A Modest Proposal

At one time or another, all of us believers have heard (or said) something along the lines of “I can’t wait to go to Heaven” or “I’m looking forward to going to Heaven”, or something close to that. Even if unintended, what is implicit in that statement is the idea that our future residence is somewhere else, perhaps even some non-Earth place. But what does Scripture teach and is this a Biblical idea? I would suggest that it is not. That isn’t to say that there isn’t some place that deceased souls go as all of Creation waits for the return of Jesus and the ushering in of God’s Kingdom; I don’t have time to address that here…rather, I want to talk about where this all ends up, the culmination of history. In the end, I want to suggest that instead of saying one of the phrases above, we say, “I can’t wait to live in God’s Kingdom”, or “I can wait until the Kingdom is here”.

Nothing against the guy, but Plato is the reason that many (some? not sure how prevalent it is) modern Christians have a spiritualized view of Heaven (referred to as Platonic thought/philosophy). Plato heavily influenced Origen, who heavily influenced the fathers of modern theology. The spiritualized view, however, was not the view of ancient Hebrews or 1st Century Jewish believers. What we see in Isaiah 65:17 or Revelation 21 is the idea of a RE-newed Creation…it is the idea that God cleanses the Earth from sin and RESTORES the Earth from the Curse that he placed on it in Genesis 3. Our modern translations make it sound as if Scripture is talking about the total obliteration of the current heavens and earth, but based on Old Testament eschatological expectations, it simply cannot be that the New Testament writers had this in mind.

The Good Samaritan and Abortion

I was considering the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ this morning and I think it has something to say about the issue of Abortion. I don’t believe its too much of a stretch either, in suggesting this.

The Parable is about Ritual Purity
I’ve recently been reading Matthew Thiessen’s book ‘Jesus and the Forces of Death’, a book that talks about Jesus’ interactions with the ritual purity system in the Gospels. In one of the chapters, he addresses this parable and makes the argument that Jesus, in this parable, is speaking about the hierarchy of good and relates that back to the ritual purity system. The question asked of Jesus, in the presence of the Scribes and Pharisees is “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) Jesus proceeds with telling a parable we are all familiar with — a man is beaten and robbed and left for dead (left ‘half-dead’, or between death and life, in the literal translation). A Priest and Levite pass by him and leave him, while a Samaritan stops, helps the man onto his own donkey, brings the man to a place of safety and pays for his expenses. Thiessen argues that the reason the Priest and Levite pass by the wounded man is because of the purity laws about touching a corpse. Presumably the wounded man was unconscious. We would not say that someone who has a bad cut or who simply has a bruise on his head is “between life and death”. The Priest and Levite, not wanting to risk ‘corpse impurity’ — a condition requiring 7 days away from the Temple and a couple of other ritual cleansing responsibilities — pass by the man.

If you want Thiessen’s whole argument, read his book, but he goes on to say that Jesus here is addressing a situation in which one good surpasses the importance of another. In other words, there is nothing wrong with observance of the Law (in this case, from Numbers 19), except in cases where observing one Law means the neglect of a greater Law. As it relates directly to the parable, Jesus is saying that if one is presented with preserving Life or avoiding corpse impurity, preserving Life is the more important Law to keep. In addressing it this way, he is ultimately addressing the question of ‘who is my neighbor’ by saying, in a nutshell, anyone who is in need, regardless of the circumstances (Love your neighbor as yourself).