Category: Bible & Theology

It isn’t altogether clear that Paul was talking about ladies’ hats in 1 Corinthians 11:1-16. Whatever the custom of head ware the Corinthians practiced, and the women were abandoning, cannot be directly translated to Western, Americanized church life.

Like other scripture passages that address the role of men and women in church life, this passage has created a plethora of opinion — learned and otherwise — about Paul’s point and how it does related to modern believers.

Perhaps the best approach by commentators is to view the problem Paul addressed in terms of the eschatology of the participants; that is, whether the men and women in Corinth held to an under-realized, already/not yet, or over-realized eschatology.

Essentially, Corinthian society had adopted certain external demarcations to accentuate and confirm the differences between men and women. One of them happened to be, apparently, that women covered their heads (or held up their hair) and men neither covered their head nor let their hair grow long, especially in terms of corporate worship.

The Corinthian women that Paul addressed had begun to abandon some of these distinctions. When the kingdom comes in its fullness, such distinctions will be moot, as when Jesus said that in heaven there is no marriage, and when Paul said elsewhere that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female. But for now, such distinctions still matter in church life, and to hold otherwise is to fall prey to over-realized eschatology.

Over-realized eschatology tends to blur valid distinctions for present kingdom life in other ways, as well. Some believe that distinctions between spiritual giftedness are no longer relevant, or that distinctions between shepherds (pastors) and flock (congregation) are no longer relevant, or that — like the Corinthians — the church should hold to complete equality of role, function, and position as between men and women.

These beliefs are illustrated when believers suppose that the opinions of all believers are equally valid, and that all believers are qualified for each role in the church, because each has the Holy Spirit. They are illustrated when believers adopt an extreme priesthood-of-believer approach and resist submission to the teaching of the shepherds. Much of the problem stems from the inclination to apply Western political and social perspectives to the church.

What the church should take from this teaching is that during our time on earth, while the kingdom is not yet fully consummated, there is still a place and function for distinctions between males and females in church life, and that the attempt to do away with them is premature.

“The kingdom is like a man scattering seed.” “The kingdom is like a grain of mustard seed…the smallest in the ground.”

Really? The kingdom of heaven is like that? As marketing and recruiting go, Jesus violates all the rules. Why not say that the kingdom is like the Wal-Mart empire? Or that the kingdom is like the Bill Gates Microsoft® domain? Or that the kingdom has the influence of facebook?

Because Jesus doesn’t recruit people to the kingdom with appeals to the size of its castles, moats, armies or impressive walls. The kingdom is attractive and desirable because of the goodness of its King.

Here Jesus — following on the heels of his parable of the soils — provides two kingdom principles and two kingdom comparisons.

Kingdom Principle 1: the hidden Christ will be revealed (4:21-23)

Though he spoke earlier about letting his disciples in on the “secret” of the kingdom that the “outsiders” didn’t have, here he teaches that the situation won’t always remain the same. Using the illustration of the lamp, he indicates that whatever God has obscured or hidden or disguised is that way only temporarily. Beginning with the resurrection and ascension, God began to reveal these things.

Because of the structure of Mark’s grammar and Old Testament references, there is good reason to believe that Jesus is the “lamp” that comes in not to remain hidden, but to be lifted up and revealed to all. This will occur when he comes again, when “every eye will see” (Rev1:7) “every knee will bow, and every tongue confess” (Phi2:10). At that point, however, the time for diligent hearing is over.

Kingdom Principle 2: the diligent hearer will be rewarded (4:24-25)

“Listen up!” When men are diligent to listen deliberately and attentively to what Jesus says, God grants understanding and gives even more understanding. Hearing is not like a doorway, whose threshhold is crossed and left behind. Followers of Christ enter the kingdom hearing, and continue hearing to continue entering the kingdom.

Kingdom Comparison 1: the unobserved process (4:26-29)

This parable seems to teach that the sower — distributing the word — casts his seed out and waits until the harvest. He can even sleep well, knowing that even though he doesn’t see and doesn’t understand how the seed works in the soil of human hearts, God is tending to that. Not only that, he isn’t disturbed or troubled by an apparent lack of result. God tends to that, too.

Kingdom Comparison 2: the unexpected result (4:30-32)

From mustard seed that can barely be seen to bush so large that birds nest in its branches, the kingdom exhibits unexecpted — and divinely ordained — results. At some point, what may not look like much now will come to glorious fruition. And the glory of the kingdom is not merely its size, but its inhabitants.

Considering Old Testament references and the allusions Jesus gives here, the glory of the kingdom consists in part of the number of nations benefiting from its reign. People from every tribe, tongue and nation will receive the seed of the Word, be part of the harvest, and find refuge, provision and comfort in the kingdom of Christ.

In Luke 15 Jesus tells the famous parable of “The Prodigal Son.” The younger son demands his inheritance early, wastes it, then returns to the father, groveling to be treated like a servant. The father welcomes him lovingly, returning honor to him, while the older son grits his teeth in anger that the younger son was accepted.

Everyone focuses on the younger son and the father’s love for him.
It is a great picture of a father eagerly accepting a son he thought was lost, even though the son’s actions caused him great pain. We like to imagine this is how God receives sinners. And, to a degree, our imagining would be accurate.

There are two problems with our typical treatment of the story.

First, we leave out the older brother. A key component of interpreting parables is to look for the reason Jesus told them. Though it doesn’t happen always, on many occasions the author who recorded the event tells us why the parable was given. In Luke 15:1-3, we are told why Jesus told the parable of “The Older Brother.” Scribes and Pharisees were out of sorts because Jesus ate with ‘sinners.’ Verse 3 says ‘so he told them this parable.’

Luke actually records three: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and “The Older Brother.” All three emphasize that there is joy when things thought to be lost were found again. But the point of the telling is in 15:25-32, where the actions and attitudes of the older brother are recorded. He despised his father for glorying in the younger son’s return, because he (the older) had always been there, dutifully obeying the father though he apparently did so with no love in his heart.

Jesus was equating the older brother’s hatred with that of the scribes and Pharisees, who thought that ‘sinners’ were not worthy to receive grace. The parable is still hard-hitting today, when many of us look down on those we think are not worthy of mercy, or to hear the gospel, or to receive our time and energy.

Second, we treat the story as an evangelistic tool. That is, we tell the story of the younger son with a view to persuading men to repent and return to God. It is true that the story contains a marvelous picture of a loving father who welcomes home a wayward son, with all its facets of unconditional love and forgiveness. But a crucial element is missing: substitution.

Our sin separates us from God, like the younger son’s greed and waste separated him from the father. But even if we recognized that fact, and wanted to return to God, God would not — indeed, could not — accept us merely on our desire, no matter how sincere. In God’s economy, our sin incurs a debt against his honor that must be satisfied, and because we cannot satisfy it, there must be One who can. In fact, God provides One who can, and Jesus lived a substitutionary life and died a substitutionary death to provide a life of obedience we couldn’t live and to die the death we couldn’t survive.

Is “The Older Brother” a good story of forgiveness? Sure. But the point of the story, as told by Jesus, was to jab us in the eye and make us repent for feelings of superiority over those we consider worse ‘sinners’ than ourselves.

Anthony Hoekema, in his book Saved by Grace, gives a good summary of the effects that one’s view of the effectual call of the gospel had in relation to one’s view of the nature of man.

The ‘gospel call’ is the demand the gospel places on all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel. The ‘effectual call’ is that which results on one man’s responding to the gospel call while another does not.

According to Hoekema, one’s view of the nature of man has great impact on whether one sees a distinction between the gospel call and effectual call at all, and the relation between them and the nature of man.

The Pelagian View

Man is morally and spiritually neutral so that he is free to choose to do good or bad. No effectual call is necessary.

The Semi-Pelagian View

Man is morally and spiritually sick, but all still have the ability to respond to the gospel. No effectual call is necessary.

The Arminian View

Man is depraved, but there is sufficient enabling grace such that those who hear the gospel can cooperate with this grace and accept the gospel. No effectual call is necessary.

The Reformed View

Man is dead in sin, unable on his own to respond favorably to the gospel call. Effectual calling is necessary to bring the man to life and enable him to respond.

It is certainly apt to suggest that the doctrines of grace all fall into place once the biblical picture of the nature of man is accepted. As J.I. Packer said, one needs only be a one-point Calvinist: God Saves Sinners.

With many canned Bible study curricula, it is sometimes more interesting to detect what passages of Scripture have been omitted than to study what is said about those passages that have not.

Occasionally these omissions are due to the theological/doctrinal bent of the writer, but sometimes merely reflect a lack of stomach to discuss hard truths that comfortable believers don’t want to hear.

First Corinthians 5, which orders the excommunication of a sexually immoral man, is one of these passages. The study materials offered by a a prominent publishing house include 1Co5 in a section on “Christian Morality,” but ignore any discussion of the entire chapter.

The discipline of members (the imperative) is inextricably bound up in the idea of who the church is, in Christ (the indicative). ‘Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed’ (1Co5:7 ESV).

The distinguishing characteristics of God’s people in the Old Testament included radical devotion to a single God, demonstrated in strict dietary laws, sacrificial requirements, and, through the Passover, a sense of haste that mandated little time to wait on bread to rise.

Distinguishing characteristics of God’s people — that we are a ‘new lump’ — have not been eradicated in the New Testament, but only modified: it is no longer ethnic identity that sets us apart, but grace and a life of obedience that flows from it (‘And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise’ Gal3:29, ESV).

We are no longer set apart, but have become indistinguishable from the world, when we live like the world and tolerate sin (‘of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans’ 1Co5:1 ESV). Our distinguishing characteristic is, of course, that we love one another (John13:35). But this love does not ignore the putrefying effects of unconfessed, unrepentant sin in the camp. Instead, it recognizes who we are in Christ, and in love seeks both to preserve the souls of men (1Co5:5) and to honor the name of Christ.