The "Thief" on the Cross

Two other criminals were also led away to be executed with him. So when they came to the place that is called “The Skull,” they crucified him there, along with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. But Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Then they threw dice to divide his clothes. The people also stood there watching, but the leaders ridiculed him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the king of the Jews.”
One of the criminals who was hanging there railed at him, saying, "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Don't you fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we rightly so, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom" And Jesus said to me, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:32-43)

Criminals, thieves, robbers, etc. It conjures the idea of a couple of no-good scoundrels - the dregs of society. Have you ever stopped to think about these two guys? A couple of obvious questions come to mind right away:

a) would Rome crucify people for mere theft? Let's even say that it was serious theft -- crucifixion wasn't the commonplace way of killing people in ancient Rome...would that kind of punishment really have fit the crime?

b) How do they know who he is? Read carefully what the two men say. The first one knows, at least at some level, what "the Christ" (or 'Messiah' in some translations) is supposed to be able to do. He says, "save yourself and us!" Now, he could have just been mimicking what the religious leaders were jeering...but the response of the second criminal indicates that it's more than that. "Don't you fear God?" This suggests that the two men were Jews - it's not just some random God that this man is referring to. Also - the second criminal knows that Jesus has done nothing wrong - AND he knows that Jesus is who he says he is and what that means. He knows the Jesus has a kingdom and that He's going ENTER it, AFTER dying. To me, this is the most convincing line that these men knew who Jesus was and what His claims were.

The most likely scenario for who these men were, and why they would end up being crucified WITH Jesus, is that they were zealots, or insurrectionists, which is essentially the same charge against Jesus (don't forget, Barabbas, who Jesus exchanged fates with, was also in prison for insurrection, Luke 23:19). Furthermore, they were likely Jewish Zealots. Jesus would have been familiar with a group like this because one of his own disciples, Simon, came from the zealot movement.

Why Do We Call Ourselves Monotheists?

In modern Church circles, it's popular to call ourselves (Christians) 'monotheists' -- and that's a good description of the modern believer...many believe there is one God and one God only. Any other god is thrown on to a pile labeled 'Idols' which is to say...not gods, or false gods. Is this right though? I've written on these electronic pages before that "if the 1st commandment of 'thou shalt have no other gods before me' is to be taken seriously, then it implies there are other gods." Many places in Scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, suggest that there are other gods/divine beings. Several are named -- and never do you get the impression that they were somehow not real: Amon, Asherah, Ashtoreth, Baal, Chemosh, Dagon, Molech, etc.

I saw something today that caught my eye - a tweet from Yonatan Adler who is an archaeology and early Judaism professor at Ariel University. I'm not recommending his work, but in this tweet, he was referencing a papyrus remnant, written in Aramaic, that he has been studying called "the Passover Papyrus", from ~419 BCE. I did some additional digging on this fragment - it's a letter, from one Jewish leader (Hananiah) to another (Yedaniah), providing instruction for Passover observance. The part Adler zeros in on is in the greeting of the letter where it read, "May the gods seek after the welfare of my brother..." His whole point in sharing it was to point to the fact that even within Torah-observant Judaic circles, this idea that they were monotheists is probably wrong. Now, it must be noted here that this was likely sinful, to either be praying to and/or associating in any way with any other God than Yahweh, but nevertheless, they were not monotheists in the sense that they believed there was one God and one God only. The more I read, the more I am convinced that almost everyone in the ancient world was a polytheist. That doesn't necessarily mean that they worshipped as a polytheist, but they most certainly believed there were many gods.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on modern Christians - maybe what some of us mean is that God (Yahweh) is the God of Gods, the Lord of Lords, and what we're really saying is that he has no equal, no rival. If that's the case, then my monologue here falls on its face...a modified definition of monotheism simply to indicate that Yahweh Elohim is the only God worth worshipping - how could I disagree with that? But - I don't think that's where most Christians are coming from. The next logical question is "so what?" but I've already answered that question in previous posts.

**Interesting sidenote: there actually is a theological name for the belief that there is one true God, but that other gods exist, it's called Henotheism. Turns out it was coined by a German theologian in the 19th century and I'm pretty sure he used it pejoratively in order to label people who thought differently than him.

Some Election Day Thoughts

This has been the most interesting election cycle I've been a part of it and it has nothing to do with who is running or about anything that has happened along the way. Rather - I have kids who can understand, at least at some level, what is going on. Just yesterday, my daughter came home from volleyball practice and sat down next to me and said she was nervous. I asked her "why sweetie? what's making you nervous." She said, "well, I see a lot more Harris/Walz signs around here than Trump signs and I'm scared about what will happen." She knows we voted to 'orange man bad' and so that's the reason for her observation. So I asked her a follow-up question, "A_____, how will your life change based on the result of this election?" She sat there for a minute thinking - "Not at all, dad." I said, "exactly right, you don't have to worry about this election because mom and I will deal with whatever consequences may come, and you know what, even for us things aren't likely to change all that much."

We make a big deal every four years about WHO the president will be, but in reality, who the president is doesn't really change our lives all that much. I'm not saying that elections don't have consequences, they surely do but, by and large, change happens incrementally, and even when some economic woe is ascribed to this person or that party, even then, it's not that simple. Inflation, for example, which we have all experienced the consequences of, is a multi-faceted thing with many various causes. One of those causes was the oodles of 'free money' the government gave away. Trump did it first, Biden doubled down. Another cause is the Russia/Ukraine war, which is the fault of none of the candidates, even though Trump loves to say that Russia would have never invaded Ukraine if he had been president, which may be true, but we'll never know.

And on this Rock...

"Now when Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets." He said to them, "But who do you yourselves say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it." (Matthew 16:13-18, NASB)

I've read this many times - heard it preached on many times, this is a very familiar verse to any believers who has been in the Church for any length of time. Today, however, I have a new understanding of this verse and I wanted to share it with you. Before I add any more commentary though, let's go left in our Bibles.

Facing Death

I live in a suburb of Chicago that is quite charming. It is a town full of families, mostly quiet, everyone most people go to Church on Sundays, neighbors know each other...a kind of 'Lake Wobegon' type place, if you're familiar with Garrison Keillor's idyllic town, or Mayberry if Andy Griffith is more your speed. Keillor described Lake Wobegon as a place where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

Just this morning, we found out that tragedy has once again touched our community - in the form of a car accident, which claimed the life of a 16-year-old girl, with one of her classmates in critical condition. Almost a year ago today, we mourned the death of our close friend's 5-year-old boy. I had seen grief before, but never like that. I had asked God questions before, but never like those. When adults die, we can at least make sense of it - but children?

Nuclear War: A Scenario

Just finished the new book "Nuclear War: A Scenario" by Annie Jacobsen. I would categorize this as 'hypothetical nonfiction' - a very odd category, but hear me out. It is clear that Jacobsen did her research - she interviewed a very wide range of people who have some kind of expertise in nuclear weapons, whether that be former government officials, or experts who helped create and refine these weapons. She interviewed people who have spent large parts of their careers trying to figure out how to formulate policies around the use of these weapons and who have gamed out nuclear war scenarios. To put a point on it, the scenario she presents in this book is based on the very well-informed opinions and expertise of a) people who have studied nuclear weapons and the consequences of their use and b) people who know the kinds of events and interactions that might transpire in the event of a nuclear attack. In other words, the scenario presented is plausible - it's not based on the imagination of Annie Jacobsen, but rather on informed opinions of people who have spent countless hours imagining what this would be like.

In a word, it's terrifying. She meant it to be. It reminded me of a quote from Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast that I'll never forget:

Useless Labels

Calvinist. Arminian. Premillennialist. Amillennialist. Pre-tribulationalist. Preterist. Dispensationalist. Complementarian. Credobaptist. Fundamentalist. Zionist. Anti-Zionist. Reformed. Cessationist. Charismatic. Liberal. Progressive. Creationist. Evangelical. Pelagian. Covenantalist.

I subscribe to none of these and I'm finding more and more that broad theological labels are useless. They are used to put others (or ourselves) into boxes, to summarize sometimes complicated points of view, but the main issue is that with a lot of these, is that the meaning of them is subjective. Some of them are straight-forward, sure, like 'pre-millennialist'...the belief that mankind is currently living in a period of time BEFORE the millennial reign of Jesus. Or how about 'cessationist'...the belief that the spiritual gifts (prophecy, healing, speaking in tongues, etc) ended with the Apostles. Fairly straight-forward. But many of these have ceased to be useful terms. 'Dispensationalist' for example - you see many different definitions of this. Some people mean that label as saying that God has dealt with mankind differently at different times/dispensations. Other argue that no, the actual hallmark of dispensationalism is the idea that God has two plans of salvation, one for the Jew and one for the Gentile. To the first definition, plenty of theological systems argue that God dealt with people at different ways at different times... 'Zionist' is another one -- it seemingly means something different to everyone who uses it. Same with 'evangelical'. Politically liberal folks use the label to mean 'anyone that is politically conservative that goes to Church'.