What is love?

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. - 1 Corinthians 13:4-10 (NKJV)

In our modern times, there are many efforts to create a "multicultural" community. Most of them are nominally secular, but there are many which are religious in nature as well. The secular efforts tend to revolve around the idea that because we're living in post-scarcity times, conflict is harmful and unnecessary for survival, and so we should all just learn to get along. The religious efforts tend to revolve around the idea that because the material world isn't what is most important, conflict is harmful and unnecessary for eternal survival, and so we should all just learn to get along.

Christians are not excluded from this, and while there is support for the idea that Christianity is "international" or "multi-national", Christianity creates a monoculture of its own, and a lot of folks genuinely don't understand that. To build this case, we need to start with a somewhat controversial passage where Jesus is speaking about those who would follow him.

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. - Matthew 10:34-39 (NKJV)

So, right off the bat, Jesus clearly states that following him is going to cause conflict with even those who we share the most. If family is beset against family because of Jesus Christ, what is going to happen to the larger community? Family can be viewed as the smallest unit of community, and if Jesus Christ is causing disruption at the foundational level, then everything else built upon that foundation will also be impacted.

God has always desired a direct relationship with his followers, even in the Old Testament.

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. - 1 Samuel 8:6-7 (NKJV)

It was not God's desire that hierarchies and systems of authority be put in place between him and his people, but their rebellious nature and "stiff necks" required a constant escalation of authoritarianism to keep them in line, up to and including being conquered by foreign enemies and having all their wealth pillaged. While God's people sought to make their own way, the promises of God were null and void, regardless of the permanence he offered through them, because his bargain with Israel was not unconditional.

Likewise, Jesus Christ explains, through various parables and analogies and whatnot, that what people naturally value in this life will not remain so. Many folks know the parable of the rich young ruler who would not give up his material possessions to follow Jesus Christ, but this theme was a common one among his teachings.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

If such things are true, it's not that the things we naturally value are bad or intrinsically wrong, but that they should not be our priority. The things we have by our own hands should not be what drives our choices and shapes our behavior.

And if we're actively implementing this in our lives, we're going to have conflicts because others may not have the same priority, even within our own families.

Recently, I had shared with my wife some materials on the nature of many popular holidays, even among Christians, and just how synthetic those traditions are. When the vast majority of holidays have no scriptural support for their practice, let alone evidence that the early church found such things worthy of celebration. A big example of this is Christmas.

Many folks are familiar with the "put Christ back in Christmas" meme, but the date for Christmas was set hundreds of years after his death by a pagan ruler of Rome. Scriptural evidence as to the timeframe for Jesus birth points to a different time of year than winter, because the traditions of the Hebrews would not have had them with their flocks out in the fields at night in the middle of winter. Even worse, people want to make the celebration of Christmas "acceptable" by treating it as a "redeemed tradition". Do folks not know of the history of the Talmud?

Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”

He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:

‘This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”

He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. - Mark 7:5-9 (NKJV)

If traditions, if family, if the values that a Christian has are at odds with those around them, what hope is there for unity?

That's where love comes back into play.

Love as comes from God overlooks disparities on those things and brings his family together because the priority is singular in Jesus Christ, not on various traditions, families, etc. There are byproducts to the pursuit of Jesus Christ, and that is love for one another, but we cannot get that result by trying to just love one another through brute force. Nor can we ignore that there will be unity through Jesus Christ that is impossible by any other means.

Love, genuine love, as talked about in the opening passage of scripture, is something that people simply cannot summon for anyone else of their own accord. We can't afford it. We're already owing a debt we cannot ever repay, and we think we could shoulder someone else's burdens? Such thoughts are arrogant and foolish!

Genuine love is something that we need God's support in order to manifest, and if we are truly seeking after Jesus Christ and are becoming more like him, then our priorities will look like his priorities, and our sacrifices will be done in love just like his sacrifices. But we aren't the one whose sacrifices matter to others. Our works "in Jesus' name", are not the Gospel.

What is the Gospel?

that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. - Romans 10:9 (NKJV)

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. - John 3:16-17 (NKJV)

And what is our greatest priority in this life? What did Jesus tell us specifically we should be doing?

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. - Matthew 28:18-20 (NKJV)

Is our priority to "put Christ back in Christmas"? No.

Is our priority to feed and clothe the homeless? No.

Is our priority to make peace between warring peoples? No.

Is our priority to bring heaven to earth? No.

Is our priority to sustain communities and traditions? No.

Our priority is to tell all nations about Jesus Christ, the good news of salvation, and then walk with them through the process of sanctification, of being disciples, of drawing closer to Jesus Christ and behaving and thinking more like him each day.

That is how we love the world. That is how we love one another. That is how "the Church" will be a multi-national entity, because we don't lose our physical bodies and our history when we are saved, but it will be a monocultural entity as well, because regardless of where we start in our relationship with Jesus Christ, we're all converging on the same focal point. We're all heading to the same place, and as we draw closer to Jesus Christ we can also find that we are drawing closer to one another at the same time.

We manifest love by tapping into God's strength and by focusing on God's priorities, because what most people think of as "love" is a weak and unreliable feeling that leaves much to be desired. Love is the glue for relationships, but we don't know how to make it or use it, and so we must look to the one who loved us when we were anything but lovely to serve as the example and guide for how we are to then love others.

Focus on Jesus Christ, his teachings, and the rest will come in time. Do not fret when your path leads you away from friends, family, communities, because if you're drawing closer to Jesus Christ, you'll never truly be alone.

Shepherd or Charlatan Part 2 - Jesus Christ

In Part 1, the foundation for social interactions was laid in that either our constraints are external, driven by survival, or internal, because survival is no longer a concern. While such a binary may feel wrong, or unnecessarily limiting, I would challenge folks to explore that feeling and try to see if there is a third possibility or not.

To show a parallel, look at the concept of sin. God's holiness could be reduced to the concept of perfection. Anything that is not perfect is not holy, and so that is one possible "state". The alternative "state" is "sinful", and while there are varying degrees of consequence for sin, it all can be categorized in the binary of "sinful", for all of it is "not perfect". More or less sinful doesn't change that we are not holy. With respect to the concepts of sin and holiness, there is a binary where one part of the binary is a single state of being holy or perfect, and the other side of the binary is almost infinite in the number of states that could all be adequately categorized under "sinful".

As with sin and holiness, survival and status have a similar relationship. The concept of "free will" is often abused and exaggerated to connote a level of individual sovereignty that simply does not exist. None of us exist in a vacuum, we are all existing in a world that is not beholden to us, and we clearly do not get to pick and choose the circumstances that we experience in life. We can choose what to do with the choices we have, and that is why understanding the binary of sin and holiness, and how it parallels the dynamic between survival and status, is important to understand when looking at the example found in Jesus Christ, as recorded by the Bible.

Was Jesus a shepherd, concerned with the safety of the flock? Was Jesus a charlatan, concerned with his status among the flock?

To start, was Jesus Christ popular? Did people want to see him, hear his teachings, or be associated with him?

Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” - Matthew 9:10-13 (NKJV)

So there are many who came and sat down, but Jesus then claims he is calling the many to repentance, which is a combination of confession and effort to change. This is counter-intuitive for someone who is interested in status, because if the first thing you do when everyone is listening is tell them "you're doing everything wrong and need to change", you're going to turn away the narcissistic and solipsistic who believe themselves to be perfect and the center of the universe.

That is no small percentage of any crowd, and is why the persuasion technique of "pace and lead" requires a would-be leader to pace the existing emotional states of those he'd like to lead. He does not contradict their current convictions, but "agrees and amplifies" them to show that he is more devoted to the same principles than even they are, hoping to synthesize the affinity that naturally grows between a people and their leaders.

Simply put, if Jesus Christ were trying to "pace and lead" sinners, he would not be telling them to change, but would instead be trying to demonstrate how he could get them more of what they already think they want, and then after he'd successfully paced the people would he start to try and redirect them to something different than what was claimed. There is always a disparity between what is claimed and what is achieved with "pace and lead", and this is by design, not incompetence or unfortunate circumstances, though blaming those possibilities helps to keep people distracted from what's actually going on.

Let's continue with another passage.

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!” Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him. And he became as one dead, so that many said, “He is dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?”

So He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”- Mark 9:24-29 (NKJV)

Here again we have Jesus Christ with a crowd, healing a young boy who had been possessed and the spirit which possessed him threw him into fire and water, and shook the boy's body violently. Despite the boy calming down after Jesus' commands were issued, the reaction of the crowd was not in Jesus' favor, as many thought the boy to be dead. Jesus was demonstrating great power, and later when his disciples lament their own inability to cast out the demon from the boy, Jesus Christ replies that only prayer and fasting would produce the same result for them.

Prayer is an alignment with God, and looking at the "model prayer" in Matthew 6, we see that there is exaltation of God, confessions to God, and petitions made of God. Prayer is an inherently humble activity, where our hearts are ultimately aligned with what God desires, what God designs, and what God does. Such a practice is not something that people who are in open rebellion against God are going to adopt naturally. To pray in secret instead of in front of man? How can status be elevated among men by what is done in secret?

Further, fasting reminds us of the dynamics of survival, albeit voluntarily. Fasting is also discussed in Matthew 6 as a private matter between the person and God. To refrain from resources that are critical to our living is a way to demonstrate what our priorities are. Giving up what we could experience, consume, or enjoy as a means of trying to demonstrate to God how serious we truly are about the topic which prompted our fast to begin with, and yet doing all that in such a manner that only God knows you are doing it.

As such, neither prayer or fasting are things which confer status. While Jesus Christ had a crowd when expelling the demon, the disciples of Christ would need to labor in private and probably over some period of time before the same power over demons would be granted to them. Even worse, if such works are done in sight of man, to be recognized or to gain status, then the person already has obtained what they seek, and their petitions to God will not be considered, because their priority is quite literally their status among men.

We'll continue with one more passage.

A large crowd was following Jesus. He turned around and said to them, “If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. - Luke 25-27 (NLT)

Surely, such devotion to a man would be inappropriate and cult-like, right? He was constantly drawing crowds to himself, preaching to crowds, and then escaping the crowds when they sought so desperately to be with him and to hear him teach. Even today, Christianity is the biggest religions in the world. The name of Jesus Christ is arguably more widely known around the world than any politician, actor, or conqueror.

Yet here is is tearing down even the bonds between family members, in that if we are loyal to and love those around us, even the closest to us, more than Jesus Christ, then we cannot be disciples of Jesus Christ. Think about that. While many will criticize the multiculturalism of globalism, a form of neo-babelism, even here we see that Jesus Christ is providing an identity, a framework for relationship where no material relationships can take precedence over the relationship between the believer and Jesus Christ.

Surely, this must be a status thing, right? Here we have Jesus focusing all the attention, and as a consequence status, on himself.

Let's look at why he claimed to do all of this and see what he intends to do with this.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. - John 5:24 (NKJV)

Jesus Christ wanted to save people from the consequence of judgment: death.

That is about as survival-oriented as possible. While not a material death, but a spiritual one, Jesus Christ was still ultimately motivated to be a messiah, a savior, to rescue people from a state that they could not rescue themselves from.

For his troubles, Jesus Christ be executed for his heresy, and for his unpopularity with both the religious elite and the masses. When a choice finally came, the crowds chose to release Barabbas instead of Jesus Christ. In a moment of truth where, had he been seeking status, he should have been able to cash in on that and save his own life, he is instead left to the care of the Romans to be scourged and crucified.

The leaders of the era even mocked his apparent weakness, taunting him with empty promises that if he could save himself then they would believe.

“He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. - Matthew 27:42 (NKJV)

And how did Jesus Christ react to all of this?

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

And they divided His garments and cast lots. - Luke 23:34 (NKJV)

While they were divvying up his clothes, he was asking God to forgive them as they acted in ignorance. There is no bitterness, no angst or anger at how those who were supposed to be following him didn't. There were no pejorative nicknames, no dismissal of whether they were worthy or not of his leadership and guidance in the first place.

Instead of making a scene and trying to guilt trip and manipulate and scheme his way into the people's favor, he asks God to forgive them.

After his death, what did contemporaries say of the movement that was carried on by his disciples?

For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was slain, and all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing. After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census, and drew away many people after him. He also perished, and all who obeyed him were dispersed. And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it—lest you even be found to fight against God.” - Acts 5:36-39 (NKJV)

So even then, they knew that if Jesus Christ was just a charlatan, if what he said was not true and what he did was simply "of man", that by natural cycle of interest the movement he started would die out, as Jesus Christ had already been rejected in favor of Barabbas, and the fickle mob would simply move on. The speaker in that passage recognized that efforts "of man" always end up failing, and that it would take supernatural involvement in order for what Jesus Christ to have started to "last". And it has lasted.

So, to finish up, we'll look at Jesus Christ's own words on the topic, with an already established pattern outside of his direct claims that while this actions did increase his status for a time, his ultimate goal was not status but the survival of people in the face of God's wrath against sin.

With that in mind, we have this final passage for this post.

I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. - John 10:11-13 (NASB)

Jesus sought to be a good shepherd, claimed the title for himself, and even fulfilled the requirements of his claim by dying on the cross and having the wrath of God poured out on him so that the rest of us could be spared. Jesus died while being mocked, and it would not be till later that Christianity would take off and become what it is today. Jesus Christ did not seek status, but to bring about a path for eternal salvation from the consequences of sin.

Isn't that someone that would be worth following? If you don't, then pray to Jesus Christ, ask him to help your unbelief, ask for help to place your faith in what Jesus Christ has already done on your behalf as a "good shepherd". Accept the offer of God, made through Jesus Christ, to have life instead of death.

Believe in what Jesus Christ taught, and let him be the one that leads you.

That concludes Part 2, where we look to see if Jesus Christ was a shepherd or charlatan. In Part 3 of this series I'll explore the dynamics of "policing the flock" versus "pacing and leading the flock" in a modern context, though the example of Jesus Christ will still play a role. And finally, in Part 4, I'll finish up by discussing how all that is material could be leveraged for status, and so we must be vigilant in all aspects of life.

Stay tuned!