Halloween: its Pagan So Get Over It.

Halloween, and we have spent the afternoon with family in Mumbles. A leisurely walk along the front to Verdi’s, ice cream cones, and a stroll back to the car. We saw witches, zombies, and monsters, none more than four feet tall, bless them, and a husky dog dressed as a witch, complete with pointy hat, cloak, and bat wings. Shop workers were getting ‘into the spirit of things,’ suitably daubed with blood, and as we arrived home in the early dusk, parents were walking out with their kids ready to trick-or-treat.

Here in the UK, Halloween has a patchy history and receives a mixed reception. You won’t need to look far to find someone who will tell you, ‘We never had Halloween when I was growing up.’ Its true enough for a certain generation, although it goes back further than people imagine, as far as the 16th century at least. I never went trick-or-treating. In my childhood the day passed unremarked as we looked forward to November 5th and the opportunity to burn an effigy of a Catholic (C’mon, you know that’s what it is). Brits of a certain age will complain about its alien nature, ‘another American import,’ and about the commercialisation.

The younger generation, however, don’t appear to have a problem. They have grown up in a world that sells them, whether Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Diwali, Samhain, Thanksgiving, Hannukah, you name it, and for them Halloween has always been – hasn’t it?

In the United States it seems to be an institution and Christians here have puzzled over how it could sit so easily with so many American Christians. Yet, here we are, facing the same challenge; what do Christians do with Halloween?

You will recognise the word ‘hallow’ perhaps from the Lord’s Prayer – ‘Hallowed be your name.’ We’ll come back to that. To hallow something is to honour it as holy. The plural, hallows, means ‘saints’ and Halloween is short for ‘All Hallows Eve,’ All Saints Eve, and is celebrated on 31 October in a number of countries. It marks a time when, in some Christian traditions, the dead are remembered, including saints and martyrs.

How is it celebrated? Well, Christians in some places will go to church, sometimes abstention from meat is involved, eating certain fruits and vegetables helping to keep the vigil, hence the tradition of bobbing for apples. But, lets be frank, the Halloween I saw today, the one we fret about as Christians is anything but Christian in its content and culture. This is because this is a Pagan holiday, Samhain, that has been ‘baptised’ into the Christian Church in much the same way as Christmas. The latter might be said to be a successful ‘conversion’ inasmuch as people do identify it with Christ, even if their celebrations are worldly and commercial. The latter has failed to catch people’s imagination and is marked with involvement in the occult and divination, from the relatively harmless trick-or-treating, to the more serious celebrations held by Pagans across the world.

The picture (right) is called Snap-Apple Night painted by Irish artist Daniel Maclise in 1833. It was inspired by a Halloween party he attended in Blarney, Ireland, in 1832. The caption reads:

There Peggy was dancing with Dan
While Maureen the lead was melting,
To prove how their fortunes ran
With the Cards could Nancy dealt in;
There was Kate, and her sweet-heart Will,
In nuts their true-love burning,
And poor Norah, though smiling still
She'd missed the snap-apple turning.

 

It is a festival associated in people’s minds with ghosts, ghouls, witches, divination, tricks, and customs that far pre-date Christianity and have nothing to do with the Christian faith. For genuine Pagans it is as much a part of their calendar as is Easter for Christians, or Diwali for Hindus. For Christians there are clear warnings in Scripture against calling up the dead, divination, fortune-telling, and other occult practices. On the other hand, it is part of this world, and Christians are in this world, though we should not be of this world. It is a Pagan festival marked with distinctly Pagan symbolism and we are not Pagans, so why do Christians Celebrate Halloween? Indeed, we are to Hallow the name of God, and that means having no gods before him. We are a holy people, meaning set apart for service to God.

Christians are meant to be a light in a dark world and so we shouldn’t be surprised by the darkness, or that the world embraces the world’s own ways. Nor should we shake our fist at the darkness, which just looks silly. Its dark, get over it. We are not of this world and, while we pray for the world, witness to the world, and hope for the world, we should know that this world will pass away. Meanwhile, surely it is better to light one candle than curse Pagans for doing what Pagans do. How you do that will be different for different people, but we can’t be a light if we don’t stand in stark contrast to the darkness, and whatever we do must, surely, Hallow the name of God.

Fishers of Men, Makers of Disciples

When Jesus called James and John, he said, ‘Follow me , and I will make you become fishers of men.’ (Mark 1:17)

Have you ever been fishing? You should go. You can learn a lot from fishing. My older cousin took me fishing when I was a teenager. I learned to cast a line, draw in a fish, kill it, clean it, and cook it. The first time he went fishing he literally cut a pole from a tree, tied some twine to it, hung a safety pin and bait on the end and waited for the fish to bite; very Huckleberry Finn. He quickly learned the importance of good equipment, the right bait, and the value of patience.

You have to have a good rod and line, ideally more than one, depending on whether you are fly fishing, using a spinning lure, or sticking a worm on your hook. Your equipment will be determined by what you will be fishing for, river trout, salmon, bream, carp, etc. and that will determine where and when you fish. You need a lot of patience, you see the fish don’t want to be caught. But it is all worth it when you land a decent trout, prepare it, cook it and put it on a plate in front of someone you care for.

If you went to the fish market with a fishing rod and announced you had come to fish, people would think you mad. The fish here are already caught, killed, and fresh ready for the table. In the fish market and kitchen you need a completely different set of skills and tools. What you will buy will depend on how confident you are, although fish are always pretty easy to cook. You will need to have kitchen implements instead of rod and line, condiments have to be carefully chosen, a cooking method decided upon, steaming, grilling, frying, etc. and something like vegetables, or salad and suchlike, to complement the meal.

Evangelism and discipleship are like that. When you evangelise you need a particular set of tools and skills, depending on who you will want to reach out to – children, students, adults, neighbours – and you need a lot of patience because, you see, they don’t want to get caught either. People don’t wake up one day thinking, ‘I hope a Christian comes by today and evangelises me.’ We need to test our methods, ask if our message is clear, whether we are speaking to the heart of their questions, and we need to persevere.

Before ascending back to the Father, Jesus charged his disciples:

‘All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And, behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ (Mt.28:17-20)

When people become Christians, they are meant to be as committed as those fish in the fish market, dead to their old lives and environment; there is no going back. The difference is, the fish remain dead, but Christians are born again into a new reality. The tools we need to deal with the saved are different from those we use to reach the lost. To make converts we need tools that bid them come, to make disciples we need tools that bid them grow. To the lost we unpack the bad news of their lost state, and bring the good news of Christ. To the saved we unpack the good news of their saved state and bring the challenge of kingdom living.

Too often I see the tools of evangelism brought to the task of discipleship. It does no good to use a lure to win your congregation to the church programme, to encourage engagement. Such a course produces a people who feel they must be convinced all the time, won over to the work of the kingdom. But they are already committed in becoming Christians and if they don’t understand that something is wrong. It only confuses, even robs people, to treat them as though still needing to be persuaded. A church is ill-served that is served the milk and not the meat of the gospel. Paul writes to the church in Corinth, ‘Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly – mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready for it.’ (1 Cor.3:1-2)

There is a sense of frustration here that, with the passing of time, there is still a singular lack of maturity where Paul looked for it. The writer to the Hebrews strikes the same vexed tone:

‘We have much to say…but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food. Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.’ (Heb.5:11-14)

Paul sees the fault in a church that fails to respond and grow. Today, I wonder how many churches are in that place because leaders are evangelising the saved, and not discipling them, chiding congregations for not getting involved, when those congregations are ill-prepared for involvement because not discipled. Used to being evangelised, ‘Why should we do this?’ they ask, expecting to be continually persuaded and convinced of the worth of kingdom living before launching out on the course set before them. Such people, to use a sporting analogy, may know the rules of the game, be familiar with the ideas of evangelism, discipleship, worship, and sacrifice, but don’t know the game. They are on the field of play, but have no instinct for what they are meant to do when the whistle blows. Such instinct comes from the discipline of training, learning it, and doing it until it becomes second nature to think and act like a disciple.

I spoke recently to an old friend I hadn’t seen in some time. He told me that his church was doing alright but that people ‘come and go.’ Its a common enough experience as Evangelical Christians across the city, and no doubt across the country, jump from bandwagon to bandwagon, following the crowd to the latest excitement and commotion. Of course, there will always be those spiritual gypsies who wander from place to place, whatever provision a church makes. But what of those who ‘move on’ because where they are simply isn’t meeting their need for discipleship. People have an instinct for growth, for asking ‘what happens now?’ and what are they to do when it appears to be ‘happening’ over there and not where they are?

The greatest obstacle to a church’s growth and development is not the challenges it faces, but the challenges it is protected from. Challenge people in discipleship and they will grow to be the people God intended them to be.

The First Commandment Ever

When we talk about ‘the first commandment’ we think about Exodus 20 verse 3, ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ This is, of course, the first commandment in the Decalogue and is a reminder to God’s newly redeemed people that God alone is God. It seems that God’s people have always needed reminding of this. In Genesis God gave man the most privileged status in creation; made in the image and likeness of God, with god-like dominion over and responsibility for the whole created order (Gen.1:26) charged with stewarding the earth as would God were he to take direct control. This is illustrated in the story of Adam naming the animals in Genesis 2:19-20.

There is only one commandment to regulate them; ‘Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ (Gen.2:17 ESV) Everything else is instruction to the stewarding of the creation. ‘Knowledge of good and evil’ is popularly understood as moral discrimination, often involving sexual awareness. This makes little sense in light of the fact that a) the man and the woman were instructed to procreate -‘multiply and fill the earth’ Gen.1:28 and b) given a moral choice regarding this tree, which would make no sense if they had no moral compass.

‘Knowledge of good and evil’ is a literary device called a merism. A merism expresses totality by reference to polarity. Examples are heaven and hell, east and west, near and far. When Jesus declares, ‘people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God,’ (Luke 13:29) he means people will come from everywhere. The points of the compass are the polarities, and everything in between is everywhere. When Paul writes of preaching peace ‘to you who were far off and peace to those who are near’ (Eph.2:17) he means preaching peace to everyone, far, near and in between.

The knowledge of good and evil is knowledge of everything, from the greatest good, to the greatest evil. One act of man, of course, cannot automatically endow him with omniscience. He doesn’t come to know all things in an instant, this doesn’t mean simple perception of abstracts. Reaching for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents man seeking a creaturely source of discernment, an independence from God, a ‘knowing’ that doesn’t involve God. We see this in Genesis 3 where Eve acted independently of God’s command. At the serpent’s prompting Eve, having clearly understood God’s injunction that eating this fruit would be a bad thing, decided, ‘I’ll be the judge of that!’  In his book, Remaking a Broken World, Christopher Ash describes how man’s disobedience made man ‘a rival to God.’

At the centre of the garden are trees representing life and knowledge, the kind of life (eternal) and knowledge (omniscient) that God alone has. If we want life it is to him we must go, and God’s provision of life depends on man’s dependence on God. If we want knowledge it is to God we must go, and man’s seeking to ‘know’ as only God can know is man’s attempt to put himself at the centre. This first command is God reminding man that he is a creature, that his privileged position, his god-like status, should not blind him to the fact that he is not God. ‘Do not make yourself the judge of what is good and what is evil.’

Not only were the Hebrews of the Exodus reminded that God alone is God, in the New Testament we find the exact same command. Jesus, ‘in whom was life’ (John 12:4) and to whom all judgement is given (John 5:24-27) re-enacts this episode as he begins to initiate the new creation saying, ‘Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged’ (Matthew 7:1-2) Jesus is not talking about our every day value judgements, how we decide the course and company of our lives. Just as Adam was given god-like discernment to wisely steward the earth, so we are to be discerning in the conduct of our lives (Mt.6:1,5,16 c.f.) What we are not to do is put ourselves in the place of God, to judge one another, to ‘know’ good and evil as only God is able to do.

Charity, Mercy, and Scapegoats

In a recent Bible study we looked at Romans 9:1-29, a passage about God’s sovereignty. I put this scenario to the group:

Ten people are guilty of exactly the same crime. The judge decides to show mercy to and pardon all but one, who serves the full sentence. How would you evaluate the judge’s decision?  (Life-builder Series, Romans, Jack Kuhatschek)

Everyone thought this unjust. ‘If one is punished, all should be punished!’ they insisted, ‘If nine are freed all should be freed!’ One declared, ‘If that was my husband I would not call that justice.’ Some speculated that perhaps the judge knew things we didn’t, even though I had said all were guilty of exactly the same crime. Others thought the judgement achieved something in making the one pay the price as an example, even suggesting this one was a scapegoat. I reminded them that the man was guilty, while the only thing the scapegoat was guilty of was being a goat.

What fascinated me was that the question was put in terms of mercy, while the discussion revolved entirely around justice. We are not God, to know good and evil. I told the story of a refugee family we knew whose daughters were high achievers but their family could not afford to send them to university. The local newspaper picked up the story and charitable provision was forthcoming to send them to Oxford. Typically, some people were not happy with this, insisting that ‘home-grown’ students must surely be more deserving of this charity. Just as in the discussion about the merciful judge, people completely missed the point that it is in the nature of charity that it is undeserved.

As we worked through those 29 verses we began to see that it is God’s sovereign choice that decides who benefits from the promises of God. That human descent is not the deciding factor. That, in choosing Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, God is exercising mercy and sovereignty, a mercy that culminates in Christ, in whom all, Jew and Gentile, may come to know the riches of his mercy (Romans 9:24)

‘Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved,’ And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called, ‘sons of the living God.’ (Romans 9:25-26)

Mankind has god-like qualities, attributes of God that God himself has graciously gifted to us. Hamlet soliloquises:

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals!

This is heady stuff and the very first command ever reminds us of our creaturely nature. And when man forgets who he is before the one true God neither mercy, nor justice are served.

What’s in a Name?

I went to the doctor with a sore throat and came back with laryngitis; that’ll teach me! I have to stop talking – for a week! (my wife said the hardest thing would be not talking to myself which I do a lot) Hot drinks are banned (oh, my beloved tea!) plenty of cold water and rest for my throat. This is new to me and quite painful. I don’t get things like this. Arthritis and haemorrhoids are more my territory, those and a morbid distrust of builders; but that’s another story.

Laryngitis is an inflammation of the voice box and gives you – a sore throat. Is it just a fancy name for a sore throat then? I suppose it is. I have been here before. Years ago I went to the doctor with a bad back and came home with lumbago, which is a pain in the lower back – a bad back.Effectively, I told my doctor I had a pain in my back and he told me I had a pain in my back. What is it about Latin and ailments? Do the experts imagine that walking out of the surgery with a Latin name makes the suffering more bearable? Anyway, enough of my ailments, or aegritudines - Silence, monk, Latin, I didn’t just throw this together you know.

The doctor I saw was a charming young woman by the name of ‘Doctor C. Green.’ I don’t know what the C stands for but what a great name for someone working in a city by the coast! But that’s nothing compared to the name of my optician; Charles Dickens! The most cheerful chap you could ever hope to meet so I assume he has forgiven his parents and learned to live with it. I wonder how many times someone introduced to him at a party said, ‘You’re kidding!’ I promise I never have. I was not at that party.

When we watch TV (something we do with increasing infrequency these days. Have you seen the dross, the parade of grotesques – grossly fat, alarmingly thin, disfigured by bad taste, botoxed, occupationally retarded, stupidly drunk and eminently arrestable -  that passes for entertainment night after night these days?) But when we do watch I am pleasantly surprised by the deliciously exotic names I can find in the credits. Just flicking through the TV guide I find Claudia Winkleman, Olly Murs, Yannick Bisson (Murdoch Mysteries), Elijah Wood (well, he would), Barbara Broccoli (good for you?), Kirsty Wark (Too attractive to be an alien surely) – and those are the famous ones.

Watch the TV news and see the names that come up in the strapline during interviews. They are positively brimming with the exotic, the mysterious, and the downright quirky. If I was writing a story and wanted to come up with eye-catching and memorable names one night of viewing would give me all I need. Of course, I would have to time it so I only watched the credits; there’s only so much a man should suffer for his art.

With regards the laryngitis, that not talking to myself thing is going to rob me of some seriously important therapy and, by the shape of this post, you are getting a session free! I am going to have to write more, that’s all, and change the names to protect the guilty (but you know who you are). I was looking for a picture of a Trappist monk to go with this meandering piece on silence when I came across this picture. I thought it was hilarious; I also originally thought it was surely a hen night but, to my delight, it was every bit as good as it first seemed.

 

Living as a Christian in a Pagan Society

Wisdom from 1 Thessalonians 4

The word 'disciple' occurs over 250 times in the New Testament so it seems important enough for us to understand it. Jesus invites us to a new way of life, a life we can only fully know if we follow him. Those who follow him are called disciples. A disciple is is a learner, a pupil, an apprentice. 'The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch' (Acts 11:26). A Christian, then, is a disciple of Jesus.

The chapter we are looking at is best summed up in verse one, 'How to live in order to please God.' A disciple is one who strives to do just that. If you want to live in order to please God you need to know what it will cost you. The context is very important if we are to appreciate its application today. Paul was writing to a church living in what was a hostile environment for Christians and we are beginning to experience this today in what is traditionally a broadly Christian country.

We are living in a time when principles established over thousands of years are overturned as easily it seems as a row of dominoes. Marriage is being radically redefined, and in ways that are not pleasing to God; what one actor describes as serial monogamy is being seen as a virtue; celebrity is celebrated over gifting, sacrifice, and service; gambling is part of our tax system; Christians are being sacked for sharing their faith at work, and street preachers are being arrested for simply quoting the Bible.

As Christians, what are we to make of the world's frantic flight from all that is Godly? It seems so sudden, when only a generation or two ago, such things were simply unthinkable. How are we to live in this world to please God?

 

Being Holy

This has been a major theme throughout the Bible. When man's sin was ripe God called Abraham out of Babylon, where he had been living as a Pagan, and set him apart. God called Abraham to live differently to those people around him, to be holy. Holy means, set apart for a special purpose, set apart for God. Abraham was told that nations would come from him, that through him salvation would come to the whole world. This was God's purpose in calling him.

So Abraham's family were different, lived differently, and looked for the day when God would fulfil his promises. Christians are in that place today, living differently, waiting for God to fulfil his promises.

When God brought the children of Abraham, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, he brought them to the foot of the mountain, gave them the law, and told them to live differently, faithfully to the God who saved them:

Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst.

You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim

(for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods. (Exodus 34:11-16)

When God's people renewed the covenant at Shechem Joshua challenged Israel:

'Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.' (Joshua 24:15)

The gods of Egypt, the gods of Canaan, or the LORD; choose!

 

The Wrong Choice

When the people of God demanded of Samuel a king to rule them, they didn't simply say, 'we want a king.' They said, 'Now appoint us a king to lead us, such as all the nations have.' (1 Samuel 8:5) God called them to be holy, but they insisted on being base, like other nations.

Their sin could not have been worse and God comforts a shocked Samuel, 'It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing now.' (1 Samuel 8:7-8)

Their sin was not simply demanding a king, their sin was rejecting the King! It is a sorry tale and it continues into the New Testament. It is a theme we find in the New Testament community of God's people, the church. Paul's letters frequently address the issue; how do we live in order to please God? It puzzles me when I come across Christians who seem to believe they can live the way of the world and still please God.

 

Thessalonica

We can learn a lot from Paul's letter to the church in Thessalonica. In Paul's day, the divisions between church and society were extreme and often dangerously so. He reminds his readers:

'It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him...For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.' (1 Thess.4:3-7)

Paul even goes so far as to echo God's words to Samuel, writing, 'He who rejects this instruction [to live holy lives] does not reject man but God, who gives you the Holy Spirit.' Once again God's people must choose: the gods of this unholy society, or the Lord!

Thessalonica had much in common with Swansea:

Like Swansea, it had a population of about 200,000; like Swansea, it was a sea port and so was quite cosmopolitan; like Swansea, it sat on the main road through the province; like Swansea, it was a regional capital.

It was Greek, with a small Jewish population, and so converts came mostly from a pagan background. Everything Paul said and taught was opposed to popular thinking, and his purpose was to encourage Christians as they lived in a society hostile to Christian thinking and practice. Let me draw some parallels for you.

In the Greco/Roman world female infanticide was rife across all classes. Female infants, and deformed male infants, were regularly and legally exposed on mountains because they were not wanted. One letter from a Roman to his pregnant wife bluntly instructs, 'If you are delivered of a child [while I am away], if it is a boy keep it, if a girl discard.' Perhaps we think this kind of thing couldn't happen today.

That is what the world tells itself. We are civilised, we don't do such things. In the past 40 years over 8 million babies were aborted in the UK, the great majority because of lifestyle choices. One lion gets shot in Africa and people take to the streets, there is a lynch mob and there is talk of extradition. We need to understand that the values of the world are not the values of the kingdom.

Christian women back then enjoyed significantly higher status than their pagan counterparts. Married women were honoured and able to hold property, women held office in the church, and widows were looked after. Infant girls were valued and, where society married off girls at scandalously young ages, in Christian society the norm was marrying older, sometimes as late as 18. In a society with an epidemic of single mothers and irresponsible and absent fathers Christians must stand out again.

Public baths were to be found in such great numbers that one writer of the time wrote, 'Smyrna has so many baths that you would be at a loss to know where to bathe.' (Aelius Aristedes) Mixed nude bathing was not uncommon and, whatever your sexual orientation, sexual activity was the norm in and around these places. A society every bit as promiscuous as that is becoming a fact in our day, and we are to holy.

Three things might be drawn from this chapter of Paul's letter to help us today:

1. Whatever the world says and does, we are to live in order to please God. Like ancient Israel, we are to be a holy people. Paul says it in his letter, 'God did not call us to be impure, but to live holy lives.' (v7) We face that same choice today that they faced. The gods of this world, or the God of the Bible? This means that, on any question regarding our life choices, it is God we consult, and not public opinion.

Our values are to be God's values. Which means, as the people of God, we are to value life, every life. As did that first Christian community, building on established Jewish practice, we are to see life as precious. All mankind is made in the image of God and so we are to have high moral values that reflect that fact, controlling our own bodies, not giving in to lusts. We are to love one another, as Paul urges, 'Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you...Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.' (vv 9-10)

How does this work out in our daily lives? Paul gives us sound advice, writing, 'Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anyone.' (vv 11-12)

2. The witness of our daily lives is vital to the work of the kingdom, much more so than any arguments, or controversies we may get into. The 'God-fearers' of the Jewish community, those who were not Jews but who adopted many Jewish ideals and practices, were attracted by the lives of Jews they met, worked with, and saw every day. The same is true of those attracted to the Christian community. They are not won simply by arguments, but with love and a good example.

3. Finally, how we live can ultimately prove dangerous. The major theme in Paul's letter is the second coming of Jesus as Lord and King. He reassures believers that their dead loved ones, those who have 'fallen asleep,' as he put it, will not miss out but will share joy with us at the second coming. He continues, 'For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.' vv16-17)

This is so comforting, reassuring, but it is a promise made against the backdrop of what is called the Imperial Cult. If I were to refer to, 'The God manifest...the common saviour of humankind,' you might think of Jesus. But this title was borne by the Emperor. Inscriptions abounded to, '...Caesar Augustus, Saviour of the whole human race...ruler of oceans and continents, the divine father among men, who bears the same name as his heavenly father...Liberator, the marvellous star of the Greek world, shining with the brilliance of the great heavenly Saviour.'

The word Paul used to speak of Christ's second advent is parousia, a word that was used to describe the visit of an emperor. The Emperor Caesar Augustus was hailed as, 'the Son of God.' Where we cry, 'Jesus is Lord!' Romans cried, 'Caesar is Lord!'

In Acts 17 Paul and Silas had trouble in Thessalonica when jealous Jews accused, 'These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here...defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.' (Acts 17:7)

The people said of Caesar, 'With Caesar in charge, peace will not be driven out by civic madness or violence, or the anger that beats swords.' The Emperor bore the titles, Pax (peace) Securitas (Safety, security) Constantia (stability) Felicitas (fortune, happiness). It was against this backdrop of sycophatic flattery that Paul wrote later in this letter:

'The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, 'Peace and safety,' destruction will come on them suddenly...and they will not escape.' (5:3)

Just as was Paul's, our witness is at odds with the world and, like Paul, we may yet pay dear for it. Yet The Lord will come, when least expected, when the world cries peace. Will he find us living to please him? Will he find a holy people, leading quiet but faithful lives, loving one another before a watching world? Because that is what it means to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Right Way Up In An ∩dsᴉpǝ-poʍu World

What do you think of when your hear the word ‘sanctified?’ Paul’s first letter to Christians in Thessalonica is best summed up in verse one of chapter four, ‘How to live in order to please God.’ The context is very important if we are to appreciate its application today. Paul was writing to a church living in what was a hostile environment for Christians, calling them to live sanctified lives. We are beginning to experience this environment in what was traditionally a ‘Christian country.’

You might be aware of recent controversial developments in Ireland regarding gay marriage. Ireland (Eire) has voted to change the constitution to allow gay couples to marry. This has proved an enormous challenge to the Catholic Church that takes a traditional, biblical view on marriage.

You might remember also, in Northern Ireland, Ashers Bakery was successfully prosecuted for refusing to bake a cake with a pro-gay message on it. They didn’t refuse custom to a gay man, but simply refused to put on the cake a message that conflicted with their Christian belief that marriage is between one man and one woman for life. Evangelical/Protestant churches in the province have raised their voices in protest, but to no avail.

A news story from Canada that has just come to light involves a jewellers business approached by a Lesbian couple wanting special rings made for their ‘wedding.’ The couple were so impressed with the product and with the service they received that they recommended the business to friends. Then they discovered it was a Christian business and the owner made no secret of his support for biblical, traditional marriage between a man and a woman for life.

They demanded their deposit back and refused to pick up the rings and pay the balance. The business received hateful messages and physical threats via social media and by phone and finally refunded the money.

Finally, the story has emerged about the surrogate sons of Elton John and David Parrish. Apparently, on the boys’ birth certificate, the mother’s name has been entered as David Parrish.

As Christians, what are we to make of the world’s flight from all that is Godly? It seems so sudden when, only a generation ago, such things were simply unthinkable. How are we to live to please God? How do we live the right way up in this upside-down world?

 

Sanctified: Set Apart for God

This has been a major theme throughout the Bible. When man’s sin was ripe God called Abraham out of Babylon, where he had been living as a Pagan, and set him apart. God called Abraham to live differently to those people around him, to be holy. Holy means, set apart for a special purpose, set apart for God. Abraham was told that nations would come from him, that through him salvation would come to the whole world. This was God’s purpose in calling him.

So Abraham’s family were different, lived differently, and looked for the day when God would fulfil his promises.

When God brought the children of Abraham, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, he brought them to the foot of the mountain, gave them the law, and told them to live differently, faithfully to the God who saved them.

When God’s people renewed the covenant at Shechem Joshua challenged Israel, ‘Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.’ (Joshua 24:15)

A choice was placed before them: the gods of Egypt, the gods of Canaan, or the LORD?

 

Make us Like the Other Nations

When the people of God demanded of Samuel a king to rule them, they didn’t simply say, ‘we want a king.’ They said, ‘Now appoint us a king to lead us, such as all the nations have.’ (1 Samuel 8:5) God called them to be holy, but they insisted on being base, like other nations. Their sin could not have been worse and God comforts a shocked Samuel, ‘It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing now.’ (1 Samuel 8:7-8)

Their sin was not simply demanding a king, their sin was rejecting the King! It is a sorry tale and it is a theme we find in the New Testament community of God’s people. Paul’s letters frequently address the issue; how do we live in order to please God?

We can learn a lot from Paul’s letter to Thessalonica. In Paul’s day, the divisions between church and society were extreme and often dangerously so. He reminds his readers:

‘It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him…For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.’ (1 Thess.4:3-7)

Paul even goes so far as to echo God’s words to Samuel, writing, ‘He who rejects this instruction [to live holy lives] does not reject man but God, who gives you the Holy Spirit.’ Once again God’s people must choose: the gods of this unholy society, or the Lord!

 

A World Like Our Own

Thessalonica had a population of about 200,000, was a sea port. and so was quite cosmopolitan, much like Plymouth, Hull, or my own city of Swansea. It sat on the main road through the province and was a regional capital. It was Greek, with a small Jewish population, and so converts came mostly from a pagan background. Everything Paul said and taught was opposed to popular thinking, and his purpose was to encourage Christians as they lived in a society hostile to Christian thinking and practice. Let me draw some parallels for you.

In the Greco/Roman world female infanticide was rife across all classes. Female infants, and deformed male infants, were regularly and legally exposed on mountains because they were not wanted. One letter from a Roman to his pregnant wife bluntly instructs, ‘If you are delivered of a child [while I am away], if it is a boy keep it, if a girl discard.’ Perhaps we think this kind of thing couldn’t happen today. That is what the world tells itself. We are civilised. What about parallels here with modern abortion and euthanasia laws perhaps? What about this appalling trade in illegal migrants crossing the Mediterranean? Lives regarded as valueless and discarded. Are we so different?

Christian women enjoyed significantly higher status than their pagan counterparts. Married women were honoured and able to hold property, women held office in the church, and widows were looked after. Infant girls were valued and, where society married off girls at scandalously young ages, sometimes as young as 12 and younger, in Christian society the norm was marrying older, sometimes as late as 18. You can hear more here. In a society with an epidemic of single mothers and irresponsible and absent fathers Christians stand out again.

Public baths were to be found in such great numbers that one writer of the time wrote, ‘Smyrna has so many baths that you would be at a loss to know where to bathe.’ (Aelius Aristedes) Mixed nude bathing was not uncommon and, whatever your sexual orientation, sexual activity was the norm in and around these places. A society every bit as promiscuous as ours is becoming.

 

Living the Right Way up in an Upside-down World

Three things might be drawn from this chapter of Paul’s letter to help us today:

Whatever the world says and does, we are to live in order to please God. Like ancient Israel, we are to be a holy people. Paul says it in his letter, ‘God did not call us to be impure, but to live holy lives.’ (v7) We face that same choice today that they faced. The gods of this world, or the God of the Bible? This means that, on any question regarding our life choices, it is God we consult, and not public opinion.

Our values are to be God’s values. Which means, as the people of God, we are to value life, every life. As did that first Christian community, building on established Jewish practice, we are to see life as precious. All mankind is made in the image of God and so we are to have high moral values that reflect that fact, controlling our own bodies, not giving in to lusts. We are to love one another, as Paul urges, ‘Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you…Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.’ (vv 9-10)

How does this work out in our daily lives? Paul gives us sound advice, writing, ‘Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anyone.’ (vv 11-12)

The witness of our daily lives is vital to the work of the kingdom, much more so than any arguments, or controversies we may get into. The ‘God-fearers’ of the Jewish community, those who were not Jews but who adopted many Jewish ideals and practices, were attracted by the lives of Jews they met, worked with, and saw every day. The same is true of those attracted to the Christian community. In a world fleeing all sense, reason, and God, they are not won simply by arguments, but with love and a good example.

 

While People are Saying, ‘Peace and safety’

Finally, however we live, it can ultimately prove dangerous. The major theme in Paul’s letter is the second coming of Jesus as Lord and King. Reassuring believers that their dead loved ones, those who have ‘fallen asleep,’ as he put it, will not miss out but will share joy with us at the second coming, he goes on, ‘For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.’ vv16-17)

This is so comforting, reassuring, but it is a promise made against the backdrop of what is called the Imperial Cult. If I were to refer to, ‘The God manifest…the common saviour of humankind,’ you might think of Jesus. But this title was borne by the Emperor. Inscriptions abounded to, ‘…Caesar Augustus, Saviour of the whole human race…ruler of oceans and continents, the divine father among men, who bears the same name as his heavenly father…Liberator, the marvellous star of the Greek world, shining with the brilliance of the great heavenly Saviour.’

The word Paul used to speak of Christ’s second advent is parousia, a word that was used to describe the visit of an emperor. The Emperor Caesar Augustus was hailed as, ‘the Son of God.’ Where we cry, ‘Jesus is Lord!’Romans cried, ‘Caesar is Lord!’

In Acts 17 Paul and Silas had trouble in Thessalonica when jealous Jews accused, ‘These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here…defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.’ (Acts 17:7)

The people said of Caesar, ‘With Caesar in charge, peace will not be driven out by civic madness or violence, or the anger that beats swords.’ The Emperor bore the titles, Pax (peace) Securitas (Safety, security) Constantia(stability) Felicitas (fortune, happiness). It was against this backdrop of sickly flattery that Paul wrote later in this letter:

‘The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly…and they will not escape.’ (5:3)

So today, we must expect the world to give a totally different message to the one we bring and we may yet pay dear for it. Yet he will come, when least expected, when the world cries peace. Will he find us living to please him? Will he find a holy people, leading quiet but faithful lives, loving one another before a watching world?

 

This article first appeared in the June 2015 Reachout Newsletter.

Legalism: What Does Grace Say to Legalism?

Legalism is defined by Chambers Dictionary as “strict adherence to law…the tendency to observe letter or form rather than spirit, or to regard things from the point of view of law.” It also helpfully illustrates the definition with a reference to the opposing doctrines of salvation by works and salvation by grace. I do like The Chambers Dictionary and commend it to you.

But what is wrong with keeping the law? Surely as Christians we believe in being law-abiding? There is certainly enough in the New Testament about obedience to authorities. We are instructed, “obey your parents in the Lord” (Eph.6:1); obey your earthly masters with respect” (Eph.6:5); obey your leaders and submit to their authority” (Heb.13:17) and we are reminded “to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good” (Titus 3:3)

The Challenge of Legalism

When we witness to those with a legalistic bent we are often challenged with these and similar texts. Sometimes we are accused of antinomianism, “being emancipated by the gospel from the obligation to keep the moral law, faith alone being necessary” (that’s Chambers again)

Of course, if we were antinomian in our teaching and practice our prisons would be full of Christians. In some parts of the world Christians do find themselves imprisoned and worse but for entirely different reasons. The folly of legalism is highlighted in Matthew 19:1-12 as Jesus answers what his interrogators think is a difficult question. It had certainly exercised the best Jewish minds for generations. Moses said:

“If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes here a certificate of divorcement, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord” (Deut.24: 1-4)

Legalism insists on formulaic answers to such questions; answers by the book that go into incredible detail covering every eventuality. In Jesus’ day there were two schools of thought. The scholar Shammai taught that “something indecent” meant marital unfaithfulness. Hillel emphasised the words “who becomes displeasing to him”and taught that if she did anything he didn’t like, such as burning the toast, it justified divorce.

You see, that is the trouble with legalism, not that law is a bad thing but that we always put ourselves in the place of God and make it mean what we like, or what seems right to us. In our everyday lives we are often very sure of what are our rights and what are other people’s obligations. Legalism isn’t at all fair in its judgements. Jesus’ answer cut right through this tangle of opinions and interpretations by appealing to the purposes of God.

The Challenge to Legalism

Someone following either the school of Shammai or Hillel might feel justified, righteous and superior for having nailed it, but neither was right, although Jesus clearly took the side of Shammai over Hillel. Divorce, he said, was granted because of sin. God, whose purpose and ideal from the beginning had been that the two would be one, graciously accommodated his purposes to circumstances because of sin that caused damage to people. The Pharisees had asked the wrong question. They wanted to know what was permitted or forbidden when they should have been asking what was the purpose of God.

They asked when and under what circumstances disappointed and hurting people should separate. They should have been asking how broken relationships can be mended and people healed from their hurts and disappointments. It is a stark and frightening insight into what they cared about, and what we care about when we address these life issues from the point of view of legalism.

Jesus preached the standards of the kingdom which see citizens as servants who seek each other’s good and the heart of God in every matter. Of course Christians believe in and practice obedience but from a heart changed by the miracle of the new birth, not from a list of statutes, permissions and prohibitions. Where do we find and how do we follow these standards of the kingdom that speak so eloquently of obedience yet offer citizenship not to the obedient but to the believing? As Jesus taught Nicodemus:

“I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again…no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (Jn.3:3-6)

The Answer From Grace

We are saved into the kingdom by the miracle of rebirth. We take hold of and begin to understand the will of God and the standards of the kingdom by the power of the Holy Spirit. The regenerate person has a renewed mind (Ro.12:12), has the law set in their minds (Heb.8:10;10:16) and has the mind of Christ (1 Cor.2:16)

In our witness we teach truth, correct doctrine, and bring understanding. We are not, like Shammai and Hillel, simply interpreters of the Bible but offer to people nothing less than new birth, renewed minds, the mind of Christ in all matters pertaining to the kingdom,

“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

‘For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Cor.2:12-16)

This article appeared in the April 2015 Reachout E-Newsletter. You can read more on legalism on the Reachout website in Robin Brace’s article  ‘Moving Away From Legalism’