Category: Book Plunge

Book Plunge: The Pauline Paradox — Chapter 3

What makes Paul hard to understand? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

No Christian should say Paul is easy to understand. Our own Scripture in 2 Peter says that Paul writes many things that are hard to understand. It would be foolish to think we can do so easily. (Kind of like internet atheists do thinking they can just read the Bible and not bother studying it and know everything about it.)

119 Ministries at least agrees that Paul is hard to understand, but they think different things are hard to understand.

For instance, many Christians believe Paul taught that God’s Law has changed. However, it is impossible to come to that conclusion if you’ve read what the Old Testament says about the Law: “I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips” (Psalm 89:34). Surely God himself cannot be wrong, so that means the traditional understanding of Paul must be revisited. Many also believe that Paul called the Law of God bondage (Galatians 5:1). But the front of the book says that the Law of God brings liberty (Psalm 119:44-45).

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 29). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

But as we say in an earlier post, the Law has changed. Note also that the Psalm never says the Law is unchanged. It says the covenant is, and yet even in Jeremiah and Hebrews we see talk of a new covenant. There is some degree of change going on.

As for Psalm 119, why should this be a problem? There is always freedom in following the path of God. Yet at the same time, when God gives the new path in Christ, one is to follow that path and not the old.

119 Ministries also goes on to talk about the tension that is often presented in Paul:

Are you feeling the tension between the traditional interpretation of Paul and what he actually lived and taught? There’s more: Paul says that he serves the Law of God (Romans 7:25). Why serve a Law that is supposedly ended or made void? Paul called the Law “holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). He said he “delights” in the law of God (Romans 7:22). He taught that the Holy Spirit leads to obedience to God’s Law while the carnal nature of man is opposed to God’s Law (Romans 8:3-8). And this is only in Romans!

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 31). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Yet Romans 7 is a notoriously difficult passage to deal with and 119 Ministries gives no indication that they understand that. My contention is that Romans 7 is not Paul being autobiographical. We see no hint of him struggling in Philippians 3 to follow the law and no one doubts that is autobiographical. Also, Paul says that once he was alive apart from the Law, but when could an orthodox Jew like Paul say he was ever not only apart from the law, but apart from it and alive?

No. A better understanding is that this is speaking as Adam, who was referred to back in Romans 5. In this, once the law came to life for him, he was filled with a desire for coveting, which was seen as the sin in the garden, desiring wisdom for oneself apart from God. Had he kept the law, it would have meant life for him.

As for the verses from Romans 8, here they are in the Complete Jewish Bible.

For what the Torah could not do by itself, because it lacked the power to make the old nature cooperate, God did by sending his own Son as a human being with a nature like our own sinful one [but without sin]. God did this in order to deal with sin, and in so doing he executed the punishment against sin in human nature, 4 so that the just requirement of the Torah might be fulfilled in us who do not run our lives according to what our old nature wants but according to what the Spirit wants. 5 For those who identify with their old nature set their minds on the things of the old nature, but those who identify with the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 Having one’s mind controlled by the old nature is death, but having one’s mind controlled by the Spirit is life and shalom. 7 For the mind controlled by the old nature is hostile to God, because it does not submit itself to God’s Torah — indeed, it cannot. 8 Thus, those who identify with their old nature cannot please God.

Notice that Paul says the Torah could not by itself bring righteousness. The idea in these passages goes along with the Law written on the heart in Romans 2. Because of the Spirit, we can keep the Law of God in the sense that we were meant to. Again, this is something 119 Ministries never addresses. Are we meant to offer sacrifices, for instance?

Unfortunately, 119 Ministries doesn’t really look at the best resources and ironically, in a chapter about misunderstanding Paul, demonstrate that they do indeed misunderstand Paul.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Pauline Paradox Chapter 2

Who was Paul? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, 119 Ministries seeks to introduce us to Paul. In looking at Acts 15, they say:

As scholar J.K. McKee explains: The yoke being placed upon these non-Jewish Believers in the Messiah was a legalistic perversion of the Torah which demanded that if you do not observe it and convert to Judaism (perhaps according to the particular sect represented) you cannot be saved. It is a yoke that keeps people out of God’s intention, rather than one that welcomes them in.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 19). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Like me, McKee does not have a PhD yet, so while I can respect his educational prowess, I hesitate to use the word scholar yet. No. I would not describe myself as a scholar either. I remain consistent. That being said, I do agree that the Council decided to not make everyone follow Judaism to receive salvation, but I go further saying that they never have to follow Torah at all.

The Jerusalem Council passe down four requirements for the Gentiles. That means no necessity to follow the Law. Right?

Right?

No, according to James, the Gentile believers were to be welcomed every Sabbath at the synagogue, where they would learn the rest of the commandments (Acts 15:21). So, rather than abolishing the Law for Gentiles, the Jerusalem council actually reinforced Yeshua’s teaching that the Law is perpetually relevant and is to be taught to “all nations”—just not as a means to salvation.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 20). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

The believers were to be welcomed in the Synagogue every Sabbath? Is that what it says?

Let’s go to the Complete Jewish Bible.

Ya‘akov broke the silence to reply. “Brothers,” he said, “hear what I have to say. Shim‘on has told in detail what God did when he first began to show his concern for taking from among the Goyim a people to bear his name. And the words of the Prophets are in complete harmony with this for it is written,

‘“After this, I will return;
and I will rebuild the fallen tent of David.
I will rebuild its ruins,
I will restore it,
so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
that is, all the Goyim who have been called by my name,”
says Adonai, who is doing these things.’

All this has been known for ages.

“Therefore, my opinion is that we should not put obstacles in the way of the Goyim who are turning to God. Instead, we should write them a letter telling them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from fornication, from what is strangled and from blood. For from the earliest times, Moshe has had in every city those who proclaim him, with his words being read in the synagogues every Shabbat.”

All the text says is that Moses has been read every Sabbath. It says nothing about the believers worshipping on the Sabbath. Not so fast, says 119 Ministries!

After the Jerusalem council, we see that Paul continued to teach in the synagogues on the Sabbath (Acts 16:13). In fact, Scripture says this was his “custom” (Acts 17:2). He did it “every Sabbath” (Acts 18:4).

That clinches it, does it not? Paul was in the synagogue every Sabbath.

Sad that one has to explain this so frequently.

If you went to a Middle Eastern country and you wanted to speak to Muslims, you would go to your local mosque on Friday. Why? Not because you specifically observe Friday, but because Muslims do. IF 119 Ministries wanted to speak to evangelical Christians at churches about this, they would find them at church on Sunday. Why does Paul visit the synagogues on Sabbath?

Because his intended audience goes to synagogue on the Sabbath!

By contrast, look in Acts 20 again at the Complete Jewish Bible.

On Motza’ei-Shabbat, when we were gathered to break bread, Sha’ul addressed them.

That phrase refers to the ending of the Sabbath, on Saturday night. If the new Christians worshipped on the Sabbath, why did Paul start this service on the night of the Sabbath towards the ending of it? We know this marked the start since he went on to preach so much that someone fell asleep and Paul had to revive him when he fell from a window.

The writers also talk about how Paul took a vow that fits the description of a Nazarite vow in Acts 18:18. What of it? Paul never condemns following Jewish Law. He condemns the idea that Gentiles have to follow it. Much like the circumcision of Timothy, this could be an act done to not offend the Jews he wanted to reach.

They then quote a later part of the passage:

When they asked him to stay a longer time with them, he did not consent, but took leave of them, saying, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem; but I will return again to you, God willing.” And he sailed from Ephesus. (Acts 18:20-21, NKJV)

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (pp. 20-21). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

I decided to look this up when I read it and strangest thing, I couldn’t find a reference to the feast in most translations. Fortunately, as a seminary student, plenty of professors come by who know this and the head of our textual research department came by just then. He looked it up and did say it was a textual variant, which one needs to ask why 119 Ministries did not mention this.

Not only that, look at what the Complete Jewish Bible says:

20 When they asked him to stay with them longer, he declined; 21 however, in his farewell he said, “God willing, I will come back to you.” Then he set sail from Ephesus.

No feast mentioned.

Strange.

When Paul comes before the high priest, 119 Ministries explains it saying:

The high priest, Ananias, ordered Paul to be struck on the mouth. Paul reacted by calling out Ananias as a hypocrite: Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” (Acts 23:3) Interestingly, Paul appeals to the Law of God, which says only someone found guilty can be beaten (Deuteronomy 25:1-2), as his basis for calling Ananias a hypocrite. If the accusations that Paul taught against the Law were true, why would he appeal to the Law?

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (pp. 23-24). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Followed by:

Notice that Paul did not try to justify his evil speech against Ananias, the high priest. Rather, he agreed with the Law of God and acknowledged his mistake. It wouldn’t make sense for him to appeal to the Law of God in his acknowledgment of his error if he believed the Law had been done away with.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 24). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Why indeed? How about this?

Paul shames the high priest for violating the law in doing this. He takes the authority that he knows the high priest holds and points out his violation of it. In making an apology for it, Paul in essence says “I am being more faithful than you are even though you are the one who claims to be under the Law.” Paul would have certainly recognized the high priest after all!

So far then, 119 Ministries has presented nothing strong backing their case.

We’ll continue next time asking why Paul is so confusing.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

Book Plunge: The Pauline Paradox Chapter 1

How do we start this one? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Give credit where credit is due. This book starts with an excellent opening.

Fact: every pastor, theologian, and Bible teacher on the planet holds on to doctrinal error to some degree. An honest teacher will readily admit the possibility they are in error on some things. It’s foolish to think that we, or anyone else, has everything figured out or has all of the answers.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 7). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Indeed. We all do. I would like to think everything I teach here is correct, but I am sure it isn’t. While I would like to always be right, I would hate it if you think I am always right and don’t need to check up on what I say. Something I have learned in the PhD program here is the importance of teachability. My professors would agree with my natural intellect, but I think they also admire that I am willing to go to them for advice despite that. There is always something to learn.

Salvation is received by faith in Yeshua (Ephesians 2:8). We are not saved by anything we do. Our works cannot and never will have any causal relationship with our status as saved sons and daughters of God. However, though no causal relationship exists, works and salvation do correlate. The Bible is very clear on this (James 2:14-26). Works do not save us, but a true saving faith will produce works. We strive to be honest, give to the poor, etc., because of our salvation, not for our salvation. The same holds true for every commandment of God. Keeping God’s commandments is evidence that we have faith in God—that we believe his Word and follow it. Again, obedience to God’s commandments is the evidence of our saving faith, not the cause of it. It is correlational, not causal.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (pp. 7-8). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

This is again an excellent point. I would hope that 119 Ministries would not see what they teach as an essential. For instance, if you do not observe the Sabbath on Saturday or if you are a man, get circumcised if you are not, then you are not a Christian. I am of the persuasion that if you are a Christian and want to follow the Law, suppose for instance being a Messianic Jew and having a deep respect for the tradition, then have at it. As soon as you make it necessary for salvation, we have a problem.

Everyone that has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them should always be in the process of learning. Everyone is both a teacher and a student in some capacity. The only thing we can do—and certainly should do—is to test others and ourselves to the Word of God. We should love being corrected. Correction humbles us and helps us to know our Father in greater depth. Those are both wonderful things.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 9). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Again, another great statement. This is also why I ask people what was the last book they read they disagreed with. If you just read what you agree with and stay in your echo chamber, you will not do much learning.

Not too much further along, they quote Mark 7 in saying:

He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’

You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”

And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

Interesting in a book about the Law and what Jesus taught about it, they left out the following verses:

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

But that being said, their point is that the Pharisees were very wrong in their doctrine and that nullifying what Moses wrote is a very bad thing. Of course, I presented some questions about this in yesterday’s post. This assumes that when Jesus rises from the dead, the Mosaic covenant is still in play. I contend that the destruction of the temple in 70 AD shows that that covenant has been replaced with a new one where the sign of the covenant is not the Law, but faith in Christ.

That being said, there is not too much disagreeable in this part of the book. We’ll see if that holds up as we go on through the book.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Pauline Paradox — Opening

Should we be following the Law today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am taking a brief hiatus from the look at God changing His mind to deal with this book.

The Pauline Paradox is a book that is put forward by 119 Ministries trying to argue that Christians should follow the Torah. I decided to get it because there are a number of people on the Jehovah’s Witnesses debate group on Facebook that have bought into this and go on and on about the Law of God. Rarely will you ever see these people say anything about Jesus.

This book is looking at the question that many Christians have when they hear about an organization like this? Isn’t Paul the grand teacher of the idea that we don’t follow the Law because we’re under grace? Indeed, this has been Christian teaching for hundreds of years. Even nowadays, much of New Testament scholarship has abandoned any idea that Paul invented Christianity. I will not be dealing with that latter claim here anyway, but I will contend that Paul is certainly right in line with His master Jesus.

Before looking at the book and what it talks about, I want to mention what it doesn’t talk about that is quite surprising.

That is the Law itself.

Oh, sure. We have a lot of talk about what Paul said about the Law and what Jesus said about the Law. That’s fine. We do not have much said about what the Law itself is. What is its purpose? How is it to be followed today?

You’ll see that Jesus said that until Heaven and Earth disappear, not one bit of the Law will pass away. Unfortunately, you won’t see a lot of sustained exegesis on that passage. Consider what Craig Blomberg by contrast says about Matthew 5:18.

Verse 18 reaffirms the absolute authority of all of the Scriptures down to the smallest components of individual words. They will endure for all time but with the important qualification “until everything is accomplished.” With the coming of Christ, many aspects of the law are brought to complete fruition (e.g., the need for sacrifices, on which see Hebrews). In other instances certain requirements of the law endure until Christ’s coming again (e.g., classically, love of neighbor and God). In short, Christian application of the Old Testament must always take into account both the continuities and the discontinuities with the New Testament. Given this hermeneutic, correct teaching and practice of all “these commandments” (v. 19, almost certainly referring back to the Old Testament law just mentioned) are crucial. Jesus will give six illustrations of such correct interpretation shortly (vv. 21–48).

Craig Blomberg, Matthew (vol. 22; The New American Commentary; Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 104–105.

What actually happens is that Jesus in His interpretation is giving us a law that is even harder. Consider that the Law says “Do not murder.” Okay. Well, let me take a brief life-review here and think back…..yep! I’m good! Haven’t murdered anyone! That’s one of the big ten! Doing good!

“But I say to you, do not hate your brother.”

“Oh.”

All of a sudden, I realize I have done that and that that can still be a struggle.

“You have heard that it was said ‘Do not commit adultery.’ ”

Let’s see. I am divorced now, but I saved sex for marriage and I don’t do pornography and I have remained celibate while being divorced. Hey! Look at that! I’m doing good again!

“But I say to you, do not lust after a woman in your heart.”

“Okay. Not doing so good.”

Also, if we are to follow the Law, do we not have to offer sacrifices? That was a big part of the Law after all. Consider how Matthew 5 also says this:

23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

What is the gift but a sacrifice? If the Law is still in full effect, should we not offer sacrifices?

In Exodus 12, the people were commanded to eat the Passover in their own homes. In Deut. 16, it was in the place God chose for them. In Lev. 17, meat was to be brought to the tabernacle. In Deut. 12, this is done away with because some people would live far away from the tabernacle and not get to eat meat at all.

Also, if Moses was the final word, then what about what came after? What about the Prophets? What about celebrations like Purim? Jesus is in the temple area during the Feast of Dedication which celebrates the Maccabean revolt which certainly did not show up in the Law.

What about something like slavery? Are we allowed to have slaves again? These are systems that had their place in the times of the Bible, but not so today. This is not to say that Orthodox Jews, for instance, can’t follow any of the Law, but certainly not all of it is possible.

So before we even begin looking at the very first chapter, I have questions. It is quite surprising that a book all about how Christians should follow the Law, really says very little about the Law.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Conclusion

How does it all end? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am unsure if this final part is one or both Hayses, so I will just say the Hayses. Again, we find the idea popping up of God changing His mind.

Because God sometimes changes his mind and his approaches to the world, faithfulness to God means sometimes doing the same. This book presents a biblical vision of God that differs from what many people assume about God and the Bible. As we have seen in case after case, the Bible doesn’t portray God as static; instead, it tells stories that portray God as a mysterious, dynamic, personal power who can and does change his mind and reveal new and surprising facets of his will. In

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 207). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

I plan on writing on the topic of the problem of God changing His mind, but the issue is that the Hayses took 2,000 years of Christian theology, threw it in the trash, then approached the text to see if they could find something to justify their positions. Hey! If God changed His mind, let’s just assume that He did it on this section too! One would hope that there was some new revelation or something. Maybe God has changed His mind on incest or pederasts or on murder. Maybe God now thinks greed is good or would really like us to bring back that slavery thing?

I mean, why not? All you need to do in the world of the Hayses is assert that this has happened and then it is done.

It may be difficult to get our minds around this idea, but if we take the biblical narratives seriously, we can’t avoid the conclusion that God regularly changes his mind, even when it means overriding previous judgments. To say it one more time, our vision is this: The biblical narratives throughout the Old Testament and the New trace a trajectory of mercy that leads us to welcome sexual minorities no longer as “strangers and aliens” but as “fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.” Full stop.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 209). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

The question is not if it is difficult to get our minds around. It is rather, “Is this true?” If you’re going to upend again all of Christian tradition with regard to the immutability of God, you’d better make a strong case. Everyone who holds to the classical position, like myself, knows all about the texts that the Hayses bring forward. Unfortunately, they don’t interact with anyone who holds to a different position.

Christians across time have found the Spirit-led freedom to set aside biblical laws and teachings that they deem unjust, irrelevant, or inconsistent with the broader divine will. It is not hard to see how the prohibition of same-sex relations could fall into the same category.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 214). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Definitely. It’s not hard to see that. The question is “Should we do that?” The Hayses have not presented a case that we should.

For many, the evidence of experience outweighs the inertia of tradition and the force of a few biblical prooftexts on these questions. In the same way, we see LGBTQ Christians all around us who are already contributing their gifts and graces to the work of God in the world and in the church.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 215). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

And if you get to this position, anything goes. It is we who become the masters of Scripture. It submits to us. If our experience tells us one thing and the Scriptures another, so much the worse for the Scriptures.

For now, my next plan is to write on the idea that God cannot change His mind.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 16

Who are the strong? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So let’s just jump right into it with a quote from this chapter.

The gospel is a word about mercy, all the way down. No one deserves mercy, but we all need it.8 And in the end—in some unfathomable way—God will show mercy to all.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 197). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Possibly, but that doesn’t mean forgiveness. One could say being cut off from the blessed presence of God could be a mercy to those who do not repent of their sins. Is that what we would normally think of with mercy? Probably not. Is Hays embracing universalism here? Who knows?

Yet this is not even the biggest problem in this chapter.

Let’s see what he says about matters like Romans 14 and the strong and the weak. In these chapters, Hays says that the strong are the ones who realize their freedom and think the weak are tight and legalistic. Meanwhile, the weak think that they are the ones that are following God’s commandments.

(It will not escape careful readers of the present book that the first-century conflict between “the strong” and “the weak” has its haunting parallels in the conflicts that divide the church in our time, not least in conflicts over sexual practices.)

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (pp. 199-200). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Ah yes. Way to put yourself on the side of the strong. Would Hays be so quick to do this if the side of the strong was saying, oh, that it’s okay to have sex with children? Now someone who is “weak” like myself would say that this violates the commandments of God. We cannot allow this.

What if we went back 150 years and found ourselves in Mormon Utah? Would the strong be those who allowed for polygamy and the weak are those who said “Scripture is clear that it is one man and one woman. I could just as easily draw parallels in these cases as Hays does here.

Maybe he doesn’t really mean that. Try to show some grace.

Well, sadly, he does.

The “strong” ones today are the liberated advocates of unconditional affirmation of same-sex unions; they are tempted to “despise” the “weak,” narrow-minded, rule-following conservatives who would impose limits on their freedom. And the “weak” ones today are the devout, strict followers of what they understand to be God’s law given in scripture; they are tempted to “pass judgment” on the sinful laxity of the “strong” who condone same-sex unions.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 203). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

So remember Christian, you are in his mind a narrow-minded rule-follower. To go back, what if I put in here people having sex with children or people practicing polygamy. What if I put in here people having sex outside of marriage? What if I put in here people watching pornography?

Or is it just the group that Richard Hays likes that gets a free pass?

And yet, if that is not enough.

Paul makes it clear that he himself is on the side of the “strong,” who believe no food is unclean (Rom 14:14, 15:1)

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 203). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Now Hays is insisting that Paul would be on his side today. Well, considering this is the same Paul who wrote Romans 1, no. Paul would not back down on the moral commands of the Law for a moment.

Richard Hays has done passed on. For all we know, he might have met Paul by now.

I’m sure if so, it could be an interesting conversation.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 15

Does a change to welcome the Gentiles indicate a change to welcome same-sex attracted people? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

How did Richard Hays fall so far?

He used to be seen as a stalwart in many issues and a great mind in ethics. If you look at this work, you wonder where that has gone. There is no interaction with the scholarship. There is no interaction with the critics. There are just pronouncements. It is as if he is trying to sneak in his conclusion in whichever way he can so it won’t be looked at.

So this chapter is about the Jerusalem Council. This is something that took place in Acts 15. As the church welcomed Gentiles in, the relationship between the law and Christianity needed to be clarified. How much of the law were Gentiles supposed to follow? Could they do whatever they wanted?

In this chapter, some Pharisees show up saying that Gentiles must be circumcised and taught to follow the Law of Moses. The church met, with the apostles, to debate the issue. Notice that. They debated it. They did not just make a pronouncement.

To the thankfulness of all Gentile men, it was decided that we did not need to be circumcised. (You think evangelism could be hard today? Imagine telling a guy who is interested in convert what he has to undergo and see how willing he is then.) However, that did not mean anything goes. There were four things Gentiles were taught to avoid. Three could be included under trying to not offend Jewish sensibilities and that is eating blood of animals, strangled animals, and food offered to idols.

Yet one more item was sexual immorality. There is never any hint in the Pauline epistles that there is any wavering on this issue. Sex is for a husband and a wife. End of story.

But what does Richard Hays say?

Does Luke’s account of the Jerusalem Council offer a model for how the church today might address controversial issues concerning inclusion of sexual minorities? Indeed, it is a promising model, fully consistent with the flow of the Bible’s ongoing story of God’s expansive grace. The model suggests that just as the early Christians deliberated together and decided to remove barriers to gentile participation in the community of Jesus-followers, so also the church today should open its doors fully to those of differing sexual orientations.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 189). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

No. It doesn’t. The council met together to deal with an issue that was not addressed in the Jesus tradition and they did so based on Scripture. If the same model is followed today and it is based on Scripture, the case is clear. Scripture does not approve of these relationships. The Gentiles were not sinners because they were Gentiles, as if all Jews were pure and innocent. They were sinners because of the things that they did and because they were fallen human beings.

There is no parallel. The standard of no sexual immorality still applies today. It would be interesting to see how the council would have responded had Richard Hays been there.

What should be of most concern is how God responds.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 14

Can man thwart God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Whoa. What happened to those other chapters?

Nothing. That’s the problem. Richard Hays just really doesn’t say much that’s interesting. It’s your typical simplistic emotional appeals. That’s a great disappointment with this book. There’s no interaction with the recent scholarship on this issue. Any critics are ignored entirely. You might as well be reading Bart Ehrman.

So how does the 14th chapter begin?

Is it possible for human beings to block God’s gracious action by insisting on the strict application of God’s own biblical commandments? Or, to turn the question around, are there times when God’s Spirit breaks down conscientious human resistance by doing something new that revises previously given laws and judgments?

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 171). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Hays’s example of this is Acts 10 with the conversion of Cornelius, but there is nothing in the conversion that violates God’s laws and commandments. Gentiles were always welcome to come and be a part of the chosen people of God. Israel was told to reject the practices of the Gentiles, but if the Gentiles rejected any wicked practices they were doing, God accepted them.

Hays is assuming that the LGBTQ practices are now acceptable. Unfortuantely, he has not given us any reason to think such. We have simply had emotional appeals all throughout. Even if we granted God could change His mind, which I will not grant at all, it does not follow He has done such on this. There has not been a “Thus sayeth the Lord” given.

Such an argument is only convincing to those who want to be convinced. Why is it that God has changed His mind allegedly on the issue? We don’t know. It is probably most like as Hays said in The Moral Vision of the New Testament going back to issues he has with the way the church acted in regards to issues concerning same-sex romantic relationships and also with a friend of his who was same-sex attracted.

As my research is on stories, there is no doubt such stories are gripping, but we must make sure that as gripping as stories are, that we still verify the information that comes from them. Media has been used many times to bypass the thinking and go straight to the emotions. That’s not always bad. If anything contributed to our society changing its mind on LGBTQ relationships, it was likely Will and Grace. The same-sex attracted character was seen in a positive light and soon most every show or movie had to have someone who was same-sex attracted.

For a people who do not think rationally but tend to think emotionally, such stories tend to work effectively. C.S. Lewis did strike at the imagination with writings like The Chronicles of Narnia or his space trilogy, but he could also back the case logically if he needed to. In this book, all the Hayses have done is try to appeal to our emotions and they are willing to sacrifice centuries of a doctrine of God to do that.

Unfortunately, while stories are powerful, stories cannot change reality. They cannot change the reality of God. They can change the way we act in reality, but you can write all the stories you want about gravity going away, but you will still fall if you jump off a cliff.

You can have all the emotional appeals you want saying LGBTQ relationships are okay, but destruction still lies down that path.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 10

Does acceptance equal mercy? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In looking through this chapter to see what I highlighted as worth discussing, I realized something unusual about Richard Hays’s chapters. He really doesn’t do much in the way of unique exegesis. Some of it is actually quite fine. He takes the passage about God wanting mercy and not sacrifice to emphasize God’s mercy on His people.

Okay. Nothing problematic about that.

The problem is that he never really does anything with that from the text itself. When he wants to move to the hobby horse he wishes of justifying LGBTQ behavior, then he steps outside of the text and goes to experience. After that, the experience then interprets the text.

Normally throughout history, experience has been the last ground of interpretation with a text. For Hays, it appears to be the trump card. It is what goes over everything.

Recently, I was reading some of Craig Carter’s book Interpreting Scripture With The Great Tradition and saw him critique another author taking a similar approach.

Fowl is talking about extending the meaning of that text in such a way that the spiritual sense would permit a positive moral evaluation of homosexual acts. This sets the spiritual sense in direct contradiction to the literal sense, so it clearly is a wrong exegetical move.

Carter, Craig A.. Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition (p. 21). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So let’s look at what I had highlighted in Richard Hays’s chapter. Hays reads from Hosea:

How can I give you up, Ephraim? . . . My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. . . . for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. (Hos 11:8–9) (Note carefully: This is a classic expression of God changing his mind, rescinding his earlier declaration of judgment and destruction.)

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 142). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Yet how is this a change of mind? He does not say. Hays is doing what Carter warned against. What Richard Hays and his son have done in this book has been to say “Let’s take out all the doctrine of God in church history and throw it in the trash and then reinterpret all of Scripture in light of what we think it should say and see if it comes out differently.

Surprise, surprise! Not only does it come out differently, it also comes out exactly the way that they want it to!

So what about the original question? God does have mercy for sinners, including those in the LGBTQ community. That mercy means that they are sinners. Acceptance of sinners is fine, but that requires mercy takes place. God would be fully right in judging all sinners as deserving of death. In this, all Christians are no different from the LGBTQ community. We all deserve death and we all need forgiveness and mercy the same way.

Yet the Hayses are telling the LGBTQ community that God has changed His mind on them and apparently, only them. Interesting isn’t it? It’s always the group that’s in popular acceptance that the position needs to change on.

Yet mercy doesn’t come without repentance, which the Hayses are robbing the people of. That puts the Hayses in a dangerous position. Richard has passed on. Let us pray for Christopher.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 9

Does breaking Sabbath tradition mean we can break Scriptural tradition? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Richard Hays is a quite different writer from his son. I think the elder seems to go after the more emotional appeal in this chapter than I usually saw his son go after. He also has some of his own personal testimony in here.

So in this chapter, he is talking about the Sabbath tradition and how the Pharisees and the scribes held to it so strongly. Many people would show up at the synagogues in the time of Jesus in need of healing. Jesus would heal them and the Pharisees would be upset. Why are they coming on the Sabbath to be healed? Come on another day.

We all understand Jesus’s position on the matter. If it’s okay to lead an ox to water or to rescue a child on the Sabbath, why not tend to a man in such distress? If a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath, why not heal the whole man? It makes sense. Yet Richard takes matters a step further.

In the silence of these scribes in the synagogue, I see a reflection of my own longstanding reticence to speak about the question of same-sex relationships in the church: uncomfortably aware of aching human need but constrained by my interpretation of scripture from responding with grace or generosity. And so I kept silent.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 130). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Okay. But doesn’t Scripture, not just tradition, speak on this?

That means that actions done for healing and human wholeness should be welcomed rather than forbidden, even if they appear to violate a particular scriptural prohibition.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (pp. 133-134). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Readers of this blog know that I am divorced. It is hard. I had a therapist here tell me “Would you like to go a week without thinking about your divorce?” I told him I would like to go a day without thinking about it. I carry a loneliness with me every day. I see it when I see other couples together and when I go to bed at night and there’s no other human next to me.

So, if I followed what Richard Hays says in this chapter, then I could say, “Dating is such a long and arduous process and I’m no good at it. Therefore, to bring about healing and human wholeness, I should be allowed on Tinder and go and just find someone I can hook up with for whenever I get extremely lonely. Thankfully, because of Richard Hays, I don’t have to worry about what the Scripture says because this is more important.”

I won’t.

My allegiance to how God has revealed Himself in Scripture and reason as well both tell me that that would be a bad move. They tell me that women are to be treasured and that sexual relations are to be saved for a marriage covenant between a man and a woman. They do not deny that my life as a single, divorced man is hard, but they also assure me that God is with me in the process.

Would I love to find someone again? Every single day. I pray it happens every night. May God bless me with this, but if He doesn’t, I will not violate what He has said because true human happiness and healing can never be found in that route.

Richard Hays thinks he is showing love to people. He is not. Hs is leading them on a path to destruction.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)