Then He Appeared to James

I was listening to a podcast from Covenant Theological Seminary on New Testament History and the instructor brought up the notion that James was converted by seeing the risen Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15:7 we find that Jesus appeared after his resurrection to James and it would seem that this is the Lord's brother since the whole verse says, "Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles." That James didn't believe at one time we know from John 7:

After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world." For not even his brothers believed in him. (John 7:1-5)

Of course, there is more than a little conjecture here, but it is an interesting thought to consider that James might have been converted by the risen Lord. That is one of those things I wish had been written down - something else to find out after death I suppose.

You Thought I Was Like You

I'm amazed by Psalms 50. So much of it seems like a backhanded smack. Take, for example, verses 9-11 where God says, "I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine." In this passage God is rebuking the Israelites for believing that their offerings were like the pagans, who believed that they were feeding their needy Gods with their offerings. He points out that he doesn't need what they are offering to him because they are only offering him what is already his. It is the very next two verses, though, that really brings home what I referred to previously as the "backhanded smack." In verses 12-13 God says, "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?" Listen to that: "If I were hungry, I would not tell you." Amazing! Smack! But it only gets better when he shifts and starts to talk about the wicked. I picture this passage like when my sister used to get in trouble and I would be giggling about it and then it was ten times worse for me when my parents were done with her. God rounds on the wicked and says this:

But to the wicked God says: "What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son." (Psalms 50:16-20)

The wicked don't even have the right to recite the statutes of God or take his covenant on their lips! Their actions prevent any sort of ability on their part to even approach him. But as with the previous section, the real smack comes in the next verse, where God says to the wicked, "These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you." That phrase in the middle, where God says to the wicked, "You thought I was like you" is quite the smack, but it is also very deep. When I consider what most people think about God that really sums it up - they think that he is just like them. Of course, he isn't. He is especially not like them when they are working evil which, oddly enough, seems to be the times that most people are the most sure that God is just like them. We would do well to be on our guard against such thinking. We need to understand that God is incomprehensible and we need to understand that with our own unaided human understanding we will only create idolatrous notions of God because we require assistance to think of him correctly. We need to be starting with the Word and allowing it to form our understanding of God instead of the other way around. This becomes extremely important when we realize that our conceptions of God will permeate our entire life and an incorrect conception of God is a garden for hedonism because our flesh will tend in that direction on its own. The remedy for this is to change our course of action to match what we find in the Word and this does not come without reward as we find in the final verse of the psalm where God tells them that, "to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God."

A Poignant Prayer

From Thomas à Kempis' On the Passion of Christ:

Gentle Jesus, forgive me for having so often offended you, for so easily turning to vanities, and for not setting my heart on that which I have proposed to do.  How often I look back on the amount of time I spent on so many things, all far from important, while I paid no attention to your Passion.  You have preceded me along the narrow road, and with eyes dry I pass by as if your sorrows have no effect on me.  Remember my foolish heart and instill in it a loving remembrance of your most bitter Passion.

I Know What I'm Talking About Because I Know

Years ago when I first found out about the Internet I would go online to Usenet and IRC and argue for hours with other people about Christianity.  Unfortunately Google archives a lot of that stuff and so you can go on Google Groups and search and find several of my snotty and arrogant posts.  Well, I was young and foolish and had very little sense, but I thought I knew so much and everyone I argued with was exactly the same way so we would mock and scoff at each other and even through all of this God thought it worthwhile to teach me a few things even as unteachable as I was making myself to be.

In one particular heated argument I brought up Josephus as an extra-biblical source for Jesus since in Book 18 and Chapter 3 of The Antiquities of the Jews we find this:

Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works - a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.  He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.  He was Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

Well, that just caused a great deal of mocking from the learned of the Internet who pointed out to me that nobody who knew anything thought that passage was original (that is, written by Josephus) but had rather been proven a forgery added later by Christians.

For a long time afterward I thought maybe they were right and after all, they spoke with such authority that there must be something to what they said so I didn't use that passage again, but just this past week I was reading The History of the Church by Eusebius and he mentions this very passage in Book 1 (11.7f) - he quotes it exactly.  Now, what is so interesting about this?  Well, Eusebius wrote early in the fourth century, just before the First Council of Nicea in 325 so we know that the supposed Christian addition to Josephus must have happened before that.  I wondered what the translator of Eusebius had to say about this so under the heading of Josephus in the Who's Who in Eusebius section at the back of the book I found this:

Josephus is Eusebius' main source for the history of the first century A.D.  Eusebius is also fond of showing how Josephus supports the history presupposed by the various writings of the New Testament.  These citations raise various problems.  At I. 11. 7f. Eusebius quotes Antiquities, XVIII. 3. 3, a passage that refers to Christ as "a very gifted man - if indeed it is right to call him a man."  All the manuscripts we have of the Antiquities agree with Eusebius' reading here: but it is hard not to think that it has been subject to some Christian interpolation.

I put the last part in bold myself so that you could really chew on exactly what is being said there.  What the translator of Eusebius is telling us here is that all of the available evidence we have - every manuscript and every quote of Josephus - has this statement about Jesus in it but we think it was a forgery because it is hard not to think that it has been subject to some Christian interpolation.  That is incredible.  So I was lectured that the particular section in Josephus that provides extra-Biblical evidence for Jesus is clearly a forgery and everybody knows that but the reason that it is considered a forgery is because it is just hard to believe.  That's it, it is just hard to believe.  There is no evidence for it being a forgery (in fact there is quite the opposite as all of the hard evidence says that it is not an addition) but because "scholars" find it hard to believe it is therefore considered a forgery.

There are many lessons here, but the one that really strikes me the most is that whenever you hear something pronounced with great authority (and little else) you should look it up for yourself so you can make up your own mind based on some actual facts (note that I didn't do this originally and I am not the better for it).  Also it seems that this "Believe what I tell you because I know" is extremely prevalent in Biblical scholarship and your faith is the last place where you should ever be placing your confidence in some person who actually knows nothing beyond his own confidence. 

Sometimes it isn't God

I was having a conversation with a deeply religious friend of mine the other day and she told me that her son was upsetting her because of his complete apathy in looking for a job. In fact, he had told her just that morning that God just must have not wanted him to get a job and had other plans for him. She had responded, "No, that isn't God. God isn't making you be a lazy bum."

Apart from the fact that this is slightly funny, you need to understand that this shocked me, coming from her. I say this because the very sweet lady I was talking to is a person who sees God's hand in her life in everything that happens to her and everything she does, but in this case she drew a clear line and said, "No, God isn't responsible for this happening, you are." That's important. God is active in our lives, of course, but I can clearly remember times when he was pushing me visibly in a direction I didn't want to go and I managed to convince myself repeatedly as I banged my head needlessly against the walls he had put up that he wanted me to bash my way through these thick walls. "Wow, what a blessing it is to have these great challenges," I said. "Without these thick walls to bang my head on I just wouldn't know what God's will in my life was." It wasn't until after I surrendered and went the other way that I looked back and felt very foolish as it was then completely obvious that he very much was trying to get me to surrender and stop "kicking against the goads."

In Acts 26 Paul is defending himself in front of Festus and King Agrippa and he tells the story of his conversion. Prior to getting to the part where Jesus speaks to him, though, he says this:

"I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth." (Acts 26:9)

That is important. Did Paul oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth because he was just being evil and didn't know any better or did he believe with all of his heart that he was doing just as God would have him to do? Do you think he prayed all the time about it? Do you think he thought that God was working in his life? Listen to what Jesus says to him when he has been stricken on the road to Damascus:

And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' (Acts 26:14)

What is Jesus talking about with this "goad" thing? Listen, the amazing thing is that God was working strongly in Paul's life, but not to make him do the things that he was doing; not to make him persecute the church, although Paul was convinced this was the will of God for him. No, Jesus was goading him in his life to go the other way and what was Paul doing? What does Jesus say that Paul was doing here? He tells Paul that he was kicking against the goads. So a goad, of course, is an implement used to get an animal to go a certain direction, right? So Jesus is saying that he is working in Paul's life to get him to go a certain direction but Paul isn't going that way and instead he is kicking against the goads to go the other way. And Jesus tells him that this is hard for him.

Listen, we aren't promised an easy life, but if your life is hard maybe you should stop, take a breath, and ask yourself if it is hard because you are doing the will of God or if it is hard because you are doing what you want to do and are just kicking against the goads that Jesus is using on you while he is trying to get you to go the direction that he wants you to go.