The Background of Public Education

Many Americans are likely unaware that the public schools in this country were founded on a similar vision. This is especially true in the late nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth. Public school advocates preached a message of cultural disaster if children were not raised in a common culture. Concern over the assimilation of immigrant children fueled the sense of crisis, but more was at stake. John Dewey, one of the most influential figures in the development of the public school ideal, explicitly argued that children should be educated in public schools so that the schools could help them break with the traditions and perspectives of their parents.

Read more at http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/03/01/newsnote-where-homeschooling-is-outlawed-asylum/

The Importance of Hospitality

Mishnah Avot 5:10   

There are four sorts of people.:

(1) He who says, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours” —this is the average sort.

(2) “What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine”—this is a boor.

(3) “What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is yours”—this is a truly pious man.

(4) “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine”—this is a truly wicked man.¹

Sounds pretty straightforward, eh? Until you realize that I left a small parenthetical statement out of line 1. The redactor of the Mishnah adds regarding the one who says, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours”:

(And some say, “This is the sort of Sodom.”).

Now that throws one back on your heels a bit! It would be one thing if the wicked man was described as the sort of Sodom, but for someone who simply claims what’s mine is mine to be described this way, is another thing entirely!

Where did the rabbis get this idea? We are accustomed to thinking of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as being sexual, but Ezekiel tells us:

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. (Eze 16:49)

So it sounds like the sin that brought judgement on Sodom was inhospitality. This seems to agree with Jesus’ comment in the Gospel of Matthew:

And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. (Matt. 10:14-16)

Perhaps we need to rethink how much importance we give to the description of the primitive church in Acts 4.

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. (Acts 4:32)

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^[1]Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah : A New Translation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 687.

Elorah’s Version

Elorah: the itsy bitsy bug crawled up the fire-hydrant…

Daddio: the itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout…

Elorah: and turned off the water!

Daddio: Ha, ha, ha…

What It’s All About

It’s all about God.

But that doesn’t really help me understand my place in it all. The reality, or at least how it helps me to perceive it, is to realize that it’s all about what kind of person I am going to be.

I was created in God’s image…just how much like Him am I going to be? It’s up to me, I’ve realized. It’s up to you; it’s up to us, you see.

All of us mar His image in us; none of us can leave it intact or grow to reflect Him accurately (depending on your position on original sin). But having accepted His Son’s costly gift so freely given, what’s left is for me to live out the reality of both 1) who I was created to be, and 2) who it has been declared that I am.

This is important stuff, you see, I have to teach me children what it’s all about. Because I’ve been trying to figure it out for the past 18 years very specifically, and more generally for the last 21, and in a much more unspecific manner, for the last 32 years (I’m 36, about to turn 37).

Somehow, in 36 years of sermons, sunday school lessons, bible classes, bible college, christian university and higher education I missed what it’s all about. I don’t think I missed it actually, because I’ve been paying peculiarly attentive attention.

One thing that encourages me greatly is that over the last year or so I’ve begun realizing the deeper significance of truths I was taught at a very young age. It is enormously refreshing to realize that it’s not new, arcane, long-hidden truths that I need, but a better understanding of those I was taught from a very young age.

My dad taught Romans to the 3rd class at Roanoke Baptist School. To this day, I’ve not read nor heard better fundamental explanations of Paul’s magnum opus than those my father shared with us at age 8.

But I think my teachers (my parents included) were teaching me truths that they didn’t fully comprehend. They called these things true but did not understand their significance…so how could they pass that along?

The law, the prophets, the psalms, the gospels, the epistles—they’re all there to help us choose to be like God. Am I going to keep my word? Am I going to love my neighbor? How about the neighbor that is different than me? How about the neighbor that interprets the Bible differently than I do? Am I going to take care of my family? Am I going to work diligently? Will I add beauty or ugliness to this world? Will I be like my Father in Heaven? Will I be like His only Son?

What choices will I make? Who I am is the sum of the choices I make. Each single, solitary right choice makes me different from the moment before—more like my Father.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 

- The Apostle Paul, Ephesians 5:1 (ESV)

Idols & the Image of God

The Hebrew treated the idol-maker as a murderer and stoned the life out of him.

Would that we had such a hatred of idols. For what is an idol other than anything that replaces God in our affections; anything upon which we place our hope other than Him.

This hatred of making false images of God was in reality due to the dim unexpressed consciousness that there could be no image of God until God Himself gave that image;

Conscious that we were made in His image, we also recognized that this image was marred. Our hope then was in the “Anointed One” who would come and bear the perfect image of all that we hope for and in.

or to put it in our own religious language, they had some faint conception of the truth that they would be given a great Sacrament of God. For what we mean by Sacrament is an outward sign, apprehensible by the senses, of an inward verity, which is actually there, and that inward Reality is God.[1]

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[1] W.H.G. Holmes, The Presence of God (London: SPCK, 1923), 36.

Life is Not Fair

All of us probably remember a specific moment from our childhood when some adult told us, “Life is not fair.” Most of us decided that was the way of the world and we better get used to it. A few of us, reject that reality and become somewhat awkward to be around.

Too often we teach our children coping mechanisms. The world is not fair so get used to it, prepare yourself to be disappointed, and then when the inevitable injustice happens it won’t disturb you so much. Very practical but not very Christian.

The problem with remaining indignant that the world is not fair is that it means you become sort of a walking wounded. Hmm…who does that remind me of? The permanent incarnation of Messiah is a man with wounds in his wrists and feet. A man who wept when his friend Lazarus died—even though he knew that in mere moments Lazarus would rise from the dead.

I’ve decided not to teach my kids to accept that the world is not fair. Obviously, I must teach them to acknowledge reality, but there is a more profound truth, the ultimate reality, the destiny of the world to come. The world is meant to be fair; injustice is not God’s design, nor His desire, and we are tasked with partnering with God in the repair of this world. Here’s to justice!!!

May I be a just servant, a just husband, a just father, a just pastor, a just friend, may my hope never flag, my faith never fail, may I be like my Father in Heaven. May His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven!

Cherry Tomatoes

This morning my son, Ethan, noticed a package of cherry tomatoes on the counter, his eyes lit up, he grabbed the container and turned to his mom,

Mom, may I ?!

First of all, what planet is this boy from? I couldn’t stand cherry tomatoes as a kid; it’s amazing to me how different he is than me in many ways. But second, I really appreciate that his default is to ask permission. May his heart remain teachable all his days.

One Law, Obligation & Distinction

Contrary to much of the propaganda within Hebrew Roots Christianity, the majority position of the Church throughout history has always been that the moral imperatives of God’s Law apply universally to all believers. While Luther produced a movement that introduced a strong dichotomy between Law and Grace, the overwhelming majority of Christians continued to insist that the third and primary use of the Law was to instruct believers in the proper way of living, to aid them in more closely reflecting God’s image. Only since the advent of dispensationalism did the idea that the Law has actually been annulled gain any popular consensus.

Much of the discussion surrounding whether we have an "obligation" to obey the Law focuses on whether we ought to condemn or judge those who strive to keep God’s laws differently than do we. Concerns over whether the law is legitimately split into civil, ceremonial, and moral categories are likewise often misdirected, though some have undoubtedly misused this conversation. The reality today, is that God does not consider those imperatives of the Mosaic Code that can be accurately described as pertaining to civil issues as binding on any secular government. Similarly, without a functioning Temple, without a ritually pure Aaronic priesthood, etc. no ceremonial imperatives regarding the practice of Temple-worship are presently applicable. So if, a Christian asserts, as does the London Baptist Confession of 1689,

The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof, and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it; neither doth Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.

we ought to heartily agree with them. They may define the contents of the “moral law” differently than do we, but that is a variance you will find among every believing community everywhere.

In reaction to struggles with the term "obligation" and with faulty human practice, some have recently suggested that while God holds his Jewish children to a standard of obligation regarding His Law, he does not oblige His Gentile children to the same standard of righteousness. While the specific demands of the law clearly vary based on sex, geography, time, sometimes even ethnicity, God’s general demand of obedience to His Law is universal and does not vary based on ethnicity. The Scriptural distinction is one of application not of obligation. When it comes to covenant participation/obligation the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Peter was crystal clear:

“He [God] made no distinction between us and them,” (Acts 15:9a).

For sure, the demands of Torah differ depending on one’s relationship to Messiah, meaning that the “demand” of Torah to someone under the Old Covenant is condemning, while the “demand” of Torah to someone in the New Covenant is enlightening. I read somewhere recently that “Grace is the bridge from Law as mirror to Law as Lamp.” But still that obligation remains, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15; John 14:21; John 15:10; Romans 13:9; 1 John 5:2; 1 John 5:3; 2 John 1:6)

When it comes to an obligation to obey the eternal standard of God’s righteousness (Torah) all are on the hook; either to be condemned (if not in Messiah) or to be guided/instructed (if in Messiah), whether Jew/Gentile, Man/Woman makes no difference here… “all have sinned,” “be holy as I am holy,” these are universal indicators of obligation, reiterated to a mixed audience of Jew and Gentile in the New Testament lest we mistake their universal application.

The only proper distinction is secondary rather than primary. The motivation of the Apostles to mandate a grace-filled approach to law-keeping was practical (and an imitation of God’s approach), “tell the uneducated, new believers to be concerned with x,y,z.” These Acts 15 specifications for immediate observance would have prevented table fellowship, the common denominator of regular, daily life, and soon to be the central observance of the fledgling sect (after the destruction of the Temple).

The distinction the Apostles make between Gentile converts and Jewish believers doesn’t need to be “wrestled” with; it’s obvious. I expect my son to obey me in all things, yet I begin only with high-chair manners, and slowly add to the "burden" of obedience as his understanding progresses. When I say to my 1 year old, “eat your food” that does not mean I don’t also expect him to be kind to his sister as soon as he understands kindness, etc., etc.

Because I have a different standard of obedience for my 2-year-old than I do for my 9-year-old, does not mean that both are not obligated to obey.

To say, “we believe that God’s Law is still the binding and unchanging standard for the Jewish people,” is not scripturally accurate; it makes an unbiblical distinction that cannot be found in the apostolic writings. I believe that God’s Law is the binding and unchanging standard for His people, Jew and Gentile.

Now figuring out how to apply God’s Law in any given geographical or chronological place…that’s the topic of another post.

In Christ

Robert Webber writes in Common Roots,

The most basic definition of the ecclesia in the New Testament is “the people of God in Christ (1 Cor. 1:2).

Several of us have been contemplating the nature of “the church” lately, so I was struck by the two words “in Christ.”

Surely this particular is new; prior to Pentecost no one seemed to realize that the Church was, of necessity, “in Christ.” This revelation, then, identified a body with a new self-understanding of its identity. Surely it was the same body but it undoubtedly had a new awareness of its purpose and character.

Evangelism Old & New

In the old way of witness, we asked the unchurched to believe in Christ, then to come to the church. In the postmodern form of witness we bring people to Christ through the church. The church is the doorway to Christ. For this reason, if we are to be an evangelizing church in today’s world, we must begin with a healthy, vital body of believing, worshiping, discipling, nurturing, and socially active people–a church that is the continuation of the incarnate presence of Jesus in the world–a communal embodiment of what is preached.

- Robert E. Webber, Journey to Jesus

Through Modern Eyes

In modern times the break from the historic Christian substance came when the church began to interpret its faith through modern categories of thought. The shape, then, of dominant Protestant theology, both liberal and conservative as it developed through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, was neither reformational nor historic, but modern. Consequently, the return to historic Christianity is also a return to reformational Christianity. Since it is in understanding the early church that evangelical Christians are most deficient, we will draw mainly from the early church fathers in this work.

– Robert E. Webber in Common Roots

History Repeats Itself

Before Constantine ‘Christians had known as a fact of experience that the church existed, but had to believe against appearances that Christ ruled over the world. After Constantine one knew as a fact of experience that Christ was ruling over the world, but had to believe against the evidence that there existed a believing Church.’

Rodney Clapp in A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society, quoting from John Howard Yoder in “The Otherness of the Church” in Mennonite Quarterly Review 35 (October 1961: 212)