A Baffle of Angels

 

A pride of lions, a murder of crows, a parliament of owls … a "baffle" of angels?  We humans love to categorize and name things, and the names we give them reflect our very human impressions of them.  “Pride” for a group of lions reflects the air of nobility and power we see in them, even when they’re lazing in the shade.  The “murder” of crows reflects their ancient habit of flocking to our battlefields after the fighting but before the tasty bodies were cleared.  And “parliament” works quite well for those lordly, wise-looking owls.

So why do I say a “baffle” of angels?  What's baffling about them, and what am I suggesting?

I’ll tell you.  But hold on to your wings, Clarence.

 

WHAT ANGELS AREN’T

First, though, let’s clear up some things we thought we knew about angels.  Those who have read a few of my posts know I always like to get our misconceptions out of the way first.  (Those misconceptions are called cognitive biases in the world of informal logical fallacies, and they’re the sorts of baggage we carry with us whenever we approach the Scriptures.)

 

ANGELS DON’T HAVE WINGS

Whenever scripture speaks of the mal’akim (Hebrew) or the ayyeloi (Greek), those angels have a very human appearance.  They may make impressive entrances at times (Matthew 28:2-5), and they might even flash with lightning when behaving apocalyptically (Daniel 10:5-6), but most of their appearances in scripture are either as normal-looking humans (as when a couple of them met with Abraham in Genesis 18:2) or as nondescript messengers in dreams.  The Bible never mentions angels having wings.

 

ANGELS AREN’T CHERUBS

Cherubs (also called cherubim) are biblical entities.  There are many human traditions that classify cherubs as a type of angel.  However, not a single one of those "cherubs = angels" traditions is scriptural.

We humans, basic creatures that we are, tend to oversimplify information.  We hear a hymn about cherubim, and we’re convinced we’ve got those beings defined.   With all due respect to Christmas carols, however, there is never a place in scripture where cherubs are called angels.  They are a different class of spiritual being.

We meet our first cherubim in Scripture before we see any angels at all.  They’re beings posted at the way into Eden (Genesis 3:24) along with a swinging, flaming sword meant to cut down anyone who’d dare try to reenter paradise.  Oddly, the cherubim don’t seem to be swinging that sword; it’s just hanging out there with them, swinging itself, guarding the path.

The next time we see cherubs is in Exodus 25, where they’re represented in statue form, stationed at Israel’s Ark of the Covenant.  This is where we see wings for the first time – a count of four rather than the two we’d expect.  Since they’re “facing” one another, we can assume they have faces.  That’s all the description we get in Exodus, though.

Ezekiel gives us our best visual details about the cherubim.  Piecing together chapters 1 and 10, we see that these “living beings” had calves’ hooves instead of feet and at least one pair of hands.  They had four faces: human, eagle, lion, and either an ox (if you take chapter 1 literally) or a cherub (if chapter 10 is more to your taste and you can handle the circularity of learning that a cherub has a “cherub face.” )

In English, the word “cherubic” has come to mean a round-faced, childlike appearance of innocence.  But when we’re talking about real biblical cherubs ... well, I wouldn’t advise sending a picture of one in your next Valentine’s Day card.  Cherubs are weird at best, scary at worst, and not particularly romantic.

 

ANGELS AREN’T SERAPHS

You probably saw this one coming.  Like cherubim, the seraphim are never identified in scripture as mal’akhim, angels.  In fact, they are snakes.  Cooler still, they’re fiery snakes, as shown in translations of the word seraph in Numbers 21:6 and Deuteronomy 8:15, where the word refers to actual flaming snakes.  As celestial beings, however, the seraphim make only a single appearance in all of scripture: Isaiah 6:1-7.  These celestial beings have six wings (take that, you lower-order, four-wings-only cherubs!)  They also have faces and “feet,” but those remain undescribed, since four of the six wings are used to cover them, evidently out of humility and modesty.

A word-nerd side note: The Hebrew text will sometimes use the term raglayim, “feet,” as a modest stand-in for genitals.  Isaiah himself does that in Isaiah 7:20, and we see it employed in Ruth 3:7-8, 2 Samuel 11:8-11, and elsewhere.  Biblical scholars John M. Oswalt and Marvin Sweeney mention that that meaning might apply here, which would display an even deeper seraphic homage to the Lord: one set of wings hiding their eyes from God’s glory, another set hiding their own shame.

And a motherly side note: What parent would give their beloved child a name like “Marvin Sweeney?”  C’mon, people.

 

SATAN ISN’T A FALLEN ANGEL

You may find this more surprising.  The idea that the Satan was once an angel of God comes from an early collection of Jewish and Christian writings called Apocalypse of Moses, sometimes called Life of Adam and Eve.  It’s not a book of the Bible.  It’s a fanciful, imaginative expansion of the story of creation, the very first time the idea appears that the Satan might have been one of the heavenly angelic host.  That idea percolated in the back of Christian minds until the English poet John Milton immortalized the "Satan was an angel" concept in his Paradise Lost epic.

But didn’t I read that Satan got cast from heaven in Isaiah 14?  No, you didn’t.  In that passage, you read about King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon (see Isaiah 14:4) being cast down from his high place of glory.  The king is the one called helel (“shining one”) in that text, a word later translated to Latin as lucifer and inexplicably turned into a name that was never meant to be used for the Satan.  The Apocalypse of Moses text borrowed Isaiah's imagery of a shining king falling from glory and applied it to the Satan, spinning a new, nonbiblical tale.

Okay, but didn’t I read about Satan leading an army of fallen angels?  You did!  You’ve also read about Jesus leading an army of angels.  Leading that army didn’t make Jesus a mere angel.  The Satan, leading his own army of them, also doesn’t turn into an angel.  He is never called an angel, fallen or otherwise, in scripture.  (Hang in there.  We’ll see what he is eventually, but I like taking this step by step.)

Fine, if he leads all the demonic fallen angels, why isn’t he one of them?  Oh, dear.  Someone told you that demons are fallen angels.  Since this is a blog post about angels, I’d better clarify that for you.

 

FALLEN ANGELS AREN’T DEMONS

I know you think you read that somewhere.  In fact, you probably did.  The problem is, the Bible isn’t where you read it.

To state this simply and directly: scripture never identifies demons as fallen angels.  Don't be too hard on yourself for not knowing that, though – even Billy Graham, in his 1975 book Angels: God’s Secret Agents, is wooed away from the biblical text by the traditions that humans developed outside the text of the Bible.  He states, without scriptural evidence, that all demons were once angels.  He even has a whole chapter devoted to “Lucifer and the Angelic Rebellion,” making the nonbiblical claim that the Satan had been an archangel who became too proud and was cast from heaven with other fallen angels to become demons.

The text of the Bible makes it clear that, yes, the Satan was driven from heaven, "fallen"  (noted by Jesus in Luke 10:18 and dramatized as a symbolic dragon in Revelation 12:7-9).  But no scripture text ever refers to him as having been an angel (particularly not an archangel, a title scripture only gives to Michael).  Like many of us before him and after, Graham assumed the traditions he’d heard about the Satan were scriptural.  He also assumed that misinterpretations of Isaiah 14 were reliable.

There are fallen angels.  They're not here on Earth, busily tempting souls and possessing people.  We know exactly where they are, thanks to the epistles of Jude and 2 Peter:

“… God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartaros and committed them to pits of gloomy darkness to be kept until judgment” (2 Peter 2:4)

“And the angels who did not stay within their own positions of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6)

 

Fallen angels are not roaming the Earth as demons.  They’re locked away in darkness.  Demons, on the other hand, stand separately as yet another class of spiritual beings.  Fallen angels: locked up.  Demons: at large.  The Satan doesn't belong to either one of those classes of beings, and no scripture claims any overlap between the two groups themselves.

(I realize I keep repeating "No scripture says X, Y, or Z," but there's no easy way to prove a negative by citing anything.  If the Bible doesn't mention, let's say, "leprechauns," my only way of asserting that point is to write, "There is no scripture about leprechauns.") 

THEN WHAT IS SATAN?

Not an angel, not a demon, not even that slithery snake in the Garden of Eden (you can read my explanation of that here) … what is this Satan creature?  And why do I keep calling him the Satan?

The Book of Job introduces him.  He is one of the B’nai ha-elohim, which translates as “the sons of the God[s],” a divine council in the heights of heaven who assemble with God.  That's the Satan's group ID; he's one of them.  These "sons of Elohim" are yet another non-angel class of spiritual entity, and the Satan is numbered among them.  His name isn’t really a name – it’s actually a title in Hebrew, “the Adversary,” a legal term like “the prosecuting attorney.”  As the Adversary, he works for God, still in the heavens at the time of Job and not yet fallen.  In concert with God, he’s sent out to test Job’s faithfulness, a trial in which Job, a clearly innocent and righteous man, is tested as if he is not at all righteous but deserving of horrific punishment.  The Satan delivers that punishment, killing people and sickening Job as part of the God-approved test.

So … not an angel.  And in Job’s time, not quite the devil yet, but used by God for some pretty nasty torment.

 

AND WHAT ABOUT ANGELS?

Holy katz!  I’m near the maximum word count I allow myself for these blogs, and I haven’t even gotten to what angels are yet!   I’ve only covered how

• They’re not cherubim
• They’re not seraphim
• Satan was never one of them
• Fallen ones never became demons

And here I was planning on explaining that there’s no Angel of Death, either (it’s a different scary beastie on God’s team).  So many misconceptions to clear up before I get to the main points!  It isn’t a baffle of angels after all.  It’s a baffle of human traditions and storytelling that has clouded over the actual information we find in the Bible.

We shouldn’t be surprised that there are so many biblical categories of spiritual beings, or that so many of them are scary.  It’s a big universe out there, and an awful waste of space if there aren’t trillions upon trillions of other beings, including the spirit kinds.  It was Paul the Apostle who noted in Ephesians 6:12 that we have invisible company (not of the flesh, he emphasizes) that he categorizes as:

• Rulers
• Authorities
• Cosmic powers
• Spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places

and in Colossians 1:16 as:

• Thrones
• Dominions
• Rulers
• Authorities

I’m glad there’s more of them, more types of spiritual beings, than I can wrap my mind around.  I’m blessed by Christ’s grace that I have an eternity to grow in understanding of them and of so much more in this universe.  It’s a … well, a whole baffle of entities!

 

UH, YOYO … THE ANGELS?

Yes, yes … so what are angels?  That’s a topic I’ll be more than happy to explore scripturally in my next posting, teasingly titled: “Touched By An Angel?  D.O.A.”

Before you leave, however, I’d like to explain what this post, this lead-in exercise, is all about.

Do I really care what might be the fine distinctions between a spirit called a “Throne” and a spirit called a “Dominion”?  Not particularly.  In fact, getting too far into the weeds on such topics is probably less than spiritually healthy (see Colossians 2:18-19).

The real point of this month’s post is to make us start thinking about what Bible facts we really know and what things we just think we know because somebody claimed it once or because it was summarized for us by a very smart-sounding person.

Love those people, fellowship with those people, but test those people.  And most of all, test yourself.  Test me.  We’re all learning these things together.  The moment we claim we know something without being able to back it up with evidence, we’re no longer free agents.  We’re just parrots on playback.  We’re complacent and wise in our own eyes.

And Proverbs 26:12 says that kind of thinking makes fools better off than us. 

I'll be back next time with my better angels.  Until then -- 

Mara Natha / Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx, a.k.a. YoYo Rez

Why You Don't Read the Bible

 

I’ve never read the novel Moby Dick, but, boy, do I have strong opinions about it.  And Shakespeare’s Hamlet?  Never read that, either.  I’ve had the “To be or not to be” soliloquy read to me a couple times in classes, though, so I can assure you that Hamlet is the greatest play of all time.

Wait a second.  Am I delusional?  Am I arrogant and lazy at the same time?  Am I simply a liar?

No.  I am a metaphor.  I am you, and the book I’m really referencing is your Bible, a book you claim to love but which you won’t read, preferring to have it read to you while you sit and spectate at church.  It’s a book you’d rather have filtered through your pastor’s established beliefs.  A book you demand should be taught in public schools but which you can’t be bothered to leaf through for yourself, no less study in depth.

***

Do the above paragraphs sound aggressive?  Probably.  They’d sound more engaging if I’d written them using the first person “I” rather than the second person “you” – “a book I’d rather have filtered through my pastor’s established beliefs.”  See?  That sounds more inviting, a bit like soul-searching on a journey we’re sharing together.

But to all things there is a season.  Sometimes it’s time to gently caress your feelings, and other times – for example, now – it’s a time to refrain from that embracing.  So, strap in; we are in the Season of You.

 

The Least-Read Bestseller

Most U.S. Christians – most of you – do not bother to crack open their Bibles even once a week.  Forget “studying to show yourself approved” (2 Tim. 2:15) or “searching the scriptures to see if things are true” (Acts 17:11).  You, American Christian, don’t even break out the Swiffer to dust off the cover of that book you claim to believe with all your heart.

It’s tough to get absolute numbers, but most major research groups (e.g., Barna, Pew, Lifeway, American Bible Society) indicate that less than a third of Christians report bothering to read Scripture during any given week.    To make matters worse, all those surveys are based on self-reporting, so we don’t know which of you are lying to make yourselves sound better to those researchers.  None of the surveys follow up the question “How frequently do you read the Bible?” with better questions like “What is the book of Zephaniah about?” or “What is your favorite verse in Two Corinthians?”

Have you wondered why you don’t read and study the Bible more on your own?  Then you’re in luck.  I’ve searched the Scriptures and I’ve found a few answers for you.

 

REASON 1: You Prefer McNuggets

“A sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he will not even bother to bring it back to his mouth.” (Proverbs 19:24).

 

You are a member of a faster-food generation.  Forget full-course meals (“from soup to nuts,” as 19^th century Americans would say); you won’t even go out for your fast food anymore, since Door Dash delivers.  You’ve grown that lazy and you'll soon wonder why you even have to go to the trouble of lifting the food all the way to your mouth.

For your McScriptures nutrition, you’d prefer to have kindly Reverend Spoonfeeder dish it out every Sunday.  When the Pew researcher calls, you’re happy to count that as your “I read Scripture once a week” answer.  Or, heck, if you can’t make it to church this week, you’ll gladly indulge in a video from Dr. BlurtTube, an influencer thrilled to get your monetized click in exchange for what is most certainly an inerrant biblical perspective on voting Libertarian or dieting with Ancient Recipes of God’s Word.

 

REASON 2: You Like Being an Opinionated Fool

“Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions.” (Proverbs 18:2)

 

You know this Gospel message stuff inside and out.  In fact, just last week you told Cousin Annabelle that she needs to get right with God, and you’re constantly telling your neighbor you’re praying for him and his tobacco-smokin’, Budweiser-chuggin’ ways.

While he chugs Bud, you sip baby milk like a new believer.  Or, to switch metaphors, you never get past the surface messages of Scripture.  I’m not saying you haven’t spun some bizarre web of hidden Scripture messages into a new, ear-tingling belief system.  That would be its own problem.  I’m simply saying you have lots and lots of opinions that you’re pretty sure come from the Bible, except you can’t remember the last time you checked to make sure.  You know all the right things to say, all the opinions you should loudly express, but you’d be at a loss to demonstrate where those ideas come from.  After all, why pursue deeper understanding when you’ve already got your fully formed opinions?

Quick questions: Where in the Bible does God talk about having two wives whom He sends off to be raped and killed?  Where does God order a prophet to marry a prostitute?  Where does the Apostle Paul fantasize about cutting off other men’s private parts?  I bet it’s your opinion that the Bible wouldn’t say such things.

You need to read.

 

REASON 3: You’re a Lazy Sluggard

“The slacker does not plow in season; at harvest time he looks, but there is nothing there.” (Proverbs 20:4)

Okay, I know saying “lazy sluggard” in my subhead is repetitive (what we language people call a “pleonasm”), but I really wanted to stress how much of a lazy, sluggardly, lethargically indolent slacker you are.   Instead of re-reading the Gospels, you sit around watching The Chosen.  Instead of humbly and gently explaining the reason for your hopes and beliefs (see 2 Peter 3:15), you slap links into online comment sections to argue you’re right because you found a headline that agrees with you.  (You don’t actually read the article behind the link.  You liked the headline, so that was enough).

And laziest of all, you expect your pastor to do the Bible thinking for you.

I have more bad news about our generation: Your pastor might be just as lazy as you are.  Lately I’ve tripped over several preachers whose sermons are crafted by ChatGTP or who take pre-written sermons from online and read them off dramatically without attributing them to the real authors or sources.  I’ve listened to preachers besmirch “people who dig into all that Greek,” mocking those who work with the very language of the New Testament.  I’ve even had one tell me, defensively, that he’s so busy with other stuff, he can’t make time to create his own sermons.

Yup.  Your pastor might be as lazy as you.

To circle back to the proverb above: You have a field.  That field is your mind.  All of that mind needs to love the Lord, the way you claim all of your heart does.  You need to plow your field and end your sluggard ways.  Awake, O sleeper, arise from sloth, and the Word will shine through you. 

 

REASON 4: Or, You Know, Maybe I’m Wrong

“Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still; teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.” (Proverbs 9:9)

 

You’re still reading!  By now, most believers who started reading this post have hit a TL;DR moment and wandered off to feel offended, maybe grabbing some popcorn and watching a trailer for a Left Behind spinoff.  But you came this far, you stuck with the words, and that means … I might be wrong about you.  You may not be the “you” I’ve been addressing.

But if you’re like me, you probably feel you don’t give nearly enough time to understanding Scripture to its most beautiful depths, its most painful correctives, or its most useful insights about human nature.  You read it, but you have a nagging feeling you don’t read it enough.

Since you stuck with this to the end, let me close with suggestions that might help you get deeper into the Word more regularly.  These are tips; only you can make them realities, and only committing to one behavior at one level will help move you forward.

 

For the Beginner

Listen at church to the main Bible passage addressed by your pastor/preacher/priest/prior.  The next day, read the chapter before that passage as well as the one after the passage.  Reread those three sections regularly (dare I say religiously?) once each day through the coming week.  Ask yourself what more your preacher could have said about the passage.  If you enjoy writing or journaling, even jot a few notes down about what could have been added, things you saw that your preacher didn't mention.

 

For the Advanced Beginner

Do the same as above but upgrade your Bible.  What do I mean by that?  If you have a Bible that’s light on explanations and footnotes, invest in a version that has strong historical, cultural, and language notes in teeny-tiny print at the bottom.  I won’t recommend a specific title, but I encourage you to continue the "beginner" practice, now incorporating the notes in your daily reading as well.  Continue limiting it to three chapters; remember, we’re trying to retrain our McNugget brains.

 

For the Intermediate Level

Time to grow.  Keep a Bible at your bedside.  When you wake up, read a chapter and its notes.  (If necessary, first kiss your spouse good morning and/or make a potty run.)  Do this with a paper Bible.  Child of the digital age that I am, I still realize my phone and computers have too many temptations to drag me from the Bible text.

You are now reading on your own, not basing your readings on your pastor.  The notes that go with the chapter are making you a better student of the Word.  But where to start?  You’ve heard countless people urge you to begin solo Bible reading in the Gospel of John.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you’re more fascinated by history, start with Luke or Judges.  If your mindset is more devotional, start in Psalms.  If you have a practical brain, dive into Proverbs.  But do not neglect the notes or study sections of the passages you choose.  You need input from a multitude of counselors (Proverbs 11:14).

 

For the Upper Intermediate

You’ve read all or most of the Bible.  So did Timothy, who learned as much of it as existed during his childhood (2 Tim. 3:15) but whom Paul still urged onward in his studies (2 Tim. 2:15).  You know it; now you need to know it.   So, now involve a friend to be a co-reader with you.  This is a partner to keep you accountable and with whom you can share insights.  Please note: It should not be your spouse.  You two are in love and are already accommodating each other’s imperfections, and this effort needs someone you’d feel a little embarrassed disappointing.  It should also not be a group Bible Study; those are fine, but you feel less accountable skipping out on a group or letting them do all the reading for you.  You and your study partner will be reading the same scripture sections, taking insight notes separately, and reporting to each other each week.  Regularly.  Like clockwork. The Lord “delights in people who are trustworthy” (Proverbs 12:22), so the two of you are turning each other into trustworthy delights.

 

For the Advanced

Heck, you know all this stuff.  You’ve done this for several years.  You’ve even looked up some of those Greek words online through Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.  You know it’s a righteous thing to keep reading Scripture, but what more is there to learn?

It’s time to stop reading the Bible to find what it means for you.  You need to learn what it meant to the original authors and the original audiences.  Step One is to stop using Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance,   It’s an 1890’s text suffering from errors, omissions, misrepresented word roots, and definitions that are woefully inaccurate when taken out of context.  This isn’t just me being a snotty linguist; Strong’s shortcomings are widely reported by numerous respectable researchers and institutions.

Step Two has a couple Bible-tool recommendations from me: You can try Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, compiled around the same time as Strong’s but more thoroughly edited, revised, and updated.  It compares usage of New Testament Greek words to other, nonbiblical Greek texts to ferret out true meaning at the time (very helpful for what we word nerds call hapax legomenon, words that only appear once in the entire New Testament and which therefore might have suspect translations in some Bible versions).  A less word-nerdy but slightly more expensive option is Danker’s The Concise Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, written in more accessible language but still thorough in pointing out meaning variations for deeper understanding of a Bible text.

The Hebrew language offers similar lexicons, but, having studied only Greek,  I’m not qualified to comment on which Hebrew guides have better quality.  You’re advanced, though; find yourself a pro. 😊

 

And For the Close …

You want to know the Bible better.  You wouldn’t have read this far if you didn’t.  You want to ponder prayerfully why Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to God, why Abram married his own half-sister, why God never changes but does change His mind, why there are offerings of golden hemorrhoids, why some Bible translations have dragons and unicorns ... numerous things you may never hear preached in your church.

You want this.  You want to understand the stories of different eras in a text written and edited over a period of 1,500 years.

You want to begin learning the culture – or, better said, the multiple cultures as you cross time and geography.

But to do that, you have to read.  Regularly.  Daily.

Start today.

“They received the word with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were true.” (Acts 17:11)

 

Marana Tha,

YoYo Rez / Cosmic Parx

 

P.S.: I was kidding.  I have read Moby Dick and Hamlet.

 

Lady Freedom & the Riot

 

     My absentee ballot for the US elections will be arriving soon, which of course means my thoughts are drifting once more to my homeland, the proverbial “land of the free.”

     But what is freedom?  More important, what is freedom from the perspective of a follower of Jesus, who proclaimed “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36)?

     With both major political parties in the U.S. laying claim to the term “freedom,” this seems like the right month for a word study: eleutheria, the Greek word used in the New Testament for “freedom” or “liberty.”

 

EPHESUS BEFORE JESUS

     In pagan Greece, one deity laid claim to the title of “freedom”: Artemis Eleutheria, goddess of the hunt and of liberty.  From my point of view as an ex-pat American, Eleutheria is interesting because she was the goddess on whom the Statue of Liberty was modeled.  Her Latin name, when she’s broken off from Artemis as a standalone goddess, was Libertas.  From my viewpoint as a Christian, my ears perk up at the Artemis side of her identity.  That’s because of Acts chapter 19.

     Stroll along with me as I give you a little more backstory.

     The goddess Artemis was a favorite throughout the cities of the Greek world, believed to be the sister of the god Apollo and mistress of the hunt.  In the city of Myra (in what is modern-day Turkey), she was worshipped exclusively under the name of Artemis Eleutheria, adding freedom to her many epithets.  However, several hours up the Asia Minor coast in the city of Ephesus … you know this ancient city thanks to the epistle that Paul wrote to the church there … Artemis had been raised to an even more exalted status.  There, she was also a fertility goddess, the divine being who granted women pregnancy.  The Ephesian temple built in her honor was on the grounds where, it was said, her image had “fallen from heaven” (Acts 19:35).  That temple, destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries, is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

     When your city's principal pagan goddess is all about childbirth, those who have children rise in status.  And if you can’t have babies (since there’s no IVF technology for another two thousand years), what better way to up your chances of status than by using magic … specifically, small silver statues of the goddess to increase your odds of getting pregnant?  A little home shrine, some incense burning, a small sacrifice or two … it was all worth it to gain the status of having children in Ephesus.  It meant Artemis Eleutheria was on your side.

     But then this guy named Paul shows up and starts talking about eleutheria, freedom, through a new deity you hadn’t heard of before.  He starts pushing ideas about a second birth, ideas that can make you, yourself, into a child of his God, and maybe even bring along your whole family for the eternal ride.

     If you’re a common citizen of Ephesus, you’re intrigued and might wish to learn more.  But if you’re a rich idol-builder who makes bank off those silver statues of Artemis, you’re not one bit happy.  This new religion threatens your income.  You need to do something.  You need to address the crowds and stir up their anger by making them feel that their way of life is being threatened.  You need to get them to storm the center of the city in an enraged, anti-Paul riot.

     The rich guy whipping up this civic insurrection was named Demetrius, and his story in Acts 19 makes clear that he cared far more about his wealth than he did about families having children.  Neither the pagan goddess Artemis nor this newcomer God called Jesus defined his eleutheria.  His freedom was built on his profiteering, and it was worth inciting a riot at the heart of his city-state to keep his pockets lined.  He staged that riot in the Great Theater of Ephesus, right up the street from the palace, the Ephesian center of government.

 

EPHESUS WITH JESUS

     Paul escaped the uprising.  He’d wanted to address the rioting mob, but his own companions and friendly local officials talked him down.  Over the years, the church took root in Ephesus, that land dedicated to Artemis.  And it came to pass that Paul saw fit to address an epistle to the young church there.

     Wait.  There’s an issue: How hard does Paul push the “become children of God” idea to former worshippers of a pregnancy-enabling goddess?  And how intensely does he drive the eleutheria concept of “freedom by salvation” to erstwhile devotees of Artemis Eleutheria?  His audience is mostly believers, of course, but some old ideas can linger just below the surface, waiting to reemerge.

     Paul decides that he has to conquer those pre-existing biases.  He’ll do it via a method he mentioned to believers in Corinth: “Take every thought captive for Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5, which many Bible scholars feel was written in Ephesus itself).  Paul decides to take ownership of the child-bearing concept in the very first sentences of his greeting to the Ephesians (1:5).  He declares himself and them to be huiothesia, the adopted sons and daughters of God.

     But doesn’t adoption imply lower status than children by natural childbirth?  Not at all.  It turns out Paul has decided to use a legal term here.  Huiothesia , according to distinct research papers by scholars G.F. Hawthorne, P. Miller, and J. Smith, is a Greek word tied to Roman law.  It indicates the designation of a non-related person as family, child, and rightful heir to all properties of the adopting party.  It’s a higher status than a second son, higher than a second daughter.  Legally, officially, it’s equal status to the firstborn and head of household.  Roma locuta, causa finita, one might say.

     Here’s the rhetorical punch Paul is throwing: “Sure, Artemis gave you social status through your childbearing; but Christ offers you status as the stepchild, the adopted child, the firstborn of a real God, and of the only real God, at that.  Human children are great, but nothing’s superior to being step-familied in through legal huiothesia.  Those are the true children of heaven.”

     Immediately, Paul continues his “capturing thoughts for Christ” by hinting at the concept of freedom.  He doesn’t use the word eleutheria yet.  He uses variations of the Greek charitos throughout verses 6 and 7.  That word contains the idea of gifts and free grace, with Paul praising God for the “gift He has gifted us” or “the grace with which He's graced us.”  He’s dangling the freedom idea without mentioning it directly.  After all, how much does a recipient pay for gifts he gets?  How much work did a graced believer trade for the grace he received?  Nothing and none.  It’s without cost and priceless, all at once.  It’s hints of eleutheria without the Artemis baggage.

     Paul’s not done yet with his subtle undermining of the Acts 19 riot and its rich, greedy perpetrators.  He reminds his Ephesian readers that they are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a pledge against the day of their full inheritance in God (v. 14).  Paul here opts to refer to the Holy Spirit as an arrabon.  That Greek word is usually translated as “a guarantee” or “a pledge” in English Bible versions, but arrabon is a technical term found throughout the ancient Greek world in financial and business documents.  It is a “downpayment.”  That’s not a modernization of the term; Greeks and Romans had literal downpayment systems much like our own.  It wouldn’t be far off, in fact, to translate a portion of this verse as, “the promised Spirit, our layaway plan.”

     The next idea Paul takes captive for Christ is the concept of riches.  In the second chapter of Ephesians, he celebrates (v. 4-8) how amazingly rich believers are because God Himself is rich (in mercy), providing incomparable riches (of grace) and handing out the best free gift (charitos, again) of eternal life to those children born a second time through faith. So, chew on that, you silver-crafting, money-lusting instigators of riots in Ephesus’s own capital neighborhood.

     Paul spends the entirety of his letter celebrating freedom in Christ without actually using the term eleutheria (wait for it, though).  He shares the wisdom of the Gospel, a mystery revealed first to the Apostles and then to the Ephesians.  It’s no coincidence that Athena, the sister of Artemis, was worshipped in so-called “mystery cults” as the goddess of wisdom.  Paul knows this, and claims more ground for Christ by capturing mystery and wisdom as well.  In verse 12 of chapter 3, Paul wields the Greek term for using “free speech” when approaching God: parresian, usually translated “boldness” but literally meaning “all-speech,” that is, speaking freely.

     Then, likely recalling the civic riots his first preaching mission preceded, Paul urges believers to put away “rage, anger, brawling, and slander” (4:31), embracing compassion toward their neighbors as the Christian way.  Peace, calm, and gentleness are the tools of the believer; shouts, demands, and verbal assaults are the weapons of unbelievers, whom Ephesians should treat with a mind and manner like Christ’s.  They’re safe from unbelievers’ assaults, after all.  They have the armor of God.

 

AND THEN THERE’S SLAVERY

     Finally, in the closing portion of the letter, Paul hits the Ephesian church with that loaded term, the Greek word that was part of the name of their former goddess of freedom, eleutheria.

     He’s been subtle about it up to now.  But Paul jolts his readers into appreciating eleutheria fully by countering it with the Greek term for its very opposite: doulos.

     Paul never shied from the term doulos, “slave,” in any of his writings, using it liberally in his letters to the Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, Colossians, and more.  But here, in an epistle to the land of Lady Liberty herself, Artemis Eleutheria, he saves it until the end.  Early in the letter he even steps away from his common self-designation as a "slave" of Christ by calling himself a diakonos, a deacon-servant of Christ.  It’s as if he’s holding back, saving the doulos for impact.

     By the way, doulos really does mean “slave.”  Any translation or minister who claims the meaning of the word is “servant” is being misleading.  When Mary prays, as some translations put it, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38), she is actually saying, “Look here at God’s slave girl [doula].”  When Paul says in Romans 6:20 that we were once douloi of sin, he means we were sin’s very slaves, not simply servants bringing it refreshments at poolside when summoned.  The douloi were human beings owned by their human masters, not low-ranking employees going home at the end of the day.  Therefore, beware when your English-language Bible says “servant,” because you don’t know whether its original word was diakonos, an actual servant employee, or doulos, a human being owned by another.

     One more “by-the-way”: Don’t fall for it when a preacher tells you slavery was different in those days and slaves were treated better than they were during the world’s colonial era.  Some orators claim this is true and support it by pointing at ancient rules, biblical and nonbiblical, about how slaves needed to be treated well.  Rules are not reality, and rules are put in place because there’s a need for them, not because everyone’s already complying with unwritten versions of them.  Otherwise, one could point at any country and claim there are no murders there because they have a rule against murders.  Not likely, my friends.

     Okay, back to Paul and Ephesians:

     In closing, Paul starts giving out marching orders.  Kids, he says, obey your parents.  And you parents, don’t exasperate your kids.  And hey, you slaves?  (“Wait, what?  Slaves, here in freedom land?”)  Yeah, you slaves, here’s some direction – obey your flesh masters, not just with eyeball-slavery when they’re looking, but as if you were Christ’s slaves …. because you are.  You’re to do goodwill slaving for God, not as if you were doing it for humans.

     Paul hits them here with every form of the word “slave” he can fit in.  And yes, Greek has a word for eyeball-slaving: ophthalmodoulian (say that ten times fast), requiring most translations of verse 6:6 to stretch out the English into some version of “not just pleasing them when they’re looking.”

     I can imagine early readers or listeners of the epistle wondering why they’re suddenly being barraged with the “slave” word in every clause when it hadn’t been used at all until now.  Then it hits them – Paul says, “You know you’ll be rewarded by the Lord for every good deed, even if you are a slave.  Or even if you’re … free.”  It’s Paul’s one and only use of the most common word for “free” in his epistle to the land of Artemis.  He reminds them, one and all, slave and owner, that they’re no longer the property of a goddess of fertility, freedom, and the hunt.  They are children born of God, His adopted stepkids, given legal family status and true eleutheria in the kingdom of God.

 

ELEUTHERIA

     Ancient Greek has a number of words tied to freedom.  Some can be found in scripture, like parrema (freedom of speech, plain speaking) and eremia (freedom from loneliness, interestingly used in scripture only as a geographic term, the desert).

     Other Greek words tied to freedom never make it into the New Testament, like adeia (freedom from pain) and autexousios (free will).

     By far, though, the New Testament’s preferred word for freedom is eleutheria in its various forms.  When you see the word “free” in your Bible, it’s very likely a translation of that.

     Allow me to turn a little sociological for a moment.  As an American, I’ve been culturally trained to see “freedom” from one angle: “freedom TO.”  I have freedom to use speech, freedom to assemble, freedom to bear arms, freedom to petition the government when I think they’re wrong about something.  True, I have freedoms FROM some things like unreasonable searches, but my Constitution even phrases that as a freedom TO – “the right of the people to be secure in their persons.”  I point this out because the more I study the word eleutheria, the less it seems to be about my individual freedom to do things.  I think scripture uses it more as a freedom FROM idea.

     It’s less a matter of “I am free,” more a matter of “I am freed.”  To me, that seems the more Christian approach to the word.  It’s not that I have liberty; it’s that I’ve been liberated.

     As examples:

• In 1 Corinthians 10:29, I’m told I’m freed from the dietary restrictions of the old Law … but I shouldn’t scandalize others with my freedom, since I’m not seeking my own good, but the good of others.
  
  
• In Galatians 2, I learn that Titus has been freed from expectations that he be circumcised, and he’s spared the demands of those who snuck into Paul’s group to spy on their eleutherian in Christ in order to re-doulos them.
  
  
• Galatians 5, perhaps the most powerful part of scripture dealing with freedom in Christ, declares me freed from the flesh … but then invited to make myself, through love, a doula to my fellow believers.
  
  
• 1 Peter 2:16 charges me not to use my eleutheria as an excuse to sin, but to do good as an example and to show myself as a doula of God … freed to get into the right kind of “slavery,” total ownership by the Lord.
  
  
• 2 Corinthians 3:17 declares me freed from all the Law, even claiming that the eleutheria I live in is God shining through me, something the Law could never do.
  
  
• James 2:12 declares me freed from being judged and from judging others, since the perfect law that gives me eleutheria functions on mercy, not judgment.
  
  
• Romans 8:21 caps off my reflections by assuring me that the whole physical world will, in the end, share in the eleutheria of the children of God, freed from its doulos status of decay.  Talk about reversing entropy!

      There’s one final twist.  Eleutheria isn’t for me, the individual.  That is to say, it isn’t focused on upholding my individual liberty.  Through etymology, the history of how words evolve from other words, we can trace the term eleutheria back to its proto-Hellenic (that means “earliest Greek”) form, and even to its root in Proto-Indo-European.  The term is h₁lewdʰ (yeah, I can’t pronounce that either).  That word, the great-grandaddy of eleutheria, means “belonging to the tribe.”

     In other words, the root of freedom as used in biblical Greek is not the idea of individual rights, but of belonging.  I’m not a slave, I’m one of the freed citizens.  I’m not on my own; I’m in the body.  I’m not a hermit; I’m a freewoman in the Collective of Christ.  Sure, I have individual rights, but I have to think of the others who might be affected by my behaviors, my actions, my freedoms.  That’s what this word means, and it’s what Paul spells out for the Ephesians.  It’s what Paul spells out for you and me.

     When I fill in my absentee ballot to vote this year, that’s the kind of freedom I’ll be considering when I make my choices.

Maran Atha,

YoYo Rez / Cosmic Parx

I Am Submissive

This month is my 11th-year wedding anniversary, so I thought I'd give myself (and you) a blast from my past by posting the blog I composed before my wedding.  I'm happy to report that I still buy into the ideas of younger me.  I'm also happy to report that none of the "dark side" considerations ever came to pass -- but it never hurts to be mentally prepared!  ~ Yolanda Ramírez, 08/2024

The Parable I Thought I Knew

“The very rich are different from you and me.”  ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Yes.  They have more money.”  ~ Ernest Hemingway

     I was giving myself a break this month.  School was ending.  Paperwork was piled high.  Another class was graduating.  Some teaching staff were shifting.  So, hey, why not give myself an easy blog-writing task this time around?  Why not reflect prayerfully on a single parable, “The Rich Man and Lazarus,” and jot some basic thoughts about how it edifies me?

     A sound plan.  But, man … who knew this was a controversial parable?  Who’d have guessed it has depths to it that Jesus’ audience could grasp but which require deeper study on the part of a modern reader?  And who knew it would awaken that still, small voice within me that sometimes stirs and whispers: “With your whole mind.  You’re to love Me with your whole mind, so no treading water”?

     God knew.  Easy month?  He’s smiling at me as I dive in.  It’s for my own good.

 

I’VE GOT ISSUES

     The story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is found only in the Gospel of Luke.  It’s positioned within a stretch of a half-dozen parables in a setting that starts with chapter 15 and ends a little way into 17.  The parables are interspersed with direct teachings Jesus addresses to a diverse crowd.  Sometimes He’s talking to the tax collectors and sinners gathered.  Other times He’s addressing the Pharisees in attendance.  Still others, Luke records, He’s talking directly to His own inner circle of disciples.

     You know the tale in chapter 16: A rich guy (who’s sometimes called Dives, although that’s simply the Latin for “rich man” and not a name) relaxes and feasts every day while a beggar named Lazarus sits outside his gate, longing for table scraps.  After they both die, Lazarus is escorted by angels to the “bosom of Abraham” while the rich man winds up in a fiery Hades.  The rich man begs Abraham to let Lazarus pass along the merest drop of water but gets turned down.  Then he begs that Lazarus be sent back to Earth to warn the rich man’s brothers about the afterlife.  That request is also denied.

     It seemed a simple enough story to me.  Issues arose, though, when I turned to Bible commentators for deeper study.  (I always turn to commentators, ancient and modern, since there is wisdom in many counselors [Prov. 11:14] and since no scripture is of personal interpretation [2 Pet. 1:20]).  John Calvin’s commentaries reveal that he didn’t consider the story to be a parable at all, but instead saw it “to be the narrative of an actual fact.”  Martin Luther, who does see the tale as a parable, doesn’t consider “the bosom of Abraham” as an actual state of the afterlife, but instead as a metaphor for the Word of God; the hades of the rich man he sees as a symbol of a judged conscience.  More than a millennium before these two gentlemen were born, the prominent Christian theologian Hippolytus saw the bosom of Abraham as an actual place for souls – not heaven, as I’ve always assumed in my amateur readings, but a segment of the Jewish sheol holding the souls of the righteous.

     That’s a lot of input to juggle over just one aspect of the account Jesus shared.  It turns out many more issues abound.  I limited myself to pondering just seven.  Follow me as I tiptoe through a few of them.  There’s no finesse or subtle point to the sequence in which I consider the issues here.  I’ll just follow the order the Lord brought them to mind as I read and studied.  Spoiler alert: I won’t get through all seven. 

 

Issue 1: Is this parable even a parable?

     John Calvin’s dismissal of this story’s status as a parable and his acceptance of it as a history rest on a single point: It’s the only parable with a named character, Lazarus.  Truthfully, it was that very point that first caught my attention, too.  But Calvin gives no further rationale for reaching his conclusion about the tale being real history, and he even abandons his insistence on its historicity once the narrative moves to the afterlife.  That part, he says in agreement with Luther, is all metaphor.

     The use of a name is, indeed, a one-off quirk among the parables of Jesus.  Yet in the parables, one-off quirks abound.  There’s only one mention amid the parables of goats, only one parable mentioning a widow, only one starring an enemy weed sower, only one about ten virgins (and not, as the NRSV mistranslates, “bridesmaids”).  No one questions the parable status of those stories.

       John Wesley agrees with Calvin, asking in his “Sermon 112” why Jesus would say “there was a certain rich man” and “there was a certain beggar” if there were not, in fact, such “certain” men historically.  His misstep is surprising here, especially for a man who knew all three Biblical languages and another five besides.  Anthropos tis, “a certain man” in biblical Greek, is also used in the parable of the “certain man” who had a prodigal son, the parable of the “certain man” who planted a fig tree, and the parable right before this one in Luke about a “certain man” who was a dishonest manager of his master’s money.  Certain men pop up throughout the parables.  Calling a character “a certain man” in Greek does not seem to bring that character to life historically in any other parable.

     Calvin and Wesley would need a little more evidence than “one off-ism” and “certain-man spottings” to convince me that this story – placed, remember, in the midst of a string of recognized parables – was somehow Jesus veering off into sharing a meaningful newsflash from real-life events.  That style of history-sharing seems outside the regular approach of the Man who always taught with parables (Matt. 13:34).

     Epilogue to this issue: I’m kind of irked at Wesley for claiming in “Sermon 112” that this story is “not a mere parable.”  Mere?  There is no such thing as a mere parable of Christ’s.  But Wesley and I will work this point out in the future when we’re chilling together in the Kingdom.

 

Issue 2: Is the afterlife the tale’s main point?

     There’s an interesting twist, however, to the “parable/not parable” discussion when we enter the world of modern commentary.  I encountered any number of sources insisting the tale is not a parable based on the fact that it shows the reality of hellfire as part of the rich man’s punishment.  Those trying to cast the story as a parable, say the not-a-parable crowd, are trying to erase the doctrine of eternal flames for the unsaved.  Therefore, the story is an historical event.  That, along with Calvin’s idea about the use of names, clinches it.

     That point of view isn’t off-base.  When I researched viewpoints of modern commentators, I found the most detailed, passionate arguments in favor of parable status for “the Rich Man and Lazarus” coming from those who had a doctrinal stake in the rich man not literally suffering in hellfire.  Those included:

• Sects teaching mortalism, a Reformation-inspired belief that our souls sleep after death, awaiting reawakening at the last trump, only after which there will be hellfire for the unsaved;
  
  
• Sects teaching annihilationism, the idea that the dead in Christ are “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8), but that the unsaved are truly dead and gone from creation, annihilated;
  
  
• Sects teaching purgatory, a post-death promotion system that lets you gain back heaven if you missed out on it at first swing;
  
  
• Sects teaching universalism, the idea that nobody is eternally damned, and that all are saved through the sacrifice of Christ.

 

     For those holding the above beliefs, the story is required to be a parable.  In fact, to steal Wesley’s terminology, it needs to be a mere parable, so that its imagery of the afterlife can be dismissed as symbolic window dressing in support of a more real, but more metaphoric message Jesus is getting across.

     Those arguing against this viewpoint (I know!  Commentators arguing?  So hard to believe.) push back by clinging to the Calvinist name-claim and the Wesleyan tis (“certain.”)  There’s also some discussion of how the story being told in the past tense proves it's a history, but a few minutes of Scripture searching reveal that that, too, is common to numerous parables.  After past-tensing, tis-claiming, and name-dropping, the must-be-history commentators wax prosaic on the importance of literal hellfire and literal separation for eternity.

     Therein lies a new issue, the burden of literalism when superimposed on a parable.  If the hellfire and the eternal separation of the story are literal, historical facts, then there are other elements of the account that need to be accepted as literal:

• That angels, like psychopomps, escort the souls of the dead in a very Hermes (Greek) and Anubis (Egyptian) way
  
• That disembodied spirits in the afterlife have eyes to lift up and tongues to be cooled
  
• That those tongues could be touched with literal water in the spiritual realm
  
• That the inhabitants of Abraham’s bosom can watch the suffering of those in Hades
  
• That conversations can be held across the great chasm separating the two realms
  
• That any of the damned, as in this story, can initiate conversations with the saved at will

 

     In a parable, we don’t expect every detail to be literal.  But if the account being shared by Jesus is an historical event, we can expect all the details above to be realities.  And that might shake up some parts of our teleology and eschatology, the Kingdom come and coming.

     Darrell L. Bock makes a sound point about interpreting scripture in the Fall 1997 edition of the Southwestern Journal of Theology: “… as a matter of method, one should determine genre and then doctrine” (emphasis mine).  In other words, knowing what type of writing you’re reading in the scriptures will help you better understand, interpret, and apply that scripture in your life.

     I’ll explain that in a little more depth.  Consider the Bible verse, “Blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”  Atheists like to quote that line in an effort to show the Bible as an immoral text.  The verse occurs in Psalm 137 – a poem, maybe a song, written from a viewpoint of utter despair during the Hebrew enslavement in Babylon after the destruction of their temple.  Without doubt, it’s from a time of the darkest night of the Hebrew soul.  A sense of betrayal, injustice, fury, revenge … so, genre: lamentation poetry.  When seen in its historical context and proper genre, it’s obvious that that single verse isn’t intended as a guideline for crafting moral doctrines about interacting with enemies, Hamas and Netanyahu’s behaviors notwithstanding.

     It’s from that perspective that Darrell Bock recommends Christians accept the story of the rich man and Lazarus as the parable it is.  His commentary reminds readers that parables are filled with actual facts and elements from real life.  To call an account a “parable” is not to call it “an unbelievable fairy tale, false in every way.”  The setting may be partially make-believe, but the characters are people just like us.  Their situations may be fictional, but the message Jesus gives us through them is all too real.  The message is what’s real.  The setting may not be.

     “Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”  That’s a line borrowed from the poet Marianne Moore by one preeminent scholar of parables, John Dominic Crossan.  For Crossan, that’s the essence of the parable genre.  We’re the real toads represented in Jesus’ parables.  The setting Jesus creates, whether a road to Jericho or a bosom of Abraham, that’s the imaginary garden, and it isn’t nearly as important as the message the characters bring to life for our edification.  So, crafting doctrines of the afterlife from setting elements of a parable may not be our wisest approach to rightly dividing the word of truth.  There are plenty of other scripture passages giving us solid information on the nature of heaven and Gehenna.  Parables have a different kind of power, the kind that really makes them more than “mere” parables.

     Yeah.  I’m still looking at you, John Wesley.

 

Issue 3: Did Jesus use local folk tales to craft this parable?

     Once upon a time, or so the tale goes, an Egyptian was miraculously reborn to an infertile couple as Si-Osiris.  One day, his new father told him the story of a rich man who died and was given a wondrous funeral, while a poor man nearby was simply buried in the ground.  Hearing how sad the event made his father, Si-Osiris magically whisked him off to see Amnte, the Egyptian land of the dead.  There they saw the rich man, living in torment.  There as well was the poor man, living in luxury.  The poor man’s good deeds had far outweighed his bad, while the opposite was true of the rich man.

     Once upon another time, or so the tale evolved after it had traveled from Alexandria in Egypt up to Jerusalem, there was a poor scholar, never named, and a rich tax collector named Bar Ma’jan.  Because of one good deed he’d done, Bar Ma’jan was given a lavish funeral.  The unnamed scholar had a simple burial.  However, one of the scholar’s friends soon after had a dream: the poor scholar was in the afterlife, living in an opulent garden with refreshing, flowing streams.  Bar Ma’jan was trapped out of reach of the stream, unable to get even a single drop of water.

     The second of those tales was popular throughout Palestina in the time of Christ.  I. Howard Marshall, in his thorough COMMENTARY ON LUKE, records that there are at least seven attested versions of this story in Jewish lore during the first century.  It appears that Jesus used the story, improved it, and put a whole new Kingdom of God spin on it.

     It isn’t unthinkable that Jesus might use nonbiblical sources for His teachings.  In various epistles, Paul cited non-religious insights of the Greek writers Meander, Epimenides, and Aretus, while Matthew, Luke, Jude, and the writer of Hebrews all borrow lines or full tales from nonbiblical religious apocrypha.  You may recall that Paul even usurped an altar “to an unknown god” (Acts 17:23) in Athens, using it as a launching point to share the Gospel with the citizens, saying (truthfully) he’d come to proclaim the God unknown to them.  So, seeing Jesus do something similar seems to be in line with the teaching styles of the era.

     Using the familiar to introduce the new is good teaching technique.  Where I come from, it’s called “employing an anticipatory set to scaffold new learning.”  And knowing where the story came from … knowing that the people knew several versions of it as part of their daily folklore … clears up a few issues for modern readers and reveals some awesome Jesus-only twists:

• The poor beggar seems to have made no confession of faith or compliance with the Law to make him worthy of an afterlife of paradise.  However, because the folklore showed all versions of the poor man as a kind person, a doer of good, and humble, the crowd listening to Jesus didn’t need those extra details.  They knew a reversal was coming.
  
  
• The rich man, Bar Ma’jan in popular lore, doesn’t seem to have done anything evil, at least not directly.  Is he being damned just for being rich?  For being a little lazy?  True, he lounges in  porphyra, the purple robes of royalty and bossos, an Egyptian loan word for underwear made of expensive flax-based material that’s satiny and luxurious.  But porphyra and bossos alone can’t be inherently sinful.  The good wife of Proverbs 31 also wore those two elegant garments (v. 22).  Thanks to street lore known by the crowd, though, the rich man’s backstory of greed and selfishness were already built into the tale Jesus borrowed.
  
  
• More evidence of the rich man’s guilt: In the common folklore versions of the tale, the rich man never seemed to know the poor man in his own story.  Not true in Jesus’ telling.  Twice in the afterlife, the rich man refers to Lazarus by name.  That's clear evidence he knew who it was suffering outside his gates.  This isn’t just a reversal-of-fortune tale; the rich man is paying for his sin of conscious neglect.  In addition, we now see a very good plot reason Jesus chose to use a name in this specific parable.
  
  
• But Jesus pulls reversals even before the big one in the afterlife, adding more depth to the tale.  His parable takes away the name of the rich man and grants one to the beggar, the opposite of the common lore.  The rich man loses his identity; the beggar becomes real, becomes named.  “Lazarus” means “God helps him.”  Lazarus’s very name suggests the fuller message of the Gospel.  No, Lazarus did nothing to “earn” paradise.  It is God who helps him, God the one who makes the moves, God whose unearned grace is gift.
  
  
• Capping off the twists, common lore always gave the rich man a luxurious funeral.  The poor men of the folklore versions were always simply buried.  Now it is Lazarus who is carted off in honor, escorted by ministering spirits (a nod to the Egyptian origin of the lore) while the rich man is the one who is "just buried."  Lazarus was never poor, Jesus shows, in any way that really counts within the context of eternity.

 

     You’ve been patient watching me juggle only three of my seven “issues.”  Four remain, but I’ll keep them in my heart since I’ve reached my acceptable word count for one blog post.  Had I added more, I might have named this post “Rich Beggars Need Bread-Crust Napkins.”  Study the parable on your own to learn why.

     I’m sure the Lord is still smiling at my thinking I’d shrug this off as my easy month.  I smile back at Him with all the heart He touched, with all the soul He saved, with all the feeble weakness that I call my strength.

     And, I pray, with all my mind.

 

Marana Tha,

 YoYo Rez / Cosmic Parx