There is another way to understand Christianity’s “thy kingdom come,” in addition to holiness and unity: universality with imagery of rock and water.
Shadows of The Old
God sets the tone for universal application of holiness and unity through the Bible using rock and water imagery ultimately expressed in Christ and the Church. God’s plan to reconcile with humanity is universal to the rich, poor, comfortable marginalized, learned and ignorant. God foreshadowed straight through crooked lines of division in both Jewish and Gentile cultures. This included converting Rome without military or politics for the gospel to reach all nations.
We can discern God’s thoughts for Christian life and community through typology. We see king-priest hints for Jesus in types with Adam, Melchizedek, and the Moses- Aaron combination. There is foreshadowing of the holy nation to come in Christ in the person, worship and wisdom of David and his dynasty.
So too there is something profound with kingdom symbols of rock and water through the Bible.
“Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel (Exodus 17:6).
Paul later wrote how Christ was hidden in plain sight in the Old Testament to this effect where Moses struck the rock on the side and water flowed out which provided sustenance. That rock foreshadowed spiritual sustenance in Christ.
I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernaturalfoodand all drank the same supernaturaldrink. For they drank from the supernaturalRock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:1-3).
While in the water we see emerging a theme of universal sustenance, the rock adds later the concept of universal influence.
Later in the scriptures we read of God tolerating the oppressors only to conquer one by which he would spread across the earth as told in Daniel (Daniel 2). Daniel and his friends were part of the advisor class of the Babylon royal court. Since no one of that title had any knowledge of his dream nor its interpretation the king threatened to kill them all.
God revealed the unspoken dream and its interpretation. The symbols came in increments of successive kingdoms to come with the fourth one giving way to fifth that would change everything. Daniel describes it as a stone that would strike that fourth empire.
Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, were all broken in pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth (Daniel 2:35).
There are further contexts by which we should understand how the fifth kingdom of Daniel’s vision would change things. This kingdom would be expansive in territory and never ending in longevity. Nothing could stop it.
And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall this kingdom be left to another people. It shall crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever; just as you saw that a stone was cut from the mountain not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. The great God has informed the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain, and its interpretation trustworthy” (Daniel 2:44-45).
The prophesy had fulfillment slowly in the kingdoms that would unfold and then sharply in the New Testament. The Jewish people saw the first kingdom to oppress them as the Babylonian Empire, second the Medes- Persian, the third the Greek and the fourth Rome. When they took over Palestine in the 60’s BC, it was “fourth- o’clock” in messianic expectation with false messiahs aplenty.
Prepare For Impact
Then came Jesus with a hope of holiness and unity. He ministered with priestly and kingly wording and appearances befitting a priest in the order of Melchizedek. They hailed him as the “Son of David” in small and large venues like the Triumphal Entry. Could he be the Messiah?
What was confounding to the people was that he spoke of goodwill and salvation to the Gentiles. He challenged assumptions of exclusion which made people in his hometown want to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:16-30).
It was therefore fitting what Jesus said to Peter. His birth name was Simon but he added the name Peter when he met him (John 1:42). His name in Aramaic was Kepha which meant rock.
From Daniel’s vision and the changed name of Simon Peter we can have a foundation of the universal sustenance of Jesus and his Church at the famous confession of Peter.
Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:17-18).
The parallels are staggering from Daniel to this scene. Daniel had a revelation of a rock that would hit that fourth kingdom, make it fall and endure forever. Jesus emphasizes in Peter’s person and confession a means of impact that would be on the offense that even death could not resist. And there was further poetic justice in the scene Christ chose to say this: Caesarea Philippi. This was a Roman garrison with an even less leeway of independence in the people Rome ruled. Jesus was telegraphing a route for the Church that would be “Rome-ward bound.”
Here it is important for clarity to state that Jesus calling Peter by that name was not making him deity. Peter was an extension of Christ’s authority as I have already written through interpretive lens of David’s life and dynasty. Thus, Peter was a rock of sorts but reflecting Christ the true rock.
The Rock And Water In John
We can better understand the universal opportunity of salvation with sustenance in Christ fulfilling the water, rock or both. This is particularly in the gospel of John paying off in Christ.
1: John quotes John the Baptist in the water theme several times (John 1:29-34), in the context of baptism, in water, of Jesus and that he is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
2: Jesus changes water to wine to prevent a wedding from going bust (John 2:1-12).
3: Jesus makes clear one must be born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5).
4: Jesus told the Samaritan woman, about himself, “but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).
5: Jesus heals a paralyzed, marginalized man who lived his life by a pool for 38 years. Israel wandered in the desert for 38 years. The new Moses set the tone for a new Israel.
6: Jesus teaches the Bread of Life Discourse where he speaks of access to him in an eating and drinking context (John 6:22-59). This was not for manifestation literally with hemoglobin but communicating a metaphysical and universal access truth.
7: Even more explicit to the rock and water motifs bears putting down the full quote at the Feast of Tabernacles 6 months before the cross.
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, asthe scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:37-39).
8: In the process of Jesus healing the marginalized blind man, water is the matter with faith. “….saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Silo′am’ (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing” (John 9:7). This connects to the universality of Christ for the world and his apostolic sending of the Church. “Apostle” means sent one and “Sent” in the Greek there is apostello.
9: The context of the universality of Christ culminates in Passion Week. Jesus spoke more about his universality to the nations when predicting the nature and fruits of the cross. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).
10: It is on the cross that the universal, conquering fifth kingdom emerges and fulfills the typology. “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). Moses struck the side of the rock and water flowed for the sustenance of the people. The water and the blood of Christ are the incarnational roots of sacramental expression in Baptism and Eucharist with Christ as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” That soldier was unintentionally a channel of grace.
11: When the Romans lifted Christ up according to the prophecy, Pilate inadvertently telegraphed in history and majesty the universal impact of Christ and the cross.
Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.Therefore the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘He said, “I am the King of the Jews.” ’ ”Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written” (John 20:20-22).
In this backhanded compliment Pilate affirm Jesus as the Son of David and King of The Jews in the local language and those of the third and fourth conquerors of Israel.
Pilate made another move for posterity with inadvertent consequence. Per his order,
“So, they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone” (Matthew 27:66). The seal had official insignia of Rome and there were Roman soldiers placed at the tomb. Three days later with the earthquake, the rock moved, the seal was broken and the soldiers were asleep which was unheard of in military discipline. Jesus breaking their seal was like setting the seal for the gospel like a mic drop. On the cross, Rome struck his side. From the empty tomb, Christ struck their side and would continue in the generations to come.
But the striking back would not be revenge. It would be of love with proposition in already prepared soil as we will see.
It is high praise to say that someone’s role is the “lifeblood” that hold a group up. Sometimes a description of someone holding the enterprise together is that they are “the bones” of it.
Both analogies work together when one thinks about the blood factory aspect of bone marrow. If the bone has damage then the blood source runs short. Bone cancers are among the most painful. Also, bones give stability by not moving fundamentally unlike a muscle that can move, strain or flex in its essence. So too are those bone-type roles.
Keeping stability and nourishment in mind, it is rare we can find a person in such a role that provides both in the roles of truth and empowerment to the individuals and group through a lens of what is sacred.
The better the sense of objective truth underlying the roles, the better the better the grounding of objective truth they can provide. Unstable sense of truth in the subjective means lack of stability to those who receive the benefit. Stability in timeless values keeps the community going by speaking what is right into the situation and not with the fashionable theory of the day. This is difficult so hopefully the person is up to the job for each level of the group and its functions.
There are ceremonies of initiation into the group, a rite of passage of maturity and ceremonies that reaffirm realities that transcend and unite. When the first two happen, the major is on the individual and the minor is still on the group. For the third, it is inverse. Those special standard bearers serve the other at the cost of themselves which we can often see in some leadership roles in society.
Years ago in school I met a fellow student who had been a military officer and spoke of a sacrificial identity. He stated that for the men under him if it was 12 then he did not count the total number as 13. He subtracted himself from the equation because he took his men under him as his responsibility. That is service leadership in seeing the mission of his men’s safety above his own.
Additionally, we have follower norms who see the rank or office above the person who holds it. For example, when there a lower rank sees a superior officer they salute first. The officer may have a reputation of bad character or temperament but the saying is “you salute the rank and not the man.” If this were not the case then the military would make the personality the primary fabric and not the principle of the officer providing stability in the gift of delegated authority.
Yet there is cynicism to the concept of such solid authority in segments of society with fuel from hypocrisy. Some leaders having legitimate authority act illegitimately like we see in corrupt politicians. We see corrupt leaders taken down and want to cheer like the audience loved the scene in A Few Good Men when Colonel Jessup (played by Jack Nickolsen) gets his just dessert at the end.
But many of his comments he made on the stand that are isolated from the murder trial and valid questions hold true to the cynics of society of all authority. Cynical impulses demean all solid leadership that gives structure of any kind throwing the baby out with the bath water.
There was some truth when Jessup said, “You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.” Someone needs to be in charge.
“Men follow orders or people die.” This has at least has some weight to it since an officer has intel beyond the micro perspective of a lower level and he may not want or need to explain the reasoning in the fog of ward. Commands are supposed to have clarity.
“You will address this court as your honor or sir.” This was the JAG judge admonishing Colonel Jessup when he was disrespecting him. The “court” is vested in the person of the judge while in session. Minutes later, that same judge who transcended both sides ordered Jessup detained. Justice works when applied consistently and not applied by personality.
It is incorrect to assume that the people should assume a person in authority rightfully can be beyond the accountability of authority. One can respect the office a bad leader holds and work within the system to suspend them from their duties and privileges.
It is this hope that made the audience cheer when Colonel Jessup incriminated himself, was under arrest and called Lieutenant Caffey (played by Tom Cruise) “son,” only to hear rebuke albeit against the rules in wording. “Don’t call me son. I’m a lawyer and an officer in the United States Navy. And you are under arrest you son of a bitch.”
But what happens in a society that walks around with Lieutenant Caffey lenses? Too often people will see a Colonel Jessup when there is none. If all society sees are the Jessup effect then the society will collapse. It would be in a sense a toxic cynicism rather than a balanced skepticism if primary principles do not flow out well.
Although there are times for a healthy skepticism, the default setting for those in authority is first a healthy optimism. This optimism is that the persons in authority now, and will continue to be, standard bearers. This can be in your family or community leaders.
For those who have been harmed by those with the higher ground in position they may see themselves as never having a chance before. But with a balanced perspective those fixed authorities can have a redeemed appearance among those harmed. Whether that is the same person who mishandled their power is another matter.
Dear reader, I hope this has been helpful as an end in itself whether you are a mental health therapist or not. I will continue in this next session to address the initiation specifically through a religiously informed point of view. So bear that in mind if you choose to continue reading.
In my time among the Christian traditions, like many Christians, I have felt the tension between giving proper deference and respect to the spiritual authorities to an activated skepticism to even temptation to be cynical. Just as there is in military the sayinng, “salute the uniform and not the man,” there are equivalent statements in Christian traditions.
One is “touch not my anointed servants and do my prophets no harm” (Psalms 105:15) which can, has and will be abused as a socially engineered escape clause for leaders having accountability. In the Judeo-Christian narratives there are many cases of those in legitimate authority who sinned, and heroic people who honored their office though they rebuked them. But along the way, there was a gaslighting effect with one of these verses in all-too-convenient use.
As a young Christian in my late teens, I first absorbed biblical narratives for this in the Saul and David saga. King Saul was jealous of David and was out to get him especially when the prophet Samuel told him that his kingdom would be given to him. David had chances to act or be complicit against Saul after the fact. Yet repeatedly he denied that idea. Saul had his Samuel who spoke truth to power.
Then up came David as the new “Lord’s anointed” and after years reigning committed adultery and murder. While Saul had his prophet Samuel, David had Nathan the prophet. Nathan spoke truth to power as well. Both kings and many of the other kings descended from David were anointed and grievously in error by sin, prudential judgment or both. In the case of King Joash who acted wickedly, those who killed him in a coup were themselves executed out of principle.
Such anecdotes impressed me when in the same years many of my favorite Christian preachers fell in scandal. It was 1987 and the names of Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and Oral Roberts went from famous to infamous overnight. Non-Christians around me had their comedy relief on the sexual scandals of one and a very silly “God told me” of a third. What I learned to absorb was their behavior made illegitimate their moral example but not their office. I had, and still have no doubt, that many people came into a life changing relationship with Christ through their ministries. This was a nugget I carried in the later years when in my very personal level I would see those I regarded as gifted in the Holy Spirit to speak into my life and those who were close to me fall very short of the Christian call of love and holiness. Some of the damage was so profound that I used a Bible for a year with minimal commentary and I re-grounded myself on related social sciences on spiritual abuse as well as foundational Christian apologetics (e.g. The Case For Christ by Lee Stroebel). Over the years I came to appreciate the words of St. Polycarp
before his martyrdom, “86 years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior” (Polycarp’s Martyrdom, ca. 69-ca. 155). Though a different context, it still holds today in principle.
By 2012 and 2013, a deeper understanding occurred on anointed leadership in the Body of Christ when I discerned and entered the Catholic Church. One trait of the Catholic Church is that it is apostolic. This means in part that through the laying on of hands from the apostles through the ages the priestly gift extended from Christ the high priest continuing in holy orders. Holy orders means an indelible mark for spiritually anointed servant leadership to be given to select men through laying on of hands as bishop, priest or deacon. For a priest the ordination includes anointing oil. After that, one can be laicized or discern out to be an ex-clergy but the mark is there for all eternity. One can be an ex-president but in the truest sense of identity, ontologically, never really ex-clergy.
Reading the early church fathers, I learned a more robust perspective to formal ordination by God’s grace through the principle of ex opera operato. This was articulated in the 3rd century and defended again the in the 4th by Augustine. It is the principle that a sacrament does not operate by an intrinsic holiness or other trait of the person for it to be effective.
So if a mass occurs through a priest that is secretly stealing from the church it is still a valid mass. One can also be a bad cleric with holy orders and still be a cleric dispensing sacraments or a sacramental blessing validly. This was encouraging to me on the objective reality of it though I had no illusions that an anointed priest was a perfect priest.
I had just enough reasonable expectations as I came into the “Summer Of Shame” in 2018. This included a Pennsylvania report on priesthood sex abuse over decades and the exposure of Cardinal Theodore McCarick. The latter was credibly accused of sexually abusing adult seminarians and several minors. He was the most highly esteemed cardinal in the US and some whispered could be the first American pope. Now he is laicized and is Mr. Theodore McCarick.
What gives me peace first is that God knows what he is doing as well as permitting. The apostles panicked in the boat in a deadly storm so they complained to Jesus. He calmed the storm and urged them to have more faith. Likewise, even the “barque of Peter” in the Catholic Church, the papacy, will not sink even when there is corrupt leadership.
Second, God raises Samuels and Nathans through the ages like St. Paul. When Peter, the first pope, wavered in his personal conduct about the inclusivity to the Gentiles Paul rebuked him in public. Peter may have implied a humility to that rebuke because years later he referred to Paul’s writings as scripture in one of his papal encyclicals.
Later is the example of St. Catherine of Sienna. For decades the main Vatican residence was in Avignon, France with financial corruption and plush living for the hierarchy. Pope Gregory XI wanted to move it back to Rome but was afraid of an assassination attempt, the cardinals would not like it and there was chaos in Italy. Yet she urged him in a prophetic voice.
“The wolf is carrying away your sheep, and there is no one found to help them … the hungry sheep await your coming to hold and possess the place of your predecessor and champion, Apostle Paul. For you as Vicar of Christ should rest in your own place. Come, then, come and delay no more; and comfort you, and fear not for anything that might happen, since God will be with you” (“Saint Catherine of Siena, As Seen in Her Letters,” Vida D. Scudder).
She was not a rebel but is a canonized saint and one of only a few dozen doctors of the Catholic Church in it’s 2,000 history.
In recent years there has been a voice of correction to Pope Francis in an open letter called a dubia. The cardinals who wrote it were Cardinal Raymond Burke, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, and recently deceased Cardinals Joachim Meisner and Carlo Caffarra. The cardinals tried to voice their concerns privately and due to no response made it public.
Last, is the priestly consideration for the believer. That is not a typo. Though one is a Christian without holy orders in apostolic succession through the laying on of hands, the Bible is clear about a royal priesthood and complimentary wording to this effect in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Though few have the prophetic calling to rebuke a spiritual leader, it is incumbent to all to pray for them. Furthermore, inquire on how to support the good and the bad. It is fitting to do so since to be Christian is to be a intercessor no matter what your calling.
This is on my mind at the time of this writing at a personal level. As I write this, I am an Aspirant to become a deacon in the Catholic Church. Is there another “Summer of Shame” to come again soon in the Catholic Church. It is my hope that by the grace of God, and my prayers as a part of it, that God in his court will make things right.
The other bone-type focus of service is in marriage which we will look at next.
What if you put out your heart on what you believe for your own people while they were a tough audience? Even if the response is only mixed it would be heartbreaking while getting at hearts that are hard.
Such was the dilemma for an Paul, an ethnic and religious Jew who believed in Jesus as the promised Messiah, speaking to his people after a brutal prisoner transport. What he encountered would be mixed on an emotional and pivotal message. This was because some were open to challenges to their presuppositions and others are not.
In the early 60’s AD Paul was on house arrest under Roman custody but allowed visitors. One day he has an appointment with visitors of local Jewish leadership and made his case.
After they had set a day to meet with him, they came to him at his lodgings in great numbers. From morning until evening he explained the matter to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the law of Moses and from the prophets. Some were convinced by what he had said, while others refused to believe.So they disagreed with each other; and as they were leaving, Paul made one further statement: “The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah,
‘Go to this people and say,
You will indeed listen, but never understand,
and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.’
Let it be known to you then that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.”
He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance (Acts 28: 23-31).
testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the law of Moses and from the prophets- – – The wording Luke uses is purposeful and reminiscent of his gospel. At the end of his gospel the summary was made of salvation history before Christ and how Christ fulfilled the Law and the prophets.
According to Luke, after the resurrection Jesus appeared to two followers incognito. They assumed the great story ended on the cross and was empty of meaning. He explained the plan of God and that the cross was full of meaning by illuminating the Jewish scriptures.
Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures (Luke 24:25,27).
Paul find himself after a hard seminar echoing the frustration of Christ to those so close and yet so far.
And he said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24:25-27).
Without Jesus yet making the big reveal there was already something going on. “They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures’ ”(Luke 24:32).
Later in the day Jesus appeared to all of the apostles. He worked with open hearts, eager minds and consecrated lives to launch the Church called the Way that shows the Way.
Then he said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.”Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures (Luke 24:44-45).
And now back to Paul who lacked the same kind of open encounter by far with his Jewish audience in Rome.
Some were convinced by what he had said, while others refused to believe– – Those who did not believe have the verb apisteo. It can suggest a betrayal of faith and can be connected to the word apostasy. What could be inferred in Luke’s choice of words is that by hearing the fulfillment of the Law in Christ and rejecting it they were rejecting the life blood of what their foundation was about which included hope for the Messiah.
“The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah, ‘Go to this people and say, You will indeed listen, but never understand’ ”– – Paul calls them back to their origins and Isaiah was a good pick. At the beginning of the Gospel of Mark Isaiah is referred to as the “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet….” (Mark 1:1-2a). His point is that one can have the knowledge but not comprehend how to apply it from a place of humility where true wisdom is birthed.
“Let it be known to you then that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.”– – Paul saw a lack of humility so unlike the disciples at the end of the gospel and serves them notice. He tells them he would more formally expand to the nations. The word for Gentiles, ethnos, meant the nations or ethnicities.
He …welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance– – While still operating in love to all, Paul serves as an icon for the Church through the ages. The Church is called to welcome in evangelization, passing on the Sacred Tradition of the deposit of faith centered on Jesus Christ.
To expand on that closing note, the reader should consider the key terms in context of Rome as the location:
Proclaiming- The word is kerysoo which is to proclaim in the manner of a herald of official kingdom news. Usually of a great victory. The etymology is related to kerygma the word for gospel preaching in the more generic sense.
Kingdom- – This is a domain other than the authority of Rome. The alien nature of Christianity is suggested since it is not of this world while emerging in it.
Lord- – The subversive nature of Christ is here. Lord could mean local potentate but in the time of the Caesars it was for king or emperor. Scrawled on many walls were the words “Caesar is Lord.” Paul’s gospel was, “Not so fast. Jesus is Lord.”
Jesus- To a Greek ear it sounded like “son of Zeus.” But the Aramaic word for Jesus was Yeshua meaning God saves. God wants to save the Christian and if not do a miracle on earth in every way give salvific meaning to life including suffering. So for persecution that comes, a Christian can say they have hope in Jesus the Savior.
Christ- – Jesus is anointed by God the Father. It is final. But for the Christian Church. It was still getting started. And to this day it continues.
The eternal Father, by a free and hidden plan of His own wisdom and goodness, created the whole world. His plan was to raise men to a participation of the divine life. Fallen in Adam, God the Father did not leave men to themselves, but ceaselessly offered helps to salvation, in view of Christ, the Redeemer “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature”. All the elect, before time began, the Father “foreknew and pre- destined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that he should be the firstborn among many brethren”. He planned to assemble in the holy Church all those who would believe in Christ. Already from the beginning of the world the foreshadowing of the Church took place. It was prepared in a remarkable way throughout the history of the people of Israel and by means of the Old Covenant. In the present era of time the Church was constituted and, by the outpouring of the Spirit, was made manifest. At the end of time it will gloriously achieve completion, when, as is read in the Fathers, all the just, from Adam and “from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect,” will be gathered together with the Father in the universal Church (Lumen Gentium, Second Vatican Council, 1964).
There is a tragedy to the word “almost.” To almost win. To almost be accepted. As a therapist, what breaks my heart at times is when some almost has that breakthrough but for some barriers in the mind and heart.
With the convenience of hindsight, it might be easy to judge the naysayers surrounding Christ on the cross. But we should remember that their insecurities, pride, personal pain are not so different from what all humanity struggles with.
One specific example to focus on are the two thieves crucified next to Jesus. This was end of the road for them after a life of crime. In their lens of despair it seemed fitting to join the cursing of the man in the middle. Salt on their emotional wounds were that he was a northerner of their land, rural, and ironically called “King of The Jews.: Thus, “And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way” (Matthew 27:44).
Then one of them decides to put, for his perspective, an exquisite twist to it only to see an unexpected ally of Christ emerge.
One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingly power.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23: 39-43).
The remaining curser saw Christ only in his weakness and wanted only his physical life to be saved. But the other thief sees a need beyond physical life. He was mindful of his eternal soul. Countless times in Old Testament wisdom literature it says “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That was the insight of the thief on the cross.
This wisdom does not stop there. He knows he is getting what he deserves, recognizes true purity when he sees it and asks for blessings that transcend the things of this earth. In short, he had humility, discernment and hunger for heaven. I have known Christians with doctorates who have lacked some or all three of those. I have known Christians with GED’s who excelled on all three. Often a culprit that keeps those elements out of the life of faith is the lie that we can “name it and claim it” on material blessings of God as an end in itself. So sad to miss the point.
So we see a thief who goes from “almost” to all the way. Perhaps it was the cynicism of the other thief that so disgusted him that the fear of sinning against God came in.
Then there were the bystanders who hear but do not listen which makes them another tragic case of “almost.” Some knew their Old Testament very well and some not. Some were pious and some not. In that context there was a malaise by which they have a lazy brainstorm on what that man on the cross is saying. Likely Christ quoted Psalm 22 in Hebrew but the bystanders were prone to Aramaic which is a derivative of Hebrew. Hebrew was more of a synagogue language to most Jews by then. So they hear but do not listen.
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, la′ma sabach-tha′ni?” that is, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “This man is calling Elijah.” And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him (Matthew 27:46-49).
It was both the attitude of half curiosity that hindered their discernment more than the linguistic nuance. It is tragic that they so poorly saw him for all he was when they gave him that final drink.
But the time comes. Christ says “Into your hands I commend my spirit” and “It is finished.”
It seems there was two centurions who came up with their own impressions by the time he was dead but by his actions and not his words. They were Roman centurions and likely knew neither Hebrew nor Aramaic.
But actions in humility speak louder than words. They saw him answer a heartfelt petition from someone who had been cursing him minutes before. Body language of bitterness and compassion can transcend language barriers. This was love, mercy and beauty wrapped in a mangled body. Such beauty disarmed, at least for a moment, this trained killer when he remarked on this scene. “Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, and said, “Certainly this man was innocent” (Luke 23:47)!
They also saw him give a unifying direction of some kind to his mother and his disciple. “Behold your mother…behold your son.” Presumably they looked at each other. It would not take a psychologist to know that was his mother due to the situation. Whatever this mysterious man was saying, it was a direction and was heeded in reverence in each giving specific reverence to the other as some part of a plan. So the second centurion saw love working out in a different authority. This practice of authority was a microcosm of this “King of The Jews.” Thus his remark was not on his mercy but his power that transcended weakness. “And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thusbreathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Sonof God” (Mark 15:39)!”
Though they missed the linguistic memos, they got the spiritual ones. So in some supernatural way they tapped into Jesus as the Lamb of God (John 1:29) and Lord (Romans 10:9).
Next we will see a new cohort of the cross related participants but in the death of Christ. The plan was for him to be buried temporarily and likely transported to Nazareth. There are two categories missing: his mother and the apostles. I would propose that the reason is that Mary his mother knew already the true end for his body and the apostles (except maybe John) only thought that everything ended in his body.
But these others were relatively not too shabby. In fact, their devotion in darkness stands as a challenge to modern Christians in the light.
First there is Joseph of Arimathea. He still believed something of the kingdom of God was to be manifest. The gospel narratives say he was “looking for the kingdom of God” (Mark 15:43, Luke 23:51) but put works to his faith by supplying a brand new tomb (Matthew 27:60, Mark 15:46, Luke 23:53, John 19:53). He was not a fair-weather friend of Christ for, he “had not consented to their purpose and deed” (Luke 23:51) regarding the plot against Jesus. In fact, he “took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus” (Mark 15:43). Likely not knowing of the resurrection of Christ to come, by faith he put his life on the line with such courage. He was never an “almost” but an “always there.”
Then there is Nicodemus. “Nicode′mus also, who had at first come to him by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds’ weight” (John 19:39). He was the audience of one who heard first about being born again. He did not comprehend but something in him grasped the gist. In him we see at least some level of wonder mixed with trust for a post-mortem devotion.
Then there are the women. At least two of them were Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of Joses (Mark 15:47, Luke 23:47). Some theologians make the case that she was the mother of Christ’s kinsmen mentioned in Mark 6:3 and Matthew 27:56. They saw him laid in the tomb (Mark 15:47) but attentively. The word used for “saw” was theoreo which means “to view attentively, take a view of, survey” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary). Consider this, they had faith and reason fully active while in the midst of grief. This could be considered the height of Christian faithfulness.
The women persevered through their grief with faith and attentiveness in a holy act of staying in place. “Mary Mag′dalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the sepulchre” (Matthew 27:61). The word for sitting here is kathenai which means “to have a fixed abode, to dwell” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary). Though it is implied there were errands to run, they were devoted to Christ, as he was, seeing the proximity to his body as an end in itself. I would compare this to Eucharistic adoration. Faith, reason and grief can compliment the fortitiude of the Christian life and not defer it in honoring Christ’s presence.
So what are the lessons for the Christian today who have faith and knowledge of the risen Christ? They had hope. For the believing Christian, Christ is our hope. We have a deposit of faith. That is great. With that, you have been born again. But what about a deposit of hope when a personal circumstance is not working out like you want? It is going to be on Christ as the solid rock and our faith engaging him in humility and ultimately love. Wait patiently even if things seem like “the body will soon be transported to Nazareth.” For, “I am with you. Even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
“To bind up the brokenhearted.” This verse struck me as a child reading my Bible on the school bus. It was among the things Jesus said He was going to do in His inaugural speech in Luke 4. My thoughts were for Jesus to heal my heart of pain and insecurity and spread some healing around as a particular calling. Could He do that? Would He do that?
I was born in 1970 in Portland, Oregon, the youngest of four children. My parents did not raise me as a Christian. My running joke was that they loved to drink and party, while their children rebelled and became Christians. In my first encounter with Christ, at age eleven, I said the Sinner’s Prayer with my cousin on a rainy day in Newport, Oregon. Later, I spent some years in the Foursquare Church, a charismatic denomination that planted in me a sincere love for the Bible.
I struggled with school and social situations. The negative words of family and peers affected me. A conventional diagnosis might be that I had ADHD and anxiety disorder. They told me to “try harder” and “be on the ball.” I was starved for affirmation.
The “Brad” Years
In February of 1989, I received an affirmation through an older man, “Brad.” He was a Christian visual artist and spoke from a blend of Christian streams like Word of Faith and prophetic charismatic perspectives. Focused on discipleship, Brad highlighted some verses I had overlooked.
One focus, from the book of Acts, described the early believers: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). Brad’s interpretation emphasized that Constantine came around in the year 325 and brought a “mixture from Babylon.” So, through the “revelation knowledge” that we believed came to people like us, we took it upon ourselves to discern these scriptural elements, outside of organized churches, in our house groups. The irony is that we affirmed the gist of the Nicene Creed of 325. But that irony was lost on us.
Brad was influential in my life when I married, and we brought my wife into the fold. We had two girls, then a boy.
Over the years, our discipleship grew legalistic. We were told that Brad was an apostle. There was increasing pressure to move back to the town where the church was centered and avoid working in specific industries. They pressured me to attend meetings 60 miles away to be a better disciple. These pressures, with many behavioral norms put on us, were huge issues for my wife. She left me for another man.
A few months before she left, they gave me “counsel” not to cut myself off from the fellowship in order to keep my marriage. They told me to put the Bible aside because I was too much into the “religious spirit.” They told me to “stop leaning on others in the Body of Christ.” They told me, “Stop praying for your personal needs.”
I prayed according to their counsel over the next two months, and it felt like my prayers were bouncing off the ceiling. So when my wife was about to leave me, the second-in-command at church told me, “Well, you were warned.” I believed him, thinking I must not have prayed enough. I went two days in a row, “to fight off the demons,” with my intake being three-quarters of a glass of water each of those two days. It was on me to “get the victory.”
The Case for Re-orienting
September 5, 1997 was the day my wife left. (My children were five, three, and less than one year old at the time.) I was so distraught that my employer gave me the day off. I went to The Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother, known to the locals as The Grotto. It’s a Catholic monastery in Portland built on a precipitous hillside. I figured those Catholics were at least good for places of silent prayer. At The Grotto, I looked down from a cliff high enough that I briefly considered “the easy way out.” By God’s grace, I kept walking. I looked at the exquisite wood carvings about the temptations of Christ in the wilderness grounds. I perceived weariness on the face of Christ and, in that, a sense of His humanity. I began to get “re-oriented” to basic Christianity. I felt an impression from the Holy Spirit that Christianity and relationships should have a foundation of love, trust, and respect.
I knew that I needed to mend my life by following those principles – with Christ’s help. On my first day back in church with a healthy, well-balanced congregation, the hymn they were singing was “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.” They never sang it again until more than a year later, the Sunday after the court finalized my unwanted divorce. It was a great comfort to me and, no doubt, not a “coincidence.” That season had a recurring theme of the unlimited love of God (agape).
I renewed myself by reading about Christian apologetics and spiritual abuse. For a while, I chose to use a Bible with as little commentary as possible — like avoiding too many chefs in the kitchen.
My Crisis Years
Crisis colored the next several years. I had custody modifications, was injured on the job, and injured again in car accidents. My pastors sided against me after several private meetings with my ex-wife. One used the toxic “house church” period against me, even though it was four years in the past.
Although I was mostly in healthy church settings now, there was a root of bitterness. I nurtured a resentment inside of me that was founded on a false contract. This carried me away from the basics that God had spoken to me that day at The Grotto.
Sometimes there is sinful thinking in the Christian life. There can be presumptions, such as “name it and claim it.” These presumptions, which became my own, tried to hold God obligated to hold up His end of the contract and reward me for my holy choices by blessing me and preventing harm. How could He allow harm to come to me, harm like divorce, depression, spiked-up anxiety, injuries, and vast loneliness?
In hindsight, I can say where that contract existed: only in my head. Nowadays, I could tell my younger self that I had forged the name of Jesus and pretended it was a binding contract. It was like saying to God, “I do for You; You do for me.” There were periods where I thought stupidly, selfishly, and solitarily, acting out my search for romantic affirmation. It always left me empty.
After years of this, I tore up my “contract” and learned the basics all over again. I went to a tremendous Protestant church in Portland called Imago Dei Community (the name means “image of God”). They valued worship and beauty, truth, and authentic community. Those values soaked through my hard heart like rain in the soft Oregon soil. Little did I know that God was planting seeds there for what He was about to do.
Marital Bliss
During this time, I went to a coffee shop concert to support a musician friend who was sharing sets with a beautiful young woman who sang and played guitar. Her name was Summer, and we had a great chat between sets.
Though God meant her to be my wife, the Lord still had work to do in both of us for more than a year. For me, it included dealing with my codependency issues. Now, later in my life as a therapist, I describe this to my clients as having a fuzzy boundary on where oneself ends and the other person begins. As a single man getting more grounded in faith, healing meant not seeing a wife as another savior.
A year later, the time was right for me and Summer to date, and we decided to attend the same church. She hit it off well with my three children, and we were married on October 14, 2006. She suffered a miscarriage, then we had a son and a daughter. She supported me in building on my few college credits to get a bachelor’s degree in Social Work. We led a home group for our church for several years. I started a modest business supporting the needs of adults with developmental disabilities and was getting more defined in addressing the needs of humanity as a social worker, informed by my Christian faith. Life was good — or was it? Was it enough?
Is This All There Is?
In the last two years of my undergraduate studies, I started asking myself several questions. I wondered what Communion was all about. I figured that, if it was instituted so close to the cross, it should have more meaning than we assigned to it. Also, I questioned whether or not it accomplished something tangible. Finally, I considered that, in Communion, something ought to transcend that meal if it was actually connected to the cross.
I even wondered about things connected to the doctrine of Christ Himself. In particular, I considered how Jesus could be born without sin if He came from a sinful woman. My logic was that, as an inheritor of Original Sin, Mary would necessarily have to be unholy and unfit to contain the Holy One. Without an explanation for that dilemma, it all seemed strange and left me hanging.
Furthermore, having witnessed and experienced so much division in the Body of Christ, I considered how there should be a design for the unity of this Kingdom (John 17:21). I suspected that part of the solution lay in the Ten Commandments.
An Odd Development
In the spring of 2012, as I approached graduation from college, I heard something strange from my eldest daughter, who was 19 at the time. When I asked her if she could watch the younger kids one night, she said she had to do something, but she mumbled the details.
“What?” I asked.
“RCIA,” she responded. “It’s for those who may be interested in becoming Catholic.”
I was okay if that worked for her, but God forbid that I myself go into that area of Christianity! I wanted to be spiritual and relational in my church and not be a part of what I considered “dry” ceremony.
The Lord’s Prayer
Three months later, my family of four moved to Wickenburg, Arizona. We lived on my in-law’s property while I established residency and applied for a Masters in Social Work at Arizona State University. Although we found an excellent non-denominational church, my earlier, gnawing questions caused more discontent. My heart pivoted towards God, opening up my blind spots.
He answered my prayer by priming the pump of my heart with a greater desire to pray the Lord’s Prayer, also known as the Our Father. It rattled in my head and heart morning, noon, and night. I was meditating on it backwards and forwards, settling on the line about the Kingdom. I knew in my spirit that His Kingdom should be something I can enter into in some form on earth. I thought I should have perceived it by now with my various denominations and light theological training. I prayed many times for the Lord to show me this Kingdom.
The New Kid
In the fall of 2012, something was triggered in what I had been praying. One night, I was flipping through the cable channel guide on the TV and saw a program title and show summary for “Genesis to Jesus.” Well, I had always appreciated how the Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ.
Feeling like I had heard everything, here was this “new kid” named Dr. Scott Hahn. I had never seen a Bible teacher with such insight on how the Bible fits together. I proceeded to read a few of his books, then another book by Pope Benedict XVI. I watched many vigorous debates on YouTube between Catholic and Protestant apologists.
Pope Benedict wrote about beauty drawing us up to heaven and tied it to knowing Christ in His incarnation, with the Church as His Bride:
[It] is not merely the external beauty of the Redeemer’s appearance that is praised: rather, the beauty of truth appears in Him, the beauty of God Himself, who powerfully draws us and inflicts on us the wound of Love, as it were, a holy Eros that enables us to go forth, with and in the Church, His Bride, to meet the Love who calls us (Pope Benedict XVI, On the Way to Jesus Christ, Ignatius Press, 2002).
Between prayer, the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, YouTube debates, and some exposure to the early Church Fathers, things clicked into place. I will now summarize how they answered my questions.
Connecting the Dots
I could now appreciate Communion, seeing what it was about. Christ instituted the Eucharist under the appearances of bread and wine. He is present in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
Yes, Communion accomplished something tangible. It is the objective means through which we, together, can partake of His divine nature. I compare it to when I supported adopting parents: in raising your adopted baby with pheromones, spit-up, tears, and other body fluids, they do indeed become your real children. Let naysayers beware.
Communion in the Eucharist is a result of the cross, with Christ offering the unique atonement. The sacrifice of the Mass is an extension or reverberation of His work on the cross. It does not undermine Calvary at all, but rather is an extension of it.
It was fitting that Jesus was born without sin by a mother who was also without sin. She was “full of grace” in the perfect sense; Greek language scholarship supports this. I learned that she was “full of grace” through the retroactive grace of Jesus on the cross that preserved Mary from sin. God was her savior in a privileged way when the Immaculate Conception occurred.
I stood in awe of the calling of unity founded in the Church. Christ founded a literal, visible Church (Jn 17:3, 21). As for the Ten Commandments, I learned where they have their place in the New Covenant in Christ. They are covered extensively in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
It got even better. I realized those patterns from Acts 2:42 were found by reading the early Church Fathers and connected directly to the modern Mass! The priest carried on Sacred Tradition, passed on since the time of the Apostles through apostolic succession, by laying on of hands. The fellowship of the brethren stems partly from the fact that the Catholic Church is the most diverse form of Christianity on earth. The Breaking of the Bread was the Eucharist, and there was both a liturgical and personal-prayer spirituality in Catholic tradition like none other. My relationship with Jesus was only encouraged.
Things came together in such a way that I knew I needed to be Catholic. I knew I needed to tell my wife, Summer. She laughed with me as I played the Ave Maria scene from Sister Act, but as we laughed, my thought was, “Oh boy, I hope she doesn’t freak out when I tell her the news.”
My Catholic Coming Out
That fateful night, while staying in her parents’ small guest house, I reached out, held her hand, and fessed up: “I believe the Lord may be calling me to the Catholic Church.” She stiffened immediately and replied, “I’m a Protestant. I married a Protestant. If I were to become a Catholic, I would have to give up every gift that God gave me.” Thus began a year of contention, with many tears on both sides.
That weekend, I went to our regular morning church with her and the kids. After that, I went alone to Mass with eyes wide open for an event that would be, for me, both new and timeless. I attended the noon Mass, which was in Spanish, and found myself feeling at home. Being bilingual in Spanish, I recognized some of their songs like “Alabare.” The parish was humble in size, but I had a sense of an angelic presence. Though I returned home joyfully, it was bittersweet because of the tension that awaited me there. It was as if I had gone on a date with someone else.
When I met with the RCIA director, she noticed that my wife and I had both been married before. I explained that, since my wife’s ex-husband was mentally ill from the beginning and then abandoned the marriage and since my ex left me for someone else, I considered us biblically free. She then explained Catholic teaching, and I, then, had to explain annulments and the reasoning behind the Catholic viewpoint to my wife, who was already upset.
God’s Timing
In February of 2013, I went to my first Catholic Men’s Conference and found that I had not left behind my evangelical fervor but, rather, discovered it replanted in the soil I was meant for. This conference was full of men on fire for Jesus!
Although the tension at home was still present, a few months later, I found joy when I was received into the Catholic Church at the 2013 Easter Vigil. The pastor heard our marriage stories and convalidated us. (I found out much later that this is not in line with the teachings of the Church. I made sure we initiated annulment processes after attending a Canon Law class.) My eldest daughter was received into the Catholic Church the same night back in Oregon.
Other family and friends scratched their heads, not knowing what to make of my odd life change. I emphasized that I was not disrespecting the spiritual investments of Protestant pastors and loved ones. I was appropriating the godly discernment built into me to follow Christ where He led.
I also did not leave behind the fire of Pentecost. I went from my Holy Spirit encounters to the community context in the Sacrament of Confirmation. I moved from a context where I had subjective encounters with Christ, which were indeed edifying, to the objective context that Christ founded in the Church. I started my blog as I learned more about the fullness of truth.
My wife continued to make snide remarks, but she would also apologize. I had my moments and needed to apologize, too. We would hug and cry and recommit to listening to each other, even when it was hard. We moved to Phoenix, and life got busier as I entered my Master’s program. We found Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish. This was the former parish of Catholic musician Matt Maher, who wrote a contemporary music liturgy. My wife joining the music ministry here made an excellent bridge.
Some Softening
After several months, I saw my wife’s heart finally begin to soften.
She read Rome Sweet Home by Dr. Scott and Kimberly Hahn. She was struck by Kimberly’s perspective, as the daughter of a Protestant pastor, on the Church’s view regarding life issues. I had my three children from before, and together, Summer and I had one of each. But why stop there? So along came another one! Our boy was born during my Master’s program.
Summer decided to enter RCIA. She resonated with exploring what the Catholic Church was doing, even if she might never join. The director, Todd Covarrubias, was a godly, lifelong Catholic. He also had an evangelical fire, making him joyful and bold. He called people to be disciples of Jesus Christ and Catholics. Imagine — both/and, not either/or! His passionate manner challenged her assumptions.
Later on in the 2013–2014 RCIA year, I mentioned that she had not made any sarcastic comments about the Catholic Church in two weeks. She said it didn’t feel quite right to her any more.
I joked that it could be because I had been asking for Mary’s intercession for two weeks — which was true. She gave me a look and a laugh like, “All right, smart guy!”
Soon, she shared with me that she had decided to enter the Catholic Church. At Easter Vigil, the night she was received, they played “The Easter Song,” a Keith Green composition dear to me. God was making things fall into place. For the next three years, we were involved in a Catholic charismatic covenant community.
Still Learning
There was growth, adaptation, and suffering, too. I have had many theological questions answered, and knowing Christ from the heart in the trials we encountered has been precious to me.
However, the paradox of suffering and blessing is a reality. In my Christian life, I have meditated on St. Peter preaching about times of refreshing on the day of Pentecost. While I still believe the Holy Spirit can be active in that way, there are also those times in between. In those times, we can learn that grace is still active in our faith. This is the tension of the paradox.
My understanding of blessing and suffering became clearer in the traumas that followed. After our daughter was born (our baby number four), Summer suffered a miscarriage at seven weeks. Then another at ten weeks. We determined yet another pregnancy to be “home free,” only to find out that our son had passed at 18 weeks. This called for a stillbirth protocol. These three losses in a row occurred within a period of only 18 months. I cried out, “Abba, Father,” and He was there. So was the Church. Deacons supported us in burying our children at a Catholic cemetery. One of the deacons brought personal experience of his own on this as he listened and consoled.
My faith was still standing. I had torn up my contract a long time ago because, as was reinforced by Catholic teaching, we are called to a covenant of unconditional love. Having a conditional expectation of God leads to despair and darkness. To know Christ in covenant love — an interpersonal exchange without conditions or expiration dates — is an end in itself. Encountering Christ is what matters, not assumptions of what we are supposedly entitled to.
Still Planting
We are all called to be wounded healers. God works in me through my private, informal prayer and in His Sacraments. God inspires me in my work as a licensed therapist. Though I work in a secular setting and cannot explicitly evangelize there, I am inspired to draw out, by asking the right questions, a hunger for the beautiful, the true, and the good.
By God’s grace, I have become more clearly faith-based through helping in RCIA after moving to Minnesota in 2019–2020. I have also contributed to parish spiritual formation through the pandemic period. Through the working of the Holy Spirit and my training at the Kino Catechetical Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, I am able to pass on the Faith to those inquiring into God’s ways.
By God’s grace, more conversions in my family have happened. A few years after I became Catholic, we visited my older brother and his wife. We planted seeds on the usual suspects: the Pope, Mary, the Eucharist, then Mary again. Over time, my brother corresponded frequently with Ken Hensley from the Coming Home Network (thanks, Ken!). He and his wife are now in full communion with the Catholic Church.
I have found the covenantal love of God beautifully expressed in the Church. I have hope for this life and the life to come, and I want to share that hope. If I pause to look, I see that “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).
“And now you’ve heard the rest of the story” said Paul Harvey the late radio talk show host. He often told behind the scenes stories to well- known faces, places and events. The effect for the listener was often one of awe and stirred curiosity to look more broadly at the subject.
The story of Christ, maybe more so in Lent season, needs that for those who are quick to say “been there, done that” regarding Christianity. Someone may be familiar with most or all of the seven statements Christ made on the cross and slide into just being in their head about it.
With that in mind, I am writing about the word and actions to or directly about Christ on the way, on, or just after the cross. By viewing the collateral messages, verbal and non-verbal, one can see how the message of the cross of Christ can be both repelling and appealing. In Hebrews we read that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Below I will extrapolate at times how likewise so is the paradoxical allure and offense of the cross of Christ. Often, such paradox is perplexing in that Christ is both King and Victim.
Truth, Power And Paradox
Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth” (John 18:37-38)?
There stood Jesus who appeared beaten, whipped, heavily-burdened, starved, mostly naked and crowned with thorns. Not royal imagery and thus begged the question. Jesus’ response is in the destiny of his humanity, his presence, reverence for truth and his message for all the world. Including Pilate. So should Christians of all time do in pointing to Christ and testifying to his incarnation, substantial presence in the world and the gospel. Christians are live in truth and so can speakthe truth.
He entered the praetorium again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore, he who delivered me to you has the greater sin” (John 19:9-11).
While the worst- case scenario in Pilate’s mind for Christ was the cross, Christ had a God ordained scenario he kept focus on. It is from that he could speak the truth to power and not esteem any man as higher than the purposes of God. Trust in God trumps fear of man.
Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross; it read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. The chief priests of the Jews then said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written” (John 19:19-22).
Pilate’s action here fits with a common phenomenon in religion and even civil court: hostile witnesses sometimes mess up and tell the truth. If I testify for my friend in court but betray a detail that hurts him, even accidentally, I put him in dire straits because the credibility goes more powerfully the other way. Jesus cannot be wished away as just a traveling rabbi. Pilate, in divine providence gives credit to Christ in languages of the then latest two conquerors of Israel.
So we see unabashed truth, truth spoken to power and power conceding Christ needs to be recognized in at least some way. Christ made headway into Pilate through his humility, words of truth and projecting submission to God’s plan as ultimate.
Anatomy of Mockery
And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God’” (Matthew 27:39-43).
It is different with this party. They saw themselves as custodians of truth and thus deciders of who was on God’s side. They had no idea in their wording how ironic their mockery was. They had assumptions of truth, power and their place in both.
The irony is that their mockery was closely parallel, almost word for word at some points, with what was written in Sacred Scripture.
“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a childof the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected” (Wisdom 2:12-20, bold words for emphais).
To dare to know Christ as Lord and Savior is to acknowledge that life and meaning is not about us but about him instead of the allure of our own pride and sense of entitlement.
Such a dare has to transcend our pain in addition to our pride. The hurt we can have can be all-encompassing and we can instead despair in ourselves, to God and to even that chance to revere him when he shows up.
We see such a case below where the marginalized in their pain join the mockery of Christ with the elites.
“And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way” (Matthew 27:44).
Perhaps the powerless wanted a piece of power back. Maybe they were jealous of the sign put over Jesus as “King of the Jews.”
But here what the elites and criminals miss is that most important ingredient that undergirds the truth and power of Christ: love. Suffering without love is unendurable. Love without giving, even suffering, is meaningless.
So what should the approach be of Christians when we are mocked wrongfully? Love. And what if we as Christians are criticized rightfully? We submit to God, apologize and turn our hearts to the cross of Christ. It is our refuge.
As I write this, I am looking forward to MLK day. It is a holiday that commemorates the life, words and work of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Questions come up from the general public about what a younger person would have done for change if they had been alive in his days or what he would think of progress for justice today.
As a licensed clinical social worker who is also a committed Christian I can at times feel conflicted in some conversations about the subject and means of substantive change. This is due to accusations that my Christian faith is irrelevant on its best days and harmful to the dignity of the person in its worst.
My response first should be in honesty: many of those past and present-based criticism of Christians against humanity are valid. Sometimes there are criticisms that are false about the behavior of Christians and sometimes I have to say, “I have to give it to you. In fact, you forgot to mention this atrocity. I’m sorry about that.” It is just to say that if my faith lifts up the good but does the bad. Honesty is key to any hope of regaining credibility.
A second response is to draw a distinction between behavior of many Christians from the deposit of faith of Christianity. That latter term, as a Catholic Christian, means the sum total of Sacred Scriptures (the Bible), Sacred Tradition and, where needed, an authoritative magisterium. With that distinction I can point to how that deposit works in its own terms and where used correctly. Is there good criticism about a diet? It depends on if the example is where it is used correctly.
Ongoing issues and isolated incidents are chief in taking up oxygen in the culture wars. The more inflammatory they are regarding identity politics, grievances and personal anecdotes the more heat than light there may be.
Before getting into what traditional Christianity thinks on issues and incidents, a further need in dialogue with my social work brethren is to explain how it thinks.
First, in the most simple and profound way one can, we can point to Jesus Christ as the personification of truth in his life, crucifixion and resurrection. He is called in Christianity the Logos which implies an underlying law. To love and emulate Jesus is to love truth. To love truths in the world is natural because he anchors a sense of order in the universe.
That order in the universe can be called the Book of Nature. There is order in the universe including the human person and where there is disorder there are consequences to violating it. Christians and non-Christians may address the needs of humanity through sciences. Consider Logos in the logoi. The Word and the little words so to speaks. This includes geology, biology and psychology. The etymology works well.
The clash that happens between a Christian social worker like me and others is foundationally in the inquiry though faith and reason do not have to contradict. “Faith and reason are two wings by which man takes flight” (Pope John Paul II, Fides Et Ratio, 1998).
The inquiry I bring with faith and reason will have some premises on thought and approach that I hope will be effective. Here are some principles on how that will look.
Affirmative orthodoxy is important both for Christian dialogue and intervention. Orthodoxy means “right teaching” and to affirm is to life up the design and dignity of the person. How that looks is to emphasize the greater yes rather than a series of negatives. The greatest commands in this vein is to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Martin Luther King’s messages were always tied to the commands directly or indirectly.
Continuing with affirmative orthodoxy leans on the principle of telos. A way to define it is as a principle in working to an end. A right understanding of the design of the person means supporting choices towards the end or design of the person. An example would be affirming that one should make themselves vomit if they accidentally ate poison but doing that in bulimia is gravely disordered.
While this can be told in love and respect by my Christian perspective and in my social work perspective in the right context, other issues will be in contention about the choices of the human person.
The chief field of controversy is about the body. In ongoing trainings I hear about White bodied, Black bodied etc. I also hear many other ideas in the name of tolerance in gender and sexuality ideology with an emphasis on fluidity in ones identity. This plays down characteristics on gender and sexuality that Christianity calls immutable.
A response to this is Theology of The Body which is also called The Catechesis. This was encapsulated in the teachings of Pope John Paul II but was a summary of 2,000 years of doctrinal development in articulation. Principles of The Catechesis include that I should say I am a physical person and not that I merely have a body. Next the physical traits of gender are signs that speak to eternal realities with one being that God wants to have a pure relationship with us.
A mirror of this invisible reality is in marriage between a man and a woman. Any completed acts that are contrary to the telos of unity and procreation are called gravely disordered. This is not to be confused as calling a person gravely disordered and should never be conceded that way.
Another crucial principle, and this one potentially clashes with some social worker thought, is the principle of subsidiarity. What this means is that systemic change starts at the most local level first before the highest level. Have you heard of the Good Federal Intervention program? Which one? How much paperwork? Have you heard of the Good Samaritan? Even many atheists know that one. Wherever you also find a family of good structure and disposition, there is a key point in that subsidiarity. Whenever a healthy family can be supported Christianity can move. Likewise so it can in an unhealthy one.
With all that said, I suggest the following scenario. I am about to be shipwrecked with 1,000 people. I have the choice to have my Bible and related faith materials or lots of social work and clinical psychology ones. I can choose one set and still go off my memory about the other.
I choose faith because I will draw from my social work training in the good areas that do not contradict faith. The logoi is in submission to the Logos known as Jesus Christ. The Christian agenda is to save, heal or comfort every part of the person. The Church Christ founded, when consistent with it teachings albeit imperfect, does this better than my “deposit” of social work ever could.
As a social worker with my Bachelors in Social Work foundational coursework being very post-modern, the accusation of what I think and how I think is about “White Supremacy.” In some toxic interactions with those of my same education track I have been told I am in the wrong profession and told I need to check my privilege because of where my thinking takes me.
This is ironic to me since I can infer truths in dialogue through what is seen in telos or natural law.
At times morally based “black and white thinking” is called White Supremacy. I can point to moral absolutes elevated in many cultures all over the world.
Another accusation is that Christianity is the rich, poweful, patriarchal, colonial White Man’s religion which is also inaccurate. Christianity started in Jerusalem by an olive-skinned ex-carpenter who died naked on a cross. It was not legalized until the 300’s.
Yes, woman cannot become priests but there are many teachings that point to each Christian as prophet, priest and king. One woman, St. Catherine of Sienna, rebuked the pope of her day for an act of omission. She was canonized as a saint and declared a doctor of the Church.
So where does this leave me in my disposition to dialogue? I want to be professional in those difficult conversations and project where appropriate how my faith is to be a proposition and not an imposition to anyone. Instead of more heat than light which is really pathos, I point to the Logos as imperfect I may be.
2020 and 2021 have been years of great divide with arguments not only on what to think but how to think and be open to what to think about. Instead of getting into politics, I would like to go upstream and address what it means to have a healthy mind and heart so that our decisions will be based in being the most holistic seeker of truth possible.
Openness versus closedness is important for us at the turning points of our lives and the choices we make as well as those by elite decision makers. But openness can be over-rated. GK Chesterton wrote, “Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid” (The Autobiography, 1936).
Being closed-minded can be a shortcoming too. So much innovation can be missed out on by knee-jerk refusals.
To “shut it again” is a matter of excluding one decision at the expense of the others. Deep down most people know that because people make decisions every day. There is the information, consideration, and finally, the moment of decision. The decisions could be as mundane as which washer brand to buy or major moral decisions.
The two default perspectives we get are from conventional sources of what is old and what is new. Most cultures look to both historically. There is even a whimsical saying of “Something Old, New, Borrowed and Blue” for weddings.
The beauty of old ways to do things is in the eye of the beholder. Many have a perspective, temperament or both to reject old ways of doing things. As creatures of habit was can get complacent on what works and not respond properly to new realities around us. Yet others lift up tradition stating that it has never failed yet (maybe true and maybe not).
The beauty of new ways is also in the eye of the beholder. A response could be “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The implication is that by meddling with the old it will be fixed in name only and damaged. As for adjusting to new realities around us, one could say, especially on morality, that the new reality is not as new as one would think.
Choosing between the old and the new, being closed or being open can, in grave situations, be a cause for confusion of the mind and anxiety of the heart. A pragmatic approach could be to try a both/and choice but they are not always easy to find. Ideally there is something out there that is a resource we can go to that is better to know ourselves and our design so the choices we make are natural progressions on both.
In our better days on choosing the right source and path for our lives we go for what is tried and true to find out what is timeless as such a resource. A few centuries ago people thought that blood- letting was good for fevers and washing hands between patients was a waste of time and resources. But a methodical approach like the Scientific Method came along and those ideas were dispelled. The skeptics of that day were heretics of medical orthodoxy one day and vindicated the next. After several generations we treat both of conclusions of those skeptics as timeless.
When we are stuck in hard places in our lives with old habits we consistently use, then the confusion we have makes us be open while skeptical to see for ourselves what is really tried and true. I add skeptical in there ideally because ideally we should not uncritically embrace new ideas only because they are old or new.
Because our moral choices do not depend on developments in recent centuries, we can look further back for our reference points to ancient wisdom. Though looking back to tradition is ripe for accusation of being outdated, looking back and around the world can lend to perspective that reinforces universal truth.
Openness to universal truth is freeing and intimidating. It is freeing when someone embraces it because if less things are relative there is less danger of the paralysis of analysis when things seem very ambiguous.
A dangerous constraint occurs when society embraces ambiguity in a form of pseudo- openness. Such “truth-speak” (1984, George Orwell) that is malleable can redefine the nature of humanity for “the tyranny of relativism” (The Tyranny of Relativism Culture and Politics in Contemporary English Society. Richard Hoggart,1997).
Set borders for personal identity translates to individual free will. Those borders value what is objectively true. Enough people of good will who organically agree freely to universal truth is a threat to attempts to systematic rule by the elite. Thus, the “tyranny” reference above is not an improper term at all for much of modern thinking since flexible values means flexible masses for macro agendas.
When we define precise truths based on universal and timeless applications then we stand on something tried and true. Is what I am doing working for me? Am I doing better? Am I contradicting my values in my actions? These are all questions worth asking as one looks at all perspectives and all generations. In a time and place of a pocket of group think, it is the healthiest skeptic who is today’s heretic and tomorrow’s prophet.
[Dear reader, if you stop here, I hope this has been good for you up to this point. The following are conclusions that can be considered outside of the body of the post above. I separate it because I draw out my points above for a faith-based audience. Especially those who are spiritually aligned to the Christian view.]
If someone is looking everywhere and over history to find objective truth to open up to and close in on, one of those things is in religion. Religion is among many forms societies choose to live by with norms like ceremonies and ways to live in the day to day.
For those in the post-modern context that want to open up to Christianity, there are right and wrong perspectives on what it takes to decide to “shut it again on something solid.”
A wrong perspective on what openness to Christianity is that it would be all institutional and not relational. If one is to grasp Christianity it would need to seem true and relatable to the person. Otherwise it is as practical to the day to day as an astronomy theory. So if it is all institutional, then of course one should reject it. We are made for relationships with boundaries but those become unhealthy if the dignity of the person is lost. As a Christian I reject that presentation of Christianity too.
But Christ founded an institution known as the Church which is “the pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15) but yet it is a family. One can look through the New Testament and find many themes of connecting to the divine persons of the Trinity in a special way. In many Christian traditions the way things are expressed is “asking Jesus into your heart” and “knowing Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.”
Another wrong perspective of what it means to open up to Christianity in a wrong way is in fideism by living the life of faith (fide in Latin) at the expense of reason. I reject that misinformed means of Christianity as has been generally the standard of orthodox Christian teaching.
Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (Pope John Paul II, Fides Et Ration, September 14, 1998).
So if the two faculties of faith and reason work together, each part honors the other in a way in the design of the person and in accordance with their dignity.
There is even room in a truly liberated Christianity for a sharpened sense of reason in the form of religious skepticism.
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear (Thomas Jefferson, 1787).
This is not a later development but is at the root of Christianity. Christ spoke of loving God with the mind several times. And when he met a skeptical new disciple he complimented him as one who was without hiddenness in him (John 1:43-51).
But this is not to be confused with cynicism. Cynicism is the predetermined setting in the heart that there is no truth. To describe cynicism about object truth while encountering Christ is an oxymoron. Pontius Pilate asked “What is truth?” only to dispense with him administratively to the cross.
What is worth considering is if Jesus is the truth. Jesus said that about himself (John 14:6). When he is taken as he said of himself to be taken, then the Christian life works. If he is not decided upon as the traditional gospel has always been, then what we have is only religious ambiguity and ultimately the tyranny of sin disguised in Christ’s image with nice, patronizing titles on top in churches and academia.
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. …I have to accept the view that He was and is God (CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, London: Collins, 1952, pp.54-56).
This is the faith that is old but always new because it is grounded in a person who bridged the gap between eternity and time. In the Church which is both familial and institutional there is something solid that can be grasped.
Last, it is a source of truth that is both universal and for all times though filled with imperfect people. At the first ecumenical council after the Roman persecution ceased, the Nicene Creed stated it was “one, holy, Catholic (meaning both according to the whole and universal) and apostolic.” It stands not on its own merits but by the merits of Christ who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6).
It is no small thing to coin a phrase to describe a group at its start. It is that important to tie the mission and the name together.
In a modern cultural context the term “Christian” has developed baggage. Some may think it has always been a reference to Western Europe and thus ethno-centric. Others say Christians disobeyed Christ’s command to not “live by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).
But when the term was first used it was centered on the accomplishments and message of Jesus Christ. This was a counter-cultural message to the literal writing on the walls that “Caesar is Lord” and instead they proclaimed, “Jesus is Lord”. As things picked up in the early Church, we can see that it was not an ethno-centric nor violent movement.
As we review below the context of the start of the title “Christians,” consider how Christ is priest, prophet and king and how that is reflected in the life of the Church.
Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoeni′cia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyre′ne, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Greeksalso, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number that believed turned to the Lord. News of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad; and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a large company was added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul; and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church, and taught a large company of people; and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians (Acts 11:19-26).
Now those who were scattered because of the persecution– – -In the flesh they were pushed. In the sovereign will of God they were being strategically placed to conquer the world with the the gospel proposition. That is opposed to imposition which is far from the teachings of Christ.
speaking the word… spoke to the Greeksalso…. preaching the Lord Jesus– – – They were testifying to the truth of Jesus and impacting people about the reign of Christ. As to the prophetic nature of this, “the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 19:10).
And the hand of the Lord was with them– – – Although this was not to say that a five-fingered hand of God was on them, this language speaks of anointing language like “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me….” (Isaiah 61:1). Their work had an infusion of God that was relational.
When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad– – – It is fitting that this was recognized by Barnabas. His name was a nickname for “son of encouragement” and a few times he was noted in scripture to advocate on a very holistic, merciful side for people like Paul (former persecutor of the Church) to be given a chance. He also rallied for his relative Mark to be given a second chance. He saw people living a full life in Christ as all that mattered and not ethnicities. That is what grace does because “grace perfects nature.”
they met with the church– – – The word for “met” here is synago. This connects with synagogue but literally connects with “connect”. Consider the Synoptic Gospels and the synapses in the brain. It is a matter of such interconnectedness that there is praiseworthy unity for a mission.
And in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians– – – Christ means “anointed one” and it is crucial that in this context the term Christian was considered fitting for the first time with Christ as king, priest and prophet. To be a king is to reign and to change. To be a priest is to encounter God and let his encounter flow through you one person at a time. To be a prophet is to testify to God’s nature and intent.
There is no real deficit above in Christians living the royal calling of all believers and the prophetical calling but nothing that infers the priesthood for this passage. However, the priesthood of all believers, participating in right worship, shows up in Acts whenever Christians gather, worship and have communion. We see this earlier in Church history. “They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, fellowship, breaking of the bread and prayer” (Acts 2:42).
This is Christianity as intended for Christians by Christ to live Christianity in word and deed. The royal, prophetic and priestly nature of it all stands together like a three-legged stool that falls if you take out one. The design was the same in principle then as it is today for anyone who should be called a Christian.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings; for it is well that the heart be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited their adherents. We have an altar from which those who serve the tenthave no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So, Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing abuse for him. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God (Hebrew 13:8-16).
In show business there is a phrase of “a tough act to follow”. They say this in show business when someone is up to perform after someone else gave an incomparable performance.
Some describe ongoing Christianity this way when comparing it to the ministry of Christ. Critics of Christianity sometimes express specific praise to the person of Jesus Christ, extoling his virtues and teachings, while contrasting deficits in Christian institutions.
But pure Christianity when practiced right does not have to fall under that criticism. Pure Christianity represents the roles of Christ as priest, prophet and king by serving. Then it makes a proposal so that those roles are lived out in through those who truly want to live the Christian life. Loveless conquerors do not worry about any “tough act to follow” and twist religion to act like anything other than such simplicity and devotion to Christ.
Simon Peter chose pure Christianity preaching on the day of Pentecost about Christ quoting from David and Joel in the Old Testament. For the Jews he preached to they had preparation both to convert and flourish as the common priesthood of all believers. It is additionally important to know that there was still an understood apostolic authority that would rightly administer things (Ephesians 2:20). The greatest prophet of God, besides Jesus, said the following.
Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel (Exodus 19:5-6, bold words added).
The Old Covenant, from a Christian point of view, was like kindling while the apostolic preaching of the gospel with the power of the Holy Spirit was the fire. We see recorded in Acts as Peter shared the message of Christ as prophet, priest and king.
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.” And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers (Acts 2:37-42).
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching– – -To be an apostle is to be an emissary of the king or someone else higher than that as a messenger. It means “sent one” but has etymology to it lending to a sacrificial or priestly context due to a wording like a seed going into the ground. Apostolic teaching is a continuation of the kerygma or gospel proclamation to announce and administer in the governmental affairs he was sent to represent.
and fellowship– – – There are many Bible versions that translate this as “fellowship of the brethren” but in the Greek it goes straight to breaking of the bread after the word “fellowship”. For Jewish Christians they could tie the context to divine worship to God. The word “fellowship” is used many times in Exodus and Leviticus and often within the same verse or passage as the Bread of Presence being mentioned. Yes, there was fraternal love but always Christ centered and tending towards right worship.
breaking of bread – – – Comparing Luke with Luke since he wrote Luke and Acts, we can see this as centering on and worshiping Jesus. In Luke we read about two disciples were given a Bible study essentially that the Messiah would need to suffer and die. After that review, not knowing it was Jesus, he revealed himself by blessing it and breaking the bread (Luke 24:30. The word there for, “blessing” per Strong’s Concordance is “to speak well of, i.e. (religiously) to bless (thank or invoke a benediction upon, prosper):—bless, praise.”
and the prayers– – –Proseuche is the key word here. This was used in formal contexts many times in the Bible. In many instances in the New Testament it is used in a way that is very intentional for a specific result to come and in this context is a matter of worship too.
So what we have here is a truly liberated but structured leadership who serve the priesthood of all believers. They were liberated in the gospel but bound together in intentional fellowship and under authority of the apostles’ teaching. So should the Christian be today.
jembenjamin 