A Wife Who Knows Her Place

I’ve been thinking lately about conservative values and conservative roles for godly women who want to live a married life aligned with the Scriptures.  I know you’ve heard the same complaints that I have about women’s changing roles in modern culture.  Who is this “woman” of the 21^st century?  Can you still call her a woman?  What happened to ideals she aspired toward in the golden days of the 1950s?

I wasn’t born in the 1950s.  Neither was my mother, who escaped that decade by a couple years.  Still, Planet Earth Noobie that I am, I would like to paint a portrait for you.  A portrait of a woman, one who might intimidate you.  One you might not like much.  She’s one hundred percent 21^st century:

You know the type.  She’s unflinching, she’s pretty tough.  Dresses great.  You check her out, guys, but you can tell right away, she’s not accessible at the level of paycheck you’re pulling in.

But that doesn’t matter, because she’s taken.

She’s one of those high-powered working mothers, the sort who claims she can balance a life at the office and a full life as a mother at home.  She brings in as much money as her husband, maybe even more.  She’s equally comfortable talking about high-level business transactions as she is about get-your-hands-dirty mothering practices.  One second she’s discussing vendor management skills and international procurement strategies; the next she’s knitting sweaters for the baby.  She’s out of town all day performing a site assessment for expansion efforts of the manufacturing business she oversees ... but she’s up late at night, finishing the bills, since she handles much of the family finances.

She treats her family like royalty, and she treats her office staff like a second family.  She’s a manager, but she’s hands-on, willing to do all the daily tasks her staff does.  She runs that office.  She runs that house.  Check out her husband … Doesn’t he even care that she’s making herself look like the breadwinner?  He even brags about it at some of those Boards of Trustees he sits on.  He tells them all about the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit entity she spun off to handle corporate charitable outreach and community payback.  He’s proud of her extra money and how she doles it out to grubbing strangers!

It grates you just to see her.  You can tell she works out, she’s pretty buff – when on Earth does she find time for that?  And she just won't stop … those sweaters she knits the children, and those fashionable bed clothes, quilts, throws, and covers she does as her mommy hobby … she’s talking about starting an online business to sell some of those and earn money straight from the household, too!

Above all, she just won’t shut up about how much she loves God.

Confused?  Did you think I was going to be writing about some uber-feminist atheist?  Or did you know that I was going to tell you that this lady, described above, is the true conservative woman, the real product of the golden age?

No, she's not a 1950’s conservative.  We're talking way more conservative than that, back as far as the 900s B.C.  Because the woman I described above is the Proverbs 31 wife, simply recast in modern language, but with all the same roles, essentially.  And this 21st century woman – this focused, nonstop, business-running, household-organizing lady – is far more Scriptural than our modern fantasies of the stay-at-home dinner party hostess of black & white television days gone by.

Instead of saying that she was way out of your paycheck league, I probably should have said that her price was far beyond rubies (Prov. 31:10).  And instead of telling you she manages overseas procurement operations, I might have simply compared her to “merchant ships, bringing food from afar” (v. 14).  But before I go any further, I think I’ll have you pause and take a read through the section of Proverbs 31 I’m referencing.  Keep my 21^st century woman in mind as you read this selection, and see if you can uncover where her attributes match those of the Proverbs 31 wife:

 ¹⁰ A wife of noble character who can find?

   She is worth far more than rubies.

¹¹ Her husband has full confidence in her

   and lacks nothing of value.

¹² She brings him good, not harm,

   all the days of her life.

¹³ She selects wool and flax

   and works with eager hands.

¹⁴ She is like the merchant ships,

   bringing her food from afar.

¹⁵ She gets up while it is still night;

   she provides food for her family

   and portions for her female servants.

¹⁶ She considers a field and buys it;

   out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

¹⁷ She sets about her work vigorously;

   her arms are strong for her tasks.

¹⁸ She sees that her trading is profitable,

   and her lamp does not go out at night.

¹⁹ In her hand she holds the distaff

   and grasps the spindle with her fingers.

²⁰ She opens her arms to the poor

   and extends her hands to the needy.

²¹ When it snows, she has no fear for her household;

   for all of them are clothed in scarlet.

²² She makes coverings for her bed;

   she is clothed in fine linen and purple.

²³ Her husband is respected at the city gate,

   where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.

²⁴ She makes linen garments and sells them,

   and supplies the merchants with sashes.

²⁵ She is clothed with strength and dignity;

   she can laugh at the days to come.

²⁶ She speaks with wisdom,

   and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

²⁷ She watches over the affairs of her household

   and does not eat the bread of idleness.

²⁸ Her children arise and call her blessed;

   her husband also, and he praises her:

²⁹ “Many women do noble things,

   but you surpass them all.”

³⁰ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;

   but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

³¹ Honor her for all that her hands have done,

   and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Now that you’ve reread the passage with my 21^st century woman in mind, I ask you … is this June Cleaver or Mrs. Brady Bunch?  No.  This Proverbs 31 woman is nowhere near as diminutive or demure as the mythological 50's woman.  She is, rather, exactly the kind of woman that many so-called “conservative” males rant and rave about in the U.S. Bible Belt these days.  She has her own money that she’s earning (v. 16b), negotiates both with vendors and merchants who sell the goods she produces (v. 21), and she’s a powerful capitalist who’s in it for the profit (v. 18).  She makes major land purchase decisions and oversees the profit-generating operations of the new land (v. 16a), and none of this …. none of it … feels threatening to her husband.  The Proverbs 31 husband is 100% behind her efforts (v. 11); he even brags about them to the other elders he hangs out with at the gates … doing, I dunno, whatever it is elders do at those gates of theirs, while BusinessMom manages the full range of affairs that keep the household and her disparate businesses in operation (v. 27).

Both her home and her business transactions are her passion.  Guiding all of that is her deepest passion of all … her awestruck love and fear of the Lord, who gave her these heart-fulfilling responsibilities and the strength and drive to achieve for her family, the most precious worldly good she’ll ever know.

***

Closing thought: A male acquaintance once told me that he would be “interested” in me, but only if he were sure I would be a “Proverbs 31 kind of wife.”  I was pretty sure he had June Cleaver on his mind, based on my past experience with him.  Rather than answering in my usual quippy style (“What’s your name again?” would have been a good comeback), I instead said: “Ten staff.”

“Huh?” he wittily rejoined.

“Ten staff.  Proverbs 31:15 says I would get to have serving girls living in the household with me.  I was just saying that a staff of ten of them would be a good start.  Can you afford that for your Proverbs 31 wife?”

He chuckled, and shuffled, and wandered away.

Okay, I was pushing, I know.  But why wouldn’t he want to hire me a staff of ten?

For all he knows, my price is well above rubies.

Marana tha,

Cosmic

Make Big $$$ w/ur Psychic Powers!

By the end of this post, you’ll have the basic skills you need to become a novice Psychic.

“But, Cosmic!” you say.  “You usually write about the Lord, or about language, or about language and the Lord!  Have you lost your mind?”

Nah.  Because I don’t really want you to meddle in psychic affairs.  I want this: for you to recognize how some people … so-called psychics, TV charlatans, even “deceitful workmen disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:13) … can use language to pretend to wield marvelous powers and work wonders.  I want you to see their false “miracles” and "insights" for the very basic word tricks they are.

And not to be controversial, but mostly I’m talking to women today.  Ladies, we are the ones, by which I mean those of our sex, who pump the most money into psychic hotlines and astrology readings and New Age claptrap.  We are the ones who get a special advisory from the Apostle Paul to avoid the godless deceivers who seem to be apostles, but who creep in and prey on the weak among us, promising us special learning that never really helps us arrive at a knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:6-7).

So get your Godly girl on and grasp how we get beguiled.

* * *

I sat in a church three years ago, watching the antics of a visiting preacher who had whipped the congregation to an emotional high.  As the excitement subsided, the preacher said, “The Lord is urging me now, urging, there is a woman, a woman whose name begins with an M … does that mean anything to anyone?  A special blessing for a woman, an M ...”  Two woman came forward, one who said her name was Michelle, another who said she’d been praying for her hospital-bound mother, Marie.  The visiting preacher had a special message from God for both of the women.  The congregation returned to a praise frenzy.  Every warning bell in my head went off.

Point 1: A woman whose name begins with M?  Did God not know the whole name when “He” spoke to the preacher?

Point 2: Two women went up when one was called upon?

Point 3: Did simply saying “there is a woman” mean she was even in attendance?  Any woman known by any of us, then?

I knew in an instant that I was watching a Mentalist performance, not a manifestation of God’s power.  The visiting preacher was using one of the most basic techniques of psychic performances.  He had a willing audience [excited believers], dangled a small bit of general information [the letter M for any female anywhere], and willing women provided the specific details [Marie, oh, and also Michelle], allowing the audience to ignore a clear error [more than one woman] and credit Mentalist Preacher with miraculous powers [return to praise frenzy].

With tricks like that, you don’t even need psychic powers or messages from the Lord.  You just let the willing shills do the work for you.  Their normal senses make up for your lack of a sixth one.  Let the dupes do the work.

“For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”  (Matt. 24:24)

* * *

And that's all you need to know to be a psychic.

“But Cosmic,” you ask, “can is be as simple as all that?”

Good question, and not one with an easy yes vs. no answer.  It appears simple from the listener’s viewpoint.  Behind the scenes, though, the charlatan is doing things with language that have effects you might not suspect.

Let me show you how it works.  Let’s pretend I’m your neighborhood psychic, and you’ve just plopped down thirty bucks for a half hour session with me.

Indulge me here, it’s a teaching point.

I'm going to give you a general reading, just to build your confidence that I really am a psychic who's in touch with your inner feelings.  Can you smell the sweetness of the incense in my slightly darkened room?  I'm talking to YOU now ... not the person at the other computer, not to the Internet in general.  To you, [INSERT NAME].  Open your heart.  Here's something I know about you, [INSERT NAME], by reading your soul:

Deep down, you truly ARE self-confident. When it comes to your own areas of expertise ... and you have several ... you really KNOW what you know, and you have the insight to recognize the things you don't know.  You have a strong capacity for improving upon anything that catches your interest, although you don't let yourself get bogged down.  Here's my first bit of advice to you, what the spirits are advising you: Be careful not to let your confidence come across to others as arrogance.  The spirit world can see that you did that recently, and you are right to feel concerned about that.

Can you think of a time recently when your confidence came across as arrogance?  Bet you can.  Am I amazing, or what?  Is there anything I said above that you could disagree with?  Isn't that really what you're like?

Of course it’s what you’re like.  Consider the alternative:

Deep down, you're a sniveling coward.  You don't know diddly-squat, and you couldn't improve a darned thing, even if you had a real desire to.  Face it, whenever you open your mouth, people know you for the arrogant boob you are. The spirits don’t want to talk to you, they only hang with cool people.

Showing you the exact opposite of your “psychic reading” makes it clear how nearly anyone – especially those who voluntarily went to the psychic for a personal revelation – would accept a bunch of general words as a collection of probing insights.  We want the psychic to know us and to reveal things.  We want healer Peter Popoff to scam away our arthritis.  We want John Edward to cross over to the other side and find our relative whose name starts with an M or a J or an L.

* * *

Let’s take a closer look at what I said in my “reading” of you.  Here are five language secrets a “psychic” or charlatan will use to give you a sense that you’re hearing specialized messages.  If you try these tricks yourself, remember that you must only use your powers for good. 

Power 1: General v. Specific

As your first act of psychic seeing, state a general principle that sounds like a personality insight.  Identify a basic human trait you find loathsome, and tell your client -- the "psychee" -- that he or she embodies the opposite of that trait.  For example, everyone hates an insensitive lout, so tell the psychee she has compassion for those she sees struggling.  No one likes wishy-washy attitudes, so tell her she has a strong grasp of her personal convictions.  You won't be contradicted.  No one will say, "Actually, I'm a mental midget and a wimp."

Power 2: Generic Butter

Deliver a general compliment, a generic butter-up.  The key here is general.  Don't take the risk of saying, "You treat your children well," only to discover you're talking to an unmarried Benedictine nun.  Better would be, "Your friends stick with you because they know they can always rely on you for support."  Not everyone has children; everyone has friends, or at least believes they do.

Power 3: Get Deeeeeep

Your next language trick is to build the appearance that you're probing deeper.  Build on the general compliment by making a personality claim that sounds more specific.  Did you use the "friends" line in Power 2?  Then go with it.  "In fact," tell the psychee, "many of your friends rely on your advice to help them with the problems they're facing."  You've won them now.  Why does this work?  Assuming they came to you, they've already given you the benefit of the doubt.  You were psychic enough to see their good traits; now you've proved you know about their friends, and you detect that they've given advice to some of those friends, and you perceive that the advice was good.  How could you not be psychic, considering that level of accuracy?

Power 4: Flip the Script

Time for a quick twist.  Just when you've got them feeling good, you deliver the coup de grace -- you reveal your first bit of advice by focusing on the dark side of the virtue.  Make no mistake, every good trait has its negative extreme.  Sensitive people run the risk of being emotionally burdened by others; helpful people need to be careful of doing TOO much; industrious people should beware of overextending themselves.  By giving advice on the dark side of their virtue, you (1) show that you're no fluffy psychic fake who's afraid to give the bad news, and (2) further reinforce the GOOD trait you've been affirming all along.

Power 5: Put Them to Work

Ask your shill if something in their recent experience confirms the negative in #4.  If you've played the language rules right, almost anyone who came to you for psychic counseling will now reveal a real-life negative situation related to your general directions.  Take it from there ... if the negative relates to co-workers, make predictions about the psychee's future career path; if family, make predictions about future home events.  The trick is now to listen and build ... and you'll find your client doing most of the work for you, while you get the credit for deep insight.

* * *

No, no, no, I don’t want you to really do that stuff.  I want you to see it because it can be done to you.  Our walk in Christ calls us to be gentle as doves, yes, but we’re also to be wily as serpents (Matt. 10:16), and knowing the tricks of enemies is one step in the wily direction.  As a lover of words, it pains me that language is Satan’s forte.  And as a lover of the Word made flesh, I resent that the enemy employs words made dirty.

* * *

It’s hard for psychics and false prophets to get much out of me, simply because I don’t answer them back and therefore give them little to play with.  Here’s a recent example of a false prophet trying to give me a “word from the Lord”:

The Lord says -- your passion matches your calling. Your passion seems odd, out of place.  But He has given it to you.  It is beyond your understanding.  But His ways are beyond our ways.  Be obedient, and he will magnify you.  [The guy pauses here, then says:] Don’t know if that makes sense or not.  But I prayed and asked.

See the tricks at work in there?  The general vs. the specific … my passion!  The prophet sees my passion!  And the Lord can see I have a specific passion to do [FILL IN THE BLANK] for Him!  The generic butter … my passion matches my calling … way to go, Cosmic, you got it right!  It gets deeeeeeeep, beyond my understanding even.  And the script gets flipped with how odd and out of place the passion seems … but, generic butter again, I need to get obedient with pursuing that passion, so that the Lord will magnify me.

I have no idea what “passion” was being referred to.  Neither did the false prophet.  He was counting on my moving to fill in the blanks and grant him Power 5 (“I don’t know if that made sense or not”).  He wanted to put me to work for him, get me to say, “Do you suppose the Lord is referring to my awesome cooking skills or maybe my sparkly writing abilities?” Had I taken the bait, the prophesy would have continued, filling me with conceit and leading me down the liar’s path.

Alas, my only feedback was to nod in acknowledgement that I heard the words.

False prophets’ biggest vulnerability is just how darned false they are.

* * *

“They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth ….  They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because … their folly will be clear to everyone.” (2 Tim. 3:6-9)

* * *

Ew, downer.  Let’s end on a lighter note, okay?

Fans of the old Buffy the Vampire Slayer series might recognize this quippy exchange between hero-librarian Rupert Giles and the ever-suspicious Principal Snyder:

     Snyder:       There are some things I can just smell. It's like a sixth sense.

     Giles:          No, actually that would be one of the five.

The point: Let’s rule out natural causes and motives of the flesh before turning our sensibilities over to claims of the supernatural.

Maran Atha,

Cosmic

Super-Magic Jesus Words

If you have to say ‘If it be Thy will’ or ‘Thy will be done,’ if you have to say that, then you’re calling God a fool.  - Rev. Fred Price, preaching about praying

Thy will be done. – Jesus of Nazareth, praying

Today, I have random thoughts on how magical thinking works its way into otherwise healthy Christianity.

I’ve never been a fan of Word of Faith preacher Fred Price, quoted up there right before words from my real Hero.  And my dislike of his philosophies isn’t simply because he makes unkind comments about the blind and the deaf ("How can you glorify God in your body, when it doesn't function right?....What makes you think the Holy Ghost wants to live inside of a body where He can't see out through the windows, and He can't hear out the ears?" – Fred Price).

No, my real dislike of Freddy-boy’s teachings is how they help to sneak magical thinking into the Body of Christ.  Price and his ilk make a regular practice of insisting (1) God can’t do things in your life if you don’t invoke Him right, (2) wealth and health are the evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life, and (3) God adapts His will for you based on your will for yourself.

In other words … if you get the mantra right and “declare” and “claim” and “envision” yourself living the good life, Zeus has no option but to hand over the good things.

Sorry, not Zeus.  I meant God.


* * *


Here’s a hard one to write, because it’s about people I love: The other day, I sat in a prayer meeting and watched a brother in Christ be corrected by a prayer meeting leader (gently, though) who noted that the brother had prayed for someone who’d been “sent home to die” by the doctors.  The correction went something like this: Don’t say that the doctors sent your friend home to die, because when you say it that way, our words have the power to turn it into a reality.  Instead, say something positive, because that will bring about the positive result.  Say the doctors sent him home to enjoy an abundant life and to be healed.

What are we seeing here?  The fruit of ministries like Fred Price’s, magical thinking.  This kind of attitude envisions God as a prankster, one who is waiting for someone to use the wrong words, just to show them that he can hand over a bad thing, even when the heart of the praying believer is longing for a good thing.  “Aha!” says this type of god.  “I caught you asking wrongly!  Watch what happens, now that you’ve used the wrong words!”

This is not Christianity.  So what is it?

• It is the cartoonish thinking of Linus from the Charlie Brown cartoons, the character thrown into despair when he accidentally slips and says, “If the Great Pumpkin comes …” instead of  “When the Great Pumpkin comes …”  Linus believed he had stopped the coming miracle by a slip of the tongue.
• It is the diabolical thinking of any number of Deal With The Devil tales, in which a demon (or a genie, in Arabic literature) turns a good wish into a bad one by finding a loophole or flaw in the way the question was asked.
• It is the New Age foolishness of The Secret and other power-of-positive-thinking schemes, wherein simply thinking positive thoughts makes those positive thoughts come true … and when they don’t come true, it’s good evidence you were letting negative thoughts sneak in, you failure.

* * *

Does God punish negativity?  If God so thoroughly dislikes our speaking the negatives aloud, why on Earth did He permit so many depressing Psalms?  And a whole book of Lamentations!  Those are pretty odd selections from a Being who demands positive words and attitudes and punishes a downcast heart.

* * *

“Be careful what you pray for.  You might get it!”

This is another line I’ve heard casually tossed about by my brothers and sisters in Christ.  Sometimes it’s used as a half-joke; other times it’s delivered with deadly seriousness.  No matter which way it’s used, the concept underlying it is a slap at Scripture, at the assurances of Jesus in Matthew 7:

   Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

               Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

Word of Faith practitioners, with their demands that all magic words be phrased positively and as claims of affirmation, would hasten to point out that the son in this verse knows to ask for bread.  The son named it and claimed it!  But my worry is how they characterize the Lord’s role in this verse … seeing Him as a father who won’t give a thing to the son if the request isn’t made with perfect wording.  A god who responds with gleeful, puckish pranks when the petition is done incorrectly.  A god who reacts to magic words, rather than to real needs among his children.

A god who says, “Gotcha!”

* * *

Not everyone who uses Word of Faith vocabulary is a full-blown Word of Faith practitioner.  The problem, however, is that name-it-and-claim-it thinking sneaks into the ideas and words of true believers in Christ.  Think of yeast.  Think of dough.  Get the picture?  The danger is like that.  I’m being careful not to say what will happen, because I don’t want to say it out loud and force God to make it come true.

Just kidding.

Here are a three warning signs that magical Word of Faith thinking might be creeping into your congregation:

Clue 1--The power of names: When you ask for prayer for someone who isn’t present, those praying ask what the person’s name is.  This may seem innocent enough, but notice that when you don’t give the name, those praying will inevitably remind God, “You know all things, so you know this person’s name ...” Here’s what’s up with that: It is ancient, magical thinking to believe knowing a thing’s “true name” gives you power over that thing.  In shamanism, voodoo, occult practices, demonism, ecstatic-trance faiths, and fairy tales like Rumpelstiltskin, having the name means having the power.  Word of Faith practitioners (or those influenced by them) who don’t have the name always feel slightly uncomfortable, and seem driven to remind God that, yeah, okay, He knows the name, I guess.  He has the power, so He can do the magic, I suppose.  Remember, Lord, You know things.

Clue 2--Quoting Scripture to God:  Admit it.  You’ve heard it.  “Yes, Lord!  Praise you, Lord!  As You said in Your Scripture, as You taught us in Isaiah chapter 53 verse 5, by Your stripes we are healed … “ You’ve been in front of preachers who act as if they are talking to God, but in the course of it, tell Him specifically what He’s said in His Scriptures, and then give the citation of where He said it (should He wish to look it up later, I suppose).  As far as I can tell, preachers who do this frequently – note I said that last bit, for I don’t want you thinking I mean anyone who now and then cites a Scripture in the course of a prayer – but those who make a regular habit of quoting the Lord His own Scriptures, chapter and verse, are up to one of two things:

     1) They are not talking to the Lord at all, but talking to the audience,

         performing the prayer, and trying to whip up a powerful faith-knowledge
         combo in the minds of the believers … a spell, in essence, that will, by
         words of power, make the requested magic happen; or

     2) Even worse, they are talking to the Lord, and are trying to use some
         magic influence they believe to be in the words of Scripture to force
         the hand of God to act, and to bend His will to their own. If you think
         I may be overstating this, please reread the Fred Price quotation I opened
         with.

Clue 3--Your magic finances: To keep their health and wealth Gospel churning along, Word of Faith practitioners will give you Scripture’s magic formulas for becoming rich yourself.  Inevitably, this involves giving money to them.  Mind you, I am not talking about a church’s normal requests for donations.  Rather, I’m talking about those hucksters who craft biblical equations to spell out exactly what your monetary Return On Investment will be when you mail in your Love Offering.  Their message: giving is getting, and getting is holy.  Your health, your wealth, those are the evidence that the Holy Spirit lives in you.  The Holy Spirit, these preachers say, doesn’t want to live in a cheap shack … so give to us, that God might be freed from His shackles and give to you.

* * *

Dear Rev. Fred Price,

I learned from your sermons and from your son’s sermons that God will bless me one hundredfold if I give generously to your ministry in easy-to-make monthly payments.  You’ve shown me clearly in Genesis chapter 26 verse 12 that if I send you one hundred dollars, the Lord will be righteous and reward me with a hundred hundred-dollar bills!

Because I love your ministry so much, I want a blessing like that to fall upon you, not upon me.  It dawned on me: This principle of faith must work for you, too!  Therefore, I would like to encourage you to send me $1,000.00 U.S., which will result in God giving you $100,000.00 on my behalf.  Since I can’t afford to send you a hundred grand myself, this is the best way I can guarantee you get it.

I’ve enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelop for your convenience.  Getting that thousand to me before next Tuesday would be awesome, since my rent is due.

Sincerely,

Yolanda R.

* * *

You guys didn’t really think my name was “Cosmic Parx,”  did you?

Mara Natha,

Cosmic

What The Bible Isn’t

Today, random thoughts on the nature of the Christian Scriptures.

* * *

Please read this:

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Now please read this:

“All Scripture is handwritten by God in 17^th century English, and it is the Word of God just as Jesus is the Word of God, inerrant and unsurpassed for anything from mathematics, to recipes, to hidden messages revealed through code breaking: That the man of God may have handy quotations with which to browbeat his enemies.” (absolutely not 2 Timothy 3:16-17)

* * *

I have known people who quote the first set of lines above, all the while believing they are quoting the second set when they say the words of the first.  Some of these people (not all, not all) frighten me with their fury when discussing “Biblical inerrancy” – much the way some Muslims (not all, not all) frighten me with their willingness to break into riots, burn buildings, and trample one another upon learning that half a world away, some hick preacher has disrespected a paper copy of the Qur’an.

* * *

If, while reading this, you are already feeling defensive and argumentative and ready to pounce … you might be one of those people.

* * *

This line from a Baptist preacher made me sit up and soul-search a couple weeks ago: “Why are Fundamentalists always pointing to the Bible rather than to Jesus when they talk about their faith?”  The insight in that question stunned me into realizing how many people I know who raise the Bible above Jesus when asked to discuss their faith.  They even argue about some kind of equivalency between Jesus as the Word of God, and the Bible as the word of God.  It borders on book worship, in some cases.

* * *

Many Christians are fond of saying, with much force: “The church is not the building!  It’s the people!”

How many would look at me with stunned disbelief if I declared, with as much force: “The Word is not the book!  It’s the Savior!”

At least some would be sure I was on the verge of speaking heresy.

* * *

A friend, a brother in Christ, asked me last week if I took the Bible literally.  Actually, the question was, “Don’t you take the Bible literally?!?!?!” Naturally, I don’t know how many question marks and exclamation points were in the question, but from the force of the inquiry, I’m guessing three each.

I answered, “I believe the Lord aroused the writers of Scripture, and what’s in there is really useful.  I mean, I find the Bible really beneficial for shaping what I believe, and if I mess up, there’s bound to be insights in Scripture that show me what I did wrong.  It’s the book God uses to help me do what’s right.”

What followed was a lot of sputtering and stammering from my friend.  “Useful?  The Bible’s just useful?  It helps you do good works, good works?  It’s really beneficial, that’s all?!?!?!”

Yes, the tone was all punctuation-marky again.  Perhaps what I said is causing a lot of punctuation in your brain right now, too.  But everything I said above is exactly what Paul said to Timothy about Scripture.  All Scripture is profitable.  All Scripture is useful.  All Scripture is a tool.

I cherish Scripture.  But I am in a relationship with the true Word of God, my Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ.  I am not in a relationship with Bibles.  I am not summoned to the wedding feast of the KJV.  He will not kiss me with the kiss of his New International Version.

* * *

Here’s what Paul says about the Scriptures in 2 Timothy 3:

(1) They can make you wise about salvation through faith in Jesus.

(2) They’re given by inspiration of God.
(3) They’re useful for doctrine.
(4) They’re useful for reproof and correction.
(5) They’re useful for instruction in righteousness.
(6) They help a man of God become complete (which is what “perfect”  means).
(7) They furnish (supply, equip, tool) us for doing good works.

* * *

Random aside: A relatively new Christian once said to me that he knew the Bible was one hundred percent inerrant in all aspects of reality.  Those were his words – in all aspects of reality.

“Even the book of Nahum?” I asked.

“Absolutely!” he said.

“What’s the book of Nahum about?” I asked.

It took him a while to answer.  “I haven’t read that yet.”

In the interest of peace, I let it rest.  What I did not type back to him was this: “If your faith in the Bible isn’t based on the Bible – and it can’t be, since you obviously haven’t finished reading it yet – then where did that faith come from?  Who told you that was how to think about the Scriptures?”

* * *

All Scripture is inspired by God.  Theopneustoskai, a beautiful word that combines the elements of pneuma, wind and breath and spirit, all in a single morpheme; and Theos, God.  The breath of the Infinite.  Whispers from the Almighty.  A conversation with the One I love, He who loved me first.

I’ve watched apologists pour hours of time into “proving” the Bible is “true” through tricks of rhetoric, amateurish plodding through bad science, and retrofitted “prophecies” forced to match today’s headlines.  I am sad for such men.  I picture them going home to their wives, being told they are loved, and responding, “Yes, for I have proof that you love me, dear, evidenced by a 98.7% house-dusting accuracy rate, evidential strata of bathroom towel stackage, irreducibly complex flavors in your cooking, and other items I can detail for you from an explanation of Proverbs 31.  Sit and listen as I expound.”

Such men know the Scriptures.  I pray they know the Author.

Let me go out on a limb here: No one was ever brought into faith in Christ via cool data and meticulous apologetics.  No one.  Not even those who claim they were.  They were brought into faith through the calling of the Beloved, bought through His blood, and set on a path of righteousness through a very intimate infilling of the Holy Spirit.  Spirit.  Pneuma.  Breath.  Breathed into.

Everyone who “believes in” the Bible came to that conclusion only after they were called by the whisper of the Beloved.

* * *

Let me end with a really, really controversial statement.  Only my friends read this blog (I think), so I’m sure one or two will want to sit down with me to discuss this next observation.  Some may even yell at me.  Others will show me Scriptures about what the “word of God” is.

Here goes: Who told us that it is proper to refer to the written Bible as “The word of God”?

I propose this: that the term “word of God,” when it appears in the Bible, almost never refers to the written, completed Bible.  So when Proverbs 30:5 says, “Every word of God is pure,” it is not referring to the bound and printed book we now use as part of our faith.  In the Scriptures, “the word of God” is a term used of Jesus.  It’s used of the message of Jesus’ salvation.  It’s used of Jesus’  teaching on hillsides, and the breathing in of the Spirit when God moved among the prophets long before Jesus’ time.

When a Christian reads the term “word of God” in Scripture, it is incorrect – dare I say heretical? idolatrous? – to mentally insert the term “Bible” in its place.

My Beloved is the Word of God.  He is a two-edged sword, the very sword of the Spirit, and His Word is the Gospel itself, the good news that God has crafted a radical way, an extravagant way, to win back a world.

And that is the Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic

The "Agape" Myth

Passing Thoughts On Love and God and Friendship

Passing Thought 1

You know that sermon we’ve all heard?  The one in which the preacher says, “The original Greek has 3 words for love: agape, philos, and eros.  Eros is erotic love, philos is brotherly love, and agape is God’s unconditional love.”

That sermon has become so common, many Christians actually think it’s true.  And when intoned with enough conviction, the sermon sounds as if it’s being delivered by someone who really studied “original” Greek.

I’m not sure what “original” means when applied to a whole language.  I do know that the English sentence “Suffer me cast angle midst a spate” used to mean “Lemme go fishin’ in a flood.”  But I doubt any of those words had “original” meanings in an “original” English language.

Passing Thought 2

I did a quick search on Google (Why not?  All the best scholars are graduates of Google U.) for the phrase “The word agape means” – and the following hits are pretty representative:

·         “Agape means God’s unconditional love.”

·         “Agape means God’s divine love.”

·         “The word agape means the God-kind of love.”

Well, I guess I was wrong in Passing Thought 1 above.  I mean, there it is on Google.  They couldn’t web it if it weren’t true.  Case closed.

Passing Thought 3

If agape means “God’s unconditional love,” then please try plugging the words God’s unconditional love into the following Bible passages, each of which uses a verb form of agape.  Oh heck … I’ll do it for you.

2 Timothy 4:9-10, about Paul being abandoned in the mission field – “Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he has God’s unconditional love for this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.”

John 12:42, about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees – “… for they have God’s unconditional love for human praise more than praise from God.”

John 3:19 about evil men – “Light has come into the world, but people had God’s unconditional love for darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”

If agape means God’s unconditional love, we’re going to have to adjust our theologies and attitudes about worldly things, seeking human praise, and the darkness itself.  You first.

Passing Thought 4

I own a Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.  This does not make me a Greek scholar.  Even though it says it’s Complete and Unabridged.

Passing Thought 5

The flipside of saying agape means God’s unconditional love is to claim that philos means brotherly love or human affection.  Modern preachers will claim it is a lesser form of love than agape.  Let’s play the same game here with philos, replacing its verb-form occurrence in Scripture with the words “lesser human affection”:

John 5:19-20 – “… whatever the Father does the Son also does.  For the Father has lesser human affection for the Son and shows him all he does.

1 Corinthians 16:22 – “If anyone does not have lesser human affection for the Lord, let that person be cursed!”

John 16:27 – “… the Father himself has lesser human affection for you because you have had lesser human affection for me and have believed that I came from God.”

Passing Thought 6

If philos meant “brotherly love,” why would early Greeks have coined the term philadelphia by combining delphos (brother) with philos (love)?  A brotherly love of brothers?  That would be straight from the Department of Repetitive Redundancies Department.  Not that language is always logical.  But hey, just sayin’.

Passing Thought 7

I was debating this love point … agape vs. philos … with a brother in Christ the other day.  We realized we were getting tense about our positions, and the irony of becoming irritated over the meaning of God’s love wasn’t lost on either of us.  As we backed down, I told him he should have the last word on the matter.

His final argument?  “I agape you.”

Which makes him an utterly awesome person.

Passing Thought 8

I’ve watched preachers contort themselves into twisty-turny theological pretzels trying to full-nelson a hidden meaning from John 21’s account of Peter’s reconciliation to Christ.  From a Greek’s-eye view of the text, Jesus twice asks Simon if he has agape for him, and Peter responds he has philos for Christ.  The third time, Christ asks if Peter has philos for him, and Peter says, yes, he has philos.

Allow me to spoil all the secret meanings dredged up for that passage with one simple observation:

• The text makes it clear that Jesus asks Peter tò tríton, “the third time,” whether he loves him … even though the word changes to the verb version of philos here.  It is the third time Jesus asks the same question, says Scripture.  In this context, the two words meant the same to Jesus.  Otherwise, it would have been two times with one meaning, and one time with a different meaning.  So no need for theological aerobics here … the English seems to communicate the idea just fine.

Passing Thought 9

A Cosmic Proverb -- In my brief years, I have learned to distrust three things; yea, four have I grown to suspect:

(1)   A preacher who claims special, secret knowledge based on “the Greek meaning.”

(2)   An apologist who references “ancient Greek” but who looks confused when asked questions about differences between Koine, Attic, Doric, and Ionic dialects.

(3)   A Christian dinner date who says he immediately has agape for me, which he prays will grow to philos and, Lord willing, into eros as husband and wife.

(4)   The words “supports a healthy immune system” on promotional packaging for an herbal supplement.

All right, the last one was random.  But I’m not a one-topic kind of girl, you know?

Marana Tha,

Cosmic

The Spring Sphere Hoax

By now you may have heard the Net-Tale-Gone-Viral about “a Seattle school” (never actually named) “banning” (it may have been one teacher, may have been an administrator’s call) the term “Easter egg” (some net versions say plastic candy-filled eggs, others improve it to a full egg hunt) in favor of the term “spring spheres” (that’s the one consistent part of the Web retellings).

The story originated on 97.3 KIRO FM's Dori Monson Show, offered up by a caller identified as "Jessica."  As the days pass, two things are happening with this tale.  First, it is growing into an urban legend, some retellings actually qualifying as outright hoaxes when compared with the original (still unverified) claims.  Second, it’s being treated by American Christendom as yet another attack on faith in Jesus.  You know, just like the “War on Christmas.”

It’s a controversy about words, so I have to get involved and ask: Easter?  Attacks on that word are attacks on the Christian faith?

Many of you will see where I’m going here, but bear with me.  In one of the languages I use, we call this holiday Pascuas, derived from the Hebrew word for Passover.  To clarify its Christian significance, it’s often called Pascuas de Resurrección.  In contrast, my other tongue, English, has always applied the odd term Easter to the same day … not naming it for anything Jewish or Christian, but for a pagan Germanic goddess of spring.  This oddity is so well known that many churches now refer to Easter as Resurrection Sunday, sidestepping the pagan origins of the more common name.

One would imagine, then, that renaming the eggs by taking away homage to a pagan goddess would have Christians rejoicing, whether the spring spheres tale is an urban myth or not.  The name of the pagan demon is gone!  The innocent word “spring” is inserted in its place!  Go Team Christian!

Alas … facts rarely slow down a healthy explosion of righteous indignation.  This weekend, blog after blog and Web article after Web article decries the renaming of Easter eggs as an attack on Christianity, even while millions of Christians themselves head into the de-Eastered week they’ll be celebrating.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about what the Christian outrage over the renaming of eggs honoring a Teutonic goddess might mean.  For my part, I’d like to take the idea a step further.  What if we went all the way with the Resurrection Sunday renaming?  What if we stripped Godless, pagan connections out of everything we encounter in our language and Western culture?  The task might be daunting, but wouldn’t the widespread purity be worth it in the end?  And be honest … wasn’t there just the tiniest part of you that grinned and thought, “Aw … I wish I’d been the one to come up with spring spheres.”

COSMIC’S ATTACK ON THE PAGANS

For each item below, I’ll give you the term, its pagan root, and my suggestion for a new name.

The Offending Term:     Neptune, our outermost planet

Its Pagan Origin:            The Roman sea god

My New Name:                "Planet ChillRock"

The Offending Term:     Athens, Georgia

Its Pagan Origin:            Athena, goddess of wisdom

My New Name:                "CNN HQville"

The Offending Terms:     The days of the week

Their Pagan Origin:          Sun/moon god, Tiu, Woden, Thor, Frigg, and Saturn

My New Names:                "OneDay, TwoDay, ThreeDay, FourDay," etc.

The Offending Term:      Nike footware

Its Pagan Origin:             Nike, goddess of victory

My New Name:                 Swifty Swoops™ (® 2011 Cosmic Parx)

The Offending Term:      Fortune magazine

Its Pagan Origin:             Fortuna, goddess of luck

My New Name:                The Bucks-O-Rama Bi-Weekly

The Offending Term:      Lunar eclipses

Its Pagan Origin:             Luna, the moon goddess

My New Name:                "Night of the Celestial Dimmer Switch"

The Offending Term:     Anyone named Irene

Its Pagan Origin:            The Greek goddess of peace

My New Name:                "Shaloma"

The Offending Term:     Midas Muffler

Its Pagan Origin:            Mythical king of the golden touch

My New Name:                "Your-Gold-for-Our-Steel Muffler"

And just so my fellow Christians can see the full extent of these adjustments, I need to add changes to book titles in the Scriptures themselves.  Don’t worry – I would never mess with the text.  But my pastor assures me that the titles are of uninspired human origin.

The Offending Title:      Letter to the Romans

Its Pagan Origin:            Romulus, man-god who founded Rome

My New Name:                "Letter to the Pre-Italians"

The Offending Title:       Letter to Titus

Its Pagan Origin:            The pre-Olympian Titan gods

My New Name:                "Memo Re: Stuff I Already Told Timothy"

The Offending Title:       The Gospel of Mark, shortest of the four

Its Pagan Origin:             Mars, the Roman war god

My New Name:                "Gospel Lite: A 1/3 Less Filling"

My challenge to you this week: Count the number of times you hear the Spring Spheres story related as if it were absolutely, verifiably true.  If you run out of fingers on both hands, let me know!  It’s up to you whether you correct people or not … you buzz killer.  J

Marana Tha,

Cosmic