Man, The Writer of Hebrews Sure Was A Jerk

I've been reading the book of Hebrews for the last few days, and last night I came upon this tasty little nugget:

So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding. - Hebrews 6:1-3 (NLT)

Something you should know about me is this: I am ALL about numbered lists when it comes to learning and study. Anyone who has sat through one of my sermons will know that I almost always include some sort of list: "7 Thoughts on Eschatology," "4 Relationship Killers," "947 Way Chuck Norris Could Kill You...With A Gummy Worm." You get the idea. When I come across lists like this in the Bible, I reach a level of nerdy excitement that would make Star Trek action figure owners pity me.

What's so interesting to me about this passage is where it falls in the larger scope of the book of Hebrews. The first 5 chapters basically keep hammering on the point that Jesus is the perfect "high priest" for us, that He perfectly represents God to man and perfectly represents mankind to God. He is the ultimate ambassador, the perfect intermediary, the only accurate messenger and representative. The writer is chugging along nicely, explaining that Jesus is greater than angels, greater than Moses, greater than anything, when all of a sudden, he has a random thought about the state of the people he's writing to:

There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. - Heb. 5:11 (NLT)

Ouch. I actually think it's kind of funny. You can almost hear the conversation going on in the writer's head: "Oh man, I have this killer point that I need to make about Jesus being a priest in the order of Melchizedek, but I can see that I'm going to lose them all. What I wouldn't give for some students who aren't such babies but are ready to move on to some meatier stuff. Maybe if I slap them unexpectedly here, they'll pay better attention to the next section."

The writer of Hebrews (the exact author is unknown) lays out, at the beginning of chapter 6, a list of six things that he considers to be the ABC's of the Christian faith and belief. He considers these to be so elementary that we have no business talking about other things until these teachings become second nature. We would be well to take notice of this (ahem) NUMBERED LIST! :)

1. Getting rid of evil deeds

2. Having faith and trust in God

3. Baptism

4. Laying on of hands

5. Resurrection of the dead

6. Eternal judgement

Does it seem to anyone else like we've missed something? Call me sheltered, but I'm not aware of too many Christians that have this list of 6 things at the top of their "to remember" list. We've majored on the other majors, like Jesus' primary commandment to love or the John 3:16 reason why Jesus came. I'm am always a fan of boiling things down to the fundamentals, to the "bottom-line" kind of truths. The word "fundamentalist" has become a nasty term, meaning "people who are really really angry about things that are not actually fundamental truths taught by scripture." That actually makes me kind of sad. I love the book "Mere Christianity" where C.S. Lewis makes philosophical and scriptural arguments for the basic tenets of the faith that all Christians can agree on. I want to be that kind of fundamentalist.

I guess the severity of the rebuke at the end of chapter 5 made me take a double glance at this list at the top of chapter 6. I also found it striking how the author just throws these thoughts out and doesn't even spare the time to explain them. He's just assuming that the readers know what he's talking about. It's like he's warning, "Caution: if you don't know what I just said, please stop reading this letter and figure it out first. At that time, you may come back and finish reading what I wrote." Let's explore these 6 teachings briefly:

1) Get rid of evil deeds

The way that different translations render this part of the verse is interesting. In the Greek, "evil deeds" is the two words nekros (meaning "dead" - it actually comes from the root word for corpse) and ergon (meaning "activities" or "business ventures"). Some translations put it like this: "works leading to death" while others have it this way: "dead works." Do you see the difference? The first translation would be a very simple instruction to repent and leave behind sinfulness. The second translation is a bit more nuanced, instructing us to understand that our works themselves are dead (I think the King James actually nailed it on the head in this instance). The writer of the Message paraphrase puts it this way "turn your back on 'salvation by self-help.'" Either way, the message is the same: we cannot be saved just by our actions, because they are either dead themselves, or because they just lead to death. We must repent of this activity and move on to the second part of this list.

2) Put faith in God

Outside of the Gospel, every system of thinking or belief boils down to the same basic message, namely, you have to figure out a way to make it work all by yourself. Religions teach that you have to jump through all sorts of hoops to make God happy. Darwinism teaches that you have to be "fittest" in order to survive. Even humanism, in it's best-looking form, says that you have to be a self-made person, and then do a bunch of charity to be a decent human being. The message of the Gospel is so contrary to what we see anywhere else. Simply put, we can't "make it" on our own, and God knows and is sympathetic to our plight and has intervened on our behalf. All that is required is to place our faith and trust in God. Once we have done that, we can move onto #3...

3) Be baptized

There have been all sorts of heated debates throughout the centuries about the nature and effects of baptism. I am not remotely qualified to sort all of these out. However, here's what virtually all Christians have always believed about baptism: it's about identification and identity. In baptism, we are identifying with Christ's death and resurrection, and we are publicly identifying ourselves with Him. Many times, baptism has been likened to a marriage ceremony in that it is a public declaration of something that has already happened inside of a person's heart. However, baptism doesn't just identify us with Christ, it also identifies us with Christ's people, a point that is further explained by #4.

4) Laying on of hands

Simply put, community. Throughout the entire Bible, God gives His people physical acts that we participate in to remind us of much deeper spiritual truths (singing, lifting hands in worship, Lord's supper, baptism). There's nothing magical about putting our hands on someone, like the Emperor from Return of the Jedi shooting lightning from his fingertips. God knows our fundamental human need to be lovingly, affectionately, and reassuringly touched. We place our hands on each other's shoulders, we give a warm hug, we even hold hands during prayer or worship to remember how deeply we need one another. Jesus did not come to put us all on our own individualistic faith journey, but consistently called us a "kingdom," or a "family." We were built for relationship and community.

5) Resurrection of the dead

Try something with me. I have worked hard to eliminate the phrase "going to heaven" from my vocabulary (including all potential variations) because, as Christians, we believe something much less Platonic, much less ethereal, much more real. The Bible consistently uses the terminology of "new creation" or "new heavens and new earth" for the final destination of God's people. In fact, the Bible describes God's realm (heaven) and our realm (earth) crashing into each other, and becoming one perfect, unified realm (sorry if that sounded too much like an episode of Fringe). We believe that at the end of this age, Christ will restore the entire universe to its intended state, place, and purpose. Everything that we know in this life having to do with pain, disappointment, hurt, or suffering will be eliminated forever and the whole of creation will be set right. This should give us amazing hope! HALLELUJAH, WE DON'T HAVE TO SIT ON A CLOUD AND PLAY HARP MUSIC FOR ALL ETERNITY!! But there is one last point to consider...

6) Eternal judgement

If there was one doctrine or teaching that I could eliminate from the Bible, it would be the doctrine of the eternality of Hell. In fact, more and more recent Bible teachers have moved towards universalism in their theology because the belief in eternal separation from God is such a hard pill to swallow. I believe that the medieval introduction of the Catholic doctrine of purgatory is actually an early attempt to soften the blow of eternal conscious torment in separation from God. As much as I would like to become a universalist (or even an annihilationist!), I just can't see how it jives with scripture. So, since I can't change what I believe to be "fundamental truth" of the Christian faith, what can I do? Easy. Live as on a mission. Don't take any moment for granted, but use every opportunity to do good to others, to share with them the love that God has lavished upon me.

So, if I've got this list right, I can sum up my foundational beliefs in these 6 words:

Repentance - Faith - Identity - Community - Hope - Mission

May these 6 words be as a bedrock to anything else I do or believe as a Christian. May these 6 words shape us all to be the type of Christians who could then move on to more "solid food." I don't know about you, but I could imagine these 6 foundational principals taking some time to digest. But I'm going to take the time needed, because I want to make sure that my life is built on something solid.

Also, because when I meet the writer of Hebrews in the new creation, I don't want him to yell at me and call me names.

I Know Nothing...

Fresh on the heels of my last blog about engaging the mind when it comes to our relationship with God, I am going to explore the opposite end of the spectrum: the disengagement of the mind.

Everybody has ideas. Everybody places value on those ideas. Everybody has emotion (key word) that is tied to the value they place on their ideas. We get these ideas from our upbringing, from our life experiences, from teachers and authority figures, and even from sacred writings. No matter who it is, everybody experiences some level of emotional response within themselves when one of their beliefs or ideas are challenged; I don't care how unattached they try to act. They care.

I am friends with quite a variety of people from a variety of viewpoints. Nowhere is this more evident than via my Facebook page. I am friends with Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, agnostics, atheists, pantheists, polytheists, liberals, conservatives, soldiers, pacifists, rich, poor, South Americans, Europeans, US Americans, Canadians, AND even Texans! In my quest to encourage people to "engage their minds" when it comes to our relationship with God, I will often post...thought-provoking?...discussion-inducing?...possibly controversial?...statements, intended to at least give people the opportunity to wrestle with more difficult issues. I like to encourage people to not just sweep these difficult conversations under the proverbial rug. We may never really reach some dramatic conclusion, but I think that there is value even in the discussion.

What often happens is that people with a variety of viewpoints weigh in on these important topics. (People also weigh in on the unimportant ones, which is usually way more fun - "No way man, Delta Force 2 was WAY better than the first one..."). In my experience, I have found these conversations to be often difficult, often fruitful, often enlightening, often confusing...but virtually always emotional. Emotion is a good thing, not a bad thing. It can get out of balance, of course, but if we didn't have emotion, we would never be able to determine what was important or not to our lives.

* side note: lest you think that I am referring entirely to my Facebook conversations, let me reassure you: these kinds of discussions seem to follow me around. My last New Years Eve was spent in a 2 hour long theological discourse with 3 other guys from my church family, in the middle of a packed house party. Oh yeah, I'm a party animal..

Here's the trap that I often fall into. Do you ever fall into the same line of thinking as me? I often think that it will be possible to figure everything out. I would never say that out loud, but if I was truly honest, I think that there's a pretty substantial part of me that actually believes it. This part of me is probably a reaction to some people that seem to think that it's wrong to make any definitive statement at all. I know I'm generalizing, but this is how many people have come across to me. I have demonized emotion, and tried to approach everything from a no-emotion-purely-objective-purely-rational mindset.

THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO! (SEE WHAT LARGE LETTERS I AM...TYPING..TO YOU...WITH MY OWN...FINGERS! Sorry, St. Paul. It just seemed appropriate)

Every now and then, I run up against something that I cannot exhaustively explain (um, God?). My ideas are challenged. My presuppositions are not so secure. And, yes, my emotions get riled up. When I find myself in this place, my instinctual reaction is to fight back with a "yeah, but" of my own. Here's the challenge that I feel like God is asking of me: can I look myself in the mirror, say the words "I know nothing" and still be OK with myself?

Somewhere in between the "I know nothing" and the "I know everything" is reality. Since I tend towards the "everything" end of the spectrum, God has been challenging me to remember that there are many, many things that I don't know. As the Greek Orthodox theologian Kallistos Ware put it "With theology, we can set a fence around the mystery, but we can never exhaustively explain it." There are some things that I believe in, that I am fully convinced of, that I would die for. But even in these beliefs, I desire to have an attitude of grace and charity.

Like I have said in a previous post, if every single belief you hold is a "10" in terms of importance, you are probably a fundamentalist. Sometimes we have to just disengage our brains a little bit, and trust that God can still love us despite all our disagreements and differences in perspective.

I guess I am advocating some kind on "tension" in when it comes to faith. Maybe not advocating...maybe just coming to grips with the tension that is inherent in our lives as people.

Thank you to everybody who is walking along this path with me. I tend to be a pretty public person when it comes to my opinions, beliefs, and feelings. I know that I've stepped on more than a few toes. I know that I've come across as harsh and opinionated at times. That said, I have so many people in my life who speak good things to me and about me; I feel very undeserving sometimes of all the grace, support and respect that people have given to me. I am forever grateful for the love of Christ that has been revealed through so many terrific people in my life.