Last night I managed to talk about just one verse, Galatians 1:1, and I’m not finished. You can read my introductory notes on my blog. I’ll be following that discussion up with some further notes on authority and what makes an apostle.
For the Energion Publications books related to this study, see the Biblical Studies – Paul category.
by Tabitha Edwards-Walton, nurse, poet, and author of Poetic Diversities and Poetic Life Experiences
Son, please put your hand in mine.
I shall be your strength. Trust in me and you will do just fine.
I will be your balance. I will hold you up when you go to fall.
Just like everything in life, one must start out small.
Together we will start out with small steps.
And one day you shall stride great leaps.
Right now you are unsure of yourself but I am sure for you.
Take a look back and reminisce all that you have already been through.
Yes, you have fallen a time or two, but pick yourself up and retry
and do not get discouraged, fight through the tears. Please do not try.
Remember the days when you learned to sit and to crawl.
One day you will walk on your own, you are going to do it all.
But until then I hope you know, you can always put your hand in my hand.
Together as long as you need me, we will walk all over this land.
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by Dr. Bruce G. Epperly, pastor, professor, and author of Philippians: A Participatory Study Guide, FInding God in Suffering: A Journey with Job, Jonah: When God Changes, Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God and more!
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. – Philippians 4:4-9
Recently, I coined the term “theospirituality” to describe the interplay of our theological visions and our spiritual practices. I believe that the apostle Paul is a master of theospirituality, especially in his Letter to the Philippians. He makes the following assertions in the course of the text:
Paul’s Philippian vision is grounded in his belief that God is with us, moving in our lives, providing us with wisdom and energy, and inviting us to be God’s partners in bringing beauty to the world.
Paul also provides us with a way to experience his vision of reality that involves an integration of practice and action. As a matter of fact for Paul everything we do is a spiritual practice. Central to Paul’s spiritual formation is a life of constant prayer. For Paul prayer is a state of mind, transcending mere words. Pray about everything, small and large. Ask God for what you need and give thanks for your blessings. Don’t worry, but place everything in God’s hands. Make a commitment to live joyfully. This was good news in Philippi; it is good news today!
Perhaps, more telling for our time is Paul’s counsel to “think about these things,” to live affirmatively rather than negatively. This is a challenge these days: we are constantly surrounded by negativity. Politicians bully, insult each other, and tell us to be very afraid. The 24/7 news cycle gives us language of doom and gloom, and imagines a dystopian future for all of us. Even weather reports on sunny days speak of news from the “storm desk” and see a drop of rain as a potential crisis.
We can’t escape the realities of negativity, but we need not be ruled by them. In a world, shaped by negativity, Paul counsels us to live affirmatively, guarding our minds by positive thinking: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable.” This is the power of affirmative faith that transforms our minds, and opens us to God’s presence in our lives.
For Paul, the Christian life is joyful. But, joy is not an accident, but a matter of intentionality. God’s grace permeates all things, and we can, by our openness, awaken to that grace in every moment of our lives.
by Dr. William Powell Tuck, friarsfragment.com, retired pastor, professor and author of A Positive Word for Christian Lamenting, The Church Under the Cross, Overcoming Sermon Block, and more!
Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:43-44 that we are to love our enemies seems not only difficult but, if we are honest, impossible to put into practice. How, for example, do persons who were freed from years of being imprisoned by terrorists, forgive their enemies? How do relatives, who stand before the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, D.C., love the enemies who killed their relatives and friends? How do the millions of Jews who saw their husbands, wives, children or parents gassed, victimized and tortured in Nazi concentration camps, forgive them? How do the Japanese, who lived in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, forgive us for dropping the bomb on them? How do the relatives of those who were killed in the twin towers which collapsed from the crashed planes of the 9/11 attacks forgive those who were responsible for such an act?
A Difficult Saying
“Forgive your enemies,” sounded difficult in the day when Jesus first uttered it. He was addressing a people who were at that moment enslaved by the Romans. The tax collectors, their fellow Jews, were working with the Roman government to collect taxes from them. Jewish religious leaders often set up restrictions of the law which were so binding that no person who had any kind of ordinary job could possibly follow their rigid regulations.
Who are Our Enemies?
Enemies are easy to define in wartime. Let’s put wartime, terrorists, murderers, and rapists aside for a moment and bring our enemies closer to home. Who is our enemy? Our enemy is anybody who hates us or who wishes us harm or injury through word or deed. An enemy comes closer and takes on a familiar face when you see your enemy as someone who may cause you difficulty and turmoil in your job or makes your work miserable. Our enemy may be seen as someone who has caused us to go bankrupt, or smeared your name or hurt your reputation through gossip or slander, or anyone who has told a half-truth about you or sought to cause you harm. Or some one who makes fun of you, puts you down, or ridicules you. An enemy may be someone who has closed the door of communication, or some one who responds differently to you because she has misunderstood or misinterpreted something you said or did. All of us feel we experience some kind of enemy.
Why Should I Love My Enemy?
The more basic question seems to be: Why should I love my enemy? Why should we try to love somebody who wants to hurt us, hates us or cause us harm? If you respond to a person who dislikes you or hates you with the same attitude they are directing toward you, you will soon find that your life is poisoned within. Hatred is a self-destructive attitude. Jesus went so far as to say that the wells of anger and lust within determine our outward behavior.
We need to make a distinction between hating things and hating people. We tend to identify a person with the vicious, destructive or harmful behavior which he or she does. It is easy to hate a murderer, rapist, or terrorist. Instead let’s direct our indignation to the root cause behind the evil and not on the person who is committing the act of evil. We need to love the person and hate the evil. We need to overcome war, prostitution, prejudice, drugs and other enemies, but not by hating the persons involved in them.
Why should we love our enemy? We love our enemy because love is the only power which can change our enemy. Jesus was not interested in condemning a person but in saving them, making them whole. No prostitute was ever changed by treating her as a prostitute. No thief was ever changed by treating him as a thief. An enemy is not changed by treating him as an enemy. Love is the power which can convert an enemy into a friend. Why do we want to love? Because it is only in forgiving others that we are really forgiven ourselves. This is what Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” If you and I refuse to forgive others, we close the door to our own forgiveness by God.
Loving Does Not Mean We Have to Like Our Enemy
We begin to love our enemy by realizing that we don’t always have to like our enemy. There are things that our enemies do that we will never like. Who can like somebody that murders and rapes, robs and kills, or somebody who hurts us with words, or who victimizes us, or who is prejudiced against us? It is difficult to like these people. But we are told not to like them but to love them.
The word agape is different from a sentimental concept of love. Agape means that you deliberately direct your will to accomplish what is best for your enemies. This kind of love is not based on emotion or sentiment. When I loved my children by directing my will to recognize and motivate the best within them, there were times that I had to deny them what they wanted. At times I had to discipline them or put restraints on what they wanted to do. I had to correct or try to modify their behavior. I may not have liked what they did, but I continued to love my children. I also continue to love myself when I do some things that I don’t like. Real love does not say that it doesn’t make any difference what a person does. By an effort of my will–by loving them–I try to bring about change in their lives.
Don’t Identify a Person with his or her Sin
Another way to love my enemy is by not identifying the person with their sins. I make a distinction between my real self and what I do. I need to do the same for others. I have to see the potential within others. If I refuse, I will never give another a chance to change. Jesus looked at people and saw what they could be through grace and forgiveness. He saw Zacchaeus, a tax collector, who was one of the most despised persons of his day. Yet he saw the difference that could be in his life if he would follow him and change his life. He saw within the life of Mary Magdalene, a prostitute and an outcast of society, what she could become through transforming love. He saw within Saul, who was persecuting and executing Christians, a pioneering missionary.
This is what God does for us. We can learn to forgive our enemies when we begin to realize how often people do not really understand their own actions. Jesus prayed on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” The influence of friends, relatives, peer groups, community, social or national pressures, gangs or other pressures cause us to act the way we do. Sometimes, we do not really “know what we do.” But thank God we can break free from packs and their pressure and experience forgiveness and have the opportunity to start again.
This Radical Forgiveness Identifies Us with God
Jesus told his disciples that if they learn to forgive their enemies they would be children of the most high (Luke 6:35). This kind of love reveals that we are like our Father. Even if we are like the prodigal son and go into the farthest country of sin, God will still forgive us when we say: “Father, I have sinned.” Out of love God extends grace that issues in our forgiveness.
This Is a Demanding Love
This kind of love is not easy. Its claim on our lives and attitude is demanding. The love that Jesus Christ models for us goes beyond anything many we can imagine. This love demands the forgiveness of others, the unwillingness to cling to grudges or harbor hatreds, and the goal of being “perfect” like God. Christ calls us to be unselfish, caring, patient, understanding, loving, and sacrificial. Jesus didn’t say his way was easy. Loving our enemies is difficult and hard to accept. But it is at the heart of our faith. This teaching makes us realize how far we are from following our Lord’s way.
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by Dr. Ronald Higdon, retired pastor and author of In Changing Times: A Guide for Reflection and Conversation and Surviving a Son’s Suicide.
A favorite phrase of some who want to encourage you to move on from a jarring life experience is: “Get over it.” As the years increase, most of us learn there are some things you never “get over” – if by that you mean shifting gears, zooming ahead, and forgetting that it ever happened. “Get over it” at first seems to be sound advice for something that slams you to the floor and puts a hold on everything in life. But it’s not.
Grief is a very individual experience and there is simply no right or scheduled way to deal with it. So much depends on family rituals, the culture in which we have lived, our faith community (or lack thereof), what we have learned in dealing with former losses, our relationship with the deceased person, other things going on in our lives at the time, our emotional state of health, and all of the other factors that make up our world experience.
This is why “one size doesn’t fit all” when it comes to what we need to do in order not to get mired down in grief that permanently sidelines us from living. What is helpful for one person may not be helpful for another. There is usually no end to the number of well-meaning people who are eager to provide a recipe for recovery that is the intended resolution of your grief.
Cindy Lightner’s 13 year old daughter was killed by a drunk driver. (Cindy is the founder of MADD.) In her book Giving Sorrow Words she describes what occurred when a minister came to comfort her:
I asked him over and over again, “Why her?” He simply sat on the couch and said, “This is God’s will.” I was already angry and perhaps he noticed. He repeated, “You should remember when things like this happen, it’s God’s will.” “What do you mean by God’s will?” I said. “God’s will isn’t to run down children in the street and leave them there to die.” And I got him up from the couch and physically shoved him out the door.”
We soon realize that some people cannot handle our grief at all so they offer for themselves what they need in order not to be overcome by fear of the loss you are experiencing. It is unfair to expect everyone to be able to stand with you in a loss that is frightening the wits out of them. The best they can do – and the best they ought to do – is simply to show up in silence with whatever they feel comfortable in offering in the way of a hug or a shared tear – or simply to stand with you a few moments. The worst thoughtless statement I have ever read is one Lightner cites in her book that she assures us she is not making up: “I know just how you feel,” one woman said. “My dog died two weeks ago.”
Pat (my wife) and I were spared any such “comfort” but were instead blessed with friends who not only stood with us but who provided the many needed “services” that are a part of visitation and funeral arrangements. There was an abundance of food both for our family at home and for those who visited the funeral home. Errands were run, phone calls were made, lists were kept of those who cared for us in so many ways. In short, comfort was put into action at a time when our energy for the basics was almost non-existent.
During those days that still seem a blur, presence was everything. Notes and cards were treasured reminders that we were not alone. Whenever I talk about that time I emphasize one of the things that provided so much support: we could actually feel the care and love around us. In those early days it was literally our lifeline.
Pat has always kept a personal journal and she wrote a lot in those early days. She talked with close friends. She read for comfort and strength and found one of the most helpful books for her was Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff. I also read and wrote. After about six weeks I returned to an interim position at the First Baptist Church in Morehead, Kentucky. Fortunately, I had already spent several months with them and knew they would receive me back where I was. My sermon that first Sunday was “A Personal Journey into Grief.” Putting my grief into words before an affirming and loving congregation I count as a major step in beginning to move forward.
Over the course of several months I wrote what later became the book Surviving a Son’s Suicide. Subsequently, I began to offer free workshops where the discussions were honest and, sometimes, emotional. I always confessed at the beginning of the workshop (even now after three years) that I never know when grief may suddenly emerge from the wings and momentarily once again take center stage. I let the attendees know that this is okay with me in my grief journey and I trust it will be okay with them.
My study is on the lower level of our home and at the bottom of the stairs is a large portrait of our two sons that was given to us on our fiftieth wedding anniversary. This means that several times a day I am reminded of a son who led such an accomplished life. His bi-polar condition and suicide do not define his identity. Pat and I know there is so much more about his life than those last few tragic months. Three years after our loss we have not forgotten what a blessing he was to us and how much we continue to miss him. The best way we know to honor his memory is to be as fully alive as we are able and to be available to stand with others who need companions in their personal grief journeys.
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by Dr. David Moffett-Moore, pastor and author of The Jesus Manifesto, The Spirit’s Fruit, Life as Pilgrimage, Creation in Contemporary Experience, and more!
I sit here in the shadow of 9-11, that fateful day when the earth shook and the heavens cried. Fifteen years later and the memory lives on within us. 2977 were killed, but we are all victims. Our world was changed forever, and our nation has been at war ever since. Nearly 7,000 troops have died in this ongoing war and over half a million civilians, more innocents to go with those who have gone before.
In losing a loved one, I often advise that we never get over the loss, we only get used to it. The place once filled in love remains ever empty afterward and only the loss remains. This seems to be true of 9-11 as well. Previous generations measured their history by where they were when President Kennedy was shot or when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Today’s generation’s history is measured by the long dark shadow of 9-11. The world I once knew no longer exists; the world that has replaced it is darker, colder, harsher.
I don’t mean to question here the wisdom of the war in its original initiation or its ongoing direction. Others can do that elsewhere. I only mean to mourn the never ending struggle, the enduring violence, the graves whose hunger for life cannot be sated.
We can mourn our inhumanity, our fear or judgment or hatred of those who are different, our seeking uniformity rather than understanding. We can question why so much evil is done in the supposed name of righteousness, why religion is such an easy pawn for extremism. Maybe someday we can try to find a way for us all to live together in peace and equality, but this is not that day.
Martin Luther King Jr. advised of the injustices of his day, saying “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” A victim of the Palestinian – Israeli conflict confessed “There will be no peace until we realize we love our children more than we hate our neighbors.”
We are all neighbors on this shrinking blue marble, and we’ve got to find a way for us all to live together. I’ve said a good place for us to begin is for people of faith to agree not to kill each other.
So in this article I am not selling one of my books or hyping another publication. I am rather expressing our common despair at the ongoing “divine” devastation and saying a quiet little prayer, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me!” Amen.
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We’re starting a new feature for EDN as we build up to the full schedule we hope to follow for the site. Each Thursday night Energion Publications owner Henry Neufeld offers a Bible study via YouTube. It lasts about 30 minutes, and last night he started a new series looking at Paul, the sources of his theology, and his message. These studies will now be posted each Friday morning here on the Energion Discussion Network. You will see announcements regarding this series on Henry’s personal blog, Threads from Henry’s Web.
Henry and Jody Neufeld of Energion Publications discuss grief 12 years after the death of their son James. How long does this last? What do you do about it? Should Christians grieve given our hope?
Join the conversation and the conversation. Jody and I each plan some additional blog posts. In the half hour of this discussion we only covered about half the material we had planned to include. We have also put the books in our catalog that relate to grief, death, and dying on sale.
There truly is light at the end of the tunnel, or to put it better, all the way through the tunnel. It’s not that you forget, but you do learn to live with your “new normal.”
by Dr. Bruce G. Epperly, pastor, professor and author of Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God, Transforming Acts: Acts of the Apostles as a 21st Century Gospel, Ruth and Esther: Women of Agency and Adventure, and more!
Ruth 1:1-18
It’s been said that God created humankind because God loves stories. Our scriptures are filled with stories, legends that tell a deeper truth than mere fact, tales that counter our prejudices and invite us to see the world from a wider perspective. No one knows exactly when the story of Ruth was first told. The heroine may not even have existed, but for many refugees and mixed race children, her story was good news, a healing balm, and the source of pride and courage. So let me tell you a story:
Hadassah’s life was good before the priests and lawmakers returned from exile in Babylon, and before the ultra-orthodox Ezra and Nehemiah took over the country. Hadassah enjoyed playing on the banks of the stream, running through the neighborhood with friends, and just being a little girl.
When the priests and lawmakers returned from Babylon, they had big ideas: life had been hard for them in exile. Their families had been the elite in Jerusalem, but in Babylon they were nobodies. They struggled to hold onto the old ways and the religion of their parents. They believed that their great-grandparents’ unfaithfulness led to the nation’s humiliation, and they returned home, vowing to never turn away from God again. They wanted to make Israel great again and that meant returning to true religion – the religion of law and ritual, grounded in purity and fidelity. They wanted to stay on God’s good side – after all, God could be violent and punitive – and in their quest for purity, they looked for someone to blame for the humiliation they’d experienced. The obvious scapegoats were those who remained in Israel, accommodated to non-Jewish culture, appropriated some of the lifestyle of the Canaanites, and even married local women, during the exile – Canaanite women, who may have accepted the God of Israel but who still observed the seasonal festivals of their parents’ religion.
At first, the return of the religious, governmental and business elite was celebrated, but then the elites – under the authority of the Persians wanted to build a wall around Jerusalem – a really big wall, with high ramparts – to separate the pure from the impure, the faithful from the infidel. They wanted to return Jerusalem to its former glory, and to make the nation great again. Nothing would stand in their way, especially the unfaithful who married outside the true religion, their infidel wives, and their mixed race children.
Hadassah’s father was blacklisted for marrying a Canaanite, and his business suffered. But, worse, he was attacked on the street by religious zealots. His faith was questioned and he was banned from worship services. Some of the neighborhood children taunted and teased Hadassah, insulted her parents, and even called her names, “half breed,” “pagan child,” and worse. The paradise of childhood became hell for Hadassah.
When Hadassah asked her father, “What’s wrong with me? Why do they call me names? What did I do wrong?” his heart was broken. And, when he and his wife had to give their children the “talk” about staying safe in the streets, their spirits almost broke.
It was a family custom at bedtime for the children to plead with their father, “Tell me a story.” And so, he told the stories of their ancestors – David, Moses, Abraham and Sarah. But, one night, in response to his children’s plea, Hadassah’s father began a new story, one that the children had never heard before – the story of a young woman named Ruth, a foreigner, who came to live in Bethlehem.
“Once upon a time,” so began father, “there was a famine in Israel, and a couple and their two sons migrated to Moab. Like other refugees, they were first treated with suspicion and fear. The locals worried that they would take away their jobs and property. But, years passed, and this little family like other refugee families, worked hard, found a place in the community, and the boys married Moabite girls. At first, there were some concerns, mixed race and mixed religion marriages are often looked down upon and seen as a threat to the purity of faith and race. But, the family fitted in and anticipated staying in Moab for the long haul.”
When father paused, the children begged, “Tell us more. What happened to this family? Did they have children like us?” Father closed his eyes to let his imagination roam and then continued. “Well, times can get tough, and the men died before their wives could have children, and the women were left alone. One named Orpah went back to her parents, but the other Ruth was attached to her mother-in-law Naomi. She had no home to go back to, having been disowned for marrying a Hebrew, and she knew that a woman alone would not survive. Together they would make it. Times were better in Bethlehem now and besides Naomi owned a plot of land, and so they journeyed, two women walking in heat and chill, till they made it back to Bethlehem.”
“Naomi was home, but now Ruth was the stranger. Now she was the foreigner, the one with the accent, who still had trouble speaking the local language; an unmarried woman, she was a threat to others seeking husbands and she was also at risk from predatory males. Some welcomed her, but others turned away. ‘She’s not one of us. Go back where you came from. Don’t’ steal our men or our land from us.’” Others invoked the prejudice, ‘You know the Moabites, they live by another code; they sacrifice babies, and their women, well….’”
Father paused, and the kids implored, “Please, please, more, more.” “Well, Ruth went to work in the fields, picking up the leftovers, and Boaz noticed her. She was smart, strong, and beautiful, and they courted each other, fell in love, and the rest is history – or is it herstory?”
“God blessed them. They had a family, and Ruth’s great grandson was the great King David.”
“That’s all you’ll get tonight,” father concluded. But, that was enough for Hadassah. She saw herself in that young woman Ruth – a survivor, strong, able to outlast the persecutors; she realized that she was smart and talented regardless of what bullies and wall builders said. She also saw her mother, a Canaanite – looked down upon by the righteous ones with their dreams of ethnic purity, but not letting their hate and judgment get the best of her as day by day, she fashioned a loving home. Maybe, her father was like Boaz, Ruth’s Jewish husband, dealing with the prejudice of others, but not letting that hate destroy his family. He was proud of his Canaanite wife, and despite social and religious pressures, he would never divorce his wife, as some had done.
Hadassah went to sleep dreaming of David, the great King, from a mixed race and an interfaith marriage, just like her. “Maybe I am good enough. My birth is blessing and not a curse. Like Ruth, I will outlast the bullies. God blessed another foreign woman, God is blessing my mother and father, and God will bless me. I will be faithful, proud of my heritage, and like Ruth, I’m going to make a difference by just being myself.” And so she did!
A sermon preached by Bruce Epperly in a joint service of South Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, and the Craigville Tabernacle Community, August 28, 2016.
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by Henry Neufeld, publisher, editor, teacher and author of When People Speak for God, Stories of the Way, Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic and more!
I’ve recently said and written a few things about the gospel commission, including my claim in my concluding presentation for my video series on eschatology that eschatology is all about the gospel commission. You’ll hear more about this in my foreword to Dave Black’s new book Running My Race . It’s in the final stages of production and should be available soon.
This isn’t a new perspective on my part, but as soon as I start using words like “evangelism,” “mission,” or “the Great Commission,” I start getting questions about whether I believe in dialogue or whether I’ve started to think that all non-Christians are horrible people.
On the other hand, each time I start talking about respect, interfaith dialogue, inclusion, and similar topics, someone is bound to ask me whether I’ve given up on evangelism and mission. Perhaps I no longer think Jesus is important. (Read more …)