The State Of Our Public Debate: Same-Sex Marriage As A Test Case
When the Facebook page of the Human Rights Campaign changed their profile picture to a red and pink equal sign on March 25 in anticipation of the Supreme Court hearing cases on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, which prohibits same-sex marriage in California, and the Defense of Marriage Act, which restricts federal marriage benefits to only opposite sex marriages, the response of many in the Facebook universe was nearly instantaneous. By the time the Supreme Court was listening to arguments for and against Proposition 8 the next day, roughly 2.7 million people had changed their profile pictures to the red and pink equal sign.[1]
Welcome to the way we debate and discuss watershed issues in the digital age. We post a profile picture.
As I have watched the national debate over same-sex marriage unfold, I have been struck by the daftness of so many of the arguments concerning such a monumental issue. As a Christian, I have grave theological and moral concerns with same-sex marriage, but others have registered cogent concerns with same-sex marriage quite apart from the traditional moorings of biblical Christianity. For instance, in their book What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson, and Robert George offer an excellent argument for traditional or, as they call it, conjugal marriage over and against a revisionist view of marriage. The heart of their argument is this:
If the law defines marriage to include same-sex partners, many will come to misunderstand marriage. They will not see it as essentially comprehensive, or thus (among other things) as ordered to procreation and family life – but as essentially an emotional union…If marriage is centrally an emotional union, rather than one inherently ordered to family life, it becomes much harder to show why the state should concern itself with marriage any more than with friendship. Why involve the state in what amounts to the legal regulation of tenderness?[2]
The authors’ argument is simple, yet brilliant. Those who argue for same-sex marriage seem to define marriage based strictly on affection. But there are many relationships that are affectionate, such as friendships, and yet are not state-regulated. So marriage must be something more than simple affection. But what more is it? This is a question that proponents of same-sex marriage have a difficult time answering with any uniformity.
Sadly, the work of these authors has not been well received or responded to. Ryan Anderson, appearing on the Piers Morgan Show to explain the arguments of his book, was attacked by Suze Orman who dismissed him as “very, very uneducated in how it really, really works.”[3] Considering that Anderson is a fellow at the Heritage Foundation who received his degree from Princeton and is currently working on a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, I find it hard to believe that he is “very, very uneducated.”
In another example of supporters of traditional marriage being flippantly dismissed, Kevin Drum of Mother Jones took Ross Douthat of the New York Times to task for daring to suggest that an orientation toward procreation ought to be part of the definition of what constitutes a marriage:
It was opponents [of same-sex marriage], after realizing that Old Testament jeremiads weren’t cutting it any more, who began claiming that SSM should remain banned because gays couldn’t have children. This turned out to be both a tactical and strategic disaster, partly because the argument was so transparently silly (what about old people? what about women who had hysterectomies? etc.) and partly because it suggested that SSM opponents didn’t have any better arguments to offer. But disaster or not, they’re the ones responsible for making this into a cornerstone of the anti-SSM debates in the aughts.[4]
In his response, Douthat questions Drum’s account of the origin of the procreation argument for traditional marriage:
If gay marriage opponents had essentially invented a procreative foundation for marriage in order to justify opposing same-sex wedlock, it would indeed be telling evidence of a movement groping for reasons to justify its bigotry. But of course that essential connection was assumed in Western law and culture long before gay marriage emerged as a controversy or a cause. You don’t have to look very hard to find quotes…from jurists, scholars, anthropologists and others, writing in historical contexts entirely removed from the gay marriage debate, making the case that “the first purpose of matrimony, by the laws of nature and society, is procreation” (that’s a California Supreme Court ruling in 1859), describing the institution of marriage as one “founded in nature, but modified by civil society: the one directing man to continue and multiply his species, the other prescribing the manner in which that natural impulse must be confined and regulated” (that’s William Blackstone), and acknowledging that “it is through children alone that sexual relations become important to society, and worthy to be taken cognizance of by a legal institution” (that’s the well-known reactionary Bertrand Russell).
Douthat ends his response to Drum with a brilliant one-liner: “Once you’ve rewritten the past to make your opponents look worse, then you’re well on your way to justifying writing them out of the future entirely.”[5]
This line, more than any I have read in a long time, encapsulates the problem with our public debates – not just over same-sex marriage, but over many controversial issues. No longer are people interested in debating a big issue with the kind of intellectual rigor or careful thought such issues deserve. Instead, we change our Facebook profiles to an equal sign. Or we ridicule a Notre Dame Ph.D. candidate as “uneducated.” Or we make patently false claims about the historical origins of our opponents’ arguments. We try to write our opponents out of the future entirely.
We, it seems, are much less interested in intelligently discussing and debating an issue and much more interested in asserting our will on an issue. We no longer care whether or not we arrive at the right position on an issue as long as others bow to our position on an issue. And, lest I be accused of intimating that only proponents of same-sex marriage engage in such dubious debate tactics, let me be clear that I have seen opponents of same-sex marriage pull these same kinds of sorry tricks. After all, they’re on Facebook too. They host cable news shows too. They write less than thoughtful columns too.
The nihilist Nietzsche seemed to take special delight in laying bare the basest corners of human nature. In his seminal work Beyond Good and Evil, he summarizes his thoughts on the heart of humanity: “A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength – life itself is Will to Power.” Nietzsche purported that people, at their cores, desire to assert Machiavellian power over others much more than they ever desire to converse with others. This is why Nietzsche saw “slavery in some sense or other”[6] as necessary to human advancement. Those who are strong must assert their wills over those who are weak.
As I have watched the debate over same-sex marriage unfold, I have become worried that Nietzsche just might be right. In this debate, winning against the other side has become more important than discussing and reasoning with the other side to arrive at the right side. And because of that, I can’t help but think that, no matter who wins, we might just all lose.
[1] Alexis Kleinman, “How The Red Equal Sign Took Over Facebook, According To Facebook’s Own Data,” The Huffington Post (3.29.2013).
[2] Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson & Robert George, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense (New York: Encounter Books, 2012), 7, 16.
[3] Jamie Weinstein, “Fresh off his Piers Morgan confrontation, Ryan Anderson explains his ‘un-American’ views on marriage,” The Daily Caller (3.30.2013).
[4] Kevin Drum, “The Gay Marriage Debate Probably Hasn’t Affected Straight Marriage Much,” Mother Jones (3.31.2013).
[5] Ross Douthat, “Marriage, Procreation and Historical Amnesia,” The New York Times (4.2.2013).
[6] Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907), 20, 223.
An Important Note on Children’s Safety
This note went out from Concordia’s Senior Pastor, Bill Tucker, to all of Concordia’s day school and child care parents. Whether or not you have a child in one of our ministries, please take a moment to read this note and consider what conversations you may need to have with your children, especially if you live in the San Antonio area.
Dear Concordia Parents,
Yesterday morning in the Hollywood Park neighborhood, a young boy was waiting for a bus when a man in a white cargo-type van without side windows pulled up to the boy’s bus stop and tried to lure him inside. When the boy ran to tell his father, the van sped away. One of our own member’s children was similarly approached by a man in a white van, but when this child’s mother saw what was happening and began to move toward the van, it again sped off.
Instances like these are certainly disturbing. This is why I wanted to send you a note so that you could, first, be aware of this urgent news story and, second, take a moment to talk to your children about how strangers can mean danger.
If you would, allow me to share a few thoughts on talking to your children about staying safe outside while waiting for a bus, playing, or any other scenario where you, as parents, may not be immediately present. You can remind your children:
- Never to go anywhere without consulting you first.
- That dangerous people do not always look mean or scary.
- Never to get close to a stranger and to make sure they have plenty of room to run from a stranger.
- Never to help a stranger look for a lost pet or play a game.
- Never to get into a vehicle with someone they do not know.
- Never to share their name or address with someone they do not know.
- About “safe places” such as police and fire stations, the library, a store, or a friend’s house. These are places kids can go for help!
- That if a stranger grabs them, they need to yell loudly and shout, “I don’t know you!”
- That they can call 911 in case of an emergency.
I share these thoughts with you not to alarm you, but to remind you of all the different things you can do to help keep your children safe. You can find additional resources on keeping your kids safe at take25.org and safelyeverafter.com. Please be assured that, when your children are on Concordia’s campus, we do everything in our power to try to ensure your children’s safety and well-being. Your children’s safety is our number one priority.
If you have any information on the news story cited above, please contact the Hollywood Park Police at (210) 494-3575, extension 236. Remember that in an uncertain and sometimes frightening world, our God promises that He “is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).
God bless you!
Bill Tucker
Senior Pastor, Concordia Lutheran Church
friartuc@concordia-satx.com
Luther on Christ’s Resurrection…And Ours
On this Easter Monday, I thought I would share with you some words from a series of seventeen sermons preached by Martin Luther in 1533 on 1 Corinthians 15. In this chapter, the apostle Paul speaks of the resurrection of Christ and the hope and assurance that it gives us that we too will be raised on the Last Day:
Because Christ is risen and gives us His resurrection against our sin, death, and hell, we must advance to where we also learn to say: “O death, where is thy sting?” [1 Corinthians 15:55] although we at present see only the reverse, namely, that we have nothing but the perishable hanging about our neck, that we lead a wretched filthy life, that we are subject to all sorts of distress and danger, and that nothing but death awaits us in the end.
But the faith that clings to Christ is able to engender far different thoughts. It can envisage a new existence. It can form an image and gain sight of a condition where this perishable, wretched form is erased entirely and replaced by a pure and celestial essence. For since faith is certain of this doctrine that Christ’s resurrection is our resurrection, it must follow that this resurrection is just as effective in us as it was for Him – except that He is a different person, namely, true God. And faith must bring it about that this body’s frail and mortal being is discarded and removed and a different, immortal being is put on, with a body that can no longer be touched by filth, sickness, mishap, misery, or death but is perfectly pure, healthy, strong, and beautiful…
God did not create man that he should sin and die, but that he should live. But the devil inflicted so much shameful filth and so many blemishes on nature that man must bear so much sickness, stench, and misfortune about his neck because he sinned. But now that sin is removed through Christ, we shall be rid of all of that too. All will be pure, and nothing that is evil or loathsome will be felt any longer on earth. (AE 28:202-203)
Luther’s final words beautifully summarize the hope of Easter: “All will be pure, and nothing that is evil or loathsome will be felt any longer on the earth.” Because Christ is risen, the evils of sin and death will be destroyed. Or, in the words of the poet John Donne, because of Easter, “death, thou shalt die!”
Christ is risen! And this means you will too.
Clothing the Naked
“The Taking of Christ” by Caravaggio, 1602
It must have been a terrifying ordeal. The man who twelve men had followed, loved, learned from, and staked their lives on was being arrested by an angry mob, led by a man who used to be among their ranks: Judas. Mark depicts the scene like this:
Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed Him. The men seized Jesus and arrested Him. Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture Me? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest Me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” Then everyone deserted Him and fled. A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind. (Mark 14:43-52)
This final detail about this young man who flees naked is unique to Mark’s Gospel, leading many scholars to believe that it may have been Mark himself who, overcome with fear, fled the scene. But what is recorded here is more than an incidental historical detail. What is recorded here is a tragic historical pattern:
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” (Genesis 3:8-10)
Mark wasn’t the first to flee the Lord naked and afraid. Adam did too.
In the Bible, nakedness is often used as a symbol of shameful sin:
- “Your nakedness will be exposed and your shame uncovered. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.” (Isaiah 47:3)
- Jerusalem has sinned greatly and so has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away. (Lamentations 1:8)
- “I am against you,” declares the LORD Almighty. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame.” (Nahum 3:5)
Sin and nakedness go hand in hand. But the promise of Scripture is that when sin leaves us shamefully naked, Jesus clothes us with His righteousness: “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of His righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10). Even as we flee from the horror of the cross naked in sin, Jesus draws us back to His cross, covering our nakedness with His atoning blood. The death on a cross that once caused everyone to flee now beckons all to its promise of salvation. During this Holy Week, this is what we remember. And this is what we believe.
Has The Bible Been Corrupted?
This past weekend in worship and ABC, we discussed some of the biggest objections and obstacles that people present to trusting in Jesus. One of the objections and obstacles I covered in ABC had to do with the reliability of Scripture. Bart Ehrman, a skeptical scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explains why so many people call into question the Bible’s reliability:
Not only do we not have the originals [of the biblical manuscripts], we don’t have the first copies of the originals. We don’t even have the copies of the copies of the originals, or the copies of the copies of the copies of the originals. What we have are copies made later – much later. In most instances, they are copies made centuries later. And these copies all differ from one another, in many thousands of places…These copies differ from one another in so many places that we don’t even know how many differences there are. Possibly it is easiest to put it in comparative terms: there are more differences in our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.[1]
Many people wonder if that which is recorded in the Bible is historically accurate. Recently, popular news commentator Bill O’ Reilly called into question the historicity of the biblical stories of Adam and Eve and of Jonah, saying, “I was taught, in my Catholic school, that a lot of the stories in the Bible are allegorical.”[2] Bart Ehrman takes it a step farther. He not only questions if what is recorded in the Bible is historically accurate, he questions if what is recorded in the Bible was even supposed to be there at all! He notes the many ancient copies we have of the Bible differ from each other, thereby undermining their veracity, at least in Ehrman’s eyes. After all, if no two ancient manuscripts completely agree with each other, how can we know which manuscripts record what was actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, et al?
In their book Reinventing Jesus,[3] three biblical scholars make some helpful distinctions concerning the types of variants, or differences, that we find in ancient biblical manuscripts. In order to understand what is truly going on with the differences we have between ancient copies of the Bible, it is worth it to review their categories.
Spelling Differences
The majority of the variants we have in the New Testament are either alternate spellings or misspellings of a given word. For instance, the name John is in some manuscripts spelled Ioannes, while in other manuscripts, it is spelled Iaones. One “n” or two? It doesn’t really matter. Regardless of how this name is spelled, we know to whom the manuscript is referring.
Differences That Do Not Affect Translation
There are some differences between ancient copies of the Bible that have no affect on how we read something in English. For example, Greek allows for definite articles before proper names, but does not demand them. Thus, instead of referring to “Mary,” a biblical Greek text may refer to “the Mary.” Or, instead of referring to Jesus, a Greek text may read “the Jesus.” Because Greek allows for but does not demand these definite articles, some ancient Greek texts contain the definite articles in front of names while others do not. This, however, does not affect the translation or meaning of a given biblical text. Rather, the decision to retain or forgo a definite article is merely a matter of style.
Meaningful Variants That Are Not Viable
There are some differences between ancient biblical copies that do indeed affect the meaning of a text, but one of the variant readings is simply not viable. For instance, ancient versions of 1 Thessalonians 2:9 refer to “the gospel of God” while a late medieval manuscript of this same verse refers to “the gospel of Christ.” Though the gospel is indeed Christ’s gospel, because only one late medieval manuscript has this reading while almost all other ancient manuscripts refer to “the gospel of God,” the reading that refers to the gospel of Christ simply isn’t viable. Too many other texts militate against this reading.
Meaningful and Viable Variants
Finally, there are some variants between ancient biblical copies that both affect the meaning of a text and are viable. Romans 5:1 has variants that read, “We have peace” as well as “Let us have peace.” Scholars are split on which one is original. But even if scholars are split on which one is original, both statements are theologically correct. After all, we are both promised peace through Christ and commanded to be people of peace by Christ.
It is important to note that the variants which are both meaningful and viable make up only about one percent of all textual variants. Moreover, even with the many, but small, differences in our many ancient biblical manuscripts, not one of these differences – even the meaningful and viable ones – compromises a biblical doctrine. Throughout all of these manuscripts, doctrines like the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and salvation by grace through faith are taught. Indeed, Ehrman is finally forced to admit that the vast majority of variants in ancient biblical manuscripts are insignificant when he writes, “Most of these differences are completely immaterial and insignificant.”[4]
So what does all this mean? It means the text of the Bible we have is the text of the Bible as it has always been. Thanks to the faithful and diligent efforts of many scribes and scholars over many centuries, the words of the apostles and prophets have been faithfully handed down from one generation to the next. What we read now in the Bible is what the Christian Church has always believed, taught, and confessed. Christ has preserved His Word from corruption by His grace. Thanks be to God!
[1] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (New York: Harper Collins, 2005), 10.
[2] Melissa Barnhart, “Robert Jeffress Argues With Bill O’Reilly Over If Jonah, Adam and Eve Stories Are Real,” Christian Post (3.8.13).
[3] J. Ed Komoskewski, M. James Sawyer & Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Really Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2006), 53-63.
[4] Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, 10.
The Questions God Won’t Answer
It had to be a frustrating experience for the disciples. They wanted Jesus to answer what they thought was a perfectly appropriate and critically important question: “Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6)? This question seemed fair enough. After all, when the disciples pose this query, Jesus has already risen from the dead and has been periodically appearing to His in a dazzling demonstration of His dominion over death. And now that Jesus has conquered death, the only thing left for Him to do is to usher in the utopia of God’s kingdom. But Jesus gives His disciples a less than satisfactory answer to their question about God’s kingdom: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority” (Acts 1:7). Jesus says to His disciples, “God’s kingdom is coming, and My Father knows when it’s coming. But He’s not going to tell you. It’s not for you to know.”
The refusal of God to provide satisfactory answers to all the questions Christians ask has been a conundrum that has frustrated the faithful for millennia. Questions that range from the mildly curious – “When did the dinosaurs go extinct according to the Bible?” – to the direly critical – “Why does God allow evil to continue to rage in world?” – are left unanswered, at least in toto – by what God reveals in holy Writ. Yes, there are partial answers these questions and to others like them, but there are not complete answers. And this leaves many discouraged and despondent.
Like many other countless Christians throughout the ages, Martin Luther too struggled with why God did not answer everything everyone might want to know. After much reflection, Luther came to this conclusion: “Whatever God does not tell you, or does not want to tell you, you should not desire to know. And you should honor Him enough to believe that He sees that it is not necessary, useful, or good for you to know.”[1] Luther was willing to trust that God knew – and knew how to manage – what Luther himself did not.
Perhaps the reason God does not tell us everything we might like to know is this: a lack of knowledge compels trust. In other words, when we do not know something that God knows, we are compelled to trust that God knows what He’s doing even if we happen to be left in the dark. Our lack of a comprehensive answer to every question we might have can actually be used by God to increase our faith! And growing in faith is far more important than growing in mere knowledge.
And so, what would you like to know about God? God may not give you every answer to every question, but you already have His answers to the questions that matter most. Does God love you? Yes! Can you be redeemed by the blood of Christ? Yes. Can you trust that God knows what He’s doing and has your best interest at heart? Yes.
How much more do you really need to know?
[1] Martin Luther, What Luther Says, Ewald M. Plass, comp. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), §209.
The Price of Shame
I’m not sure the framers of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s ever envisioned this. What they dreamed of was the freedom to sexually express themselves without having to answer to what they thought were the stifling restraints of a traditional – and, in their view, outdated – sexual ethic. What they wound up sowing, however, were the seamy seeds of sexual objectification and oppression among subsequent generations.
Cole Moreton, in his article for The Telegraph titled “Children and the Culture of Pornography,”[1] offers a disturbing peek inside a generation who has managed to shake itself free of the moral manacles which once guided the intimate encounters of yesteryear. I must warn you: the frank tone of his article is not for the faint of heart. He opens with the story of a thirteen-year-old girl named Chevonea. A boy had pressured her into performing a sex act on him, which he recorded with his cell phone’s camera and subsequently showed to all his buddies. Chevonea threatened to a jump from a window if he did not delete the recording. But before she could have second thoughts about her desperate threat, she slipped and fell sixty feet to her death. Chevonea’s story is nauseating. But her tale is, devastatingly, one among many spawned by a culture gone sexually mad.
The majority of Moreton’s article discusses the ease of access to pornography and how it distorts our children’s view of themselves and others. Indeed, many of our young people have gone from consuming these illicit materials to creating them with nothing more than the video recorders on their phones, as in Chevonea’s case. And many of the children who home grow these pornographic videos aren’t even teenagers yet.
So what are the consequences of growing up in such a so-called “sexually liberated” culture? Moreton explains the effects are especially severe on girls: “Sexual pressure can cause girls to contemplate suicide, self-harm, develop eating disorders, or try to lose themselves in drugs or alcohol.” For a movement that began as one of liberation, this hardly sounds like freedom to me.
The Scriptures remind us that sexual freedom can only be truly found within the context of sexual commitment. God’s created order for intimacy rings as true today as it ever has: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). God sets a clear pattern: sexual intimacy which results in the joining of two fleshes into one is to take place only after a man is willing to “hold fast to” (i.e., commit to, or marry) his wife. Such commitment, in turn, results in true freedom: “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25).
As I read those final words from Genesis 2, I can’t help but think of Chevonea and the overwhelming shame she must have felt after a pushy boy devastated her dignity and betrayed whatever little trust she may have had in him by flaunting a sickly conceived video. This young man may have used his sexually liberated sensibilities to pressure a young girl to engage in acts completely outside the bounds of common decency, but such sexual freedom turned out to be nothing more than a Trojan horse in which were hidden the stifling shackles of shame.
Ultimately, when it comes to our sexual behavior, we must answer a fundamental question: To what do we want to be beholden? Because we will be beholden to something. We will either be beholden to the slavery of shame that masquerades as sexual liberation or we will be beholden to the constraints of divine law which free us to live without shame because we are within the comforting assurances of God’s will.
I know which one sounds better to me. Which one sounds better to you?
[1] Cole Moreton, “Children and the culture of pornography: ‘Boys will ask you every day until you say yes,’” The Telegraph (1.27.2013).
Sharing the Gospel…Even When It’s Hard
How far would you go to share the gospel? Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9 constitute a rallying cry to “pull out all the stops,” as it were, to get the gospel to those who need to hear it:
Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)
Paul’s call to “become all things to all men…for the sake of the gospel” has been a topic of many a conversation about what is involved in showing and sharing God’s love to a world that is hostile to the exclusive claims of Christ. Though many things could be said about proclaiming the gospel in a world like this, there is one thing in particular that I would focus on in this post: Proclaiming the gospel to a world adverse to its message often involves pain.
Proclaiming the gospel involves much more than just being familiar enough with the culture around you to speak the gospel in a way that is intelligible to that culture, it involves enduring persecution from that culture when it takes umbrage with the gospel’s message. This was certainly the case with Paul. Paul writes, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews” (verse 20). To become like a Jew was no easy task for Paul, especially since his Jewish comrades considered his message of a crucified Messiah blasphemous. And the punishment for speaking blasphemy was nothing less than a beating. This is why Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:24: “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.” Interestingly, a compendium of Jewish rabbinical teaching called the Mishnah considers lashes to be only a secondary punishment for blasphemy. The primary punishment was that of being cut off from the Jewish people. The rabbis wrote, “All those who are liable to extirpation who have been flogged are exempt form their liability to extirpation” (Mishnah Makkot 3:15). The primary punishment for blasphemy, then, was that of being excommunicated from the Jewish community, but if a person could not stand the thought of excommunication, he could instead choose to be lashed. Paul chose the lashes over the shunning. But why? It certainly wasn’t because he took any particular pride in being a Jew by birth. Paul says of his Jewish pedigree: “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 1:8). Paul chose the lashes because he could not stand the thought of being excommunicated by his Jewish comrades. After all, such excommunication would spell the end of his efforts “to win the Jews” (verse 20). Paul was so desperate to share the gospel with his Jewish community, he was willing to be beaten within inches of his death to do so.
The apostle Peter writes, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Sometimes, becoming “all things to all men…for the sake of the gospel” means suffering for the sake of the gospel. By the Spirit’s enabling, may we be prepared to face adversity and pain to share and spread God’s message and power of salvation!
When A Little Is A Lot
It has long struck me how God can do so much with so little. A little bit of water and the name of God spoken over us in baptism – and we are brought into the family of Christ. A little bit of bread and a little bit of wine – and we receive Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. It doesn’t take much for God to do great things!
I was reminded of this point once again as I was teaching Daniel 10. In this curious chapter, Daniel receives a vision of “a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold around His waist. His body was like chrysolite, His face like lightning, His eyes like flaming torches, His arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and His voice like the sound of a multitude” (Daniel 10:5-6). The characteristics of this man are strikingly similar to those used to describe Jesus in Revelation:
I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to His feet and with a golden sash around His chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of rushing waters. (Revelation 1:12-15)
Daniel, it seems, is having an encounter with the pre-incarnate Christ.
What is Christ doing before His incarnation? What He does after His incarnation: fighting the forces of evil. He says, “I will return to fight against the prince of Persia” (Daniel 10:20). Many scholars take this reference to “the prince of Persia” as a reference to a fallen angel and not to the human leader of Persia at this time, Cyrus. After this prince of Persia, Jesus says, will come the king of Greece. And then, Jesus ends the chapter by saying, “No one supports me against them except Michael, your prince” (Daniel 10:21).
It is verse 21 that especially struck me. It is just the Son of God and His archangel Michael against the many and varied forces of darkness and evil. Daniel 11 goes into detail concerning those many and varied dark forces. It’s two forces for good marshaled against a countless number of forces for evil. It’s a little against a lot. And yet, good carries the day:
At that time your people – everyone whose name is found written in the book – will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:1-2)
Evil is consigned to everlasting contempt. The redeemed of the Lord enjoy everlasting life. The seemingly little forces for good defeat the massive forces of evil.
Throughout the Bible, evil constantly seeks to gain power using sheer numbers. The Psalmist writes about how “the kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One” (Psalm 2:2). But no matter how many forces evil may be able to marshal, evil is no match for the goodness of God. The quantity of evil foes is no match for the perfect quality of God’s goodness. As Luther writes in “A Mighty Fortress” of God’s power against the devil and minions: “One little word can fell him.” One little word of God can destroy vast army of evil. And that little word has already by spoken from the cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30). From the cross, Jesus sealed Satan’s fate with just a little word. For “It is finished” means “Satan is finished.” This little word defeated great evil and saved us.
So never overlook the little things of God. A little can do a lot. After all, what the world thought was nothing more than an insignificant execution on a cross wound up offering salvation to all humanity. From a little cross flows big hope.
Sacrificing the Wrong Lives
It was an article that took my breath away. Yes, I’ve read many an article arguing for “a woman’s right to choose.” Yes, I’ve heard the cries from Planned Parenthood, insisting that a woman’s “reproductive rights” be maintained. But this article did not invoke any of the more traditional language wielded by abortion proponents, except to criticize it. Writing for Slate Magazine, Mary Elizabeth Williams opens her article analyzing the state of the abortion debate thusly:
While opponents of abortion eagerly describe themselves as “pro-life,” the rest of us have had to scramble around with not nearly as big-ticket words like “choice” and “reproductive freedom.” The “life” conversation is often too thorny to even broach. Yet I know that throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me. I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life. And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.[1]
Mary Elizabeth Williams is bold enough to write what so many people have suspected for so long: there is no way around the fact that a fetus is a life. Abortion, then, by logical default, ends a life. Williams, in contradistinction to many other abortion advocates, is willing to admit this. But this does not temper her view on whether or not abortion should be legal and widely available:
Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.
Williams is willing to cede the argument on whether or not a fetus is a life. She admits it is. But that does not matter. It may be a life, but it is a life that can be extinguished at the will and whim of the woman who carries the fetus.
Such a crassly genocidal view of abortion is new, even for its advocates. Margaret Sanger, the very founder of Planned Parenthood, would have winced at this kind of notion:
We explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way – it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun.[2]
Margaret Sanger, though she certainly paved the way for abortion’s modern-day legality, availability, and promotion, promoted contraception over abortion, at least publicly, because abortion ended life. Until now, pro-choice advocates have been largely unwilling to engage the question “Is the fetus a life or not?” and instead focus on a woman’s “right to choose” because many abortion advocates would be loath to talk about ending a life. No longer. Williams is perfectly willing to speak of a fetus as a life. And she’s perfectly willing to talk about ending it. As she concludes in her article, “I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time – even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing.”
In the face of words like Williams’, words from the prophet Jeremiah come to mind:
This is what the LORD says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more.” (Jeremiah 31:35)
May we weep with Rachel at the children who are no more. They were not lives worth sacrificing. The life worth sacrificing has already been sacrificed.
[1] Mary Elizabeth Williams, “So What if Abortion Ends a Life?” Slate Magazine (1.23.13). NB: The link posted in the title Williams’ article takes you to Google’s cached version. The most inflammatory of Williams’ statements have since been removed. The current version of the article can be found here.
[2] Margaret Sanger, Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1938), 217.
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