Fiction and Theater

At this point in America, national politics is complete fiction and theater. Just yesterday, we had two perfect examples of this. The first was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) breathlessly claiming on social media that she had a near-death experience during the Capitol Hill riot on January 6th. She then brings up, for the first time ever, that she was sexually assaulted earlier in life and that this event on Jan. 6th compounded trauma on trauma. It is sad that this even needs to be said, but of course I am not doubting her story of prior sexual assault or in any way normalizing that experience. My point in bringing it up is that she is clearly using it, in this particular moment, as a means of silencing anyone who might question her narrative on those Jan. 6th events. She knows the culture and the cultural hot-buttons of the moment. She could have brought this up and literally any other moment over the past several years - in fact, it's surprising that she didn't given the fervor of the recent 'Me Too' movement. Why she wouldn't have wanted to add her voice to that movement is actually somewhat baffling, given the profile of her position. I digress. The reality is, she wasn't in the Capitol building that day. She was in another building that was uninvolved with the protestors and rioters. A police officer came to her door and her building was briefly evacuated, but that's it. There were never any rioters in her building. In her telling of the events, they were in the building and she was hiding in her office...none of that actually happened. The only person who entered her office was a capitol police officer, there to escort her to another building. In her telling of the events, all she does is trash the cop.

What God Has Joined Together...

"Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." - Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:9

This blog post started because I had this verse running through my head for several days. I sought the help of others in brainstorming the list below and I'm grateful for their counsel!

Everyone has heard this verse before - likely at a wedding. The context for the verse itself is marriage. The Pharisees are questioning Jesus about whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife and this is part of Jesus' response. With that being said, while the verse clearly applies to marriage, it seems possible that Jesus is stating a broader principle here. If you think about the context of what marriage is (an institution God himself created), and the way the metaphor is used throughout Scripture to describe the relationship between God and His People (covenant), it doesn't feel like a stretch to say that this verse can be applied to many things. By that I mean - there are many things that God has joined together, and my natural questions are a) what are those things and b) what have 'we' tried to separate?

Husband/Wife - no need to dig further here

Love/Obedience

Disobedience/Wrath

The Gospel/The Kingdom of God

Repentance/Forgiveness/Faith?

His People/Messiah Jesus

The Story of Rahab - a Gentile 'Passover'?

I was reading the story of Rahab to my daughter last night and was struck by it in a way that I have not been previously. Everyone knows the story but just to recap - Joshua sends two spies into the promised land to scope it out and specifically tells them report on Jericho. The two spies enter Jericho and meet Rahab - the king of Jericho finds out that they are there and Rahab covers for them, saying she saw them leave the city. She then hides them on her roof. She professes an amazing statement of faith to these two spies saying,

"I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have despaired because of you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. When we heard these reports, our hearts melted and no courage remained in anyone any longer because of you; for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth below." (Joshua 2:9-10)

She then makes the two spies promise that the LORD God will spare her and her family and they make that promise to her. They tell her to tie a scarlet cord (rope) and set it outside of her window, then to gather her entire family in her house and then the LORD will spare them. They leave, she does as instructed and her and her entire family are spared, despite the utter destruction of the rest of Jericho (Joshua 6:22-23).

Is the Church Worshipping a Different God?

I was in the car today, listening to the local Christian radio station and the gentleman who was teaching was talking about how the pivotal moment in the book of Acts is the stoning of Stephen. I wish I could quote him, but unfortunately I don't have perfect auditory memory. The crux of his argument is that God was formerly doing something with the nation of Israel and then, God sets them aside to start something new with the Church. Stephen's remarks before he dies, in the mind of this teacher, were the finishing of God's work with Israel and then with Paul's vision of Jesus, that was beginning of God doing something new with the Gentiles. I immediately turned it off and started crying out to God in prayer.

This argument, that God is now doing something new has such a fundamental flaw in it that it makes me wonder, at the end of the day, is the Gentile church worshipping some other God than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? This issue is that serious.

Worldview

Another day, another Gospel Coalition article that I can’t help but comment on. Today’s issue is with an article entitled, “How To Go Deep into Bible Study without Getting Lost”. The author, Ryan Martin, presents 3 main ideas, 1) Words are flexible and contextual, 2) Details can distract from the flow of a text and 3) An individual text doesn’t need to carry the whole weight of Christian theology. By the first one, he means, words can mean different things in different contexts and its important to understand the context of a word or passage before we can figure out what the meaning of the word might be. He uses the example of the English word ‘trouble’ and how that word can be used to mean very different things, depending on the context. By the second, he means, “don’t lose the forest through the trees”. We can have a tendency to zoom in to break down specific words or small phrases, and miss the main message of a book or epistle. The third is a little bit of a stretch, but it seems like a variation on “don’t lose the forest through the trees” – he is exhorting his readers to appreciate the nuance and diversity of voices and perspectives within Scripture and not try to oversimplify things. Overall, not a bad directive – especially his comments about trying to make a single verse or passage carry the entire story of theology.

I would like to add one more to his list, and I would make it the first bullet point – before all of the recommendations about words, context and exegesis. The bullet point would look something like this:

Render Unto Caesar...

"Then they [the leaders of the people] sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Him in order to trap Him in a statement. They came and said to Him, "Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is is lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not? Shall we pay or shall we not pay?" But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, "Why are you testing me? Bring Me a denarius to look at." They brought one. And He said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?" And they said to Him, "Caesar's." And Jesus said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And they were amazed at Him." (Mark 12:13-17, NASB)

That last line stands out to me. "And they were amazed at Him".

Let's talk first about what the Pharisees and Herodians are trying to do here. Why would this question be a 'trap'? Don't miss the "is it lawful" part of the question. In asking it that way - the Pharisees are appealing to Torah law, not Roman law. So, ultimately, they are asking a question of morality. "Are we morally obligated, according to Torah, to pay the tax?" I read a fascinating commentary (seriously, check it out - what I am speaking of here is barely scratching the surface compared to the depth of this commentary) of this verse which suggested that by asking "is it lawful", the Pharisees and Herodians were forcing Jesus to answer the question because shortly before this, the people had hailed Jesus as "King" when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. If he doesn't answer the question, he isn't a rabbi, and also isn't King. That is part of the trap. It seems also that they are trying to get Jesus to identify, or align himself in some way, if even seemingly, with the Romans, against the Jews, or with the Jewish people as a revolutionary against the Roman state. If they could get Jesus to simply say, "yes, you should pay your tax", then they could incite the people against him as a Roman-sympathizer (the equivalent of a tax collector). If they could get him to simply say, "no, you should not pay your tax", then they could make the claim he was an anti-Roman revolutionary and could hand him over to be treated as such.

How Safe is Safe Enough?

I've been following the on-going battle between the Chicago Teacher's Union and the City of Chicago over when to resume in-person school. The scientific evidence seems clear at this point that children are neither vulnerable to COVID-19 nor are they very effective carriers/transmitters of COVID-19 and yet the Teacher's Union is digging its heels in, saying that the teachers are being put at risk by returning to the classroom. It has now gotten to the point that Chicago is refusing to pay teachers who don't show up.

This all begs the question though - 'how safe is safe enough'? I can certainly sympathize with teachers who are over 60 and who fall into a higher-risk category as it relates to COVID-19. Not only are some of them likely to be fearful of catching COVID, but they could potentially lose their lives. I understand that. On the other hand, however, schools and children are notorious for being petri dishes for all kinds of disease. As a father of 3 young kids, it is a regular occurrence to get correspondence from either the school or the church indicating that something is going around, be it strep throat, influenza, hand foot & mouth (HFM) disease, noroviruses, lice, etc. Being around kids necessarily means that you are more exposed than the rest of the population to any number of illnesses and ailments. Bottom-line, if you sign up to be a teacher, you shouldn't be under any illusions that sickness/illness aren't part of the territory. And to be fair, COVID isn't the only thing that goes around that could kill someone in their 60s.

So, at what point would the Chicago Teacher's Union deem that all of their teachers are "safe enough"? Students are falling further and further behind in school and the detrimental effects of at-home school on the mental health of students is starting to become very clear. Even cursory Google searches about mental health and COVID bring back results like these. This isn't even to speak of the burden on parents who were never prepared and who are mostly ill-equipped to handle at-home school long-term. As parents start returning to out-of-the-home work, what are they to do if their children are not also back in school?

As I have said from the beginning of this pandemic, as a society we have to come to terms with the fact that illnesses and even death are unavoidable outcomes. I'm not suggesting that we do nothing - we have some tools at our disposal including masks and social-distancing - but we can't pretend like we will ever reach a point where we are truly "safe". Every year you read about those freak occurrences where someone catches a brain-eating amoeba while swimming in a pond somewhere. Nobody ever sees car accidents, or cancer, coming down the road (no pun intended). Right now, rather than worrying about the illusion of safety, we need to be considering how to limit the potential damage we are doing to our younger generation by keeping them out of school. That may involve some hard choices for some people. If you're a teacher and you are over 60, you have to make a decision about the risk vs the reward. That's a tough choice...but as for public policy, we need to make decisions regarding the group, not the individual. As for re-opening schools, the focus needs to be one what is necessary for the students, and then teachers need to make choices for themselves. Its never going to be 'safe enough'.