Blessing All

A Lenten Reflection

In AD 165, a terrible plague hit the Roman Empire that lasted for fifteen years. Some historians think it was smallpox, but whatever the cause it was devastating. Perhaps a quarter or more of the population died. A hundred years later another plague hit Rome, with similar results. Bodies were piled up in the streets, some being thrown there before people actually died. Thousands abandoned the cities for the countryside in an attempt to escape the pestilence.

But there was one minority group that responded very differently to both plagues. They stayed in the cities. Rather than avoiding the sick, they cared for them. As a result of receiving simple food and water when the ill were too weak to look after themselves, many survived when others who were forsaken by their friends and families died at a much higher rate. Some of those in this special group of caretakers also contracted the disease, however, and died. Why did they do this, knowing the danger? Why did they act so differently than many of their neighbors?

Largely, those that stayed to help the sick were Christians. They believed Christ’s call to love their neighbors, their pagan neighbors, even if it meant possible death. As a result, not only did Christians survive at a higher rate than pagans, but many of the pagans who were cared for by Christians—and who saw their sacrificial love for others—turned to Christ themselves. The reaction of Christians to these two plagues was one of the most significant factors in the conversion of half the Roman Empire to Christianity by about AD 350.*

Israel was chosen by God to be a blessing to all nations. That was the original promise and call God gave Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3), which Jesus and the prophets reiterated. We likewise have no right to turn inward and keep our blessings to ourselves, as the Jewish leaders had done. Our focus is to be outward and welcoming, even toward those who may bring us harm.

Israel was to openly accept people of every ethnic group and nation to Jerusalem as Jesus reminded them: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Mark 11:17). We as Christians should also gladly receive people from all nations to our churches, our communities, and our countries. We can fulfill the Great Commission not only by going to all nations but also by encouraging people of all nations to come to us. In this way they can hear and see and experience the gospel in ways that may not be possible in their home nations, where Christianity is illegal or suppressed. This is what Christians do—what mission-minded Christians do.

Might it be dangerous to do this? Might some people take advantage of us? Might some of those who come from other countries actually be looking for ways to do us harm? Yes, there may be some. But we can say two things in response. First, the vast majority of people who take the risk to travel from one country to another are simply looking for a better life. The Bible clearly calls us to assist those who are seeking to escape poverty or oppression. Second, Jesus never told the disciples that following him would be safe, or that telling others about him would be safe. In fact, he told them quite the opposite.

    “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels” (Mark 8:34-38).

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Excerpted from Andrew T. Le Peau, Mark Through Old Testament Eyes (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2017), 206-08.

*Rodney Stark, The Triumph of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2011), 114-19; and Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 73-94.

Images: The angel of death striking a door during the plague of Rome. Reproduction of a wood engraving by P. Noël after J. Delaunay. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0); Jesus healing–falco pixabay

Who Killed Jesus?

A Lenten Reflection

Who killed Jesus? This question (and some unfortunate answers) have led to malicious, deadly attitudes and actions.

The Jewish leaders, who had been anxious to do away with Jesus for a long time, finally had the opportunity to put him on trial—even if it was in the dead of night in a kangaroo court. But because they had no authority under Roman rule to enact capital punishment on the charge of blasphemy, they instigated a mob to pressure Pontius Pilate. He then had his solders execute Jesus by crucifixion.

Though it was the Romans who hoisted Jesus on a cross, many Christians down the centuries have harbored anti-Jewish sentiment, labeling them Christ killers. Pogroms, persecution, cruelty, and the holocaust have been the terrible results.

All this comes not from a misunderstanding but from willful blindness. Did the Jews kill Jesus? Paul makes it clear this is completely wrongheaded.

“Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin,” he tells us in Romans 3:9. Jews and Gentiles killed Jesus. No one can claim moral superiority. None is guiltless. “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded” (Rom 3:27). Both groups have rejected God and his Son. Nonetheless, because of God’s love, “Christ died for the ungodly. . . . While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:6, 8).

Who killed Jesus? We did. We, sinful Jews and Gentiles, put him on the cross. Those first-century Jews and those Gentiles who condemned and crucified Jesus stood in our place, symbolically representing us and our sin. At the same time Christ stood in the place of all of us who were not just bystanders but who were his executioners.

Thank God that Jesus prayed to the Father to forgive us. We didn’t know what we were doing.

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photo credit: PublicDomainPictures Pixabay

He Died for Me, and More

A Lenten Reflection

Christ died for me. That is a wonderful, miraculous truth. The creator of the universe thought I and my relationship with God were of such importance, that it was worth his death to restore a broken relationship and turn an enemy into a friend.

As amazing as this is, there is more. The New Testament often speaks of supernatural powers, rulers, and authorities of this dark world that are opposed to Christ. (Romans 8:38-39; Ephesians 6:12).

At the cross Christ defeated these, disarming them and bringing them into submission (Colossians 2:13-15). He destroyed Death (2 Timothy 1:9-10). He broke the power of the devil (Hebrews 2:14-15; 1 John 3:8).

During Lent we consider the cost of our salvation. At the same time, we dare not neglect that the cross reshaped the cosmos. We are part of that reshaping. Without this larger perspective, however, we diminish the cross. We fail to appreciate its full significance. The power of Sin, Death, and Hell are broken.

The cross was about us, but not just about us. We magnify Christ even more when we extol the universe-shaking story that lays low the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

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photo credit: WikiImages Pixabay

What Are We to Make of Suffering?

A Lenten Reflection

When we are struck by illness, disappointment, depression, or when we are sinned against by violence or injustice, we can struggle to believe God, trust God, or feel God’s love.

Philosophers and theologians have done little better in the face of such pain and sometimes horrific evil. Yes, we can “explain” it by reference to free will. That is, we can’t truly love God or truly be in his image if we don’t have free will—which also opens the option of rejecting God, rejecting love, and choosing what is wrong. And I believe in free will and this line of thought.

Nonetheless, I still wonder: Is all the pain and suffering worth that? Can it justify the good? Does the possibility of love balance out the scales of senseless torture, murder, violence? I have a hard time seeing how we could say yes. Ultimately, I wonder, Wouldn’t it have better for God to not create at all rather than create a world with the horrific and sometimes massive amount of cruelty and death?

One thing that ironically gives me a glimmer of comfort is that the Bible doesn’t attempt to answer those sorts of questions the way so many try. When Job made such a challenge to God, God did not respond with the kind of answers we or Job might want. Instead he says to Job, my wisdom is seen in how I made the immensities and intricacies of the heavens and earth. Can you trust my wisdom for everything you don’t see?

In the New Testament, we don’t find answers either as we might want. But God does respond. He enters into the evil, sin, and death, of the world. He experiences the worst his own world can throw at him. At least, then, he knows what we have gone through. But in addition to that he responds to evil by fighting it, and he calls us to do the same.

We find in the Bible no superficial, “Oh, there’s a reason for everything,” or a flippant, “The good makes up for all the suffering.” Such responses would be insulting to anyone who has experienced deep pain. God takes evil much more seriously than that.

What we find is much more profound. During Lent, therefore, I consider that when it comes to evil God didn’t answer–he acted. In the cross is God’s fullest response in the battle against Evil and the Evil One. There he deals a death blow to Death. And in that I find hope as we look to the day when he will wipe away every tear and set all things right.

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Setting Things Right

A Lenten Reflection

In typography, when we straighten lines on both sides of a column of text we say it is justified. This gives a clean appearance so readers are not distracted by jagged edges. Readers can then focus on the words, not on how they look.

Jagged edges appear elsewhere too. A family member gets ill. We feel betrayed by a friend. Someone rear ends us. These and more pile up till we snap back harshly at those we love most. We fail to live up to our own standards of honesty, loyalty, charity.

We also need to be justified. Our lives need to be straightened and aligned with God. As Fleming Rutledge notes in The Crucifixion, the English words justify, justification, righteous, righteousness are all from the same word group in Greek.

    “Righteousness” does not mean moral perfection. It is not a distant, forbidding characteristic of God that humans are supposed to try to emulate or imitate; there is no good news in that. Instead, the righteousness of God is God’s powerful activity of making right what is wrong in the world. (author’s emphasis)

This activity involves our individual lives but also much more. Our broken world needs to be justified as well, a world in which justice is too often perverted.

    When we read, in both Old and New Testaments, that God is righteous, we are to understand that God is at work in his creation doing right. He is overcoming evil, delivering the oppressed, raising the poor from the dust, vindicating the voiceless victims who have had no one to defend them. (328)

The verb Rutledge frequently uses in her book to convey this action which justifies and makes righteous is to rectify. The world and all of us in it need to be rectified, to be set right.

As we enter Lent this Ash Wednesday, we remember that while we have been rectified in Christ, we are also still in the process of being rectified. We live in the already of Christ’s finished work, knowing that sin in ourselves and our world show that his blessings have not yet flowed as far the curse is found.

As he rectifies us now, we hold in that grace the hope that one day all will be set right.

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Image credit: Free-Photos Pixabay (woodtype); 41joseatortosa Pixabay (hillside)

Don’t Start Here

When we write, starting with an outline is almost impossible.

That’s the case I make in Write Better (chapter 3, if you are interested). First comes observing, thinking, questioning, reading, researching, discussing, jotting notes, and maybe drafting paragraphs. Somewhere in the middle we start organizing our ideas.

New York Times columnist David Brooks describes how he does exactly this.

    I am always collecting strings on about seven or eight columns. I’ve got piles of paper for gun control, immigration – whatever the issue of the day is – and then some intellectual things or cultural things. I’m collecting that string and I have a column due every three and a half days. . . . Based on what happens on the day before it’s due or the day it’s due, I’ll decide “Okay, I’m gonna do this one.” I have all this paper, documentation, notes I’ve taken from interviews, and I think geographically.
    I lay it out on the floor of my office in piles of paper. Every pile is a paragraph. I pick up a pile. Write that paragraph. Throw that pile of paper in the garbage. And then repeat for all the piles. By the time I start writing, the column is already 80 percent done. It’s the organizing of the piles that’s the key process.

That’s how I wrote Write Better. My research and doodling consisted of forty years of editing and speaking about writing, and twelve years of blogging about writing and editing. Those were my rough notes and research. Then I took those “piles” of material and started sorting.

I initially had at thirty or forty groups which I consolidated into about twenty. As I did so, I noticed they fell into four large categories—the craft, the art, and the spirituality of writing plus practical things writers need to know about publishing.

When I started seriously drafting the book, I continued to rework the arrangement of chapters. Then I got input from a dozen readers on my full draft who gave many suggestions for more reorganization. Once more I shifted chapters around.

Order and structure are essential in helping readers understand what we have to communicate. As I say in Write Better, we shouldn’t try to start with an outline. But we had better end with one.

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paper image credit: Pixabay myrfa

The Day I Flunked English

When I was in elementary school, I struggled to read.

I remember one particularly embarrassing episode when I was required to make a oral book report in third grade. I chose Winnie-The-Pooh, thinking it would be relatively easy to get through.

Whether due to lack of discipline, lack of focus, or lack of confidence, I only managed to struggle through one chapter. I still remember the look on my teacher’s face and the question when I finished my much truncated report: “Is that all?” Yes, I had to admit, head hung low, that was all.

Then there was the F in English I got in seventh grade. That called for a family meeting, with me at the center. I couldn’t figure out then and I still don’t know how that happened. I thought I was doing fine. I didn’t remember getting low scores in tests or failing to turn in papers. But there it was. I had flunked.

Yet one year later, in the summer before high school. I thought it would be a good goal to read Moby-Dick. And I did.

What changed? What transformed me into not just a good English student but someone who loved to read and loved to write?

I am sure part of it was just taking time for my brain to mature. Part of it might have been simply needing years of practice till the disciplines of study finally became second nature.

One important factor, though, that I still remember is the influence of my older brother and sister. I always saw them reading. They had books on their shelves and belonged to a book club. Seeing those arrive in the mail every so often was always exciting. Since I wanted to be as smart as they were, I thought I needed to read.

Do you want your younger siblings, your children, your grandchildren to become readers? By all means, read to them. But let them catch you reading too.

How Has the Internet Changed Reading and Writing?

Recently I was interviewed by Melissa Wuske in Foreword Reviews, which has focused on independent book publishing since its inception. To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt below. You can find the whole interview here.

Accessibility has been a huge boon to writers and editors. With so much information digitized, in a few keystrokes we can track down books, articles, quotes, and facts that forty years ago could take days and weeks to research. Information is truly democratized.

All is not paradise, however. We have tradeoffs. Today as readers and citizens we are drowning in data yet are in desperate need of wisdom. We have accelerated life (including our reading) to such a pace that it is hard to take time to stop and reflect. Even our habits of reading short snippets make long-form writing a challenge. Yet in such a complex world, we are kidding ourselves if we think we can live by sound-bytes alone.

One way I have tried to deal with this is by focusing my reading in books. I tend to stay away from magazines and newspapers (print or digital) as well as radio, TV, and social media to keep up with the news, though all these media have value. Obviously I believe in the importance of the open flow of information (and I hear about significant events anyway and can follow up if I wish), but what is reported on today will almost never be remembered or have much significance next week.

Books can take a longer and more measured view on what mattered in the past, what matters now, and what will matter in a year or a decade. Books also help strengthen our ability to think through issues in a more sustained, reasoned way that fights against the sometimes trifling and impulsive urgency of the moment.

What books have you read recently that has been helpful in this way?

One of the most important and fascinating is Factfulness by Hans Rosling. He details with data and stories how the world is much better than we think in many realms, even though much work remains. Another excellent volume is Them: Why We Hate Each Other—And How to Heal by Ben Sasse. He gets us outside the most recent news cycle to see deeper issues. Two others are A History of Western Philosophy by C. Stephen Evans and The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege by Ken Wytsma.

The Problem with Writers

One of the main problems writers have is that we keep getting in the way of our own work. We fret if our ideas are any good, if our writing is stale, if anyone will enjoy it or be moved by it. Thinking about ourselves in this way can bring our work to full stop.

How do we overcome this? Instead of treating our writing as an avenue of self-expression or a channel for our unique creative impulse, we treat it like a job. We take the self-focused emotion out of the equation. As Steven Pressman says in The War of Art, we act like professionals. “The professional loves her work. She is invested wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.” (p. 88)

Our focus is not on ourselves but on production, on the words, on the craft. As professionals we commit to producing so many words per day or per week, and then we write them. We schedule deadlines for ourselves and meet them. If what we write is bad, we work at it more. If it is good, we improve it still further.

Yes, art matters. But it doesn’t arise by aiming at it. “The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique,” says Pressman, “not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come.” (p. 84) Professionals engage in deliberate practice.

Writing as a form of therapy has its place. Journaling can help us work out a problem or deal with our past. But if our goal is to write something for other people to read, we have to forget about ourselves, be cold blooded and objective. We must listen to criticism as if it were about someone else’s work. Writing can’t be about us. It has to be about the writing.

Want to beat writer’s block? Act like a professional.

Want to Know Jesus Better?

The Old Testament has taken a lot of hits in recent years. And it’s understandable when all people see are harsh rules and religious wars. It can seem so unenlightened if not downright wrong.

Let’s admit it. The Old Testament is a foreign country. Even when translated it can seem like it’s in a different language. We also find strange customs that often don’t make sense, and odd names that are hard to keep straight.

The solution, of course, is not to dump the Old Testament but to work to understand it, to learn more about those customs, that ancient history, how their literary genres are different from ours. But why? Why is it worth all that effort?

Because rooted in the Old Testament is our Christian understanding of mercy, justice, compassion, peace, faithfulness, forgiveness, creation, holiness, truth, and more. Without all that, our Christian faith is gutted.

More to the point, if we don’t understand the Old Testament, we can’t understand Jesus.

Fleming Rutledge quotes a radio preacher who said, “If you want to know what went on in Jesus’ mind, read the Old Testament.” And then she goes on to say, “There are many things that we do not know about Jesus, but of this we can be sure: his mind and heart were shaped by intimate, continuous interaction with the Scriptures. If we are to have ‘the mind of Christ’ (1 Cor 2:16), we need to know the Old Testament.”*

Did Jesus say we should avoid the Old Testament? Minimize it? Take scissors and paste to it? What he said was this:

  • The Old Testament is about him (John 5:39).
  • We can avoid error by knowing the Old Testament (Mark 12:24).
  • Through the Old Testament we know why the Messiah had to suffer and then enter his glory (Luke 24:26)

It’s simple, though it is not easy. It takes some work. That’s one reason I wrote Mark Through Old Testament Eyes. We need to immerse ourselves in the Old Testament for its own sake, just as Jesus did. But it is also true that if we want to know Jesus better, we have to know his Bible.

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*Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), p. 107.