. It's a matter of faith, and nothing I say is going to stop you.

Or you could agree with Wallace:

“In reality, the issue is history, not heresy: How can one argue that the Comma Johanneum [1 John 5:7-8] must go back to the original text when it did not appear until the 16th century in any Greek manuscripts? Such a stance does not do justice to the gospel: faith must be rooted in history. To argue that the Comma must be authentic is Bultmannian in its method, for it ignores history at every level. As such, it has very little to do with biblical Christianity, for a biblical faith is one that is rooted in history.”

I believe this to be true. It still raises questions, though. England became a superpower, and then America, and there's a wealth of English-speaking talent around the world. That's not including the other languages into which the Textus Receptus has been translated, but it provides a particular problem for the English-speaking world. What are the implications on our view of the Bible that something like this could happen, and that we still accept it? Does it imply that the Bible is fallible, or does it prove that it is living? Whatever the case, I think that it destroys some extremist views on the Bible, particularly among those who worship it in a similar manner that a Muslim worships the Quran.

“The irony is that their very clinging to tradition at all costs (namely, of an outmoded translation which, though a literary monument in its day, is now like a Model T on the Autobahn) emulates Roman Catholicism in its regard for tradition.”

When I read Chapter 5 without verses 7-8, it still makes sense. The flow is just as good, just as poignant, possibly even better, but I'm not going to make any final judgment on that. What I do know is that in this context (or lack thereof), 1 John 5:6 seems to err toward a sacramental affirmation rather than a trinitarian formula.

So perhaps one shouldn't interpret what John meant when this got written down. We should instead ask what the scribe who wrote that note in the margin meant. In which case, I think that the only way this detracts from the passage is that we have slightly less proof that doctrine of the Trinity dates back all the way to the original disciples.

Outlier No. 3:

1 John 5:16-17 

16 If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

Blips on my radar like this one occur because they tie directly into my curiosity with my background as a Catholic.  Its interesting that the main focus here is to ensure new believers, people who are weak in faith, that they may be relieved to know that not all sin will sever their relations.  But then, it could also be used as a basis for the doctrine of purgatory.  I could go into that subject, but instead I plan on taking this a different direction.

Last Sunday, I went to Immaculate Conception Church in Sioux City and spoke with a deacon there. He said “If this last week I had nothing but trouble and I said 'I renounce You, God!' which is a mortal sin, I would go to Hell. Except if the next day I said 'I'm sorry, please forgive me,' did I ever truly renounce Him?”

The Catholic Church teaches that there are two types of sin with regards to your salvation: venial and mortal. This more or less works as you would suspect it to work. That is to say, certain sins lead to death, and certain sins don't.

Of course, all sin leads to death. All sin is death. But to the follower of Christ, who is baptized in Him and communes in Him (whether we're talking about the physical sacraments or the spiritual act inherent in salvation itself), the situation gets somewhat reversed. Now, instead of leading to death, sin leads nowhere. Surely, it doesn't benefit us, and it is always harmful, but as a general rule, sin simply doesn't kill us anymore.

What, then, are these mortal sins? John doesn't elaborate. I checked out the Pulpit Commentary on this, and the opinion expressed there is that through his silence, John is discouraging people from coming up with any iron rules on what constitutes for one. What matters is the attitude the person has when sinning, and this can rarely be discerened by our fellow-man. Except a) it often can be for those who see clearly the works of the Holy Spirit, and b) what exactly are the underlying attitudes that lead us to Hell?

People often point to several different passages to suggest that certain sins are worse than others. They usually involve escalation and hyperbole (“It is better to do this than that”/“You think this is bad when that is actually worse”). These, though, usually only serve to point toward hypocrisy in the reasoning of people who judged themselves according to the Law. Escalation doesn't show us what the worst sins are, but rather asks the audience to ask questions about the big picture and what spirit we are guilty of. Simply searching for verses where Jesus mentions a specific sin and Hell in conjunction with each other doesn't work, either – all sin merits Hell.

This leads me back to my conversation with the deacon. According to him, Hell is a sign of God's mercy because, if he had renounced God and remained that way, he would have found that Heaven to really be Hell. Thus, God spares those who in their heart-of-hearts reject an eternal relationship with him by allowing them to simply die in their sins, the only real alternative. It's terrible, but it's necessary in order to keep free will.

Mortal sin is truly perverse, and it doesn't often feel that way. People often point to certain verses where there's an escalation of sin My belief on what constitutes as mortal sin comes from Mark 3:28-29, which came to my attention because my father would reference it often:

28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

The formula there is the same as used in 1 John: All sins are forgiven, except for mortal sin. Except Jesus gets specific. He says that there is truly on great condition, the Mother of all Sins. This is the sin that will ensure that you die in your sins if you commit it. The reason is simple, because he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit rejects His testimony, and whoever rejects the testimony will never have a heart fertile for accepting Christ's atonement. The Holy Spirit testifies so that you can come to forgiveness in the first place – so refusing to accept forgiveness for your sins is the unforgivable sin.

Grace.

It all comes back to Grace.

Because in spite of all the imperatives, all the implications of what a believer should be, all the statements that real believers get it right, John can't begin or end on those notes. When speaking solely of salvation, he simply must stay true the beautiful simplicity of it all: Jesus Christ pleads on the behalf of sinners, and the only way to not receive this forgiveness is to die rejecting it.

Remember, Jesus died for you. More importantly, He lived for you. Live, now, as someone who walks with a living God.

Pax vobis,

John Hooyer