Eric Pazdziora

Duck? Duck? Goose.

Eric — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:39:53 +0000

This is the first in what we hope will be a weekly series of articles at the lovely website Quivering Daughters. If you like this kind of thing or need some encouragement, especially from Spiritual Abuse, check them out! If you’re coming here by way of QD, welcome, and why not subscribe?

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few years ago, I played a game of “Duck, Duck, Goose.” It was me, a few other teachers, and a room full of energetic 6–9 year olds. I sometimes find myself in odd situations like this. I’m never quite sure why.

This is the game where everyone sits in a circle and takes turns picking one person to play the part that everyone wants to play, namely “Run around the circle like a maniac and try to catch the person who picked you.” The suspense is horrible—“Duck… duck… duck…”—is it going to be you? Are they going to say “Goose?” Are you going to get to run? Thirty-five children screaming “Pick me, pick me!” But only the Goose gets to run.

Well, a pleasant enough way to burn energy for twenty minutes or so, I suppose. (My own preference in children’s game is “Everybody Just Go Ahead and Run Like a Maniac and Get It Over With,” which may be why they didn’t usually put me in charge of games.)

Afterward, we gathered the children together to move on to the next activity. One little girl, Jasmine, wouldn’t join the line. She stood off toward the corner, not saying a word. Jasmine was in my group, so I hung back to talk with her and make sure everything was OK.

At first she wouldn’t say anything. Finally she looked up at me, trying bravely to hold back the tears, and said three words. “Nobody picked me.”

My heart broke.

I knew what that was like, not being picked. There are memories I still can’t bear to remember. The lonely kid on the playground, the last one picked for the ball team, playing by himself because nobody else would—You’re me, Jasmine. That was me. Nobody picked me, either.

I said the only thing in the world I could think of to say, which I knew was hardly any comfort at all. “Well, the next time we play I’ll pick you, OK?”

She nodded. I hadn’t made it any better but I’d made it bearable.

We played a different game the next week and the week after that. A few weeks later it was time for “Duck, Duck, Goose” again. Thirty-five eager faces waiting to be picked. Duck, duck, duck.

Somehow it was my turn to pick. (Duck, duck, duck.)

This time there was no suspense at all. Just delight. Goose. I picked Jasmine.

I don’t remember whether I let her catch me. I remember her running, and I remember her smile. You couldn’t buy that smile with a million dollars. It was like Christmas morning. It was pure joy.

I know, I sound embarrassingly gallant, but really it was the only possible decent thing to have done. If you’d seen those big brown eyes looking up at you, you’d have done exactly the same. It comes so naturally. You want those eyes to smile. Only a wicked witch or the devil or an ogre or something like that could look at Jasmine trying not to cry and say “Nah, I don’t pick you. I pick someone else instead.”

This is how I believe in God. If my heart breaks and I can’t help but choose a little girl to run because she wants to, and if God is infinitely more loving than I am, then God is not a God of exclusion. He can’t be. It’s just impossible. God is love. God chooses. God picked you.

For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you. (1 Thessalonians 1:4)

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. (2 Thessalonians 2:13)

He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:4-6)

It’s unfortunate that some systems of theology take Scriptures like these and spin them into questions about predestination and determinism and free will and who gets into heaven and who gets left out. There’s room in Scripture to discuss those, of course, but not here. These verses were not written to speculate about eternal destiny but to encourage you. You’re loved. You’re chosen.

God’s “choice” is intertwined with His love. The answer to the question “Who does God choose?” in these verses is specifically “You.” God loves you, so God chose you. If you’ve always wanted to be chosen, there’s Somebody who always wants to choose you.

Our problem is that, as humans, we think of choice as exclusionary. “I pick A” means “I skip B.” I order chicken for dinner, so I won’t get steak. Even in “Duck, Duck, Goose” it’s the same. I picked Jasmine, so I had to let 34 children pass by and hope that they got picked later.

But God’s ways are not ours. As Henri Nouwen has said, when God chooses, He’s choosing to include, not to exclude. These verses say God chooses, not that He rejects. He loves, not that He overlooks. God would certainly choose Jasmine because He loves her and wants her to be happy—and God loves everyone. There’s nobody God wants to leave out. There’s nobody God doesn’t want to play.

Sure, maybe Jasmine could have chosen not to run even though I picked her. (Again with that predestination/free will tension.) And Scripture seems clear enough that not all people will be saved. But is that because God—“who desires all people to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4)—didn’t or wouldn’t choose them? Well, anyone who is lost goes away quite literally over God’s dead body, nailed to a board for the sins of the world. That’s one worth pondering.

In the end, all doctrinal speculations aside, we can say two things for sure. God loves you, and God does not reject you. Maybe everyone else will reject you. Maybe you’ll never get picked to play with the team. Even if you don’t have any friends, even if you’re rejected by your parents or your peers, even if you think nobody likes you, God loves you. God picks you. You’re chosen.

The picture to have in your mind when you think about God’s choice is not a big mass of people with some getting picked and some not. It’s that one little kid, hoping and hoping that maybe this time she’ll be picked to play, maybe this time she won’t have to be alone, maybe this time she won’t be a Duck, maybe somebody likes her after all.

And then she gets picked first.

Goose!

Guest Post on The Cult Next Door

Eric — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:09:25 +0000

Here’s one of those writing gigs I mentioned. A while ago, I was invited to contribute a guest post to a blog called The Cult Next Door that deals (appropriately enough) with issues of cults and spiritual abuse. The title comes from the fact that the author was for many years a member of a stunningly abusive cult that, to all outward appearances, was a normal friendly church like any other you’d see in your neighborhood. How many more are there like her?

Oddly enough, while I was writing this post, we were doing a bit of apartment hunting and saw one place that turned out to be literally across the street from the headquarters of a full-blown Eastern cult–not just some “peace and harmony” guru like you’d expect but (according to the cult research sites I looked up later) sex and drugs and brainwashing and slavery and the whole bit. It was rather unsettling. So much is going on that we don’t even see.

Anyway, that’s not really what my post was about. It’s about Legalism: what it is, how to recognize it, and how to get out of it, according to what the Bible teaches in Galatians. Here’s the link:

The Galatian Road out of Legalism

I had fun writing it, so I hope you enjoy it!

If you’re coming here by way of The Cult Next Door, welcome, and why not subscribe to my blog feed or join via FriendConnect? Cheap as free!

The Sublime and the Ridiculous: Eight Values of Awesome

Eric — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:45:12 +0000

I’ve been overly busy lately putting the finishing touches on my CD, a new writing gig, and a few new songs. I think you’ll like them once they’re unveiled (not too long now, I promise! Really!).

I’ve added a few new features to the website just for fun: check out my Links I Like, a visual Bookshelf of some of my favorite reads, and regularly updated links to my shared items (which you’ll have seen already if you follow me on Google Reader or Twitter , but still). While you’re at it, if you like my site, why not add yourself as a friend with the new FriendConnect box in the sidebar? Free, no catch!

In the meantime, here are a few things I’ve found interesting lately, in my usual mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous:

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1. If I ever get a bumper sticker, it will probably be this one (via Wondermark):

2. John Wesley was invited to speak to some Christian teachers at Oxford University, and he proposed they ask themselves these questions. He wasn’t ever invited back; that’s how good the questions were.

3. You call in an order for two birthday cakes. You tell the bakery that you want it to say Happy Birthday on both. And you get…

Welcome to the world of Cake Wrecks! You know you need that laugh; check it out.

4. I’m really looking forward to Fred Sanders’ new book on the Trinity. As Scriptorium readers know, he’s got a great knack for making complicated and obscure theological topics into enjoyable reading, which is way harder than it sounds. The Trinity is his favorite topic, so this promises to be good. I’ll keep you posted.

5. Life’s Little Confluences o’ Awesome, continued: Neil Gaiman is writing an episode of Doctor Who. A teaser deleted scene is at the link. Squeeeee.

6. Friends of Irony brings new a new level to “Self-fulfilling Prophecy”:

7. The Messenger space probe, currently 183 million km from the earth and the moon, took a snapshot of home:

(You are here.)

Words fail.

8. And finally, the obligatory “If you read nothing else, read this” link: My friend Naphtali_Deer‘s latest Bible study is entitled “A Conversation with Jesus about Misplaced Joy.” If you needed to read that even half as badly as I did, then what are you still doing here? Go. Now.

That’s all for today. Have a good one.

Well, That Answers That…

Eric — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:42:08 +0000

via pleated-jeans

Reader Question: Did Jesus Teach Legalism?

Eric — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:53:53 +0000

Site reader and frequent commenter OneSurvivor (who by the way has quite a good blog on abuse-related issues) has rediscovered the best way to get me to write a post: Ask me a good question! No really, do; it gets me talking like nothing else. She recently sent in this comment:

I have to ask. How do you deal with John 14:21 and 15:10? I used to feel so free in Yeshua and now find that I am floundering.

For those who haven’t got their Bibles handy, the verses in question quote Jesus (Yeshua) as saying:

“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” (John 14:21, NASB)

and

“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15:21, NASB)

It’s easy enough to surmise what’s causing the feelings of “floundering” and loss of freedom. If you take these verses on their own, they seem to say that Jesus’ love is conditional, based on our performance. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love”—so You only love people who do what You command, and if I break Your commandments, You’ll stop loving me? What the heck kind of love is that? That’s not love; that’s legalism.

This interpretation gets even more perplexing when we observe that Jesus Himself vehemently denounced legalism and conditional love. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6:32). Others may recall my favorite article in which I list dozens of verses that describe Jesus’ love for us as gloriously unconditional, even unilateral. If we want to discard this truth, we have to throw out enormous chunks of the Bible right along with it.

So, what about these verses, then? Do they really mean what it looks like they mean? Was Jesus teaching legalism? Does Jesus go against His own advice not to only love those who love you? Will Jesus stop loving you if you don’t obey all His rules?

Short answer: no, not at all. But the question wasn’t yes or no; it was how I deal with this kind of problem. So let’s go behind the scenes, and I’ll to teach you how you can discover the answers for yourself. All you need is two of the foundational rules of Bible interpretation, and I’ll even give them to you with R. A. Torrey quotes so you can see I’m not making them up. Ready? Here we go…

Rule 1: Look at the exact words the Bible says, not anyone’s interpretation of them.

Torrey: A very large part of man’s difficulties with the Bible comes from not noting exactly what it says. Time and time again men have come to me and said, “I cannot believe this which the Bible says,” and then have quoted something which they supposed the Bible said. But I have replied, “The Bible does not say that,” and when we have looked it up, lo, it is some minute modification of what the Bible really says that has given rise to the difficulty. The Bible is always so absolutely exact, that I have found the best solution for very many apparent difficulties in the Bible to be to take the difficult verses precisely as they read. (The Voice of God in the Present Hour, pp. 11–12)

When you’re reading the Bible, read the words. Don’t read what you think the words say. Definitely don’t read what somebody told you the words say. Read the words themselves, no more, no less.

This is easy to say and hard to do. Too often, we read the Bible with a kind of mental double vision, all the unconscious lessons and applications and sermons and assumptions we’ve been taught echoing in our heads and making us think they’re part of the text.

Thus (for instance) you get people who read “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit” and say “The Bible says not to smoke.” It says nothing of the sort. That’s an application they probably got from some sermon somewhere. All the Bible says is that the Holy Spirit takes up sacred residence in a believer’s body. Do you see the words “cigarettes” or “smoke” there? Didn’t think so. We may apply it that way if we decide to—and knowing what we know about nicotine it’s probably a good idea anyway—but it’s wrong to say that the application is the verse. (Actually, the application Paul gives for it in the Bible is “Don’t sleep with prostitutes,” but I’m going too far afield.)

This tendency means we have to develop quite a bit of mental discipline to look at the words and the words alone. Think like Sherlock Holmes: omit no detail, however slight. Ever read the old story of “The student, the fish, and Agassiz”? Do with the Bible what Agassiz did with the fish.

You might try marking the passage up with a pencil, or even with multiple colored pencils. (Do this in a Bible you don’t mind looking like a child’s art project.) It helps to use a very literal translation for study (I favor the NASB) rather than a paraphrase. Look for the comparisons, the contrasts, the causes and effects, the repeated words, the parallels. Look for things you assumed—“some minute modification”—that aren’t actually there. Don’t draw any conclusions or interpretations or applications until you’ve done this as thoroughly as you can.

Let’s take one of these problematic verses and show how the observation process might work:

“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love;
just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

Sleuth hats on; magnifying glasses up. What do you observe? (If you like, try it yourself first and then come back and compare notes with me. I’ll wait.)

Here’s my list:

“If” signals a cause-and-effect statement. The cause is we “keep [Jesus’] commandments”; the effect is we “will abide in [His] love.”
“Just as” shows a comparison: Jesus keeps His Father’s commandments and abides in His Father’s love.
The two statements are directly parallel, like a Hebrew poem; notice the repeated verbs (keep / abide) and nouns (commandments / love).
The difference between the parallel statements is the subjects and objects: You –> Jesus; Jesus –> the Father.
The subject of each cause-and-effect statement is the same. In the first, you do something and you end up somewhere; in the second it’s Jesus. (So it’s incorrect to say our actions change Jesus’ response.)
The grammatical structure significantly shows who’s doing what to whom. Jesus says “You will abide in my love,” not “I will love you.” Aha—the game’s afoot! It’s not about what Jesus will do but about where we will “abide.”
What’s not present in the verse? Notably, Jesus doesn’t specify here what “My commandments” or His Father’s commandments are. That may come out in our next step; make a note of it here and move along.

We’re not drawing conclusions yet, just gathering observations. Already, though, we can see that there are some serious flaws with the rendition of this verse I objected to in the introduction. The cause-and-effect statement does not affect whether Jesus loves us, any more than it changes whether the Father loves Jesus. It affects whether we “abide in His love” (again, stick with the words themselves and avoid the temptation to read that as “are loved by Him”). As noted, it’s not about what Jesus will do but about where we will “abide.”

Why is “abide” so important, and what are these “commandments”? Looks like it’s time for step 2…

Rule 2: Context is king.

Torrey: Carefully notice the context (what goes before and what comes after). Many verses, if they stood alone, might be capable of several interpretations, but when what goes before and what comes after is considered, all the interpretations but one are seen to be impossible…. A very large proportion of the vexed questions of Biblical interpretation can be settled by this very simple method of noticing what goes before and what comes after. (How to Study the Bible)

Remember Shirley Sherrod? A political blogger created a scandal with a video excerpt from a speech she gave to the NAACP. In the clip, Ms. Sherrod told a story about a time she responded out of racial discrimination to a white farmer who came to her office for financial aid. In the ensuing media maelstrom, Sherrod lost her job at the White House, was disowned by the NAACP, was denounced as a racist…

And then somebody else posted the video of her entire speech. Oopsie. Turned out that Ms. Sherrod told the story of her prejudiced reaction as part of a larger point about why she realized her reaction was wrong, and how she overcame it and helped the farmer anyway, and why we all need to learn to stop judging people that way. Face, meet egg.

For more on the story, try this for linguistic observations, and this for social observations. This being a non-political blog, I’ll stick with the editorial moral of the story: Context is king.

I dwell on this because “context” sometimes gets a bad rap in certain, um, contexts. Some people assume that “It’s out of context!” is a flimsy attempt to downplay a self-evidently incriminating remark. Sometimes they’re quite right (cough-blagojevich-blessyou). But other times, as Shirley Sherrod now knows all too well, ignoring the context can alter the meaning completely.

So back to our perplexing verses. Peeking ahead, I can tell you that Jesus (predictably enough) doesn’t go on to say, “That’s what I used to think, but boy was I wrong.” But what He says “before and after” puts a seriously different spin on words like “commandments” and “abide” than legalism might lead us to expect.

“Before and after” for both these verses is what’s known as the Upper Room Discourse, one long teaching that Jesus gave His disciples the night before His arrest and execution. Really, you ought to take the time to read the whole thing, which can be found in John chapters 13–17 and is glorious. For the sake of space, I’ll just include the first half of chapter 15, which includes the second of our verses and shows us how to understand the first one.

Remember, we’re looking for statements that might show us a more precise meaning of “commandments,” “abide,” or other elements in these verses. To make things easier I’ve put a few key lines in bold. Observe closely:

¹I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. ²Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. ³You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. ⁴Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. ⁵I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. ⁶If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. ⁷If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

⁹Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. *¹⁰If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. ¹¹These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. ¹²This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.¹³Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴You are My friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. ¹⁷This I command you, that you love one another.

So, two questions: (1) Based on this passage as a whole, how would you define the word “abide”? (2) Based on this passage, what are Jesus’ commandments? (Again, if you want to write out your own answers before reading mine, go right ahead.)

Here’s my take on them, again trying to stick as close as possible to the text:

“Abiding” is about dependence (v. 4). When we abide in Jesus, our relation to Him is the same as a branch to its vine (v. 1–2). Apart from Him, we are not able to bear any fruit; so abiding involves depending on Jesus, not on ourselves (v. 5). We must trust in Jesus, not ourselves, to see fruit in our lives; without this trust we will be cast away from God (v. 6–7). Fortunately, Jesus has already made us clean (v. 3) and already loves us eternally as the Father loves Him (v. 9). That love is what He asks us to abide in (v. 10).
Jesus’ “commandments” here are two: Abide in Him and His love (v. 9), and love one another (v. 12, 17). This matches Jesus’ teaching that the summary commandments in the Law are to love God and love your neighbor; do this, and you’ll have done everything God requires (Matthew 22:36–40). The commandment involved is not to practice legalism but to love.

The context shows that the interpretation “Do the right things or I won’t love you” is simply impossible. Jesus states that He has already made us clean on His own (v. 3), that we can’t do anything apart from Him anyway (v. 5), and that His love for us is as constant as the Father’s love for Him (v. 9). Just like the fruit of a vine, our good “fruit” serves to prove what we are, not to get us there (v. 8).

What’s a better interpretation, then? Let’s put all the pieces together. (Well, not quite all the pieces—another article by Torrey lists 15 principles of Bible interpretation—but enough to give us a good idea what the puzzle looks like.)

Jesus says, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”
His commandments are that we love each other as He loves us, and that we abide in His love.
Abiding in Christ’s love means trusting in Him, making ourselves at home in His love for us.
Jesus alone can bring about good works in our lives; when we abide in Him, this will happen as naturally and organically as a branch bears fruit.
Nothing will change Jesus’ love for us any more than it will change the Father’s love for Him.
“Keeping the commandments” to Jesus is not a matter of us doing the right things; it’s a matter of deciding where we want to abide.
Will we love like Jesus loves and thus show that we abide in Him, or will we refuse to love like Jesus loves and thus show that we don’t abide in Him?

These verses present a simple, direct, and beautiful exhortation: If you believe that Jesus loves you, then love other people like He does. This is not at odds with our freedom in Christ; this is what we do because we are free in Christ. We are free to rest in Christ and let Him bring forth the fruit in our lives. We are free to love unconditionally and be loved unconditionally. And we are free to throw out legalism and never look back.

One more verse as a bonus. A theology professor of mine showed me this and I’ve never forgotten. This is from Romans 8:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38–39)

Just two questions: Are you a created being? (Hint: try prayer and see if you get a busy signal.)

If so, according to this verse, are you able to separate yourself from the love of God in Christ?

Then I don’t think you need to flounder anymore.

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For further study:

The Student, the Fish, and Agassiz – the best study is observation

Principles of Biblical Interpretation by R. A. Torrey

Profitable Bible Study by R. A. Torrey

Scripture Twisting – handy outline of the splendid book by James Sire

The Best Road – Previous article on more of the Upper Room Discourse

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Do you have a question you want me to write about? Leave it in a comment or drop me a line! I love hearing from you.

Literally Noir

Eric — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:01:41 +0000

The streets of the city are always dark, especially when it’s raining. And they just put a fresh coat of grime down 67th street. It got all over my office window. Not that you can see anything out my office window anyway. And if you could, you wouldn’t want to. I’ve seen it all, and let me tell you, it ain’t pretty. I’m Rip Luther, Private Eye, and this is what I do.

The light from the hallway was just enough to cast a silhouette on the cracked window of my door, so I knew she was coming even before she knocked. It was some dame I’d never seen before. She was wearing a dress like one of those housekeepers who work for the swanky broads on the upper east side. The rain hadn’t even touched her hair. She looked kind of like Loretta Young, only the hair was cut in a bob. Not bad.

“I hear you’re a guy who knows how to find the answers to tough questions,” she said.

“Yeah, well.” I swung my feet up onto my desk and lit another cigarette. “You can’t believe everything you hear on the street, lady. Specially not this part of town.”

“I know,” she said, arching an eyebrow; “what’s a chick like me doing in a place like this, right?”

“You said it; I didn’t.”

“You thought it.”

“Nah,” I said, “Film noir clichés aren’t really my thing.”

“This from the guy wearing a trench coat and a shoulder holster in a dark office with frosted windows, a manual typewriter, a ceiling fan, and a single light bulb over your head.”

I ground my cigarette butt into the ashtray. I had to admit, the dame had a point.

“Observant,” I said. “Rip Luther. Private eye.”

“I know,” she said again. “It’s on your window.”

“For a dame with questions, you know a lot.”

“Not enough. I need some dirt on a guy who’s been hanging around me lately.”

“Guy trouble, huh?” I said. “A girl who looks like you, I’m not surprised.”

“Cool it, big shot,” she said. “This fella’s been giving me a hard time. I don’t know where he comes from, but he says he knows the only right way to interpret the Bible.”

“We don’t get many theological questions in this business, lady,” I said. “But believe it or not you’re in the right place. Would this be a guy about five foot six, weasely little eyes, a scar on his right hand, and no sense of humor?”

She put a gloved hand to her mouth. “You know him?”

“I know the type. And in this case, I also know the guy. I’ve been watching him for years now.” I reached into my desk and pulled out a dusty manila file folder full of photographs and newspaper clippings. “You’ve definitely got yourself involved with the wrong crowd if you know him. He’s nothing but trouble.”

“That much I guessed.”

“He’s a double agent for the mob. Right now he goes by the name of Literally. Augustus Literally.”

“That’s what he told me. It isn’t his real name?”

“Well, back in the day they called him Gus ‘The Spork’ Tortellini.”

“‘The Spork’?”

“You don’t want to know. Anyway, he made a name for himself—Literally, in this case—during the big mob war between the Fundies and the Modernistas.” I pointed to an article clipped from the religion page of some ancient news rag. “See there. The Modernistas were all saying that all those miracles and resurrections and things were true only in a spiritual sense. But Gus here said, ‘No, when we read an account of things, we can’t depend on some ‘spiritual meaning’ that the author clearly didn’t intend. We have to take them literally!”

“Hence the nickname.”

“The Fundies loved him and made him one of their own.”

“And then?”

“Then things started getting ugly. Certain facts coming to light that our friend Mr. Literally would have preferred to keep quiet.”

She couldn’t disguise her interest. “Like what?”

I pulled a sheaf of press clippings out of the folder. “Read these.”

Bo Jackson literally blew up all the defenders.

I’ve had children just literally tear my heart out.

Britney Spears is literally on a roller coaster to hell.

She drew her breath in slowly. “That’s some pretty gruesome stuff.”

“And there’s more. There’s no limit to what a person will do once he starts disregarding the laws of grammar. Mr. Literally was trying to play for both teams at once, figuratively speaking of course.”

“And then?”

“Well. After the scandal broke, people started looking into Literally’s theory a little more closely. It came out that there were plenty of things in the Bible that Literally just didn’t have the right way to explain. Like ‘I am the door.’ ‘If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.’ ‘Do not throw your pearls to swine.’”

“So, wait. You’re saying we shouldn’t take the Bible literally?”

“No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that that guy Literally is a weasel. Sometimes he says he means ‘in reality,’ and sometimes he says he means ‘very,’ and sometimes he says he means ‘without figures of speech,’ and half the time he doesn’t mean either one. The man shouldn’t be trusted with anything that even looks like it might be a hypocatastasis.”

“A what?”

“Skip it. The point is, something can be true and accurate and factual without always having to be word-for-word literal, whatever this guy Augustus has been telling you. Just because you can’t take it literally when I say ‘You’re breaking my heart,’ it doesn’t mean I’m jumping for joy. These days, you can’t find hardly anybody who agrees with him. The Modernistas and the Skepticis and the Fundies all say that if you trust Literally, you’re—”

“What, even the Fundies?”

“Especially the Fundies. I can show you a document signed by all the leaders of the Fundie mob…”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “Do you have a light?”

“Speaking of film noir clichés.” I struck a match for her and for a while the smoke floated over our heads, diffusing the light into shadows.

“So, how do you read the Bible?” she said, after a time.

“What would be so bad about reading it like a book?”

“That’s it.” She threw her cigarette down on the threadbare carpet and ground it out with the toe of her shoe. “I’m going to kill him. When I get through with that rat he’s going to wish he never heard the word hermeneutics.”

“Easy there, sister,” I said. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“Don’t worry.” She walked toward the door resolutely. “I won’t.”

“Hey lady, I never got your name.”

“I never told you.”

“Do you have one?”

“It’s Amelia.”

“Amelia what?”

“Bed— No. The less you know, the less you’ll need to worry. Night, Luther.”

I watched as she pulled the door shut behind her, and shook my head. Then I checked my gun, pulled on my fedora, and followed her out into the night. There was no way this was going to end well.

–

Originally posted May 2009. I forgot all about it and managed to crack myself up.

Andrew Murray: “In Spirit and Truth,” or the True Worshippers

Eric — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:25:58 +0000

I’ve studied, read, taught, and even preached on John 4 (the story of Jesus and the woman at the well) ever since I first started studying what the Bible teaches on worship, which means it’s been many years now. Every once in a while I come back to this, and I realize that I’ve barely even scratched the surface. This is a chapter from the book With Christ in the School of Prayer by the 19th-century South African author and pastor Andrew Murray. I consider this the absolute best book on prayer ever written. If you haven’t read it, do. It will change your life. –EP

. . . . .

‘In spirit and truth.’

Or, The True Worshippers

‘The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be His worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.’—John iv. 23, 24.

THESE words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria are His first recorded teaching on the subject of prayer. They give us some wonderful first glimpses into the world of prayer. The Father seeks worshippers: our worship satisfies His loving heart and is a joy to Him. He seeks true worshippers, but finds many not such as He would have them. True worship is that which is in spirit and truth. The Son has come to open the way for this worship in spirit and in truth, and teach it us. And so one of our first lessons in the school of prayer must be to understand what it is to pray in spirit and in truth, and to know how we can attain to it.

To the woman of Samaria our Lord spoke of a threefold worship. There is first, the ignorant worship of the Samaritans: ‘Ye worship that which ye know not.’ The second, the intelligent worship of the Jew, having the true knowledge of God: ‘We worship that which we know; for salvation is of the Jews.’ And then the new, the spiritual worship which He Himself has come to introduce: ‘The hour is coming, and is now, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth.’ From the connection it is evident that the words ‘in spirit and truth’ do not mean, as is often thought, earnestly, from the heart, in sincerity. The Samaritans had the five books of Moses and some knowledge of God; there was doubtless more than one among them who honestly and earnestly sought God in prayer. The Jews had the true full revelation of God in His word, as thus far given; there were among them godly men, who called upon God with their whole heart. And yet not ‘in spirit and truth,’ in the full meaning of the words. Jesus says, ‘The hour is coming, and now is;’ it is only in and through Him that the worship of God will be in spirit and truth.

Among Christians one still finds the three classes of worshippers. Some who in their ignorance hardly know what they ask: they pray earnestly, and yet receive but little. Others there are, who have more correct knowledge, who try to pray with all their mind and heart, and often pray most earnestly, and yet do not attain to the full blessedness of worship in spirit and truth. It is into this third class we must ask our Lord Jesus to take us; we must be taught of Him how to worship in spirit and truth. This alone is spiritual worship; this makes us worshippers such as the Father seeks. In prayer everything will depend on our understanding well and practising the worship in spirit and truth.

‘God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and truth.’ The first thought suggested here by the Master is that there must be harmony between God and His worshippers; such as God is, must His worship be. This is according to a principle which prevails throughout the universe: we look for correspondence between an object and the organ to which it reveals or yields itself. The eye has an inner fitness for the light, the ear for sound. The man who would truly worship God, would find and know and possess and enjoy God, must be in harmony with Him, must have the capacity for receiving Him. Because God is Spirit, we must worship in spirit. As God is, so His worshipper.

And what does this mean? The woman had asked our Lord whether Samaria or Jerusalem was the true place of worship. He answers that henceforth worship is no longer to be limited to a certain place: ‘Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.’ As God is Spirit, not bound by space or time, but in His infinite perfection always and everywhere the same, so His worship would henceforth no longer be confined by place or form, but spiritual as God Himself is spiritual. A lesson of deep importance. How much our Christianity suffers from this, that it is confined to certain times and places. A man, who seeks to pray earnestly in the church or in the closet, spends the greater part of the week or the day in a spirit entirely at variance with that in which he prayed. His worship was the work of a fixed place or hour, not of his whole being. God is a Spirit: He is the Everlasting and Unchangeable One; what He is, He is always and in truth. Our worship must even so be in spirit and truth: His worship must be the spirit of our life; our life must be worship in spirit as God is Spirit.

‘God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.’ The second thought that comes to us is that the worship in the spirit must come from God Himself. God is Spirit: He alone has Spirit to give. It was for this He sent His Son, to fit us for such spiritual worship, by giving us the Holy Spirit. It is of His own work that Jesus speaks when He says twice, ‘The hour cometh,’ and then adds, ‘and is now.’ He came to baptize with the Holy Spirit; the Spirit could not stream forth till He was glorified (John i. 33, vii. 37, 38, xvi. 7). It was when He had made an end of sin, and entering into the Holiest of all with His blood, had there on our behalf received the Holy Spirit (Acts ii. 33), that He could send Him down to us as the Spirit of the Father. It was when Christ had redeemed us, and we in Him had received the position of children, that the Father sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts to cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The worship in spirit is the worship of the Father in the Spirit of Christ , the Spirit of Sonship.

This is the reason why Jesus here uses the name of Father. We never find one of the Old Testament saints personally appropriate the name of child or call God his Father. The worship of the Father is only possible to those to whom the Spirit of the Son has been given. The worship in spirit is only possible to those to whom the Son has revealed the Father, and who have received the spirit of Sonship. It is only Christ who opens the way and teaches the worship in spirit.

And in truth. That does not only mean, in sincerity. Nor does it only signify, in accordance with the truth of God’s Word. The expression is one of deep and Divine meaning. Jesus is ‘the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.’ ‘The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.’ Jesus says, ‘I am the truth and the life.’ In the Old Testament all was shadow and promise; Jesus brought and gives the reality, the substance, of things hoped for. In Him the blessings and powers of the eternal life are our actual possession and experience. Jesus is full of grace and truth; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth; through Him the grace that is in Jesus is ours in deed and truth, a positive communication out of the Divine life. And so worship in spirit is worship in truth; actual living fellowship with God, a real correspondence and harmony between the Father, who is a Spirit, and the child praying in the spirit.

What Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, she could not at once understand. Pentecost was needed to reveal its full meaning. We are hardly prepared at our first entrance into the school of prayer to grasp such teaching. We shall understand it better later on. Let us only begin and take the lesson as He gives it. We are carnal and cannot bring God the worship He seeks. But Jesus came to give the Spirit: He has given Him to us. Let the disposition in which we set ourselves to pray be what Christ’s words have taught us. Let there be the deep confession of our inability to bring God the worship that is pleasing to Him; the childlike teachableness that waits on Him to instruct us; the simple faith that yields itself to the breathing of the Spirit. Above all, let us hold fast the blessed truth—we shall find that the Lord has more to say to us about it—that the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God, the revelation of His infinite Fatherliness in our hearts, the faith in the infinite love that gives us His Son and His Spirit to make us children, is indeed the secret of prayer in spirit and truth. This is the new and living way Christ opened up for us. To have Christ the Son, and the Spirit of the Son, dwelling within us, and revealing the Father, this makes us true, spiritual worshippers.

‘LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.’

————

Blessed Lord! I adore the love with which Thou didst teach a woman, who had refused Thee a cup of water, what the worship of God must be. I rejoice in the assurance that Thou wilt no less now instruct Thy disciple, who comes to Thee with a heart that longs to pray in spirit and in truth. O my Holy Master! do teach me this blessed secret.

Teach me that the worship in spirit and truth is not of man, but only comes from Thee; that it is not only a thing of times and seasons, but the outflowing of a life in Thee. Teach me to draw near to God in prayer under the deep impression of my ignorance and my having nothing in myself to offer Him, and at the same time of the provision Thou, my Saviour, makest for the Spirit’s breathing in my childlike stammerings. I do bless Thee that in Thee I am a child, and have a child’s liberty of access; that in Thee I have the spirit of Sonship and of worship in truth. Teach me, above all, Blessed Son of the Father, how it is the revelation of the Father that gives confidence in prayer; and let the infinite Fatherliness of God’s Heart be my joy and strength for a life of prayer and of worship. Amen.

Weekly Digest: 2010-07-11

Eric — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:40:00 +0000

The Twilight of the Something-or-other, plus my true loyalties: http://ping.fm/c2zwL #
Nothing new under etc.: LOLcats from the 1870s! http://ping.fm/pUuw8 #
Fun feelings: Meeting a really tight writing deadline with just two minutes to spare. Whoosh! #
Charles Simeon: Not *entirely* neglected; our church is named for his. Still an engaging read! http://ping.fm/WvDUR #
I know what the Bible teaches about TV, movies, rap music, and breakdancing! #FundamentalistLifeSkillz @elizabethesther (Sorry I'm late!) #
Stuff Christians Like: Overcommitting to God in Worship, plus Worship Mad Libs! http://ping.fm/d9FvF #

Not Exactly “Der Götterdämmerung,” But…

Eric — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:18:06 +0000

…I fear that (not to name any names) the recent fad of popular books and movies about Teenage Mopey Angsty Vampires may signal a twilight of art appreciation. It will be many a new moon before the works of great composers like Grieg will eclipse them in popularity again.

But I’m an optimist at heart, and I believe that we can always look forward to a breaking dawn, even if there is another movie coming next year.

That’s why I choose to remain ardently on…

That is all.

Eric Pazdziora

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Literally Noir

Andrew Murray: “In Spirit and Truth,” or the True Worshippers

‘In spirit and truth.’

Or, The True Worshippers

Weekly Digest: 2010-07-11

Not Exactly “Der Götterdämmerung,” But…