Friends,

Here is Common Christianity column #823 (8-23-22), “Brain Scan.”  We talk so much about behavior in Christianity; today let’s talk about God’s intellect and our thinking.  See the column below.  Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #823

August 23, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Brain Scan

By Bob Walters

“But we have the mind of Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 2:16

I was surprised to learn that the word “brain” does not appear in the Bible.  “Mind,” “soul”, and “spirit” show up a lot.  “Heart” is mentioned more than 800 times. 

But “brain”?  Evidently not a Bible thing.  Let’s talk about that.

This is one of those scriptural tidbits I stumbled upon while looking for something else.  I was searching commentary on Paul’s powerful “mind of Christ” verse.  My mission was to refute the behavioral overkill that is the focus of the modern church and explore the too-light treatment of the intellect of God as it manifests in humanity; i.e., the church of “feeling” vs. the church of “thinking.”  And … “brain” isn’t in the Bible?  Huh.

To me, brain power is the real power of God with which mankind is gifted through faith in Jesus Christ: an intellectual synergy with the Creator of the universe.  I truly do believe that faith in Jesus initiates as a matter of the heart (more in a minute), but the massive payoff for our creative intellectual existence – gifted by Christ – can be stated simply as this: knowledge that God truly exists, Jesus truly lives, the Spirit animates our multi-pronged connection with the divine, the Bible can be trusted, and we are loved.

For all the endless Christian therapeutic chatter about “doubt,” once the human heart lands on Jesus and opens the corresponding human brain to God’s intellect, human existence grows into the great heavenly realm of thinking with Christ.  

Mankind, as a matter of worldly pride and a false sense of self-sufficiency, too often – maybe overwhelmingly often – imagines a self-inflicted intellectual “depth,” assessing of knowledge: “I’ve got this; No God Needed.”    

It’s as if to say: “On my own … in my brain … I am sufficient.  I neither can nor desire to prove God exists, but am assured a god cannot broaden my mental acuity.  I’m already smart enough.  I can do clever things.  Give me a few minutes and I’ll invent a gadget, or work up a philosophy that explains to my satisfaction who God is supposed to be.  Give me a few more minutes and I’ll fashion a treatise on the truth of good, evil, right, wrong, and an overarching thesis on the way things ought to be.  God?  No need.”

That is too-common, worldly, human philosophy – spanning the ages, we might add – that ditches Godly relation and is ultimately – shall we say eternally – useless.

If there is one “worldly thing” (1 John 2:15-17) that God’s wisdom would indicate and recommend not attaching to our minds, it would be “wisdom” that does not include Jesus Christ. That empty wisdom goes nowhere beyond the finite dimensions of this material existence and its inescapable death.  And it steers nowhere near the heavenly realms: that ineffable but unmistakable experience of divine presence and truth in the here and now – for fleeting, precious, profound moments – when we touch God.

Our brains will not – cannot – be right with God until our hearts are right with Jesus. We have “the mind of Christ” when our hearts, in the conscience of Christ, are able to resist worldly, impermanent, and intemperate temptations, and to think anew.

“Repent,” at its Greek basic, means “to change ones thinking.” Paul’s mission at Corinth is to secure their hearts truly for Jesus so they may grasp the wisdom of God.

Heart change speaks to behavior and joy; Godly wisdom hastens the Kingdom.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figures “Godly smart” is the best kind of smart.

 Friends,

Here is Common Christianity column #822 (8-16-22), “Night Sweats.” The moon has a purpose but no life … kind of like us without Jesus. See the column below or on social media. 

Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #822

August 16, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Night Sweats

By Bob Walters

“I am the light of the world …” – Jesus in John 8:12, speaking to the Pharisees who promptly called Him a liar in verse 13.

Central Indiana was fortunate this past week to offer the canvas of a wondrously clear August evening upon which to paint the year’s biggest and brightest full moon.

I like the moon, especially a full moon.  Along with what I’d bet constitutes the bulk of the thinking human race, the pall of God’s “second light” tantalizingly strokes some of my deepest notions of mystery, romance, life’s possibilities, peace, and rest.

It may just be a “big rock in the sky” to some.  For souls kindred to mine, it’s romance. For some, the moon holds an odd power over emotions, yearnings, and, shall we say, rash actions.  First responders and hospital staffs prefer to have the night off.

Despite how the poetic spectacle of a bright full moon may nudge our life’s passions, what we do know about the moon, scientifically, is that there’s nothing about the moon that could be called, in and of itself, “life.”  We make the moon whatever we imagine it to be symbolically, but basically it is a big dead light reflector and gravity field generator that helps make life on earth possible.  So yes, the moon can be seen, takes up space, and has a purpose, but alone the moon has no life.

With that, let’s make a few points about the light, power, and life of Jesus.

Here, we don’t need the moon.  We need the sun.

C.S. Lewis noted famously that though the human eye cannot actually see the sun because of its blinding light, the sun – like Jesus – is the light by which we see everything else, including the moon.  People dispute the reality of Jesus because like the sun, they say, “I can’t see Him,” yet no one denies the sun is there.

We may be enamored by the moon, but human life and purpose are more than reflection. Add a capital letter and switch out the vowel so “sun” becomes “Son” and we graduate beyond the luminary science of sunshine and reflection and into the truth of who and what lights the lives we live – Jesus – and how we are part of that light. 

The moon reflects but does not generate light.  Though one could argue that humans merely reflect the image of God in creation and so are no more alive than the moon, God’s image does far more than reflect off of or through humanity.

God’s image in us gives us the very light Jesus came to reveal and assure: to both receive God in faith and share God’s love with others.  That is the light that we ourselves generate in the power of Jesus.  Without it, we are dead … like the moon.

I never worry about whether I’m alone in the night of a purposeless existence because I was created in the image of someone else.  Jesus tells us that the true light of our existence is sharing the same purpose He has – to love God and love each other.

So, if one is rattled by a dim reflection in the spiritual dark, don’t sweat it.

Instead, light the true, bright, and powerful light of Jesus.  That is life.  No lie.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), when gazing at a clear full moon, will tell anyone who happens to be nearby to look for “the bunny in the moon.”  Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. (Don and Trish … this one’s for you.><>)

Friends,

Here is Common Christianity column #821 (8-9-22), “Command Performance.” We Christians focus so much on being commanded by God to behave … but He is commanding us to love.  See the column below.

Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #821

August 9, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Command Performance

By Bob Walters

“This is my command: Love each other.” – Jesus to his disciples, John 15:17

Perhaps Satan’s greatest ally in staunching human acceptance, adoration, and obedience regarding God, Jesus, the church, and Christianity is how people understand the specific and very-often used Bible word: “command.”

Cite the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament (Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5-6) to lay out a behavioral template, and the Bible is a “Rule Book.” 

Rehearse Jesus’s words, “A new command I give to you, love God and love others” (John 13:34), and a romantic novel is birthed.

If one asserts the various “commands” of Christ and directives of Paul as a punishable threat against human sin, a horror story of trapped souls, fearful missteps, dreaded judgment, and joyless lives flourishes.

Whatever happened to, “So your joy may be complete”? (John 15:7)

The Bible reads far better when the commands of God and Christ – and the general teaching of the New Testament writers – are understood to tell us the way things will go best for us, rather than as threats from an angry, wrathful, cranky God with a prison list of forbidden activities.  God’s not out “to get us.”  At least, not like that.

The Ten Commandments present the template for successful society and thriving human aspiration and creativity. The first four commands tell us to know and honor God; the last six commands to respect and honor each other.  The beneficiary of these commands is not God; it is us.  Our relationship with God brings joy; our relationship with each other brings peace. Then, things can go well with us (Eph 6:3, Deut 12:28).

It’s an easy equation: God is love, and He’s here to help; Jesus proves it.  But God is also maddeningly and unchangeably righteous.  We have freedom, yes; and in Christ we have freedom from the Law of Israel. But we have profound responsibility to God’s favorite creation – humanity – to share His love and teach about Jesus Christ.

Everyone knows that Jesus’s “two new commandments” mirror the ten given to Israel: “Love God” comprises the first four; “Love each other” comprises the last six.  Two sounds simpler than ten, but the profound responsibility of our obedience can be a real head-spinner because of the profound mystery of divine love. God has the final say.

A concrete list of “Do’s and Don’ts” – such as the Law – muddies the possibility and joy of sacrificial love because we fear mistakes more than we cherish love.

Christianity can’t be like that; God’s commands expand our lives…if we let them.

The Sunday church experience cheers up dramatically when the words of Christ’s hope and joy are preached as real and attainable goals through love and generosity rather than as draconian condemnations against human missteps and sin.

Like the Good Book says, our good works will not get us into heaven (Eph 2:8) because divine love is not performance art; it’s divine art of the heart, soul, and intellect.

Satan is going to continue his only quest, which is to hinder God’s glory by convincing humans to judge our performance rather than pouring out God’s love.

God’s commands are grounded in His purpose to restore and assure our joy. That is God’s art of how things go best with us, and His command performance of love.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) appreciates good coaching.  Jesus is the best.

 Friends,

Here is Common Christianity column #820 (8-2-22), “God Doesn’t Care.” Ignorance and faithlessness abound in humanity, but it changes nothing about God.  See the column below.  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #820

August 2, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

God Doesn’t Care

By Bob Walters

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.” – Darth Vader, while summoning the Force to choke arrogant Death Star commander General Motti in “Star Wars IV, A New Hope” (the first one)

In our less gracious moments perhaps many of us Christians have bemusedly imagined the utility of such a “hands-off” power as Vader’s to silence God’s naysayers.

I once accompanied my dear friend and mentor, retired Cambridge Divinity lecturer, multi-lingual Bible translator, former Coptic priest, and renowned Patristics (study of ancient church fathers) scholar Dr. George Bebawi to a local high school Advanced Placement (AP) senior World Literature class.  The class was studying the Bible and various other religious texts – as literature – and George was invited to lead a Q&A session about questions the students had about the Bible: smart kids asking smart, sincere questions.

I don’t remember anyone asking a question, because one student – very bright, very erudite, very philosophical, very loud and who soon enrolled in an elite university – opened up attacking the very idea of God, how the Bible was a meaningless old book, and exposing every level of his own dearth of understanding and gaping hole in his intellect because nothing about God, Jesus, or scripture could possibly be true.

The student in question had no idea how ignorant he sounded despite his AP-caliber lexicon, and no appreciation for his rudeness in badgering and interrupting one of the world’s experts on the topic up for discussion: biblical translation and history.  The student’s self-entrenched view that there is no God superseded all civility and dialogue.

The Bible – the bedrock text of Western civilization (go ahead and argue if you wish; the student discussed above wasn’t shy about it) – is the Lord’s gift to us as the Spirit’s key.  I’d like to have had Vader’s trick to silence the student’s rude and insolent verbal patter.

Sadly, as culture turns both faith and humanity upside down, we hear that a lot.  “God doesn’t exist.”  “A Good God wouldn’t allow evil things.” “The Bible changes and isn’t reliable.” “I’m a good/spiritual person and don’t need God/religion/church to prove it.”

The origin of Humanity?  Ask Darwin.  The purpose of this life? There isn’t any.

And the modern secular gold standard of human idiocy, “I have my own truth.”

Scare polls reveal not just a society-wide drop in church attendance and faith, but a new poll in May tracks an alarming, nearly bottom-scraping drop in “Biblical worldview” among professing Christians and, gulp, clergy (see link: Lack of Biblical Worldview - ACU).

By “Biblical worldview” we mean just the basics: Jesus Christ born of a virgin, Son of God, Word of God, fully man fully God, lived on earth, died on the cross, rose from the dead for the gifted purpose of sinful mankind’s salvation to restore our original relationship with the loving, good, and true Creator God Almighty that we might know God in this life and in death be resurrected, like Jesus, to eternal life with God and the saints in heaven.

If I left out anything important, sorry; I know there is much more to Jesus, the Bible, Church history, and Christian life than a single sentence.  The point is that one’s faith, obedience, grace and commitment factor heavily, nay, totally, into our “worldview.”

These polls may scare us, but I can’t imagine they scare God.  God doesn’t care.

God will be the same no matter what His creation does. God gave us – His favorite Creation, mankind – the freedom and curious mind to discover Him and believe … or not.

If man’s lack of faith is disturbing, take a breath. God’s faithfulness is unshakeable.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) cites Isaiah 40:8, Hebrews 13:8, Revelation 4:8 – God doesn’t change; we do.

 Friends,

Here is Common Christianity #819, “What’s the Word? Part 3.” It can be difficult to read Shakespeare’s Elizabethan English, and misdirecting to read a modern Bible translation.  The word is the thing, and meanings matter.  See the column below, or at our blog CommonChristianity, or on social media. To see Parts 1 & 2 (and #816, “Greek, You Say?”), simply scroll down the blog. Have a great week! – Bob

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Spirituality Column #819

July 16, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

What’s the Word? Part 3

By Bob Walters

“Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” – Juliet from the balcony, Act II, Scene 2

In this famed scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is Juliet gazing out into the lonely night garden wondering where is her beloved and longed-for Romeo?

No.  She’s asking, “Why” are you Romeo? Why she, a Capulet, fell in love with him whom she cannot properly have.  Why is he the one?  He’s a Montague!  Curses!

“Wherefore” looks like it begs a location.  It doesn’t.  It begs an explanation: Why?

In our brief look at common English Bible words that many folks think mean one thing but really mean something else, why bring up Shakespeare?  Because 1) He is the king of the English language (though nowadays he’s hard to understand).  2) Almost everyone knows this line.  3) Few people (including me) understood this line.  And 4) Shakespeare wrote in the same era that the King James Bible was published (1611).

The lesson is … knowing correct word meanings enriches our Bible and faith understanding. Here are some Bible beauties. If you think of others, send them my way.

Prophecy: receiving, discerning, and sharing the will of God, not telling the future.

Repent: change your thinking, not expressing regret and changing behavior.

Eternity: the quality of God’s life, not a measurement of time.

Apocalypse: the ultimate and final revealing – the revelation – of God’s plan and goodness, not when everything “blows up” because of man’s evil and God’s wrath.

It’s no wonder folks are confused.  Look up these four words in any reputable English dictionary and you’ll see that they are first defined in popular terms of what they actually are not.  “Prophesy” is the dark art of a “seer.”  “Repent” is a response of regret to sin.  “Eternity” is a long, long time.  “Apocalypse” is the movie, teen literature, and video game metaphor for universal destruction, disaster, catastrophe, or Armageddon.

No, no, no, and no.

The Apocalypse is God’s revealing epilogue; it’s not Armageddon. “Apokalypsis,” or “unveiling,” as my erudite Roman Catholic friend (and high school buddy, now retired general counsel of Monsanto) Dave Snively pointed out, is the Greek title of the Bible’s final book: Revelation.  It’s where we “see” what God is going to do, because He does it.

“Apologetics” means “explaining or defending one’s faith,” not apologizing for it. The Hebrew “Shalom” means peace, but in the big way of relational wholeness, fullness, and well-being, not merely absence of conflict.  The Christian Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12) is a positive directive to “Do” good unto others, not just avoid meanness.

Our secular lexicon and often errant Christian doctrinal emphasis on poorly defined Bible words diminish the great gift we have in the precision of God’s Word.

Yes, the population at large and many Christians want to know the future, focus on sin rather than their thought life, think they will need a watch in heaven/eternity, and confuse God’s ultimate revelation of His good plan with humanity’s imagination of ruin.

But, while we’ve spared readers Greek linguistics and specifics, we here assert that Christian joy is listening for God’s voice, thinking with God’s intellect, joining God’s life, and praising God’s ultimate, glorious plan. 

No apologies necessary.  Shalom.

Walters’ (rlwcom@aol.com) English-teacher and Shakespeare-nerd wife Pam (she truly is) notes that several Shakespeare plays, notably including Macbeth, Pam asserts, were written and first performed at the court of King James to patronize the Bard’s generous personal patron King James’ fascination with witches.

 

 Friends,

We’re publishing a couple days early this week … here is Common Christianity #818 (7-19-22), “What’s the Word? Part 2.” Oh, my word! I have some explaining to do, but that’s not why the column is early; we’re heading to northern Michigan lake country with family next week. See the column just below, or at our blog CommonChristianity, or on social media.  God bless!

Bob

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Spirituality Column #818

July 19, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

What’s the Word? Part 2

By Bob Walters

“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ …” – Matthew 1:1 KJV

Sometimes it takes making a mistake to learn something important.

And Praise God!  I made a mistake.  But the correction was entertaining.

Last week (#817, 7-5-22) in this space we discussed how one should pay attention to the English translation of Greek Bible words because words like “Word,” for example, have various Greek roots and meanings, i.e., Logos, logo, rhema, lexi … etc.

But let’s not rehash that here.  When most English speaking people “of the Book” – the Bible – see the word “Greek,” they either run and hide, or fall asleep. 

But stick around … awake … for this one.

In that previous column I said, “The word Bible does not appear in the Bible.”  Well, look at the first words of Matthew 1:1, above: “The book.”  In Greek, the first word of the New Testament is “Byblos,” the mother word that gives us, in English, “Bible.”

I thank good friend, pastor, and former professor and college president Dave Faust for the fix.  Folks who know Dave as a wonderful preacher may not know he’s also a beast with biblical Greek; he tested out of it in college.  Of my column error Dave wrote to me, gently but immediately, “That’s not correct …,” and schooled me with only minor abrasions in the Greek woodshed.

In essence Dave noted that in the Bible, “… ‘byblos’ (roll, scroll, book) is used several times. In fact, it’s the first word of the New Testament (see above) … understood as a roll or scroll that contained written words.” Dave went on to point out that “Byblos” was an ancient city in Lebanon, that “biblia” (2 Tim 4:13) were small, personal scrolls, and that “parchments (Greek membranae)” were “more valuable documents copied on animal skins instead of papyrus.”  This stuff fascinates me.

Proving the accuracy of my notion that serious scholars have more sophisticated resources than my simple Google search format (e.g., Matthew 1:1 in Greek), Dave provided this specific link for the verse at biblestudytools.com. Bible study friend and professor Jeff Dodge, who I mentioned a couple weeks ago, suggests “Logos” software.

Obviously, there was no “Bible” yet when the New Testament of “The Bible” was being written, compiled, canonized, and sanctified in the Holy Spirit.  In Jesus’s time there were the Hebrew “scriptures” (graphe) on scrolls which we now call the Old Testament of the Bible, but the “Bible” wasn’t the “Bible” as we know it until the second, third, or fourth century after Christ.  A case can even be made for the late first century.

But that’s a different discussion/debate for a different day.

My main point, that the word “Bible” isn’t in the Bible, is technically sort of true but linguistically mainly wrong.  Thanks to Dave’s corrective (and web link), I looked into “byblos” a little deeper.  Its most common usage is in the phrase “book of life” (Psalm 69:28) cited in Philippians 4:2 and Revelation 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 20:15, and 21:27.

That’s the “book of life,” as in, “the lamb’s book of life” (Rev 21:27).  Of any book, Bible, byblos, graphe, or membranae in the world, that’s the book I want to be in.

Whatever it’s called, in any language … even Greek.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thanks mentor Dr. George Bebawi for the phrase, “Praise God! I made a mistake.” Confess, repent, and move on.  It’s all you can do.

 Friends,

Here is Common Christianity column #817 (7-12-22), What’s the Word? Part 1. This week and next we are going to look at some Bible words that can make us say, “It’s all Greek to me.”  Nah … nothing to fear.  See the column below, or at our blog CommonChristianity, or on social media.  Send me your name and email address if you’d like to receive the weekly column directly by email.

Have a great week! Blessings,

Bob

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Labels: Acts 17:23, Bible understanding, Genesis 1:2, Greek, Heraclites, John 1:1, Logos, rhema, unknown God, Word

Spirituality Column #817

July 12, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

What’s the Word? Part 1

By Bob Walters

“… and the Word was God.” – John 1:1

Accurate biblical understanding takes a beating when English words that mean one thing here in Greek and something else there in Greek aren’t properly parsed.

Of course, if you’re actually reading scripture in Greek – and understand it – then there’s no problem.  But reading an English translation can throw you off the scent.

Take for example, the word “word.”

“Word” can refer directly to the person of Jesus, as in John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Or John 1:14, “the Word became flesh.”  Here, “Word” in Greek is “Logos.”  It is “nominative” case which means it “names” something, so “Logos” is naming Jesus as “God’s Word,” meaning the Son, the second person of the Trinity we know as Jesus Christ.

We understand John 1:1 “Word” in combination with “the Spirit of God hovering over the waters” in Genesis 1:2 at Creation.  These verses help us deduce the trinitarian relationship of Father God, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as a divine Godhead and singularity of relationship that is eternal rather than a plurality of temporal beings.

Don’t do the math on this one.  One must understand the Trinity in faith (I say this often), not arithmetic.  If God is love, then God must Himself be a relationship.  And Jesus, God’s Word, is the active, creative, building-block essence of that relationship. 

Jesus is the “Word of God,” or “Logos,” and everyone should be happy.

But know, the root word “logo” – just “logo,” no “s” – was created by Greek philosopher Heraclites in the sixth century Before Christ, not referring to God.  “Logo” was an expression of “authority,” an “order” (to do something), or a true “report” of a person or event, coming from an authority figure such as government or a philosopher.

The Greeks at that point – 600 B.C. – did not recognize the “One God” (see Acts 17:23, “the unknown God”) as did the Jews.  But some version of “logo” occurs more than 300 times in the New Testament.  We are safe to understand them as referring to God’s authority, truth, and communication generally, and also bound up in Jesus Christ.

But it’s not just “logo.”  “Rhema” also translates as a Godly “word” (John 15:7, “my words remain in you…”) but either as a reference to a “spoken word” or a word or idea of God in scripture that spiritually spurs someone to action.

“Lexi” (think “lexicon”) is a general word describing, say, “words in a language.”

Of course, a modern Christian is most likely to hear the phrase, “God’s word,” as referring to the Bible, but “Bible” is one of those words that does not appear in the Bible.  In the New Testament, “scripture” – that of the Hebrews – in Greek is “graphe.”

Computer resources these days are such that, as we discussed last week, one can find a fairly thorough Greek tutorial on any New Testament verse with a simple Google search in the form: John 1:1 in Greek.

For that reason, I’ve resisted formally learning Greek.  But I recommend highly that a Bible study passage include an investigation of the Greek, particularly of one’s favorite scripture.  One should be sure you know what one’s life verse actually means.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) understands, with compassion, that in the minds of many Christians, a little Greek goes a long, long, tedious way.  But it’s the right way.