… there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul ?
(1 Corinthians 1:11-13)
Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
(1 Corinthians 1:22-24)
We have in the First Century church at Corinth a representative microcosm of the worldwide church today. The names, dates, and cultural vernaculars have changed, but not much of spiritual substance. That in and of itself lends testimony to the eternal scope of our faith. As revealed faith in Christ is of an eternal nature, we must be eternally resistant to distraction by the multitude of temporal diversions active at any given time. The Apostle Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians 4:14 applies well here, in that “we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.”
Being careful not to allow issues of time and eternity to become a distraction within a chapter on distractions, it should be helpful to address the nature of eternity and its relationship to our current temporal existence—this is to provide some context regarding matters of eternity in their relationship to our temporal culture. The “high and exalted One Who lives forever” (Isaiah 57:15) exists outside the constraint of time. Conversely we, in our current state as humans in a temporal setting, live within limited boundaries of time and space—the Lord interacts with us accordingly and “will not contend forever, Nor will I always be angry; For the spirit would grow faint before Me, And the breath of those whom I have made.” (Isaiah 57:16) It is clear from this that the spirit which would grow faint is ours, not God’s—in matters of eternity, we humans are out of our league, as our temporal existence is clearly finite. Multiple declarations throughout the Hebrew scriptures that “I am the LORD” testify of God as an eternal being not bound in any way by time and space—in the expression “I am,” the meaning of “am” is in the present tense of “to be,” regardless of the time, date, or era. In Matthew 22:32, Jesus demonstrates to the Sadducees “(who say there is no resurrection)” that God is eternal, by citing the Hebrew scriptures they had in common: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6)—another good example is Exodus 3:15, in which the Lord commands Moses “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.” Jesus claims this same eternal existence in John 8:58, where he declares himself as part of the eternal Godhead by saying: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” Let us round out this sampling of references to the eternity of God, with “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’” (Revelation 1:8), and with “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Revelation 22:13)
Christ’s Body in the present age, the Church, has been international in composition from its very beginning as a group of devout Jews (Acts 2:5-11). Since that time, there are Christians from every nation, tribe, people and language (Revelation 7:9). These all share a common faith but also hail from many divergent cultures, all of which have some degree of sinfulness integral to them.
Today the concept of any nation being “Christian” is diminishing, and for the sake of the spiritual health of the Church I think that is a good thing. The idioms and expressions based on Biblical allusions are used less every day, partly because so many in the general public now have no idea, or the wrong idea, what they mean. This is leaving the world to learn anew the grace of Christ, and with it greatly needed spiritual renewal. It also could make the canonical New Testament writings increasingly relevant from a temporal or contemporary, as well as spiritual, perspective. God forbid that we return to the culture of First Century Corinth, but today we are in great need to clear our minds of the cultural impurities that are currently mistaken for the Word of the Lord.
The United States is a large and diverse country that is a microcosm of the world in many ways—and like many other countries, its history includes the sinful use of the church to oppress other humans. It is safe and easy to point to the antebellum South as an example of church sanctioned oppression, and especially their misapplication of Genesis 9:25 as a justification for slavery. (“Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.”) But the sin of misapplication of scripture is manifested today also in other areas unrelated to the Old South. Equally dehumanizing in history is the displacement and decimation of native tribes in the west, to make way for railroads to serve the greed of Northern industrialists. The derivative cultural distractions from those past sins permeate our lives today—and these present challenges and temptations that are similar in spiritual nature to those faced by Christians in First Century Corinth.
As the secular business and social benefits to being Christian continue to diminish, Christianity is also conflated with national hegemony in the minds of many from “non-Christendom” nations—starting from when Christianity was legalized by the Roman Emperor, Constantine, and the persecution of pagans began. Nowhere in scripture does Jesus prescribe the persecution of anyone, but rather to invite sinners to repent and be in his kingdom with him (Luke 15:1-10). The list of grievances great and small against human evils ostensibly done in the name of Christ is long and well documented. That Christianity is not the only religion that has a history of doing this does not absolve it from accountability—it only unjustly misplaces Jesus among the others doing evil in the name of a divine cause. Hold up the light of Holy Scripture to these actions, and it is clear that they are nothing close to God’s will. Although intelligent and informed individuals may debate the point of demarcation for the “just war” requirements of national defense, any hostilities beyond that cannot be ascribed to the will of God. This is especially poignant considering the members of Christ’s flock among one’s temporal enemies, whether personal or cultural—how awkward it will be for all of us when we are together in Christ’s kingdom in the eternity which includes our current existence!
The abominations of human sacrifice among the Aztecs described earlier in Chapter 3 are justly criticized as one of many examples of life without Christ—their wars of conquest against neighboring peoples were fought partly to capture victims for the purpose of “feeding” their hungry false god the blood of their captives. This was a common pattern throughout ancient world history, and such idolatry was prophesied against in several places in the Hebrew scriptures—an example of this is in Jeremiah 32:35, which says they “built the high places of Baal that are in the valley of Ben-hinnom to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I had not commanded them nor had it entered My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.”
The existence of the Aztec empire would have presented an opportunity to bring the good news of true faith in Christ. But the “gold-hungry Christians” who conquered them, committing atrocities of their own, were “voracious of what belongs to others” (Exodus 20:17 “You shall not covet … anything that belongs to your neighbor.”). The conquered peoples of 16th Century Mexico submitted to faith in Christ, not from spiritual conviction, but “in order for them not to kill us…. we accept to have water poured on our heads, that we worship the new god.” [ León-Portilla, Miguel, The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992) ] That the worship of Christ was imposed by the sword makes Christianity look to the world to be no different from all of the other religions, both contemporary and ancient. These evils, done by humans in their worldly lust, blind others to the grace of Christ—they present a grievous obstacle to the light of true faith.
However, faith in Christ can shine through even the un-Christlike actions of the Conquistadors. The conquered native peoples of Mexico invoked the very Christianity imposed on them in appealing for justice from their conquerors: “Oh, that the true god who resides in heaven will help us [coexist] close to the men of Castile.” [ León-Portilla, Ibid. ]
The destruction that has been wrought by temporal Christendom is unscriptural and justly condemned. The Aztec culture and their child sacrifices were everything despicable as described earlier, but the destruction and disease brought by the Europeans to native peoples in the American continents was not a good thing either—and did poor service to witnessing for the Gospel by mixing worldly arrogance with spiritual humility before God. The Conquistadors were only doing to the Aztecs what pagan empires were doing to each other before Constantine, and continued to do throughout subsequent centuries—the same thing the Aztec people had been doing to their neighbors. The light of Christ was thus obscured by the darkness of sin.
Not all who say “Lord, Lord,” are doing the will of the Lord (Matthew 7:21-23). Bringing Christianity to the Americas was in some cases a conscience soothing rationalization for military conquest and pursuit of gold. Following Christ does not equal or require Romanization, Europeanization, Americanization, or any other earthly culture that might become dominant before the Lord returns. Consider in contrast the instant internationalization of the Gospel at Pentacost: “And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” (Acts 2:8-11)
It is essential to correct the error in which some who oppose the Church would say that the holy Christ is effectively one and the same as secular driven historical Christendom, and thus the evil acts of the secular driven church invalidate the faith of its members. This is a misnomer, as Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). To conflate faith in Jesus with secular service and defense of one’s own earthly nation also is a grave error. Christ and Caesar are of necessity separate realms (Luke 20:22-24), and it is dangerous on several levels to render spiritual allegiance to a secular state—one renders earthly service to the secular state as its secular citizen, and one renders spiritual worship to Christ, which is then manifested also in one’s temporal service and life.
Associating human error with the divine Christ is itself an error—and it serves us well to always remember there is no one wiser than God (Rom. 9:20-22). Those who question the spiritual value of Holy Scripture fail when the same standards are applied to their own works and ideas. It is not difficult to find scholarly works which postulate that the canonical Christian and Hebrew scriptures are just assemblages of pre-existing ancient fables, or the euhemeristic (sometimes stated as “evemeristic”) ascription of divine properties to mortal heroes, or are wholly works of fiction—or worse, are deliberate means of manipulating ignorant masses. Such activity is clearly displeasing to the Lord—in Matthew 18:6, Jesus says “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Questions regarding the authenticity of canonical scripture sometimes causes religious believers to in turn doubt the authenticity of their faith, including faith in Jesus Christ. These avenues of inquiry divert focus to speculation about authorship or origin—onto anything but the object of faith itself. But the Christian must not be distracted from the Source of faith by every wind of speculation. Was the Bible crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of the Bible? Care must be taken to avoid idolatry of even the Bible—consider Jesus’ words in John 5:39-40 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” The Christian also must take care in one’s own mind to avoid allowing strawman assertions to lead one to illogically reject all science in reaction to the strawmen, falsely believing that will protect one’s faith. Clinging to any falsehood, especially religious falsehood (as the Pharisees did), does no service to Christ’s kingdom—neither does rejecting one’s Spirit-based faith over human postulations presented as confirmed conclusions.
If, as Paul observes in 1 Corinthians 1:22-24, “Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom,” then “Christ crucified” will indeed be “to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.” The feelings were very real that caused some of the Jews to stone Stephen, as “they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him,” and “they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse.” Stephen had provoked them by saying “Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.” (Acts 7:52-57) Although there was no excuse for the murder of Stephen—and his accusations were the same as those made by some of his fellow Jews, including the Jewish apostles of Christ—some empathy is in order to withhold human judgment on those who stoned him, as any normal person on the receiving end of such accusations would be “cut to the quick.” The young man named Saul, who later became the Apostle Paul, was in full approval of the stoning of Stephen (Act 7:58 and Galatians 1:13). However, some people today who were born into the Christian faith are “tone deaf” regarding the degree that the message of Jesus is still a “stumbling block” for some who grew up in a traditional Jewish culture.
The people of Athens presented a different obstacle to the Holy Spirit, in the form of the worldly wisdom of the Greeks—the “Epicurean and Stoic philosophers” that Paul encountered there found his message of Christ to be a proclamation “of strange deities.” Greek philosophy is rightly revered for the human wisdom that it is, and it is not surprising that they perceived the Apostle Paul as an “idle babbler.” (Acts 17:16-21) That “Christ crucified” is “to Gentiles foolishness” is readily understandable—but Greek philosophy is in the end only human wisdom, and the study of epistemology can be an endless loop of unanswered questions. Christians must remember that our purpose, success, or individual human value is not measured in the amount of human praise and reverence that we receive on account of our faith. Who is wiser, the Greek philosophers or Jesus? That question is rhetorical, as the answer is clear: Jesus. To those not indwelled by the Holy Spirit, however, it is indeed just “foolishness”—by contrast, the Christian, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can with surety affirm “I know whom I have believed” (2 timothy 1:12).
Glimpses of Christ appear throughout the Hebrew scriptures, and it is not unreasonable that similar glimpses of the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and eternal Creator and Ruler of the cosmos would be manifested in other cultures and regions as well—such scattered rays of light arriving indirectly from the Source in no way invalidate the canonical scriptures in their sole completeness sufficient to convey the Word of the Lord. The Apostle Paul aptly instructed Timothy about the scriptures that “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) In the end, the sum of all things is Christ (Ephesians 1:10), and thus the ample use of scripture throughout this book. Faith in Christ is made possible not by our superior logic, but by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us (Titus 3:5-10), and a more reliable metric for the authenticity of any faith is “You will know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:16)
There is error on every side. Theological error ranges from pointless relativism to doctrinal rigidity not supported in scripture (2 Timothy 4:3). And the truth is that no book, including this one, is able to answer many of the temporal questions beyond those that are clearly indicated in scripture. Worldly corruption in the church itself is painfully evident in the history of schisms and internecine hostility. The list of these things is shamefully long, including the East-West Schism that included the mutual excommunications of 1054, and the tragic violence that also spans centuries between Protestants and Catholics. All of this was and is done by persons who essentially share the same faith and worship the same Lord, even as they grieve him with these schisms. At some levels we have not advanced much past when the disciples who were with Jesus on Earth quarreled among themselves as to who was the greatest. “An argument started among them as to which of them might be the greatest. But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart, took a child and stood him by His side, and said to them, ‘Whoever receives this child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me; for the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great.’ John answered and said, ‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name; and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow along with us.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not hinder him; for he who is not against you is for you.’” (Luke 9:46-50)
Unlike the human wickedness around us, Jesus is not about clever manipulation of any kind (1 Corinthians 1:17,19), but rather the straightforward communion of God with his creation. Therein is the only way to life, both present and eternal. Blessed are they who truly grasp this and are not swept away by temporal distractions. One must also have the desire to be an actual blessing to others. By “actual” I mean both the spiritual and the tangible—the one cannot exist separate from the other (James 2:14-22), as Jesus is Lord of all things seen and unseen (John 1:3).
Against this backdrop is an importunate need in this distracted world for the very faith that is being slandered—sometimes from within its inner sanctum. This need is like the woman in Jesus’ parable who kept pleading to a judge, and eventually was granted her request due to her persistence (Luke 18:1-8). Although this parable also fits well into the chapter on economic distractions, it is instructive here as well to illustrate that persistence in appealing to God will be answered by him.
Seeing evil done in the name of Christ is deeply painful for the committed Christian. It is painful that the fallen state of humankind is integral to our existence—and too many of our Christian brothers and sisters have chosen darkness over light to hide their evil deeds. (John 3:19-20) “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.” (Jude 1:4-5)
No matter what one’s cultural, ideological, or doctrinal perspective within the range of authentic and essential faith, there is much to confound what would be the perfect order—that is, Christ’s kingdom living through us on Earth. The 13th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew describes the nature of the distractions facing anyone trying to live a true life in Christ—this Gospel chapter contains the famous parable of the sower and the fate of the sown seeds (noted in the chapter on economic distractions), and also the parable of the weeds sown by an enemy among the wheat. In the practical application of this scripture passage, we humans might not know who are wheat and who are weeds in our temporal relationships. This is yet another reason, of many, why our focus must remain steadfast on our Lord Jesus Christ—especially through that part of eternity that is our mortal life on Earth.
Our contemporary culture is awash with distractions that interfere with our bearing fruit any further than the mustard seed-sized beginnings of an individual’s faith. Some distractions are deliberate intrusions into one’s consciousness—pervasive advertising, noted in the chapter on economic distractions, is a prominent example that influences culture as well as purchase decisions. A larger and more nefarious channel of distraction is the broader range of entertainment media. Did you see the latest blockbuster movie? Have you heard the latest popular song? What did you think of the latest best seller? Too many of these things are pushed upon us by marketing decisions crafted, properly as intended by our temporal standards, to achieve the greatest sales—this is exacerbated when too many intelligent people make no effort to reclaim their own minds, and simply let “every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14) blow them wherever it will. Sometimes those winds are of gale force, and require far more than just casual effort to overcome them.
Which persons and sources one respects as authoritative and looks to for guidance naturally carries great weight regarding toward what and whom our individual energy is focused—but for all the verified and manifested wisdom of great human beings, there is still no one wiser than God (Rom. 9:20-22). An idiom used by some in the business community is that of re-calibrating the direction of the business, as additional experience and information are obtained. A business which fails to re-calibrate is in real danger of failing as a business. This is a useful analogy for our spiritual lives as well. We must continually re-calibrate our lives to the standard of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us—the gale force winds of cultural distractions are continually blowing, and it is only through “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24) that we are able to remain steady in the cultural crosswinds and stay focused on Christ. This empowers us to live fully in the world, while not being of it. (John 17:6-26)
Therefore the means of overcoming these cultural distractions is the Lord himself. “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:23-24) The spiritual world is just as real as the temporal world—and Jesus rules them both, as affirmed in John 1:2-4 “He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” We thus sustain ourselves through glorifying the name of Jesus—and glorifying Jesus is directly relevant in terms of “what’s in it for me.” The natural tendency to dominate others, to feel important in one’s own eyes, to control others for selfish objectives, and other sinful impulses are diminished by the glory of God (Matthew 20:25-28). Glorifying Jesus shines light (1 John 1:5-10) on the darkness of sinful motives and practices, immorality of all types from the very personal to the economic and cultural. The beauty of this is that in glorifying Jesus, we find a much more fulfilling reason for living. And that living is eternal, including the tangible here and now.
However, worshiping God in spirit and in truth is not automatically easy. Spiritual “heavy lifting” is wholly different in substance from its physical counterpart—and temporal cultures by their nature cannot address spiritual matters. So, if it is no longer a cultural requirement to be associated with a church, why then do people worldwide continue to become Christians, some in the face of brutal persecution? The Apostle Paul does not mince words in saying “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” (1 Corinthians 15:17-19) But Paul then immediately affirms that “now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. … then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power.” (1 Corinthians 15:20, 24) The reason, I think, that people continue to become Christians, and remain in the faith, is the eternal indwelling presence of the living and loving God that is experienced by all who know him through Jesus—no other religion or spiritual practice claims anything close to such a personal and intimate relationship with the Creator. Remember the words of Jesus which attest to that eternal presence: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” (John 8:58) Although it is often difficult to convey, especially when many Christians themselves are far from the image of grace, I know there is no better life for a mortal human than the fulfillment of being in God’s will.