Jesus and Gender

There are two versions of masculinity, and two version of femininity: the original and the fallen.

Because we live our live as broken people in a broken world, we often lose sight of the fact that the masculinity and femininity with which we are acquainted are the fallen versions of better originals.

The original version of masculinity was one which sought to order, to bring order, to the world, but not in the sense of commanding, but rather in the sense of organizing and creating.

By contrast, the fallen version of masculinity seeks to dominate – it is ‘creation-oriented’ – i.e., oriented toward the creation rather than the Creator. Paradoxically, this fallen masculinity is also tempted to passivity. One of the cardinal sins of fallen masculinity is passivity.

The original version of femininity was responsive: the virtue of responsiveness is understood in contrast to reactiveness. The original femininity was sensitive in the sense of perceptive and respectful.

The fallen version of femininity is compulsively dependent. It is ‘creature-oriented’ rather than ‘Creator-oriented.’

We find ourselves, then, in a fallen world with the fallen versions of the two genders. What can we do about? The quick answer is: nothing.

The better question is: what can God do about it?

Jesus is about the business of restoration. That includes helping us out of the mire of our fallen natures, and helping us glimpse, in this life, that original perfect nature with which we were created. We will fully embrace that creation perfection in the next life.

But even in this present world, before we enter eternity, Jesus brings us bits of His shalom – His healing, wholeness, and wellness.

He will implant in us, and help us to manifest, occasional glimpses of those better versions of masculinity and femininity. He will start gradually to correct in us the inborn flaws of the fallen versions of the two genders.

Jesus will grow in us a desire to “seek first” God’s rule in our lives.

As we begin to manifest the original better version of the genders, our relationships will change. We find that we are married in order to love – instead of love leading to marriage, marriage leads to an ever-deeper and growing love.

This also provides an insight into the practice of arranged marriages which occurred during some segments of history recorded in Scripture.

Jesus Makes Claims: His Kingship Consists of Love

In the New Testament, Jesus makes some shocking claims. He asserts both that He’s divine, and that He’s a king.

He asserts that He’s both a bar-enosh, a Son of Man, and a Son of God. He asserts, alluding to Ezekiel 34:10 to 34:15, that He has come to “seek and save the lost.”

He asserts that we love God best by loving our neighbor, and that this ‘love’ is seen in concrete helpful actions, not in mere pity or emotion.

He gives us two commandments that sum up all commandments (Matthew 22:39), and then tells us that the second of these two “is like” the first. To “love God” and to “love your fellow human” are not two different things, but rather two similar things.

To love God is to love your neighbor, and to love your neighbor is to love God. This ‘love’ is again no mere emotion, but rather ahava: a combination of the will and the conduct.

This same ahava appears as ‘love’ in Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 6:4 and 6:5. This analogy – this appearance of a key word in other verses – gives us an interpretive key. ‘Love’ is a key term in these verses.

If we are told to love our neighbor, then the question, ‘who is my neighbor?’ quickly arises (Luke 10:29). In the broadest sense, every human is my neighbor. I’m obliged to help and care for everyone. But being finite, humans cannot simultaneously demonstrate help and care for the seven or more billion people on the planet.

So some manner of sequence arises. If I live in the context of a family, my primary neighbor is in my family – parents, siblings, or children. If I’m married, if I have a living spouse, my primary neighbor is my spouse.

Adam and Eve began as equal and mutually adequate partners: a covenanted interdependence.

In a complicated bit of Hebraic interpretation, the letters of the Hebrew words for God, man, woman, and fire are examined. If one subtracts the letters found in the word for God from the letters found in the words for man and woman, only two letters are left, and they spell the word for ‘fire’!

This is easier to picture if one sees it written out in Hebrew characters. But lesson is simple enough: together, man and woman need God as the third partner in their relationship. If you take God out of the relationship, then what is left is ‘fire’ – i.e., destructive.

The centrality of God in human life is seen in His mysterious name. Philologists have had a field day for several centuries as they’ve examined the mysterious name of Yhwh.

Among the dozens of proposed interpretations are ‘the One who causes existence to be’ and ‘I am, I was, I will be that I am’ and ‘I will be what I will be.’

The riddle of God’s name will probably never be solved in this world – and will probably be solved in the next one. But whatever it may be, it is clear that God is not aloof from His creation, but rather is intricately involved and intertwined in the very existence of this world.

[These thoughts loosely based on a talk given by Dwight Pryor on Saturday, October 01, 1994]

God's Kingdom: What is It?

Comparing the synonymous phrases ‘kingdom of God’ and ‘kingdom of heaven,’ we see that the gospels which are directed more toward the gentiles use ‘kingdom of God,’ while those directed toward a Jewish audience use ‘kingdom of heaven.’

‘Kingdom of heaven’ is a pious euphemism. It is a circumlocution for ‘kingdom of God,’ used at a time when the word ‘God’ was considered so holy that, out of reverence and awe, it was rarely or never uttered aloud.

The Jewish piety first avoided pronouncing the name of God - Yhwh - aloud, and proceeded to additionally avoid pronouncing the word ‘God’ as well.

In either case, the phrase refers to the followers of Jesus on earth here and now. It is not designation for eternal life in the future. Hence we are told that ‘blessed is ...’ and not ‘blessed will be ...’

The gospels begin with notion that the kingdom is here, not near. Jesus is primarily concerned with the present life.

As with an earlier covenant at Sinai, so also Jesus, establishing a new covenant, is not concerned with the future life, but rather with the here and now. Jesus took care of our eternal future, once and forever, so that we would not worry about it.

We might paraphrase Jesus as saying, “don’t worry about what happens to you after you die. I’ve taken care of that. It’s all set. Focus instead on living this life well: helping others and spreading My good news.”

His message can also be phrased in terms of His kingdom. Jesus makes a clear, although often misunderstood, claim to be a king. He goes on to claim that He reigns: His rule is symbolized in signs and wonders. His subjects are His followers, the community of faith.

Therefore it is understood that the ‘kingdom of heaven’ or the ‘kingdom of God’ are titles for the group. These two phrases refer to the followers of Jesus.

The prayer of a Jesus follower is, “May Your rule be established in my life; Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10), and “seek first to have Jesus as your king” (Mark 12:28).

What does it look like when Jesus is ruling? People loving God by loving each other (Mark 12:28). One gives honor to God by helping other people.

The commandment to ‘honor your mother and father’ (Exodus 20:12) is parallel to the statement that Jesus is a ‘mediator’ between God and humans (I Timothy 2:5): parents have a priestly role, interceding to God on behalf of their children, and presenting God’s Word to their children.

[These thoughts loosely based on a talk given by Dwight Pryor on Saturday, October 01, 1994]

The Good News

The words that we often hear are the ones most in danger of having their meaning slip away. Frequent usage means that hearers become accustomed to a word and so notice it less when it’s uttered.

If you follow Jesus, you hear the word ‘gospel’ often.

The word means ‘good news.’ It’s from an older English form, god spel.

The gospel is the news about Jesus. That He was miraculously born, lived a truly human life while being truly God, acted as a bold prophetic servant, taught us how to understand the Hebrew Testament, died a bodily and physical death, and experienced a bodily and physical resurrection.

The good news is that He did this for our benefit, that He has arranged for us to receive forgiveness and eternal life with Him.

Remember that the good news is good.

It’s not a set of rules. It’s not a moralizing lecture designed to create guilty feelings inside of you.

The good news is that Jesus is setting you free, and He’s giving gifts to you.

Eternal life is merely the first gift, but He’s giving you other gifts, too.

He’ll give you peace of mind to endure painful and difficult times in life. He’ll give you His attention when nobody else will listen. He’ll give you opportunities for joy by reminding you that He’s lifted some of your burdens. He’ll give you help in carrying those burdens that He didn’t lift.

The gospel never ends. Scripture tells us about “the beginning of the gospel” (Mark 1:1), but it never mentions an end.

So, remember, the next time you hear the word ‘gospel,’ it’s supposed to be good!

Do You Worship God Or Do You Worship the Bible?

It is appropriate that those who follow Jesus have a respect for Scripture, and a desire to study it. But it is possible to love the Bible too much?

The written Word is not the ultimate object of our worship. The text serves as a means to an end. God is the focus of our adoration.

Scripture is one way in which God reaches out to us during this life. But in the next life, we will not need the Bible!

In heaven, when our perception has been clarified by God, we will perceive Him better and more directly. At that point, the written Word will become superfluous.

An analogy illustrates our point: you might enjoy getting letters from a person you love; you might read and reread them; you might love those letters. But even more, you love the person who wrote them. In fact, you love the letters because you love their author even more.

If that person were to visit you, you’d certainly set the letters down, and engage in conversation with that person.

So it is with God.

Yet it is possible, and wrong, to love the Bible more than God.

The word ‘bibliolatry’ is used to describe those who worship the Bible. Bibliolatry asserts, not that the Bible is a message from God and a means to God, but rather that the Bible is God.

This is the error of ‘biblicism’ or ‘bibliolatry.’ Because the word ‘biblicism’ has competing and controversial definitions, ‘bibliolatry’ is a clearer term for this error.

It is, in any case, a grave error to worship the book instead of its Author.

This error is found, e.g., in those groups which insist that you use only this or that translation, and in those groups who say or repeat Bible verses as if they were magical words which make things happen.

Among those groups who absolutely insist on certain translations, not all of them are guilty of bibliolatry.

It is possible to insist on using one particular translation, or set of translations, and insist on not using others, without engaging in bibliolatry. There are errors aside from bibliolatry which will lead to this peculiar insistence.

A manifestation of bibliolatry is also found in folk religion. Superstition makes the physical object, the book itself, into a talisman. Practitioners may clutch Bibles, sleep with them, keep small Bibles or parts of Bibles in their pockets, etc., to provide some imagined protection.

The Bible is holy, but its holiness is a derived holiness. The physical paper and ink are common and ordinary, but they represent and communicate words and ideas.

Those words and ideas, in turn, also have a merely derived sanctity. They are not holy of themselves, but rather holy because they come from, and direct us toward, God.

The word ‘God’ is not in itself holy. The idea of God is not in itself holy. God is holy.

Certainly, many serious followers of Jesus would, if presented with this definition of ‘bibliolatry,’ agree that bibliolatry is not good, and agree that it is something to be avoided. Most, hopefully all, Jesus followers would say that they worship Jesus, not a book.

Are there subtle ways, however, in which bibliolatry can creep into one’s thinking? Can one unwitting and unintentionally fall into some amount of bibliolatry?

The habits and attitudes of some Jesus followers are described by Skye Jethani:

Rather than a vehicle for knowing God and fostering our communion with him, we search the Scriptures for applicable principles that we may employ to control our world and life.

This is not a real working relationship with Jesus. It’s deism. The word ‘deism’ refers to a belief that God created world, and then went on vacation, having no further direction interaction with His creation.

In other words, we actually replace a relationship with God for a relationship with the Bible.

While such people may want to follow Jesus, and may think that they’re following Jesus, they may in fact be simply formulating sets of axioms and principles which they’ve found, or think they’ve found, in the text. God is more than advice. This type of bibliolatry, however, reduces God to advice and ignores the personhood of God.

To say that God is a person means that He has thoughts, emotions, desires, and intentions. God’s personhood means that He’s an agent: He acts in an original and self-motivated way. God is not a human, but He is a person.

Bibliolatry denies the personhood of God. This quietly creeping form of bibliolatry,

with its emphasis on working principles and worshiping the Bible rather than God, may be appealing because it is far more predictable and manageable than an actual relationship with God. Relationships, whether human or divine, are messy, time consuming, and often uncontrollable. But principles are comprehensible and clinical.

This mindset can sneak into our thoughts. Nobody wakes up one day and says, “today I’ll engage in bibliolatry.” But it edges, unnoticed, into our souls. Skye Jethani continues:

This posture is particularly tempting in affluent, professional communities where people are accustomed to off-the-shelf solutions and self-help manuals. Their education and wealth mean they are used to being in control of their lives, and a huge publishing industry has ensured they maintain this illusion. Many best sellers are self-help books advocating principles to overcome nearly any problem. While proven formulas might be expected for losing weight or growing a vegetable garden, we tend to apply scientific certainty to even the more mysterious areas of life. Perusing the shelves at the local bookstore can be a very comforting exercise. Knowing that there is a solution to any problem life throws at you provides a sense of control — it calms our fears. And if the answer cannot be found at the bookstore, we know there is always the pharmacy down the street.

This is a deistic view: we read the Bible, we analyze it and discover principles in it, we apply those principles to our lives, and we enjoys the benefits of acting on Biblical wisdom. This is the worst possible view. Notice that ‘we’ are doing everything, and God is nowhere to be found in this view!

This is the sinister shortcoming of faith built upon principles, laws, and formulas. It causes us to reduce faith to divine instructions or godly self-help tips: five steps to a more godly marriage, how to raise kids God’s way, biblical laws of leadership, managing your finances with kingdom principles, etc. But discovering and applying these principles does not actually require a relationship with God.

Skye Jethani points out that this view distorts what it means to be a follower of Jesus. If you follow this view, being a Jesus follower “simply means you have exchanged a worldly set of life principles for a new set taken from the Bible. But like an atheist or deist, the” Jesus follower who’s been tricked into being a “deist can put these new principles into practice without God being involved.”

Instead of a living relationship with Jesus, the person who’s been subverted by creeping bibliolatry has a ‘religion’ which is merely a set of principles – and principles begin to look suspiciously like rules.

God can be set aside while we remain in control of our lives. He may be praised, thanked, and worshipped for giving us his wise precepts for life, but as with an absentee watchmaker, God’s present participation is altogether optional.

So how do we avoid unknowingly slipping into bibliolatry?

We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus is the center of our lives and our thoughts.

We read Scripture, not to discover ways to live successfully, but to find out more about God.

We surrender the illusion of control. We never had control over our world or our lives, but we had the illusion of control, and it is a harmful illusion.

We pray to God, “Your will be done,” instead of trying to figure out how to get God to do our will (Matt. 6:10).

We remember that this life will necessarily contain suffering, and that our task, given to us by God, is to learn to suffer well.

We recognize that there will be suffering in our lives. Our assignment is to be good at suffering.

Paradoxically, when we rid ourselves of the subtle bibliolatry which is nothing other than an attempt at some type of magical manipulation of our environment – when we rid ourselves of trying to use Scripture as a formula to get what we want – when we surrender our wills and desires – it is then that we will find a peculiar and powerful type of peace and joy.

This subtle, self-help bibliolatry is an attempt to make things understandable. But there is a beautiful blessing “which passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).