Charleston, The Confederacy, and Jesus Christ

The world has watched in bewilderment as droves of people have rallied around the families of those caught up in the tragedy of the AME Emanuel shooting. Charleston has not taken to the streets in protest and vandalism. Instead, the city has taken a different route and taken to the pews of a very historic church.

But in the midst of this loving bond that has formed in the Holy City is a controversy over the Confederate flag. A few years back, the flag flew on top of the State building along with the American and SC flag. After the initial controversy, it was voted to remove the flag from the building and place it a few feet away at the civil war monument.

People all across the country have been quick to offer up their opinions on the confederate flag. While many find the flag offensive and think it should be removed in the wake of this shooting, just as many see the flag as a rich part of South Carolina history and believe it represents something entirely other than racism.

And as opinions fly and the discussion becomes ever more heated, those in favor and in opposition of the flag’s place on state grounds are speaking past each other. Those who favor keeping the flag make the argument that “the confederate flag will not end racism.” What’s interesting about that argument is that no one is saying that removing the flag will end racism. Rather, it is making a positive and respectful statement about who we are as South Carolinians in the midst of this terrible tragedy. If those in favor of the flag want to move forward in a helpful manner, they must engage the argument where it is and not attempt to make those who oppose the flag say something they are not saying.

To the opposite end, those who oppose the flag call it a “symbol of hate,” lumping those who are in favor of the flag with hatred, which is most certainly not the case. Those who are favor of retaining the flag are mostly individuals who are proud to be from the South, who feel the flag is a symbol of “Southern pride.” If those in opposition to the flag want to move forward in a helpful way, they must engage the argument where it is as well and not place stereotypes on people who do not fit into that mold.

The way forward for all of us can be summed up well in Mark 12:28-32, which says:

“One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.”

Jesus says that before we do anything else, we need to make sure we love God with everything we are and love our neighbor as ourselves.

The very often quoted 1 Corinthians 13 passage provides us with a great definition of love. Verses 4-7 says this: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

What would it look like if we approached the issue of the confederate flag by making sure that our hearts first loved God and second loved our neighbors? Ironically, I think it would look much like the unification and support that has surrounded the AME Emanuel family.

If we are going to get past this issue and move forward, the first step is to place our hearts before God and offer up everything we are to Him. If we are surrendered to Him, our actions will surely mimic who He is. This inevitably leads to loving people. It means being kind. It means not getting angry. It means not shaming others. It means hoping and trusting in what is good. It means persevering.

Instead of talking past each other and getting angry over the stupid opinion of someone else, love grounded in Jesus Christ meets others where they are. It means respecting the opinion of the person you disagree with in order to have an honest conversation about the place of the flag and what it represents. It means trusting one another that we all want what’s best for each other. It means coming together in hope that whether the flag is positioned to fly on the state grounds or positioned in a glass box at the museum, our hearts will always be positioned towards reconciliation.

May we not walk far from the Kingdom of God.

ORTHODOXY FOR KIDS: JUSTIFICATION

Have you ever heard the word “justification” while you were at church?

Maybe when you gave your life to Jesus, someone told you that you were justified.

That can be a confusing word at first, but it is actually pretty simple!

To help you understand justification, here’s a story!

Imagine that Danny is at school and it is time to go outside and play at recess.

Recess is Danny’s favorite part of the day and he is so excited to slide on the slide and swing on the swings with all his friends.

One of Danny’s friends, let’s call her Grace, is the smartest kid in school. Grace has a badge on her shirt that shows she makes the best grades in the entire class!

Danny is a very smart student as well, but he has just made a few B’s and Grace has ALWAYS made A’s and NEVER made a B. That is pretty impressive! Keeping straight A’s in school can be really tough sometimes.

Danny and Grace decided to head over to the monkey bars, because it is Grace’s favorite thing to do at Recess.

As Danny walks up to the Monkey Bars, he notices a BIG YELLOW SIGN that says “Monkey Bars are broken. DO NOT climb on them.”

Even though there is a sign there, he looks up at the monkey bars and they seem fine! They don’t look very broken!

In a moment of weakness, Danny decides to climb on the monkey bars anyway. Grace tells him that this is not a very good idea, but he goes ahead anyway.

He places one hand on the first bar and everything is fine.

He grabs the bar with the other hand and leaps off the edge!

“There’s nothing wrong with these monkey bars,” Danny thinks to himself.

Suddenly, as he grabs the next bar, everyone hears a loud CRACKKKKKK!

The monkey bar breaks and Danny comes tumbling to the ground.

The crack is so loud that the teacher, Mrs. Rush, rushes over to make sure everything is okay!

“What happened here?” Mrs. Rush asks.

As soon as Danny confesses that he climbed on the monkey bars anyway, Grace pipes up and says:

“Teacher, I know that I was not the one to climb on the monkey bars, but I take full responsibility. Danny knows that what he did was wrong, and I would like to take his punishment for him. I will even let him wear my badge for the rest of the day.”

As you continue to play for the rest of Recess, Grace has to go a sit by the fence.

Even though Grace was the perfect student and didn’t do anything wrong, she loved her friend Danny and did not want him to suffer punishment for his mistakes! What a great friend Grace must be!

There is actually someone we know that has done something very similar for us! His name is Jesus. Just like Danny made a mistake, we all make mistakes and do the wrong thing from time to time. Luckily, like Grace, Jesus loves us and took our punishment for the bad stuff we do by dying on the cross!

Just like Grace let Danny wear her badge of honor, Jesus gives us His honor so that when God looks at you and I, he does not see the bad things we do, but see’s the perfection of His son Jesus!

That is justification! We have done wrong, but because of Jesus, our sins are washed away and its as if we haven’t done anything wrong!

If Grace was such a good friend to Danny, how much more of a friend do we have in Jesus, who died for our sins to justify us before a perfect God?

That is pretty incredible! And the cool thing is that Jesus did not just do that for you. He did that for everyone in the whole world! That’s why its so important to tell your friends at school about Jesus! He can justify them too!

SHOULD CHRISTIANS TITHE?

Introduction

The protestant evangelical church is replete with pastors and their staff who stand in the pulpit every Sunday with a message from God. One such message is tithing. Spend any amount of time in a Southern Baptist megachurch and there will most likely be a sermon preached from the book of Malachi about how not tithing ten percent of a household’s income is robbing God. Perhaps God feels more robbed when a ministry uses funds to purchase a fog machine for the sake of a cool worship experience rather than individuals giving more or less than ten percent of their income. Tithing matters because pastors are telling entire congregations, which can often be thousands of people, that God expects each of them to hand over at least ten percent of his/her household’s income. For emphasis, pastors will also add the retribution principle to the tithing principle. If an individual gives the church ten percent, God will then pour out more blessing than he/she can handle. If the individual has a hard heart and will not tithe, God will not bless him/her since these people are robbing God. This paper seeks to walk through the scriptures and look at arguments made for a ten percent tithe to reveal that these defenses are not substantiated in the Scriptures for New Testament believers. This does not mean, however, that believers should not give. Christians are to be led through the power of the Spirit to give generously out the abundance of a transformed heart.

Tithing and the Old Testament

            The Old Testament covers the pre-mosaic, mosaic, and prophetic periods. Some scholars, such as George Davis, attempt to argue that if there was a tithe before the Law, then no argument can be made about tithing being legalistic. Davis argues that in Gen. 14:18-20, Abraham tithed to Melchizedek. He concludes from this passage that tithing was an acceptable form of worship, and Paul, in hindsight, never called him a legalist, but an example of being justified by faith. Because Christians are also justified by faith like Abraham, Christians should tithe like him.

Unfortunately, this conclusion misses the point of the text. Abraham is not tithing to support a ministry or out of obligation. He is showing worship to God through the tithe to Melchizedek. Abraham was simply acknowledging Yahweh as His God. This will be briefly discussed further under the thought process present in Hebrews 7.

The most famous passage concerning the tithe is Malachi 3:7-12. The Israelites have accused God of being unreliable and fall into a downward spiral of doubt and faithlessness. In 3:7, God calls them to return to Him, yet they ask Him how it is possible. This is most likely not a genuine question out of desire for reconciliation, but a suspicious question out of their ignorance of sin. God then accuses them of robbing Him of tithes and offerings and curses them for their thievery. These tithes were used to support the Levitical priesthood, the temple, and support for the community’s poor. Failing to adhere to this tithing command was robbing God, because robbing the temple and the needy was akin to robbing Yahweh. God tells them that if they bring the full tithe to the storehouse, He will pour out blessing on them. The storehouse was a room in the temple used to store the first tithe so that it could be redistributed later and refilled. This promise is made in relation to the laws in Lev. 23:23 and 27:30-33. If they return to worshipping God and obey the law, He will bless them for it.

The most common interpretation of this text among evangelicals today is that failing to give God ten percent of one’s income is robbing what God has given to bless that person. Not returning a tenth back to what is God’s in the first place may incur God’s punishment on the believer. Therefore, simply give a tenth to the “storehouse” (church), and God will bless it. This is blatant misapplication of the text. As shown in the previous paragraph, this text was directed towards Israelites under the law. The Lord created the tithing system as a type of income tax to support the priests who owned nothing and the needy. Frank Viola concludes from the context of the passage that God’s main concern is oppression of the downtrodden. Nevertheless, there is no idea concerning the storehouse in the New Testament. The believer is the temple, not the building. Ministries are supplied and supported by people. Church buildings are not storehouses, but places of worship.

Tithing and the New Testament

There is clearly a tithing system present in the Old Testament under the mosaic law. The question must be raised, however, as to the nature of tithing for a people no longer under that law. Jesus is the fulfiller of the law, and he mentions tithing once in a discussion found in Matthew 23. Jesus tells the Pharisees that they tithed but neglected the more important aspects of the law, such as justice and mercy. Jesus calls them blind and says that they should have practiced both. What it comes down to for those who support tithing is that this verse suggests that Jesus believed in tithing. If Jesus does it, Christians should do it. While this logic seems fairly straightforward, there are a few things to consider about this passage. First, Jesus is addressing scribes and Pharisees who are under the law. Jesus tells them that they should tithe, because the law commands them to do so. Second, the point of the passage is not obedience to a tithing law, but a lack of concern for love, mercy, and justice. Laws are not supposed to distract people from love, but lead them towards it. Finally, James Quiggle concludes that Jesus’ point can be found in verse 24. According to Lev. 11, a gnat was the smallest unclean animal and the camel was the largest. The principle here is that one righteous act does not alleviate a person from living righteously all the time. Tithing cannot be substituted for weightier aspects of the law like love and mercy.

Second Corinthians 9:6-7 is the most important passage for Christians attempting to understand what their obligations are concerning the tithe. Paul tells the Corinthians that they should give from their hearts and not under compulsion. God loves a cheerful giver. He begins in verse six with farming language. A good harvest is produced from good seeds being sown, while little seed produces a poor harvest. Paul emphasizes reaping in his verse in order to encourage giving. According to Paul, this giving should be done from the heart and not reluctantly. A willing heart is grounded in the Old Testament by willingly giving towards the Tabernacle (Ex. 25:2, 35:5). This collection from voluntary giving turned out to be more than enough (Ex. 36:5-7). Furthermore, God’s love for the cheerful giver has a foundation in Proverbs 22:8. There is honor for those who are willing to give generously. If tithing were an obligation, this would be the perfect opportunity to explain it. Yet, Paul is absolutely silent on the concept of tithing in all of his letters. Instead of telling them what they must give as a tithe, he simply tells them to offer up what they willingly decide to give from the heart. A lack of obligation diction softens arguments made in favor of the tithe.

The final passage germane to this discussion is Hebrews 7:1-10. Gary North argues that because the priestly office of Christ is equated with that of Melchizedek, the tithe is still required. This is because the order of Melchizedek is superior to that of the Levitical priesthood. Christians, therefore, cannot dismiss tithing as a mosaic law, but must adhere to it, since Hebrews 7 grounds tithing into Melchizedek. Attempting to escape the tithe is therefore an assault to the order of Melchizedek, who is the representation of Jesus Christ. There are several problems with using Hebrews 7 to justify tithing. First, the flow of the author’s argument in Hebrews has the ultimate goal of setting Jesus up as the high priest who is far more superior to the Levites. Melchizedek is simply used as an analogy for Christ’s superiority based out of Psalm 110:4. Tithing is used as an example for why Melchizedek was so great. Second, this reading of Hebrews 7 back into Gen. 14 requires that Abraham act as an archetype for Christians. If this is true, tithing still would not look like it does today, because Abraham gave his spoils from war voluntarily and only once. An obligatory ten percent tithe to the church is not in view here. Finally, if the passage is followed carefully, then the conclusion is that believers actually do not tithe. Levi is said to have tithed to Melchizedek through Abraham. Levi’s order is then inferior to Melchizedek. Jesus, who is the representative of Melchizedek’s order, then becomes superior to the Levite priesthood. The logical conclusion for Christians is that since they are in Christ and He tithes to no one, believers tithe to no one.

Conclusions from the Scripture

In the Old Testament, God institutes a tithing system to care for the priesthood and the needy. This was a mandate, because God cared for the oppressed. God binds Himself to His covenant and promises to bless those who give their tithes. There were three different types of tithes collected: those for Levites with no inheritance in Canaan (Lev. 27:30-33), those for religious festivals in Jerusalem (Deut. 14:22-27), and those for the needy (Deut. 14:28-29). Rather than ten percent, this turned out to be around twenty-three percent of yearly income. These tithes were grains, fruits, nuts, and cattle given eight out of twelve months. Money was never tithed, and priests were not required to participate. Entering into the New Testament period, Jesus sets aside what is old and ushers in the new (Heb. 7:12-18, 8:13). Through Christ, each person is now a priest. There is no temple other than the gathered body and no priesthood that represents God to man. The veil has been torn, and each person has access to God through Jesus. The Christian call, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is to give generously from the heart. This is not an obligation, because God loves a cheerful giver. Furthermore, the New Testament offers principles of giving that seemingly contradict the tithing system of the Old Testament. Some of the most obvious are: Christians live from the gospel rather than the law (1 Cor. 9:14), each person gives from his/her own ability (Acts 11:29), believers are to give consistently and regularly (1 Cor. 9:13), giving should be done willingly and sacrificially (2 Cor. 8:2-3, 12), giving should be done cheerfully and not from obligation (2 Cor. 9:7), and believers should not burden themselves financially (2 Cor. 8:13). The principle that seems to endure both old and new covenants is generosity.

A final place of contention on this issue is how schools of thought view the law. Some groups, such as the Dispensationalists, believe that the entire law is a unit. Other groups, such a Reformed Covenant theology, split the law into moral, civil, and ceremonial. This may cause some groups to see the tithe as still binding. While it may be convenient to split the law, the Bible itself never seems to do this. Hebrews 8 speaks of the law as a unit which Jesus’ ministry made obsolete. In Matt. 5:17, Jesus also says that He came to fulfill the law and prophets. A straightforward reading indicates the entire law is in view, not portions of it. If the law cannot be split, it becomes much more difficult to justify a tithe based in the law.

Theological Integration

            The implications of tithing have a direct connection to ministry. While ministry is so much more than money, it is difficult for one to flourish without the financial giving of the ministry’s congregation. This does not mean, however, that congregants should be placed under a tithing law in which they do not belong. D.A. Carson warns that tithing can foster a sense of pride. If one believes that God demands ten percent and nothing more, it can breed idolatry. Further, choosing to give more than ten percent can breed pride. He concludes with a passage of scripture that speaks towards giving. 2 Cor. 8-9 shows the people in Corinth under tribulation. In the midst of their sorrow, they gave themselves first to the Lord (8:5) and gave generously even in their poverty (8:2). In 8:9, the text says that Christ became poor so that the Corinthians might become rich through His poverty. This is obviously not monetary wealth, but in the same generous spirit, believers should overflow with generosity knowing what the Son of God did on the cross.

Pastors are standing in pulpits across the world and demanding that their congregations give ten percent of their paycheck, because God requires it. The tithe in the Old Testament was good news to the poor, not a burden. People who can barely make ends meet are giving out of obligation, because they feel as though they cannot afford to not tithe. The Old Testament tithe was designed to help these people from the abundance of others, not make them go deeper into poverty. On the opposite end, churches are full of people to whom ten percent of their income is nothing. These individuals have been blessed with great jobs, but they are only giving ten percent when much more could be offered for advancing the kingdom. Ten percent is not a magic number that pleases God. What pleases God is a cheerful giver. The church should not be afraid to step away from an obligatory tithe. Christians, those who have trusted in the gospel of Christ and are currently indwelled with the Spirit, should seek to live a life pleasing to God and reminiscent of Jesus’ earthly ministry. The power of God, which is now at work in each believer, will not move the body away from generosity but spur it on towards a Christ-like generosity.

Mrs. Jenner

First, I’m not saying I agree with what Bruce Jenner has done. These are simply things that I’m trying to work through. I honestly do not understand what the trans community is going through. I’m sure it brings about a lot of heartache and confusion that none of us understand, especially those of us who have never felt that way. So I just don’t have a fully functioning opinion on this subject yet. I still have a lot of questions.

But if you’re going to publicly shame someone and call them nasty, make sure you don’t use stupid arguments in God’s name. If you invoke the Sovereign God of the universe’s name in an argument, make sure your argument isn’t ridiculous.

Like… if God wanted him to be a woman, He would have just made him that way. Okay, the only problem is that we don’t use that for ANYTHING else that we find wrong with a person. Deafness, Blindness, Hair color, Make Up, Mental Disorders. That’s a stupid thing to say…
Is Make-Up a sin because God made you ugly? I don’t think so.

Is it a sin to have plastic surgery? Some people would say yes. For those who would say no, why is it different to have your nose chopped off and reassigned but not your penis? What makes a penis special?

Why can we change any natural thing about ourselves, except for gender? Why can you go to the salon and dye your naturally gray hair to appear younger to other people and feel better about yourself without any conviction that you’re changing what God has made?

Why can you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day without conviction that you’re destroying your body that God has made, and then turn around a point your finger at Bruce Jenner for destroying the body that God made him?

If the Bible says that God does not look at the outside, but at the heart, does that have any bearing on the transgendered community? What does that mean for them?

I read one article that presupposed that our souls are gendered. This brings up other questions like the make-up of the soul and its function.Do our souls have a gender? The Bible never says that it does.

I think these are really important questions we need to think through and answer before we go wielding the sword around.I feel like most of the time (not always), the world hates when Christians speak up because its out of ignorance. We aren’t speaking as informed individuals. We get zealous for the truth and rush to speak up against things we know nothing about.

We need to speak up. The Christian voice needs to be heard, but ignorance does not. What needs to be heard are informed Christian voices that are grounded in love, lest we scream out as noisy gongs and clanging symbols.