If you want to see a train wreck in church, ask everyone to pray the “Lord’s Prayer” together from memory. English-speaking crowds start in mumbled confusion:

• “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallow-ed be thy name…”
• “Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…”
• “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name…”
• “Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy…”

 
You say: just read the words from a screen or from paper. Ah, but a child will pipe up, “Mommy says we pray with our eyes closed!” The elderly may sigh, “That’s not the way I learned it.”
 
After that rocky start and a few more blips, Catholics, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Methodists saying “Our Father” reach this combo request and commitment:

• “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us.”

Other Christians are terse:

• “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

 
If everyone can regroup to end the prayer, many finish abruptly:

• “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” 
  

But the King James Version crowd continues onward for a big finish, a magnificent and rousing doxology:

• “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen!”

Even if we all read from a projected image, you know that down the street someone is reading different words. This train wreck may not happen Sunday morning, but is pretty much guaranteed for Christian weddings and funerals. The confusion isn't perceived as robust diversity. It doesn't help the perceived integrity of this model prayer, of the Bible, and Christian unity. 

Good news: the oldest manuscripts of the Lord’s Prayer are consistent, word-by-word. I'll demonstrate this in a minute. More good news: Instead of digging like Indiana Jones or traveling to distant museums or monasteries, you can access images of these foundational documents online.  Moreover, we'll demonstrate that traditions—not Bibles, not translations—are the primary cause of these word collisions.

This evidence requires some technical trekking. Please consider these encouragements to keep on praying, keep on praying:

“If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest.”

“In certain ways we are weak, but the Spirit is here to help us. For example, when we don't know what to pray for, the Spirit prays for us in ways that cannot be put into words.”

(If you are reading this on a phone, you might want to rotate to landscape mode.)
 
THE LORD’S PRAYER IN STEREO

This comparison suggests that Jesus adapted prayers to the situation—even this model prayer.  Please, for a minute, focus on the features in common, like "Father" and "hallowed be your name". I suggest that these are essentials. I consider a third column: What praise, requests, and commitments in the "Our Father" also tend to be in my prayers? Yay me. Which features am I missing on my prayers? Oops. What do I add that Jesus omitted? Hmm...

But having spotlighted them, I confidently propose to here clear up those translation collisions, starting with "Forgive us our debts" versus "Forgive us our trespasses". Do these originate in the source manuscripts? Do different Bible translations to English account for these collisions?

As you'll see, the sources use just one Greek word for what gets translated as debts, trespasses, sins, etc. Here is a picture of that source word as penned around AD 350:

Pronounce that "oh-pheel-EH-mahtah". As in English, another form of the same word is used for "debtors", "those who trespass against us", etc.

As a visual aid, below is a someone feeling a tomato, er, tehmahtah. She also is paying her tehmahtah bill. Let's call this young lady,"Ophelia" to associate her with this mystery word OpheelEHmahtah in its various forms.

Following is a photo from what scholars consider the oldest manuscript of the whole New Testament. It is in the Greek language. (There are rather older manuscript fragments of individual parts of the Bible.) Featured here is the Lord's Prayer.  Highlighted toward the bottom are the two Ophelia words. Highlighted at the top and magnified below is a Greek word that transliterates as "PATER".  What do think PATER means in English?

Over on the right, look at the fourth line. It starts with a word "PONHROU" meaning "evil", as in "deliver us from evil", Matthew 6:13. The next word after that is "EAN" meaning "if" as in "if you forgive" beginning Matthew 6:14.  What is between? Nothing. This is where we expect, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, amen." This expected praise doesn't show up in a source manuscript until 200 years later. We'll show that in a minute.

But first, here is a second source manuscript from AD 300-400, Codex Sinaiticus. It was found in Mount Sinai monastary and now resides in the British Museum in London. Apart from spelling abbreviations and respectful halos for "PATER" and heaven, Sinaiticus agrees with Vaticanus.

Wrapping our show and tell: 200 years after Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, here from the Smithsonian in Washington DC is Codex Washingtonianis. This third manuscript also has "PATER" and two "Ophelias" just where expected.  But there's more.

Do you see the "AMEN" in the largest highlighted section?

You might also spot ΔΥΝΆΜΕΙς , "power". The larger highlighted section translates to English as, "For yours is the power, the kingdom, and the glory, forever, amen."

Alas, Washingtoniatis usually is in a vault not on exhibit.  You can access images of these three source manuscripts and others at: ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/liste/.

For a third time we see those two "Ophelia" words. Other manuscripts will present the "Our Father" quite as we've seen here.  We have consistency. But what do these Ophelia words mean? "Debts" or "Trespasses" or what? To answer this, we consider how these words are used elsewhere in the Bible and other writings from that time.  Aha, Matthew chapter 18 has eight Ophelias! Here is useful background info for Matthew 18:

How ought one repent? How do I apply the Torah, the laws Moses presented in the first five books of the Bible? How ought I respond to life's complicated challenges? Such applications quite occupied  Jewish thinkers, especially after Daniel's time. By the time of the Pharisees, the professors advised that offenders should publicly confess their fault and then request forgiveness by saying, “Please” three times. This they based on Genesis 50:17, where in Hebrew the brothers beg Joseph, “Please, please, please forgive us!”  The first two chapters of Amos also figure in.

The devout Jews identified additional opportunities and safeguards to deal with repentance, forgiveness, and restitution, Yom Kippur and prayer are among these. When I mess up, of course I should make things right with the victim, who is then obligated to forgive. I should also make things right with the Almighty, who in his steadfast love also forgives. But what about jerks who would exploit easy forgiveness?  The sages and later the Pharisees maintained that after a third forgiveness—nine pleases—the victim need not forgive. Indeed, the persistently abused should call in the authorities to investigate and deal with this forgiveness moocher.
 
Now meet sincere, impulsive, fisherman Peter. Peter is a follower of Jesus. Maybe Peter is thinking, “Jesus is big on forgiveness.  The Pharisees say to forgive three times. I bet Jesus wants us to forgive four times. Maybe five. Hmm... perhaps I can impress Jesus.”
 
THE CASE OF THE UNFORGIVING SERVANT - MATTHEW CHAPTER 18 VERSE 21+

Then Peter came up and said to Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
 
Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times; but seventy-seven times!”

“Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants:

But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed [ōpheilen] him a hundred denarii [about 20 bucks].

Seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe [opheileis]!’

So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him:
‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you!’

He refused and went and put his fellow servant in prison until he should pay the debt [opheilomenon].

When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed!

They went and reported to their master all that had taken place.

 


Then his master summoned him and said to him,

‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt [opheilomenon] because you pleaded with me.

And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’

And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt [opheilomenon].”

“So also my heavenly Father will do
to every one of you,

if you do not forgive your brother
from your heart.”

Minor point: The source manuscripts, whether early or late, in Matthew 18 use eight "Ophelia" words like OPHELHMATA, all for money owed. So, "forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors" accurately translates Matthew 6:12.

Two verses later in Matthew 6:14-15 Jesus says,"forgive trespasses" [PARAPTOMATA]. This fine word in various forms is used in 15 other New Testament verses, and is translated trespasses, stumbling, transgressions, offenses, or wrongdoing. I conclude that whether we call them debts or trespasses or sins, Jesus wants us to forgive all kinds of faults!

Major, major point: Do I want God to forgive me? Then I must sincerely forgive!

Consider the following four statements of Jesus. How do they differ?

• “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.” ("Our Father", Matthew 6:12)
• “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Jesus' own commentary on the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6:14-15. Yes, here "trespasses" is the best translation.)
  
• “And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” (Story of the unjust servant, Matthew 18:34-35)
• “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” (Mark 11:25)

That was a trick question. In terms of content and application, there is no essential difference among these four quotes. Jesus is consistent. And scary. This is why this is called a hard saying of Jesus. 

Christian teachers will emphasize—as they should—that salvation is a free gift not earned by me. They will say that if I don't forgive when I should, then that's a sign that I was never saved, that I am a fake, that I have no roots, that I lack the fruit of the spirit called forbearance. Do I pray for my forgiveness when I remain unforgiving? I am a two-faced slimy hypocrite.   Mark says: if I have not forgiven someone, then before I continue on the train track of prayer,  I must pull the emergency brake! Immediately I should back up and fix my forgiveness. Then I can continue praying.  In this light, forgiving is a requisite to praying. It is not unusual to have trouble forgiving. Fix-it advice appears in other articles.

Before the story of the unforgiving servant, Jesus had given an escalation procedure for confronting another Christian: Matthew 18:15-20. Some Christians assert that I must follow that procedure and instances of it such as in Luke 7, Luke 15, & Acts 2. Suppose I press an offending party to repent. I escalate confrontations. If there is no repentance, then I ought to not forgive. So they say. Rather, the offender is to be shunned!  Even that exclusion is is an opportunity, an opportunity to reflect and repent. I previously pondered this sequence.

Changing a tire is hard, dirty work. That hard approach noted, the Lord's Prayer does not require repentance before forgiveness.  Some other passages likewise simply do not think it essential to mention repentance before forgiveness.

I want to do what is right. Am I out of line, usurping God's ways if I reflexively forgive before repentance?  Say, someone steals my car or vandalizes it. Do I forgive the unknown offender who may never be found?  Or else do I stew forever? Or what if someone stabs me? Suppose I die before my murderer can repent. For not forgiving, am I not forgiven? Am I bound for hell?  Arghhh, I don't want to play this game. My solution is to let the law of love govern the practice of forgiveness. I will confront as opportunity, God's spirit, and wisdom permit. Before that, I am a reflexive forgiver. So sue me. I'll forgive you.

To conclude: no source manuscript uses "trespasses" in the Lord's Prayer. They all use Ophelia words that translate as "debt" and "debtors". Jesus does use "trespasses" in his subsequent commentary on the Lord's Prayer.

Of over 900 English translations only two Bibles have used "trespasses" in the Lord's Prayer. These are the 1546 Tyndale Matthew Bible and the 1833 Joseph Smith Latter Day Saints Inspired Version. Some translations and paraphrases aimed at kids and learners may use neither debts nor trespasses or sins, but instead, something like "wrongdoers".


No Catholic Bible uses "trespasses" in "Our Father"! None in English, none in Latin.

Why then do Catholics, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans say, "Forgive us our trespasses"?

“Trespasses” comes from traditional catechisms, traditional devotionals, and The Book of Common Prayer!

The devout learned "trespasses" as kids.
They teach "trespasses" to kids.
They pray, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" several times a day. If not perfunctory, that's a great practice, better than not praying.

Pope Francis in 2019 directed modification of "Our Father" in Bibles from "lead us not into temptation" into "do not let us fall into temptation".  This accords with James 1:13.  Maybe "trespasses" also will get gradual updates. But there's tremendous inertia in this tradition.

From this technical presentation, I hope you have gained appreciation for the veracity of the Bible and the labors of Bible translators.  I hope you've gained appreciation for the "Our Father" prayers Jesus taught. I hope you—as I—have come to recognize the debt we owe Jesus, that he himself forgave, paying with his own blood and righteousness. In other articles I have dealt and aim to deal with some emotional and spiritual choices involving prayer and forgiveness. 

Let us forgive. Then let us pray.

Part 1:  Forgiveness as a Reflex

A long time ago someone asked me what “forgiveness” means to me. I offered the following simplistic definitions:

• Forgiveness means giving up my right to punish, resent, or recover something taken from me.
  
• Forgiveness is not claiming justice that I feel is due me.
  

The something could be a spot on the exit lane, my chocolate-chip cookie, my wallet, my reputation. There's a debt owed to me, at least an apology. Then instead of reacting with retribution, angry words, or silent bitterness, I respond with kindness.

Prompt forgiveness is in my interest!

“Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For if you forgive other people for their offenses,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive other people,
then your Father will not forgive your offenses.”
Matthew 6:11-15

Forgiveness is good for the forgiver. Anne Lamott and others have observed: “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison, and then waiting around for the rat to die.”
 
I gather from Jesus’ frequent teaching about love, that reflexive forgiveness comes with the whole unconditional love package. Consider his directives from Luke chapter 6:

“I say to you who are listening:

Love your enemies!
Do good to those who hate you!
Bless those who curse you!
Pray for those who are cruel to you!

If anyone slaps you on one cheek,
offer him the other cheek, too.

If someone takes your coat,
do not stop him from taking your shirt.

Give to everyone who asks you,
and when someone takes something that is yours,
don’t ask for it back.

Do to others what you would want them to do to you.

If you love only the people who love you,
what praise should you get?
Even sinners love the people who love them.

If you do good only to those who do good to you,
what praise should you get?
Even sinners do that!

If you lend things to people,
always hoping to get something back,
what praise should you get?
Even sinners lend to other sinners
so that they can get back the same amount!

But love your enemies, do good to them,
and lend to them without hoping to get anything back.
Then you will have a great reward,
and you will be children of the Most High God,
because he is kind even to people who are ungrateful
and full of sin.

Show mercy, just as your Father shows mercy.

Don’t judge others, and you will not be judged.
Don’t accuse others of being guilty,
and you will not be accused of being guilty.

Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

Part 2:  Forgiveness as a Procedure

Later I found that some Christians say that my reflexive forgiveness is wrong for all concerned. They say, the Perfect Pattern is this: Do not forgive until the offending party has repented!

“If your fellow believer sins,
go and tell him in private what he did wrong.

If he listens to you,
you have helped that person to be your brother or sister again.

But if he refuses to listen, go to him again
and take one or two others with you.
‘Every case may be proved
by two or three witnesses.’

If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.
If he refuses to listen to the church,
then treat him like a person who
does not believe in God or like a tax collector.

Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Matthew 18:15-20

An example of this sequence (offense, repentance, then forgiveness) turned up in the Corinth church. The church shunned the offender so thoroughly that Paul had to tell the church, effectively: 

The offender has repented! Enough already! Forgive! 

See 1 Corinthians 5 and 2 Corinthians 2 for the two-part story.  The above Matthew 18:15-20 procedure segues to Matthew 18:21-25, the story of the Unforgiving Servant, where I find out what happens if I fail to forgive.

Jesus could forgive any way he wanted. Yet on the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Stephen, likewise:

 And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out,
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 
And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Acts 7:59-60

A bystander at Stephen's stoning much later had this to say:

Part 3: Forbearance

I still prefer my simple, reflexive forgiveness, but I've come to think one click forgiveness is not always appropriate. It lets me move on and generally is a benefit to me. However, I see value in some confrontation. Can I confront the jerk who cut me off on the highway? Best not! Ought I try to ask productive questions of a friend who offends me? Sure. That's work.  That's risky. It takes courage, sensitivity, and practice. I continue to learn. When words have first presented in my mind as a reproach, rephrasing as a question can smooth the way to reconciliation. "Why did you eat the last cookie?" Is silent patience sometimes best?
 
There’s a word for how I reconcile instant forgiveness versus due process. I do... forbearance.
 
“Forbear!” is an antique British word replaced these days by “be patient!” Forbearance is not coping. Forbearance is not ignoring an offense. Forbearance is patiently loving. Forbearance is deferring all retribution to God. Practice with your chin raised saying, “I forbear ye, knave!” Better, practice thinking, “Love bears all things.”

On his gravestone William Shakespeare requested visitors to forbear in the sense of “have mercy”:

“The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.  It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes...”
Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.”
Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2.

In law, “forbearance” is postponing a legal right. A lender could forbear payment of a debt.

Forbearance is more nuanced than either reflexively forgiving or reflexively demanding repentance.

My usual pronouncement in charitable giving, certainly to other believers, is “no quid pro quo”, no this for that: reflexive forgiveness. But as a Walmart customer, I expect this for that! As a teacher, I specify certain performance for a grade and specify behavior to avoid the principal's office.

If discernment is required for one-to-one problems, how much more when I am just one victim of many?  Ought I ignore offenses against another person? Or crimes with unknown perps? Or “victimless” sin? Or offenses to God? Jesus cleared the temple.

I pray that the Lord will bless the offending party with insight, remorse, and repentance. But quite as important, I pray, “Heavenly Father, you have toward each of us love, discernment, and patience. May we each grow in love, discernment, and patience."

A deciding factor for me is that, Jesus and the New Testament writers urge me to love unilaterally, provided that love is not just compassionate feelings, but also doing kindness, perhaps sacrificial action.  See Matthew 5:44-48, Luke 6:27-38. That rather simplifies the procedural calculus: Step 1: Love. Step 2: There is no step 2.

The ASV and RSV are the English Bible translations with most use of “forbear”. Here is a comparison. (For mobile viewing of this comparison, rotate to landscape view.) Here is one of the passages and versions that mentions "forbearance". What is a result of forbearance?

I entreat Eu-o′dia and I entreat Syn′tyche
to agree in the Lord.
And I ask you also, true yokefellow,
help these women,
for they have labored side by side with me
in the gospel
together with Clement
and the rest of my fellow workers,
whose names are in the book of life.

Rejoice in the Lord always;
again I will say, Rejoice!
Let all men know your forbearance.
The Lord is at hand.
Have no anxiety about anything,
but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding,
will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Related articles:   Prayer Collision! ... Forgiveness Stretches ...

Previously:  I ❤ Translators ... Saints ... Weirdos ,,, Saints ꓤ Us

Ephesians chapter 4 verse 7:
“But grace was given
to each one of us
according to the measure of Christ's gift….
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,

12 to equip the saints
for the work of ministry,
for building up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

14 so that we may no longer be
children,
tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine,
by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love,
we are to grow up
in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped,
when each part is working properly,
makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
English Standard Version.  Check other translations.

 Previously we decoded “saints”: Saints are us! So what does, “to equip the saints” mean? There are 63 English translations for Ephesians 4:12 now at BibleGateway.com.  I count four ways they translate “equip”, with four pictures these translations bring to my malleable mind:

• “to equip” or “for equipping” the saints. Is there a big box store selling Bibles and knee pads?
  
• “to prepare” or “for training” the saints. On the hill, do we find The Saints Academy?
• “for the repairing” of the saints. Is there a warranty on a saint? Is there a service center? 
• “for perfecting” the saints, to give the saints “all things necessary”. Whoa, perfecting?

Recall that “saints” are part of a word family, the hagios clan. There are 233 New Testament verses featuring members of that family: Holy Spirit, holy city, holy man, holy angels, holy child, holy name, holy prophets, holy covenant, holy writings, holy kiss, and more. Though numerous, these contexts all consistently focus on the notion of the “holy”. "Holy" describes something or someone dedicated to God, or something or someone that God declared to be set apart for him. Thus God has declared us holy; not by our merit, but by Christ's. God had to tell Moses he was standing on holy ground. I don't mind when someone treats me like dirt. Through Christ you and I are holy dirt.

By contrast, the New Testament word family for “equip” consists of just this one verse, Ephesians 4:12. The source word, katartismon, has no brothers or sisters. But katartismon has cousins: the katartizo family and katartisis family.  These verses give contexts for translating the relatives of “equip”.

Translation results among the relatives of “equip”:

• prepare • bring forth  • mend, repair, or prepare (fishing nets)
• finish (work) • prepare (for destruction!)
• unite (in same frame of mind) • mature
• restore (someone benched for wrongdoing)
• supply, complete (what is lacking)
• prepare, provide (a body) • create (the universe!)

Ahha! “Repairing” the saints probably came from James and John mending their nets. Peeking outside the New Testament (according to Thayer, Kittel, & BDAG), other Greek writings of the time add perspectives for katartismon: setting bones; furnishing a house; arming soldiers; artistry; competency; professionalism. Perhaps Paul saw this wide range of interpretation. He goes on to identify what happens when we successfully equip:

• An outcome of equipping: We saints do the work of service. (Two footnotes: (1) Some translations say “work of ministry”. Most people I know view “ministry” as a religious profession or a government job. The source word here, diakonias, does cover the profession of preaching (Acts 6:4). Yet diakonias also refers to general service: to giving supplies, finances, or help to those in need (2 Corinthians chapter 9). (2) Some translations add a comma after "saints" in verse 12, making ministry a function of the evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Omitting the comma as other translations do makes ministry a function of all the saints. The source texts have no punctuation at all in this whole passage. )
  
• An outcome of equipping: We strengthen the community of believers, that is, the body of Christ.
  
• An outcome of equipping: We grow in trusting God and in what we know about God.
  
• Outcome: We mature, such that people notice we resemble Christ.
• Outcome: We are no longer babies, suckers for a scam. (The Ephesians had a serious scam infestation.)
• Outcome: We speak the truth—in love.
• Outcome: Again, we have a flattering family resemblance to the son of God.
  
• Outcome: As individuals we give and receive personal growth and love.
• Outcome: As an assembly we grow in holiness and perhaps in numbers.

When we have these nine or so virtues, then congratulations! We will be equipped saints! We will be prepared, repaired, and perfected saints. These verses don’t completely reveal a process or a program. For that, what we have here is people. Just people, not programs. The first-century churches had apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors/shepherds, and teachers. These people were saints and they served saints. All the saints served God, one another, and the community. Ha. If these saints, even the apostles, were 100% perfect, then the New Testament would be much shorter! Their mediocrity or occasional slips are a plus for us! While the apostles and company had missionary and first-responder roles in equipping the saints, let us not forget verse 7: “to each one is given a gift”. Each saint has a role in the growth of saints.

If we want how-to lessons on how to serve, how to increase in faith and knowledge, how to mature, how to speak truth in love, and more, we have records of how these saints did it: The New Testament.

Equipping the Saints

It was possible to go from zero to hero for one fellow, but his shepherd was Jesus. Ditto for this guy. Skill with your saintly vehicle benefits from coaching from other saints. The Bible records that missionary saints like Paul and Barnabas received help from one another and from the other saints:  encouragement, money, hospitality, companionship, even correction.

How ought the church do equipping? Is there a process, action plan, curriculum, catechism, program, or teacher’s guide? I assert that direction for equipping the saints is hidden in plain sight. It’s the Bible. Right: Some assembly required.

Do you find the Bible puzzling? Enlist a holy hitchhiker like this guy did. Tip: The Bible is long. Parts are for you now, parts are for other situations. Starting in Genesis is ok. Exodus has drama and directives. Then jump way forward and read Luke several times.  Luke’s sequel, Acts, made me a Christian.

Leaning on holy people is essential. Pondering God's holiness helps. We also cannot neglect the prompting of God’s Holy Spirit. Just as Moses walked unknowingly on holy ground, just as Jesus walked and talked with two people without their immediate recognition, the Holy Spirit's direction is present even if we don’t recognize it. The higher view of GPS (God’s Powerful Spirit) will become preferred to following hunches and feelings, you know, like babies on the stormy ocean.

One aspect of equipping is learning in doing. You’ll succeed at some attempts but mess up so much. Other saints can help you get up and stumble on. 

I enjoy fresh saints and canned saints. By canned saints I mean written or spoken advice I store for times of need and for continuing education.

Another key concept is that saints differ in gifts.  That’s stated in Ephesians chapter 4. Check also Romans 12 and the more controversial 1 Corinthians 12. How do you discover spiritual gifts? Consider my experience in an older article, Which Muppet are You? Another Biblical approach to discovering and developing your spiritual gift is in Kevin McConaghy’s super-duper list, The “One Anothers” of Scripture. A book by Gene A. Getz, Building Up One Another, comments on these equipping nuggets. Not enough? I was privileged to hear one of the last sermons of Ray Stedman, so I claim him as one of my equippers. He wrote a book, Body Life, freely available here. Body Life documents the equipping and growth of Peninsula Bible Church in a very hostile environment.

Apostle Paul gives the following encouragement to his protégé Timothy and to us:

“Keep using the gift God gave you …
let it grow, as a small flame grows into a fire.
God did not give us a spirit that makes us afraid
but a spirit of power and love and self-control.”
(2 Timothy chapter 1)

As previously demonstrated, start with an online Bible that contains the word “saints”. A majority of them do! Search for “saints”. You should find around 60 verses in the New Testament. Then comes journalist work.  Where are the saints? What are they doing? How did they become saints? Who are these saints? 
 
The conclusions: When Luke, Peter, and especially Paul were writing, saints were definitely in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Colossae, Philippi, and Jerusalem—apparently everywhere. The saints also were in trouble, they were in jail, they needed money, and they needed prayer. They needed to keep out of the wild lives they previously had lived. They got the titles “saints” and “holy people” (hagios in Greek) not by being valedictorians, not by being exceptionally good, but by God calling them.

So it is I conclude that saints are the people usually known as Christians.

Saints are not necessarily super-Christians. Saints do not necessarily wear shiny Frisbee™ hats. Saints are not necessarily dead or martyrs. Saints don't necessarily walk on water, though I have seen that.

Contemporary saints are us. We Christians are saints.

This has terrifying implications for my life and yours.  I want to address those at another time, but it suffices to again cite an encouragement from Peter in his first letter:

As obedient children, do not be conformed
to the passions of your former ignorance, but as
he who called you is holy [hagion],
you also be holy [hagioi] in all your conduct.
...
But you are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood,
a holy nation [hagios ethnos],
a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim
the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people,
but now you are God's people.
Once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.

Jesus prayed sometimes alone and sometimes with his team. In the New Testament, normal growth into actual holy lives requires that mixture of time with God and time interacting with believers. Moreover, a repeated idea in the New Testament is that Christians are a community of specialists: people with different gifts helping one another live and grow, quite as various body organs cooperate.  Of the several NT chapters dealing with body life, Ephesians chapter 4 is what I have been studying recently: “…And he [Christ] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints [that’s us] for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, … so when each part is working properly, the body grows as it builds itself up in love.”

Before continuing how equipping can work, I have name-calling to finish.  We call ourselves Christians. That term shows up only three times in the Bible! First is Acts 11:26: “in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.” Check out the “almost Christian” in Acts 26, and the suffering Christians in 1 Peter 4.
 
There are many more Biblical words for Christians.  “More-Biblical” matters to some people when it’s convenient. We now know “saints” is one term for Christian, and it is used 60 times. Did you spot “disciple” above? Disciple translates a common Greek word mathētēs, meaning dedicated student or avid follower, a devotee, more than a fan. There were disciples of John the Baptist. There were disciples of the Pharisees. Outside the Bible you could find disciples of the Stoics—I have been accused of being one. You could cheerlead for the Epicureans. I count a whopping 233 Bible references to disciples of Christ.
 
I bet you can think of yet more Bible words that can substitute for “Christian”.  Here’s what comes to my mind. Ready?
 
"Believer" (pisteuontes) occurs in the sense of “Christian” at least 14 times in the New Testament, for example, Acts 5:14: "And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women". Some believers were Pharisees, a practice that continues today.
 
"Brothers" of course can refer to siblings or best friends. English New Testaments use "Brothers" (adelphos) around 124 times for Christians. Some translations use "brothers and sisters".

"The Church" (ekklēsia in various forms) is strongly associated with a group of Christians or their meeting place. Church appears in this sense around 106 times in the New Testament. Ekklēsia is used also for the Hebrews journeying to the promised land. It is used outside the Bible as a term for any assembly, any group of people, or a place where a group meets. In Acts 19:32, ekklēsia is not translated "church", for it is used of a riotous mob of pagans. Youth groups, pre-schoolers, if the shoe fits…. Preachers sometimes observe that ekklēsia breaks down to base words meaning “out” and “called”. Scholars caution that after 1,400 years of use even before Christ, Greek-speaking people cared about root words just like we care that the English word “humor” derives from “bodily fluid”. Interestingly, the choice of the English word "church" for an assembly of Christians involved some politics. For the Bible that eventually bore his name, King James specified:

“3. The Old Ecclesiastical Words to be kept, viz. the word Church
not to be translated Congregation &c.”

This choice appeased some who wanted King James and Anglican leaders to remain owners of church real estate, authorities over church people, and defenders of the faith.

The Bible has several more words for “Christians”.

• Are you among "Followers of The Way"?
  
• Are you one of the "Friends"?
• Oh my, are you among the "Nazarenes"?
• We are voting this year. Are you among "The Elect"? Eklektos references Christians 19 times.
• Are you “beloved”? In some translations it comes out as merely “friends”. This term (Greek source agapētoi) is used sometimes for specific individuals. It is used in plural about 29 times for Christians as a group. John particularly likes to call his readers “beloved”. In the south-central US pronounce this as one syllable "bluhvd" or two syllables "all-yall".
  
• Some metaphors for Christians include “children of God” (around 16 times),.
  
• “Servants of God” (around 10 times) “servants of Christ” (around 4 times), “coworkers” or "fellow workers" (not to be confused with “cow-orkers”) (around 13 times) also identify Christians.
  
• “Sheep” tends to refer to people in general, but is sometimes used of Christians only. Ditto for "lambs".
• Once we are called “clay pots”, emphasizing our fragile service. I’ve resolved to collect more such metaphors for us. They're encouraging and humbling. The Hebrew Bible—especially the Psalms—has lots of word pictures of God’s people.
  
• 1 Peter 2:9-11 lavishes several descriptions on God's people. It is worth repeating:

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, so that you may declare the glorious deeds of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul."

After all that name-calling, I feel better wearing the label, “saint”.

Previously: Translators | Saints | Holy Here

What comes to your mind with the mention of “saints”?  People who pray a lot? Kind, generous people? Miracle-workers and martyrs? People in heaven?

Clearly, saints pray. The Bible also speaks about a dozen times of praying for saints.

What about praying to saints? In favor of this claim, the best Biblical reference I can cite is from James 5: “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power...”  What if my prayer partner—hopefully a righteous person—is in heaven? The record suggests that people in heaven are alive (Matt 22:31-33), and whether in Hades or Heaven they can remember their life experiences and can persist in their values. However, we don’t know if they can see or hear us now. God in heaven hears our prayers—but do saints in heaven? If interaction is the point of paired prayer, separation is a problem.

Hebrews 12:1-2 does not picture the dearly-departed watching us and cheering us on. How vain of us if we think that. Rather, in view of the saints' parade in Hebrews chapter 11, we are to let their faithful lives witness to us. Their examples encourage us to discipline and endurance. Foremost, we look to Jesus both as example and as the one who claimed, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Then he crushed sin and death and overcame the world. Why should we use a lobbyist when we have Jesus?

We have a great high priest who has gone into heaven, and he is Jesus the Son of God.
This is why we must hold on to what we have said about him.
Jesus understands every weakness of ours, because he was tempted
in every way that we are.
But he did not sin!
So whenever we are in need,
we should come
bravely
before the throne of our merciful God.
There we will be treated with undeserved grace, and we will find help.
Hebrews 4:14-16 (CEV)

What have we learned about the saints in the preceding looks at English translations?

(1) Paul opened his letters to Rome, Corinth, Colossae, Ephesus, and Philippi, each addressing “the saints”. Paul carried aid to "the saints" in Jerusalem.
(2) Said saints needed food, money, or release from jail. The saints needed prayer.
(3) Paul’s greetings note that people did not become saints by merit, but by God’s call.

We can add that (4) the New Testament letters mainly corrected the saints' bad choices, bad ideas, and infighting. The New Testament would be around half as long if the saints had been saintly.

But nevertheless Paul called them saints. When the Ephesians and others heard Paul call them “saints”, did they ask, “what’s a saint?” Is this like where Jesus tells Peter, “On this rock I will build my church,”—and Peter replies, “Thanks, Jesus! Uh, what’s a church?” Given that the English language wasn't invented until around seven hundred years later, what word or words did Paul use for "saints" and how did his recipients understand that word?

Online sites offer free tools to identify those original words and the cultural associations they probably held for their writers and readers. Let’s demonstrate. The screenshot here captures a web browser on my iPhone. It was opened to www.BibleGateway.com.

I typed Ephesians 4:12 and chose to search in the Mounce Reverse Interlinear New Testament. Then I tapped the search button 🔍.  The result follows below.

Aha! This shows that in Ephesians 4:12 the English word “saints” comes from the Greek word family of hagios.

Hagios is the representative from the family of words translated to “saints”.

Hagios is not necessarily the specific word used in Ephesians 4:12. We’ll come to that word soon. Like English, Greek has slightly different words for singular “saint”, plural “saints”, possessive “saint’s” or “saints’”, and more. The suffix on a Greek word communicates much more than in English.

“Interlinear” means that we start with the Greek or Hebrew source lines and with each source word list a corresponding translated word or phrase. “Reverse Interlinear” shown here means we start with a translation (such as the KJV, NIV, or ESV). Then with each word or phrase of the translation (like “saints”) comes the corresponding transliterated Greek or Hebrew source word family (such as hagios) or the specific source word (such as hagion) or  its Greek form (ἁγίων). Either way you do it, this is a quick way to find the corresponding source for a translation.

Footnote: if your aim is to master biblical Greek, an Interlinear is poison.  If your aim is to quickly identify a translation/source relationship, an Interlinear is an expedient, compact tool. Don't expect the crowded presentation to detail nuances or other usage. In this case, hagios applies to "saints". As we'll see, hagios can be the source of other translated words such as "holy" and "purified".

Here’s the good part: With BibleGateway Mounce Reverse Interlinear and other such tools, just click on saints or hagios.

Boom! We get details about the hagios family:  A short list of some ways hagios words are translated, and a long list of all the Bible verses in which hagios words appear.  See below.

Sigh. I thought I might be a saint.

However, the meanings associated with hagios intimidate me! 

  holy,
   consecrated,
      separate from common condition and use,
  dedicated,
     pure,
       righteous.

In short, saints are weirdos.

Of course, I’m joking—but not much. You’ll see. And I suppose “weirdo” does fit me.

That's the dictionary. Much later, I'll comment on dangers of dictionaries. They list many possible meanings or translations of a word, but might not identify the specific meaning or translation for a specific passage such as Ephesians 4:12.

The display here also starts a concordance, a list of all verses that contain some form of the Greek word hagios. These verses show trends in meaning.

Continuing the demo: If you see a link “everywhere hagios appears in the New Testament“, click it!

In some situations such as here, Bible Gateway just goes ahead and displays this list.  You can scroll down through 222 New Testament verses where some member of the hagios family appears. “Word family” is called “Lexical Form”. You will find that hagios words are all about holy things:

Holy Spirit, holy city, holy man, holy angels, holy child, holy name, holy prophets, holy covenant, holy kiss, …

Eventually we get to Ephesians 4:12.

Aha, in that verse the English word translated “saints” comes from the specific Greek word hagiōn (ἁγίων).

A little before that, in Ephesians 3:18, “saints” comes from hagiois.

BibleGateway also offers a Hebrew and Greek reverse interlinear for the New International Version—if you paid for the BibleGateway PLUS subscription. If you have not logged on as a PLUS user you can demonstrate this feature, but only occasional sample verses show the Greek text.  Open a passage in the New International Version, say Ephesians 4. Click the gear icon ⚙ to set Options. Turn on "Reverse Interlinear". As with Mounce, just click a word to see its source family.

My favorite free point-and-click Greek and Hebrew interlinear is at https://www.esv.org. In your web browser open that site. Register for a free login ID by clicking Sign In then Create an account. After login you have Greek and Hebrew tools that are otherwise hidden. The initial screen will display a Bible chapter.  Click on the title to select the book and chapter you want, or to pull up all verses for a word family or word.

Then in the upper left click the three dots ••• then Language Tools. This displays 3 choices: a Hebrew Old Testament, the 1995 NA28 Nestle-Aland, and the 2017 THGNT Tyndale House Greek New Testament.  I usually select Tyndale House. For now it is newer. This interlinear displays the specific Greek word such as hagion for Ephesians 12:4. Clicking on hagion or “saints” will display the hagios word family information, including a glossary entry and a list of verses. There are options (the  ••• on the right) to switch display between just Original Language, Interlinear, and Reverse Interlinear. Poke around, see what the other options do.

Yet another interlinear tool is at www.stepbible.org, a free service of Tyndale House, Cambridge, UK. This lets you stack or interleave source text together with several translations including non-English translations. Then with just a click on a word, get its brief definitions, grammatical notes, and concordance list of verses.

Sifting the Saints

Paul starts 1 Corinthians with his typically long greeting:

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,
to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified [hagiazō] in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints [hagios]
together with all those who in every place
call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I always thank my God for you...

After this warm opening embrace, Paul starts beating up the hagios saints.  By chapter 6, we get this:

You yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters. Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified [hagiazoi], you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

So I'm thinking, the saints at Corinth were not pretty figurines, too cool for school, too clean for the scene.  Maybe I can be a saint after all.  So I kept investigating the hagios family.

Hagios was not a new word. When speaking Greek, the Jews for hundreds of years had applied hagios to themselves. “We are God’s chosen people, God’s holy people, hagios.”

When speaking Greek, the Jews called Jerusalem the hagios polis, the holy city. The Bible? Hagios graphe, holy writings. For the Jew, hagios conveyed purity, cleanness, a ritually sanitary state. Hagios was about washing clean and staying clean. The Greek word hagios approximately translated the Hebrew word spoken as kodosh. Approximately. The old rabbis would sigh and point out that this Greek word hagios failed to convey the historical Hebrew kodosh attitudes of surrender, dedication, separation, and faithfulness to the Almighty and to his law.

When people look at me, when people look at you, they see a Bible translation.  Modern rabbi Abraham Heschel wisely observes that, “It may be difficult to convey to others what we think, but it is not difficult to convey to others what we live.”

Greek people hearing the Jews would roll their eyes. The Greeks of the first century AD used hagios in a broader sense than the Jews. Hagios described any objects of worship, any places of worship, any stuff associated with a supernatural being, anything inspiring awe, dread, or utmost caution. It could be from the Canaanites, the Egyptians, the Jews, or the Greek pantheon.  Whatever prompted a call to Ghostbusters.

To the Greeks, hagios described something spooky, something awful, something… just… weird.

How do I in 2024 northern Virginia know what Jews and Greeks thought 2000 years ago?  One way is to search for translations like “saints”. Multiple uses give me multiple contexts. As a child I learned most of my native language not from a dictionary but from repeated collisions with contexts. Biblical contexts offer a sense of what the word meant to its users—as opposed to the way, after thousands of years, that word is used around moi. That inspection of contexts is what we have been doing here.

A second way is demonstrated above. Even without significant experience in Greek or Hebrew, you can use an interlinear translation to find the corresponding source language words such as hagios or hagion. Consider the brief definitions of that word. Use the concordance or search feature and consider the contexts you discover.

Paul uses the word “saints” a lot. More precisely, when talking about ordinary Christians, Paul uses hagios words over 38 times.   Yet Paul is hardly the only one reminding Christians about personal holiness. The Psalms reference the kodosh a dozen times. Peter in his first letter adds these word pictures:

As obedient children, do not be conformed
to the passions of your former ignorance, but as
he who called you is holy [hagion],
you also be holy [hagioi] in all your conduct.
...
But you are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood,
a holy nation [hagios ethnos],
a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim
the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people,
but now you are God's people.
Once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.

Be holy.  Live your title, saints! We can talk more about holiness in a rather later installment.

In my next installment, we must talk about dangers of word study that we blithely skipped here. Stay tuned.

Previously:  I ❤ Translators

In Part 1, “I ❤ Translators”, I started investigation of a persistent mystery of the Bible in Ephesians. Chapter 4 verse 7 starts clearly enough.

But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

That quote uses the popular English Standard Version translation of the Bible. It translates from the language of almost 2000 years ago.

Verses 8-10 take a detour through the Older Testament. Then we get a sentence that in the ESV spans verses 11, 12, 13, and 14. It uses several words that puzzle me. These words give me an impression of important people doing important business.

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, …

The ESV  translation tries to be true to the source words. Most of the 63 informants at BibleGateway.com have that same word-oriented goal.

Other translators are thought-oriented. They have the goal of clarity.  I like clarity. I like clarity a lot.

I kinda know what apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers do. But what is a crummy “shepherd” doing with these big shots? Comic relief? Does the shepherd bring his own sheep?

This team, they “equip the saints”. What does this mean? Do they give the saints a box full of Bibles?

Once I figure out who "the saints" are, maybe I can figure out what it means to "equip the saints".

I pull up Ephesians 4:12 again. I stare at it. I look out the window. I stare at it some more.

Then I click Ephesians 4:12 in all English translations. 

Just one click, and bingo bongo, 63 translations arguing with each other. Some people would call them a jabbering mob.  I call them 63 witnesses.  So I get out some tally cards.  It takes work, but I boil the 63 down to at most 4 variations.  Head work saves leg work.

If you're following this on a phone, the table that follows looks better if you rotate to landscape mode.

In each column, the first item listed is the majority.  For example, “equipping” or “enabling” occurs in 38 of the 63 English versions at BibleGateway.com.  However, many of these are descendants of the same great-grandad 1611 King James Version. What's with "repairing"? How do you repair a saint?

I ought to go to Iason’s Pizza Palace to get the lowdown from the Greek informants that usually hang out there.  But it’s a dark and windy night. I expect trouble. I'll work with what I have. Which is just words, only words. 

In the old days, I could thumb through a honkin’ big concordance to find every verse about “saints”. Now, I fire up BibleGateway.com or a similar tool. Then I find a witness like the ESV, a witness that knows about saints. I ask that witness: Tell me: what else do you know about saints?  Where are they? What do they do?

Jackpot. The ESV has 81 verses about saints: 21 verses in Old Town and 60 in New Town.  Look at that. I see where the saints are and what they're up to.

List 1: Saints are everywhere. They're in all the big cities, even in the emperor's mansion. This is a honkin’ big operation!

1. Romans 1:7 “To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
2. Romans 16:15 “Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.”
3. 1 Corinthians 1:2 “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours”
4. 2 Corinthians 1:1 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia, Grace to you…”
5. 2 Corinthians 13:13 “All the saints greet you.”
6. Ephesians 1:1 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you…”
7. Philippians 1:1 “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: Grace to you…”
8. Philippians 4:22 “All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.”
9. Colossians 1:2 “To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you…”
10. Hebrews 13:24 “Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings.”

List 2: Saints are in trouble! It's a war!

1. Acts 9:13 “But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem.’”
2. Acts 26:10 (Paul said) “And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them.”
3. Romans 12:13 “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”
4. Romans 15:25 “At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints.”
5. Romans 15:26 “For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem.”
6. 1 Corinthians 16:1 “Now concerning the collection for the saints: …”
7. 2 Corinthians 8:4 “begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints…”
8. 2 Corinthians 9:12 “For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.”
9. Ephesians 6:18 “…keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,…”
10. Revelation 13:7 “Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.”
11. Revelation 13:10 “If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.”
12. Revelation 14:12 “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.”
13. Revelation 16:6 “For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!”
14. Revelation 17:6 “And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”
15. Revelation 18:24 “And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.”

List 3. Saints become saints by God's call.

1. Romans 1:7 "To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
2. 1 Corinthians 1:2 "To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:"
3. Ephesians 1:18 "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,"

How about that? My hunches about saints weren’t quite right. They weren’t quite wrong. Some saints were jailbirds. Maybe still are. Some were poor. Maybe still are. Some are under attack.... They don't get to be saints by being tough or by scoring hits. They got to be saints because the Boss said they were saints.

The Catholic Boys, they say that we should pray to the saints that are in heaven. I don’t see that here. I do see that we should pray for the saints. These saints, they need prayer. They’re poor. They're needy.

 "Saints" go by other names too.  So I search the NIV for "his people". 121 hits in Old Town, 15 hits in New Town.  That's disappointing. But I know English translations can have different English words for the same source word. Choice depends on context.  Some translations make one English word from different source words. So I see saints in Ephesians 1:1. If I look at Ephesians 1:1 in the NIV, I find "God's holy people". Searching for "God's holy people" in the NIV gives me 9 more hits. I can learn a lot from just comparing translations. I still ought to track down, what is the source word in Ephesians 4:12?

What about “equipping” the saints? I search for “equip” in the ESV. Type the word, hit  🔍 . This turns up 14 hits in Old Town, mostly about getting ready for big fights. Like, “you equipped me with strength for the battle.” Hm. Good to know. Disappointing, there are just four cases of the English word "equip" in New Town. I still don't know what "equip" means for saints in Ephesians 4. There's still work to do. I hope the Greek can tell me more.

New glasses. Updated haircut. When you are fascinated with someone, you notice changes.  In December, Eric began a look at a Bible passage that has fascinated me, Ephesians 4:11-16. It begins:

“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets,
the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,
to equip his people for works of service…”

I noticed that the February quotation was the same but different:

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets,
the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
to equip the saints for the work of ministry…”

The December posts used the 2011 New International Version. Aha! The January-February installments used the 2001 English Standard Version. Differences:

   “Christ”          became pronoun “he”
   “pastors”       versus “shepherds”
   “his people”  versus “the saints”
   “service”        versus “ministry”
 
Does it matter that these translations differ? What’s the best translation of these verses? They seem to be saying that, Christ appoints leaders to bring about church or personal growth. To somebody. Who are “the saints”? Aren’t they, like, miracle-working Super Christians? How does one “equip” saints? Give them a gift card for Home Depot? Pass out Bibles? Doesn't the ministry require more dedication than rando works of service?

In this and subsequent articles I'll show how I resolved these questions to my satisfaction—at least until you put something in the comments. The tools I used, are online and free. You can use them too!

The New International Version of 1978 also sought “accuracy and clarity”. I bought weighty tools such as a 2000-page Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Greek New Testaments, lexicons, and other language tools.

Now it’s 2024 or later. You can access all of these Bibles and many more for free on your cell phone or computer! They have search capabilities and "display in all translations" capabilities and display multiple translations capabilities!

For example: Try a quick browser visit to BibleGateway.com. (There are also Bible.com, BibleHub.com, Biblia.com , BlueLetterBible.org, BibleArc.com, and  other Bible sites. I like the browser interface of BibleGateway. The BG app is puny, use a browser.) Type in the reference: Ephesians 4:12. You can abbreviate; for example, Eph4:12. BG will display the verse in the NIV or whatever translation you last selected.

You’ll also see a link, “Ephesians 4:12 in all English translations”. Hit that! 63 versions!  Now we meet Segal’s Law: “A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.”

Yes, English keeps on ch-ch-changing.  

Also: Diggers keep on digging.  That is, archaeologists continue to unearth source manuscripts or find them stored in a dusty museum or monastery. The Dead Sea Scrolls include manuscripts penned around 250 BC. However, the Dead Sea Scrolls did not see the light of day until 1946. Translators first consulted the Dead Sea Scrolls for the Revised Standard Version of 1952. Get this: Without going all Indiana Jones, you can inspect important ancient source manuscripts online! For free! As of 2020, here is Ephesians 4:11-12 from part of the P46 papyrus at the University of Michigan. P46 was penned around AD 210.

A given translation will set goals of formal accuracy versus readability. Consider the following translations of royals trash-talking in 1 Kings 20:11:

1. And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off. (Authorized KJV  1769. Italics mark words not in source.)
2. Then the king of Israel replied, “Tell him, ‘He who straps on his weapons had better not boast like one who takes them off.’”          (New American Standard Bible 2020)
3. Ahab then answered, “Benhadad, don't brag before the fighting even begins. Wait and see if you live through it.”                            (Contemporary English Version 1995)
4. The king of Israel retorted, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch!”      (The Living Bible 1971)

These span the range of word-oriented “formal equivalence” (KJV, NASB) through thought-oriented “dynamic equivalence” (CEV), and impact-oriented “paraphrase” (TLB).  

Of course the question everyone asks is this:

I have four great answers for this question!

1. The best Bible translation is: the one you actually read.
2. The best Bible translation is: the one that is accurate and requires the least additional explanation. Often it is quite hard to be accurate, succinct, consistent, and clear. For ratings of a translation’s accuracy, consider evidence from trusted people. Then through comparisons, testing, and source language tools, grow to become one of those trusted people.
3. The best Bible translation is: two or more differing translations that you reconcile. Consider context of a given phrase then also check out how its words are used elsewhere.
4. The best Bible version not just accurately informs you, it affects you: it hurts and helps, it challenges and inspires, it leads you to action.  “Let your steadfast love comfort me… Your promise gives me life…” (Psalm 119) “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing people what is wrong in their lives, for correcting faults, and for teaching how to live right. Using the Scriptures, the person who serves God will be capable, having all that is needed to do every good work.” (Hebrews 4:12, 2 Tim 3:16-17)
   

Let’s return to the Ephesians 4:12 passage.  I identified the three phrases here. Then phrase-by-phrase I summarized the English language variations currently at BibleGateway.com. There are intriguing differences that struck me as not simply modern English synonyms: “equipping” vs “perfecting” vs “teaching”. What’s with “saints” vs “Christians” vs “God’s People”?  The definitive answer will be in understanding the source language, Bible-era Greek. I’ll continue this English-translation survey of Ephesians 4:11-16 in the next posting.  The following table shows decisions translators have made.

Next: Saints

The last of the Ephesians equipping gifts is the gift of Evangelist. See our passage from Ephesians here.

The Evangelist is uniquely gifted to be the right person at the right time to help someone make the jump from non-belief to belief. Of course, Jesus was amazing at this particular transition… see Nicodemus, or the Woman at the Well, or Zacchaeus, or a myriad of others. Another famous biblical example of the Evangelist was the deacon Philip, who with Stephen, was one of the seven deacons selected to help the primary disciples of Jesus administrate and extend the work of the early church in Jerusalem and beyond.

Let’s take a look at this amazing story to see what we can see.

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. 27 And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
    and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he opens not his mouth.
33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.
    Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”

34 And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. 36 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” 38 And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. 39 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.              ~Acts 8:26-20



1. The Evangelist will be comfortable with supernatural timing and influence.
An angel points Philip south instead of north, and it is presented as an ordinary part of the story. The Spirit tells him to hitch a ride with a chariot and he doesn’t question, or hesitate, he just goes. Evangelists in their full power will be unusually comfortable hearing from God and moving to the divine appointment. It was no accident that Philip was at the correct location at the exact time he was needed to help the Ethiopian make this connection. The timing was supernaturally fortuitous from meeting, to reading, to conversing, to a body of water. At some point, the 10,000 happy accidents that all line up perfectly become credible and guys like Philip will have a high level of reaction and trust.

Then he gets teleported to another location, which again was the opportunity for connecting people with the gospel in perfect timing.

2. They enter (and sometimes exit) the story in the middle.
The Ethiopian Eunuch was already reading Isaiah and was experiencing a spiritual hunger and longing that he was responding to, even before it was clearly understood. God was working on this historical individual before Philip came along, and he was rejoicing at the Gospel even as Philip went via private spirit plane to his next appointment. They will recognize and tend to interface with the moment of decision, more than the moments of preparation.

Why was this man near Jerusalem, where was he going? Why did he have a scroll of the Hebrew bible and why was he interested? How does he know Isaiah was a prophet? How does he know about baptism? We don’t know all the surrounding details, but at least 5 of these 6 details were attached to this official in God’s plan by people other than Philip. Yet it was the convergence of these things that had led our Ethiopian to the precipice of belief. 
As Paul famously says, some sow the seed, some water the seed, others gather the harvest. Evangelists are the ones God sends to help gather the harvest.

3. They will amplify and illuminate God’s word, and they will use questions well.
Our Evangelist is not speaking or moving in his own authority or agenda here. Instead, he is working on direct orders from God to help, encourage, answer questions and give permission to someone who has already taken a lot of steps on their spiritual journey.

Philip isn’t bullying, cajoling, convincing or changing the Ethiopian’s trajectory. Instead, he is assisting our new convert on a journey he is actively assenting to before Philip even arrives. Evangelists, in general will have a real knack for apprehending the right scripture needed in the very moment, to build a bridge from here to there.
Philip doesn’t make a philosophical argument, or an emotional plea, or a primer on self-help  style improvement. He starts with scripture, that was already at hand… and leads him biblical step by biblical step to where God is leading. 

The trigger from Philip’s perspective was a question, “do you understand what you are reading?” And we’re off to the races. 

If you watch someone gifted in this area deal with someone at the moment of decision, watch how well they use questions in their interaction - it really is amazing.


So what can we learn from Philip and this incredible story? Remember that the Evangelist gift is an “equipping” gift, while incredibly gifted themselves, their role is not just to be a solo act using their gift well… but their gift teaches us how to be better at their peculiar slice of divine connection, in this case the moment of evangelism done beautifully and well.

First, they teach us to be more open and more sensitive to God’s leading, day to day. If you are feeling like the Spirit is nudging you, ask yourself:

- what would happen if I don’t do this?
- what would happen if I go for it?

If the answer isn’t immoral, illegal, or unethical or problematic in any way, and the biggest downside is a bit of wasted time, can I encourage you to go for it? God may be drawing you into a Philip moment. The worst thing that Philip risked in the actual asking of the question was a rude and dismissive response before the next assignment.

If the answer is more complicated and you aren’t clear, seek counsel from someone smarter and more spiritual than you are… they will tend to have perspective.

Second, we should learn to diagnose where someone is and be sensitive to that. Both in not pushing, but also, not missing the opportunity when the right question can be a window of divine illumination.

Third, don’t lean on your own opinions of wisdom. Follow Philip’s playbook and be the wingman. If we can understand that the primary motion is between Spirit and person, then we can helpfully point to the treasure map, or hold the door open while someone comes in out of the rain. 

It’s not a rescue mission as much as pointing out that the restaurant is right over there - and the food is delicious.
For those of us who believe, take a moment and remember the person who played the role of Philip in your life.

For me it was JoAnn Palesano, in the little gym at First PH in Apache as we were playing basketball, as feral children often did in those days.

​I can visualize that moment and her gentle question as if it were happening now.

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.   ~Ephesians 4:11-16 (ESV)


Continuing our journey through the gift list of Ephesians, we hit upon the gift of Teacher. I'm splitting up "shepherds and teachers" even though in the greek they are the same word. Just my opinion, but I feel like there are SHEPHERD teachers... and there are shepherd TEACHERS if you get my drift.

I’m saving Evangelist for last, as that is the most terrifying gift (kidding here, we love you guys)… and perhaps the one I know the least about. Since the teaching gift is strongly part of my motivation and makeup, I remember very early on being extremely attentive to great teachers. I was intentionally looking for what they did well and what worked. So being a student has almost always been a multi-faceted activity for me; learning the material and honestly evaluating the effectiveness of the teacher in terms of process, style, execution and flow. Not in an armchair quarterback sense, but in the sense of a young athlete appreciating the game of the smarter, more seasoned veteran.

Now, to be clear, this doesn’t mean I know anything, only that this is important to me and I have thoughts. Also, it doesn’t mean I’m a good teacher, only that I’m strongly motivated to become one… and I’m painfully aware that I haven’t arrived.

Let’s do this as: five, three, one. I’ll endeavor to list five things you may not know about teachers. I’ll give you three key principles about effective teaching, with examples. Then we’ll land on what I think may be one of the most important principles of success that I’ve ever encountered.

Five Delicious Facts about Teachers!

A) They will be excellent synthesizers of knowledge. They will tend to be talented learners, able to process a ridiculous amount of information quickly, and will be able to summarize or make understandable what they’ve learned to a layman.

B) They will love the process of learning. And they will have an high respect and value for the truth. Studying and preparing for a teaching session for this gift doesn’t often feel like work. Prep isn’t grindy, or a slog, but rather an exciting opportunity to learn something amazing and then share it in the context of larger modes of integrity and success in life. Teachers will actually look forward to studying something new. They will also be irritating in conversation, because they like to share what they've learned. Full of interesting and pedantic factoids for almost any situation.

C) They will see potential in students, that often students will not see in themselves. This can be a double-edged sword and a source of frustration if that potential is too often unrealized. Every great teacher / student / learning experience tapped into potential that was unseen by the students and brought a real sense of accomplishment and joy with unexpected success.

D) We can inspire Teachers to teach. They will thrive on positive feedback and results from their students… and they can get discouraged by enough apathy in context. Truly inspirational teachers become adept at pushing through this resistance and finding the right balance between (what may seem like) unrealistic expectations and building a crossable bridge. 

If you want to light a teacher up, be interested. Then, tell them how something they taught helped you made a positive, real difference in your life. 

E) Teachers will be most Effective teaching Heuristics, and not bound by Limited Specifics. A heuristic is a pattern of thought or learning that makes us more efficient. Instead of re-learning how to read every day, we have patterned and linguistic heuristics for handling language.

The best teachers will operate well in this space. They will teach readers to read, not just give them analysis of specific work. They will teach geometry as a mode of thinking, employing logical, step by step interactions to understand, solve and prove. They will teach curiosity of a certain sort, in good faith, forever impacting the journey of discovery for the rest of the student’s life.

In short, the very best Teachers, will teach us how to learn and engage, then turn us loose on the world.

Three Key Teaching Principles!

1) If the Teacher is Bored, the Student doesn’t have a Chance

I was privileged to take an entire class on Dante Alighieri in my undergrad degree. Day one, our marvelous professor mentioned that while many of us were familiar with Dante, at least in excerpts, we may not be aware of just how beautiful the language of the Commedia itself is.

He pulled out a leather tome and read to us a couple of pages from the Purgatorio, in Italian. None of us were fluent in Italian, but it didn't matter. Just the sounds of the words, were gorgeous. Flowing and perfect in their musicality, they fell on us like rain. If you remember the scene from The Shawshank Redemption where Andy plays Mozart over the prison sound system and time slows down as the prisoners were mesmerized by a moment of transcendental beauty… it was kind of like that. 

Then he said, "He did that for 1000 pages."

You could have heard a pen drop and in two minutes he had us. We’ll go wherever you want to go, we’ll prepare, and show up to class, and we will do whatever you want us to do. We were helpless before the beauty of Dante and a Teacher who wasn’t bored.


2) Teachers will Facilitate Learning and Discovery, the Mode / Style of this can Flex 

As a kid, I had an extraordinary opportunity, that started in the middle of losing a match in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. My opponent had done an elaborate kick (a jump roundhouse if interested) and it was so big and obnoxious and unnecessary that I was laughing a little internally. I leaned back just enough for the kick to miss and the tag on his foot pad dragged across the side of my neck. But he had missed and I suspect that because he was expecting “some” level of contact, he over-rotated just a bit and landed off balance. 

I stepped in to counter and he was bent over, hands down, with a neon sign saying, "hit me here". I started to turn into, what in the real world would have been a decisive end to conflict - and stopped. The gun had been loaded, cocked, aimed, and I just couldn't pull the trigger. It was the right call. This wasn’t life or death. It was a improv where the points were made up and don’t matter. So not throwing the punch didn’t leave anyone unprotected, or any meaningful outcome undone. And it's an unwritten rule to not take advantage in this context. It would be something of a cheap shot in the world of point fighting.

Still, it is odd to have a goal of say, "out spar your opponent", have a great opportunity to do that, and then leave it aside for stupid and unsatisfying ethical concerns.

The referees stopped the bout and then, in a surprise move, awarded my opponent two points for a head shot that didn’t land while the audience loudly groaned. It was a bad call, and I was, confused. This guy just got rewarded for being ridiculous and me NOT knocking him out.

Taking a deep breath, I glanced around the room, not reacting, letting it go, refocusing. I remember it being an odd visual moment. The sea of people around the room, were together a gargantuan multi-pointal blur, a collective of tiny individual waves of motion. They ebbed and flowed, they walked and cheered for the other matches, they pointed and clapped, or lightly touched a family member sitting nearby.

Across the room, in stark relief to the hundreds (maybe thousands) of people around the taped rings of the tournament stood a single man. And he was standing perfectly still. I mean the absolute stillness of a predator in complete focus, coiled to pounce, but not yet... he was as motionless as a statue. The contrast of his very stillness separated him from the gentle visual motion of the room and he caught my eye and attention. I recognized him, even from 100 feet away.

"He" was Jack Hwang, an eighth degree black belt, and head over all of the schools attending the tournament. All of our belt tests were done in his presence and he was all the things: scary, formidable, emanating gravitas, while speaking only when absolutely necessary. In his 70's he moved with the grace and balance of a panther. He was the very model of a modern major martial art master… and noticing him, I saw that he had noticed me.

To understand this moment, you need to know that there is an unusual thing that next level martial artists can do. They can communicate with a single look that somehow bears psychic force and complicated expression. If a picture paints 1000 words, these guys can write you a book. He slightly lifted his head as if to ask something like, “do you see me?” and I lifted my head almost imperceptibly in response. 

Then it happened.

He fixed me with his gaze from across the room. This indicated something important and my attention raised a notch.

Then he nodded in respect.

Not a bow exactly, but his meaning was clear. He had seen the entire interaction. The missed kick, the over-rotation, my step in… and the punch I didn’t throw. He saw it all and was giving me the Kung Fu Master version of a sticker, or a really nice gold star. That moment is burned in my memory… and even though there were dozens of people around my match, no one but Master Hwang saw it.  The judges didn’t see it, my opponent sure didn’t see it… even the people groaning didn’t see it. They just saw the bad call from the missed kick - not my response (or lack of response).  

I lost the match and I didn’t care. I was grinning like an idiot. Master Hwang had given me a nod. I was doing OK.

About a week later I got the call for an invite only class with other brown belts with Master Hwang himself. It was one of the most fruitful learning experiences of my life. The other 6 students in the class were the very best students from all of his schools, about to test for black belt. They were the next generation of leaders, future teachers and leaders of schools of their own. I was honored to be a part of this elite group, though honestly I was the weakest and slowest one of the lot.

We would do a short warm-up, then we would sit and he would explain the “why” behind simple techniques: stances, punches, kicks. "This" was intended for balance, "this" for motion, "this" for response, "this" for defensive position. You have to understand… the “mode” of martial art teaching is not conversation. It is very much imitation and correction. 

Do “this” and the teacher demonstrates, throwing a punch or a kick or a block. You attempt and they correct - sometimes by physically moving your hands or feet into the right position. There might be some commentary but it’s mostly, “good”, or “again”, or “no, like this”. Yet here we were getting the philosophy of martial art and digging into the why. Sitting quietly, Master Hwang gently upgraded all of us. And it was amazing. My actual physical technique became cleaner, wildly better; my sparring became sharper and more focused. And perhaps above all, I took a note from a truly great teacher.

He used words to teach us about physicality. He used simplicity to lead us to excellence in complexity. He corrected misapprehension in common technique and application and he fixed us all with that piercing, all too perceptive gaze.

He was a great teacher, and I’ll never forget that my successful interview for that amazing class - was the punch I didn’t throw.


3) Truly Effective Teaching will be best Paired with Action.

I was having dinner in Atlanta with a Teacher friend of mine and we were all alone in the restaurant. The waitress, in the course of taking care of us, was clearly in distress. It was just us, so at some point we asked her if she was OK.

And she just melted.

It turns out that she had buried her father the week before and was still reeling in grief. Her mom was a full blown alcoholic, so she had to make all of the arrangements herself. She was going to school full time and taking care of her 17 year old sister, while also working full time to make ends meet. She was burnt and overwhelmed and doing the best she could.

She said that the hardest thing was that she was very close to her dad, she told him everything. A few days before, she had picked up the phone to call him but then... she remembered. Holy cats. She took us all into the moment where you think to connect with someone and realize that you don't get to do that anymore.

By the way, she was 19 years old.

We tried to be kind and offer some encouragement, and of course we left her a big tip.

But my friend couldn’t get away from the thought of this girl and what he might do to help. He consulted with his wife and the next day we stopped back into the restaurant. He popped in, then back out. I asked my friend what he had happened and he told me.

He gave her a few hundred bucks to help out.

He also gave her his number and told her, the next time she wanted to pick up the phone to call her dad, to call him instead. He would love to hear about her day, or listen to the latest news, or commiserate with a life that can sometimes be a little rough. He said, “I’m no replacement, but I have daughters, and if you need someone for a while, I’ll be your dad.”

She asked him about the money and said she would pay him back, but he said don’t worry about it - because that’s what your dad would do. There is a passage from the handbook of ethical supergenuises that talks about "standing in the gap". The idea being to run some positive interference, to create some margin, and maybe to help someone who may need it.

Now, we wouldn’t often consider this kind of perception, empathy, and generosity to be "teaching", but I think sometimes these moments can be instruction in its highest form. He was teaching her that God still had her back. That hope wasn't dead quite yet. He was teaching her not to give up, because sometimes a stranger can offer a tiny slice of kindness that can fill up the whole world.

And he was teaching me that sometimes if we have the power to do something good, we should go ahead and do that.

And the One, Perhaps the Most Important Lesson of All:

- Teachers Help us Adopt a Lifelong Learning Stance.

Teaching is the door that opens all other doors. It is the foundational profession that equips and trains all the other professions. It was one of the primary roles that Jesus chose for His expression in the earth, and He is literally called “Teacher” in the how to flourish supergenius manual, dozens of times.

We all don’t have to have nerd-like proclivities, and egg-shaped scholarly heads to be fully human. But here Paul teaches us that Teacher is an equipping gift, not just a transmission gift. They equip us to be curious, to learn, to discover, to think clearly and to move forward in helpful and engaging ways. When we are at our best, we’re encountering new things and pressing into what’s next.

It isn’t that teaching is important and that Teachers should be highly honored, though it is and they should.

It is that deep meaningful, spiritual learning is critical for us along the way… and Teachers help us see this journey all the more clearly.

Introduction

We’re continuing our posts about the “equipping gifts” outlined in Ephesians: apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher and evangelist.


And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. ~Ephesians 4:11-16


In thinking about how to write about the Pastor aspect of the shepherd-teacher my mind (and heart) immediately went to my childhood Pastor, Bud Jones. In our current climate of car chases and explosions and the barrage of social memes and little mcnuggets of so-called cultural brilliance, Pastor Jones was not so much the antithesis to these things, but in some really important ways, a considered remedy. 

We lost him to his next better chapter after a bout with cancer a couple of years ago, but believe me when I tell you that his impact will continue to ripple out through the generations until this age comes to an end.

The Pastor almost always brings their gift into another context, into someone else’s story. They insert a bit of peace, of stability, of perspective, and grace into the ongoing saga of our lives.

So, in a bit of a longer post and in a bit more narrative form than previously, here is my best expression of what a Pastor does from a biblical perspective.

________________________________

Part I

The summer rain whispered like unexpected kindness, like a touch on the shoulder from an old friend. Gently I was surrounded by comfort, a welcome and cooling presence in what I could only describe as the heavy tightness of afternoon heat. High in the crook of my hiding place, the perfect seated branch of a mimosa tree, I closed my eyes and slept.

I awoke to a clear sky and a stab of fear as I considered my surroundings. Suspended more than twenty feet above ground I was seated in two twisting branches that formed into the shape of a perfect reclined position. With some relief I remembered where I was and that I was there on purpose. I just wasn’t used to waking up, in the open, that high off the ground.

I felt the damp of the two additional branches raised above my “seat” and decided it was time to return to earth. There were two paths: the boring, slow, safe one used by bureaucrats with no poetry in their soul and the good path. The good path was more dangerous in theory, but the sheer joy of it made it worth the risk. The good path had five steps. Step one was a long launch out to a neighboring branch where you jumped, grabbed and swung out and back (usually twice) until you got under control. The movement from steps two through five were easily swinging down branch to branch Edgar Rice Burroughs style until you were safely on Terra. Laughter and transcendental glory lived on the good path, just so you know.

I crouched. I leaped. I grabbed the "step one" branch and swung out all but horizontal as I had done a thousand times before. 

I forgot that it had just rained.

And both of my hands slipped off the branch.

Cue the second stab of fear. Time slowed down and I was able to weigh my options. I was probably twenty-five feet up, horizontal, with my back to the ground and my eyes peering through the lightly filtered sunlight via leaves into an impossibly blue sky. My one chance was that I had some momentum, so I tucked into my very first aerial back-flip. The goal was to get feet toward the ground and a possible old school parachute roll. And, in my defense, for a first try, it wasn’t the worst effort.

Halfway through it occurred to me that I would likely land on my head and break my neck. I extended my arms and legs and twisted, trying to reverse my momentum. That also worked better than I thought and my feet were now coming under me as the ground was getting big in the window. I had over-rotated just a bit but I braced and was ready to try to roll into the impact as soon as I hit the ground. The only problem was, once again…

I forgot that it had just rained.

In my over-correction, my feet slipped on the grass bringing all the force of the fall and my spin onto my arm as I braced to try to catch myself. My left elbow pushed back into my hip and stopped violently. There was a loud crack, apparently I had landed on a branch hitting the ground. With a sharp exhalation, I rolled over onto my back. I remember the dampness of the grass, the blue of the sky. I remember the sound of our next door neighbor “Stoney” mowing his immaculate yard. After the earth-sky-earth-sky, and the literally unbelievable flurry of motion and confusion of the last 2 seconds, everything seemed preternaturally still. Well, I was still alive, so far so good.

My arm felt funny and I looked over to see how bad it was. My mind didn’t accept what I saw, so I lay back down. Then adrenaline did what it does and I looked again. In the middle of my arm between my wrist and elbow, was an ill conceived second elbow as my arm was broken in a right angle. Not a branch it turned out. I somehow managed to pick up what remained of my limb, carefully twisting my whole body to open our front door, and went inside. I remember being unusually calm (another two points for adrenaline) and with a matter-of-fact tone mentioned to my folks that my arm was broken and I needed to go to the hospital. The next couple of hours are a bit of a blur but I distinctly remember…

- how panicked my parents were and how quickly they were moving without seeming to go anywhere
- the policeman who pulled us over, took one look at my arm, then led us at high speed to the hospital
- the poor little girl who saw me at the entrance of the emergency room and her eyes went to Looney Tunes size…
- the doctor who saw me from across the room, pointed, looked back at his clipboard, and said, “get that gentleman some Demerol”… God bless him wherever he is right now
- the frown of the x-ray tech when he told me that he needed me to do a quick audition for Cirque de Soleil to get the scans he needed
- the relief I felt when they told me I needed surgery and wouldn’t be trying to set this while I was awake
____________________________________

Part II

I spent the longest three days of my life in the hospital bed afterwards. Those days stretched into years. So… very… boring. There was a crazy amount of pain that eventually required morphine to get under control. There was some amount of sadness when the doctor told me that I would likely lose a good bit of arm mobility and function. My parents were terrific and incredibly attentive throughout. 

I settled into the routine of the hospital stay. 

After a very rough night, I had a visitor around 11 am. It was my Pastor, Bud Jones, who might be the most saintly man I have ever known. He was a quiet man - and not to oversell it, he was Jesus to thousands of people over the course of his extraordinary life. Thinking about Bud, it occurs to me that we make statues of the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

During his visit I started laughing uncontrollably. I mean completely unhinged, can’t breathe, full-on-tears-level laughter.

To be clear, this was not my fault. I was flying on percoset. I was also triggered by the epic sound of the Squeaky Shoes. A lovely nurse who worked the morning shift had a pair of supportive white shoes that made the most fantastic sound. With every step, the shoes would squeak on impact on the tile ward floor, and then loudly squish in a squirting footstep with the following tone of something like a deep Louisiana muddy bayou swamp sucking sound. A sqworking, if you will. Perhaps an EEEekquishiblark if you catch my meaning. If I can’t reproduce, or describe the sound, I can still vividly remember it. You simply couldn’t have staged it better than the reality.

There wasn’t anything mean about my helpless outbursts, at least not in intent. I was not laughing AT her. I was narcotically laughing WITH her and her screamingly hilarious shoes. The sound was insanely loud and while a terrific nurse, she was apparently unaware of just how funny her shoes were. My theory is that she had gone a bit “ear blind” to her own sound palette at some point.

So Pastor Bud and I are in the room, being very appropriate, and kind, and spiritual. And here she comes.  Her approach wasn’t a secret, she might as well have announced her presence at about 50 paces with an air horn. And I just lost it. I start giggling and progressed to guffawing, and from there to full on crying belly laugh. The Bible says that this kind of laughter does good like a medicine and I was all in. 

She comes into the room and I am just howling. I would try to recover, but then she would move again and I had no chance at keeping anything approaching composure. Poor Pastor Jones is trying to not smile, or to egg me on any further, but my response was so over the top that he was forced to look away and laugh a bit like Harvey Korman on the old Carol Burnett skits with Tim Conway. 

She said, “I just love this kid. He is SO happy every time I come into the room.” Bud is smiling and nodding and not touching that one with a ten foot pole. “He’s so happy, it’s just like sunshine.” And off she went to her next victim, swqork, swqork, swqork. The doppler effect up and down the hall just made it funnier. 

Pastor came to visit me every single day over those three days and he was the only one who did. We got Squeaky Shoes on days one and three, with a “sqwork drive by” on day two. Outside of the shoe thing, I was lonely and hurting and bored and Bud’s visits were the highlight of my day. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of very kind people popped in to see how I was doing, many more than I would have expected. I appreciated them all.

​But Bud came every day. Short, effective, kind visits where we just talked for a bit, then he prayed for me.

It was so consistent. It was deeply meaningful. It communicated a depth of selfless, authentic concern and follow-up that is all but lost in our culture today. I wasn’t out of the woods until I came home, so it was a given that Pastor Jones would come to see me. That’s just who he was. One of his sheep was hurt and he was checking in. I don’t think I ever told him directly how much that simple threefold act of kindness meant to me.

I also don’t think I can adequately describe how much this impacted my view of God and the quiet, immense, spiritual power of the Pastor Shepherd. But that won’t stop me from trying…

He was like the summer rain whispering ancient wisdom in unexpected kindness, like a touch on the shoulder from an old friend. In his godly presence, I was surrounded by comfort, a welcome and cooling wake in what I could only describe as the heavy tightness of the hospital ward. After his blessing, low in the crook of the convalescence of my motorized lee, I closed my eyes and slept.

There is a fascinating passage in Ephesians chapter four:

11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (~Ephesians 4:11-16 NIV)

The idea is that God places certain gifted individuals to sharpen and upgrade the rest of us. The outcomes in these relationships tend toward a dramatic increase in unity, knowledge, maturity and stability. We grow up to a point of love where we are no longer infants in our thinking or ability, but will come to a place of maturity and proper place in the world at large.

So, continuing with prophet (and their biblical examples of Samuel, Elijah, Elisha and Peter, James, Paul…) what can we say about this gift?

Henrietta Mears, in her famous book What the Bible is All About talks about prophets having a three-fold role in their prophetic voice.

​1. They talk about what God did in the past.
2. They talk about what God is doing now.
3. They talk about what God will do in the future.

In classical literature, the seer or sage is a mysterious figure, providing ominous portents of the future that almost always contain an element of malevolence or danger. Think, the witches in Macbeth here. Looking into the future is a compelling and scary business, not to be taken lightly. Partly because of our fascination with this, we attach to the “future speaking” role of the prophet with perhaps too much attention, while ignoring the other two critical pieces of their role.

In the Hebrew Bible, it most often sounded something like this:

Remember when God called Abraham? Remember when He called you out of Egypt? Remember when He fed you for a generation and then led you into the promised land? That same God is calling you today… to turn away from the not helpful activity you are engaged in and turn back to God and His word to You. He loves you dearly and doesn’t want you to reap the harvest that will come from the very bad seed, in the very bad field, where you are currently busy. And someday, God will come again, to make (in Tolkien’s phrase) everything sad come untrue. He will reset the scales and rule us with wisdom and justice forever.

Past. Present. Future. Cool isn’t it?

In thinking about this, I’d like to take the angle that we did before, of considering some things about the prophet we might not ordinarily know, and take a look at how best to support them in their gift. Let’s start here:

- The prophet gift, like apostle and evangelist and all the rest, is not a guarantee of character, or maturity or primary calling in regards to our own repentance and personal relationship with God. The reality is that, even a gifted individual can fail, can have serious issues of character or personality and is not, by default, any more capable or wise in handling the sin in their lives than you are in yours. They will react badly in response to trauma, and will need to grow out of that, just like anyone will. My point is that their gift is not a pass related to holiness or judgment.

So cut them some slack. They need grace just like the rest of us, in spite of the power of their gift and the doors that their gift will tend to open. They will need prayer, and friendship, and someone who can tell them to cut it out… just like the rest of us do.

- The prophet will prophecy to himself, maybe moreso than to others. That’s just the nature of spiritual gifts I think. The teacher learns more than anyone in their preparation, chasing down lines of thought and inquiry that never see the light of day in their public presentation. The blessing and curse of prophecy is the seeing of what God is doing before, during and after and it is a lens that will be pervasive to them, even outside of the specific role of MESSAGE TO BE DELIVERED WITH HOLY WEIGHT RIGHT NOW. 

So know, that when the prophet gets harsh with a group or with an individual… that they will tend to be even more harsh with themselves. They are speaking, not out of an entitled, condescending, holier than thou perspective - but from a place of urgency, knowing firsthand that if God’s perspective isn’t heeded, the consequences can be devestating.

- The prophet will seem like a contrarian, even when their message starts to resonate. Because of their “lens” as it were, they will have a really odd response to many situations. Yes, but… will come out of their mouths a lot and they will seem to disagree for the sake of disagreeing. It’s not that exactly. It’s more that they see, by their nature, what others will tend to miss - and they will want the full picture in play. Another piece of this is timing. The prophet will often see the next step, way before the next step is ready to deploy. So the frustration of waiting for a year, two years, sometimes more… until their context “catches up” with them can sometimes put a little edge on their communication.

Also, expect an eye roll and a careful blank look when the thing they have been saying for 30 months is suggested by someone else, and suddenly everyone starts clapping like seals and starts to jump onboard.
​
So what do we do with our prophet here? Affirm them. Notice that they "called that one" quite some time ago and honor them for it. Also, when they start to speak in weird ways, ask probing questions to clarify what they are seeing but may have trouble expressing in an understandable way. Resist the urge to move on too quickly when they hit you with a non sequitur. Take the time to understand where they are leading… and if it isn’t time yet - think about how to prepare for the thing they are seeing downstream.

- The prophet will be lonely. Nathan poking at the king and Jeremiah in the rubble and Ezekiel taking shots at everyone is not the Dale Carnegie process for friends and influence. The nature of their role and speaking will alienate a lot of normal social connections that would otherwise be in play for them. They will need friends and they will need people to reach out to them more than you might think. Don’t assume that their vision and lightning like power in perspective will replace their need for simple community. 

Make a place for your prophets and let them know they are loved.

- Listen to them. They can be as wrong as anyone in terms of priority, emphasis, or saying a right thing in the wrong way as anyone else can. But very often, the nature of the prophet will have them trying to express an ineffable but critical idea to an audience that just doesn’t get it. When you get the spiritual sense that something is afoot - help them make the connection to the larger group. Understand the scope and limits of what they are saying and go with them. 

God uses this gift to shift the window, to further the horizon and to change perspective. Maybe more than any other gift, this one involves change, and discomfort and the cost of transition that often brings.

So lend them your ear and your heart and the depth of your understanding as much as possible - you’ll be glad you did.

There is a fascinating passage in Ephesians chapter four:

11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
                                                                                                                                 (~Ephesians 4:11-16 NIV)

The idea is that God places certain gifted individuals to sharpen and upgrade the rest of us. The outcomes in these relationships tend toward a dramatic increase in unity, knowledge, maturity and stability. We grow up to a point of love where we really love, not just telling people what they want to hear… but setting the broken bone when needed. If we don’t get this right, our works of service are of diminished value.

These equipping gifts and their influence are the very foundation of our ability to speak the truth in love. As Timothy Keller pointed out throughout his career, only love will try to avoid hurting the beloved at all costs - and only truth can be harsh and cold while being completely correct. Only when we have both do we find a depth of meaning and real relationship that lasts.

So, starting with apostle (and their biblical examples of Peter, James, Paul…) what can we say about this gift?

- Apostles will be great at starting things
This gift will tend to serial entrepreneur endeavors. They will see the opportunity no one else sees and they will get it started in some form faster than anyone would believe. They will be excellent at beginning and adjusting on the fly. And they will have to resist the urge to stay with the new work too long. The new faith organization they begin will be exceedingly vulnerable in the beginning; this is the nature of anything new. They will tend to be quickly pulled to the next new thing so leadership development and transition planning will be paramount for their success (and sanity!)

- Apostles will defy normal demographic boundaries
This one is really fun. 

These guys will have connections with churches from Ethiopia, the Philippines, Mexico City, the local Farsi community and will be teaching a class of Chinese immigrants English, using the Gospel of John. It will be bananas! They will be surrounded by a storm of very weird intersections, pretty much all of the time.

Things that would normally be a barrier for connection, communication and stability related to culture, language or particular ethnic expression will be all but a non-issue for the apostolic gift.

Their connections, while incredibly diverse and chaotic, will feel like the most natural thing in the world, and God will kick open doors for them. 

Something to consider here is giving them excellent second level support. Here’s what I mean by that in terms of direction:

Why is God connecting this particular group with our Apostle?
Why now?
What do they need? Or what opportunity for something amazing do they represent?

Because of this gift, they will make excellent cross cultural missionaries - leaving behind a leadership network of indigenous and trained ministers in their wake. They will also spark unusual connection between need and resources - so look to jump in and help where you can!

- Apostles will be highly attractive to a variety of people
When they start something, they will almost magically have 20-50 people who will appear to help them or be a key part of the new group. Leaders will want to support them (and sometimes, exploit them for their own agenda). New leaders will find great work to do as they grow and develop. People looking for purpose and calling will be pulled into orbit almost by default. Again, this is really fun and we should look to support the Apostle in downstream effort to stabilize, fund and train the new wave of people.

- Apostles will be overloaded with opportunity
Make them take a day off and be unavailable. They’ll be more effective with a true Sabbath to power down than without one. But they will feel tremendous pressure to talk to one more person on the day that they really need to just spend with their family and friends.

This is the dark underbelly of the amazing ability to see and connect cross culturally. The reality is that there is a ton of heavenly opportunity around us all the time, but Apostles will be unusually connected to see it and do something about it. If they can find a balancing idea… something like, “we can’t do everything, but we can do something” it will help greatly.

Resist the urge to process them to death to reduce the chaos. They will flourish with the blank, undefined, open page.

- Apostles will have unusual gravitas, and will often be local in activity
Watch them in a group of leaders. When they speak, everyone will stop and listen, perhaps without even knowing why. And to be sure, they make excellent national class leaders with corresponding gifts of administration and experience managing groups of people.

The thing to remember (with say, Paul as an example) is that of lot of their activity will be most fruitful in the mode of the small business owner, “boots on the ground” sense. They will roll into a city, walk around, talk to some people and get a lay of the land. Then they will form a plan and people will appear to help them flesh it out. Sometimes this will be Peter on Pentecost with a huge revival of thousands that jump-starts the work in a generation.

But more often it will be tent-making and helping the small church core get going over a period of months to years. They will be the warm and personable “Mr. Mayor”, the guy who knows everyone, who  everyone loves, who will have a meaningful conversation with a guy at a stop light with his window rolled down. They will comfortably hang with the corporate execs and the janitors coming in for the night shift to clean. The apostle will be extraordinary in making one to one connections with people, so be careful to keep that opportunity for connection as a key part of their weekly set.
_______________________________

This took an interesting turn as I was writing it. We can inspire leaders to lead. We can give permission for leaders to speak deeply into our lives and influence us for the good. 

So my question for me and for you is this.
​
What can you do to help, encourage, and respond to the Apostle in your life and orbit?

Eyewitness accounts, while still a primary source of evidence in legal proceedings, are notoriously problematic. The act of witnessing something can be subtly altered by a number of factors: confirmation bias, the post-event misinformation effect, and the state of the particular witness before, during, and after the event can all have some impact to testimony.

We forget things, we may, without bad motive, align misattribution to a story we tell about our own experience. We may hedge, or rationalize, or edit, based on things we stand to gain or lose related to the stories we tell.

And people lie. (Insert eye roll here).

And yet... and yet.  All of known history is based on eye witness accounts. We experience events, we recount those events, we make stories of those events. Sometimes we write those stories down... and related to momentous individuals or occurances we sometimes have great interest in telling those stories accurately and well. To say that, "history is written by the victors" is incomplete. History is written by those who think the lesson of generational events is important. Sometimes those lessons are tragic, or a recounting of savagely epic and tragic defeats. The victors, as it were, just have more of a say in what history gets copied and passed on.

Isn't it interesting, in light of the philosophy of history, and the axiomatic truth that eyewitnesses can be out to lunch... that Christianity, in regards to the advent of biblical literature, has a stunningly good answer to this problem? And what is this answer we ask?

Four Gospels.

In folk tales and in oral traditions there are surpassing versions of stories. If you look at something like the Arthurian Legends, they have a fair bit of inconsistency in their tellings. Are we looking at the Latin Chronicles, Le Morte d'Arthur, the Allerative Morte Arthure, T.H. White's The Once and Future King, or the anonymous Gawain and the Green Knight, or the myriad other sources of Arthur and the knights in his orbit? Do most people know that Lancelot was a late addition with heavy French influences? Do most people know that Arthur, in his earliest legends, is much closer to Rome than to the Medieval era? Gwynevere or no Gwynevere? Round table or no round table? Holy Grail Quest or no such mention? Is Arthur holding England together or marching off to Rome? It depends of what Arthur author you ask.

Don't misread me. I adore the Arthurian Legends! I would be the very first to argue that these tales have some consistency, and highly significant parallel themes. But, even in my positive bias, I am forced to admit they are slices of great stories that do not form a cohesive whole. Rather they are versions; written takes and retakes that served different roles in expression in different times.

In the Hindu tradition, you'll find similar slices of the story of Rama and his many adventures. Or of Paul Bunyon and his Big Blue Ox. It isn't that the different versions of major cultural stories exist, and that the Bible does this too, but my argument is that the Gospels take this in a radically different direction.

Christianity is unique in its New Testament Gospel approach. Never, in the history of humanity, have there been four major biographies, all accepted as canon, very early on, of a major historical religious figure. There aren't four related but independent accounts of the life of Buddha, or Mohammed, or Joseph Smith or any other spiritual progenitor. With this, as in so many cases, Christianity stands alone.

There are three things about the multiplicity of the Gospel narratives that I find compelling and further evidence of divine influence.

1. That They Exist at All is Incredible

Who, on reading the book of Matthew or Mark, would immediately think to write it again? Who, after reading, Matthew AND Mark, would think, that's pretty good, but let's write another one, just because. Who would encourage John to take yet another swing after the Beloved Physician puts pen to papyrus?

Also note that they came so early. If you research the most scholarly acclaimed biographies of Abraham Lincoln, they were written in the last 20 years. More than 100 years after he lived.

With the advent of the Gospels, we have to start with: these four biographies exist, all of them standing at the pinnacle of all biographies ever written in terms of depth and scope and influence. From a human perspective, this is not a normal strategy. You would want a single story, and you would want that story to continue unchanged as much as possible (like the Koran, only being kept in its sacred form in its original language). You wouldn't want to confuse the narrative with a well intentioned second, third and fourth version.

This isn't in any way a critique of biblical scholarship that tries to textually chase back passages to a proto-text "Q" that was used by all of the synoptic authors. Without getting into the weeds of Markan or Mathian priority and the byzantine labrynth of two source speculation... there is something we can say about the generation of the Gospel authors and their accounts with extreme confidence.

It is simply this:

They knew about each other, and they knew each other's writings and work. 

It is impossible to come to any other conclusion. They literally knew each other. Mark and Luke were both companions of Paul and all four Gospel writers would have had strong connections to the ongoing work of the early church in Jerusalem. They were also in direct support of the missionary journeys of Paul and the other epistles and early writings that served as encouragement to the first generation of churches. As brilliant as the first Gospel accounts were, they would have been celebrated. And we know from the sheer number of manuscripts that they were a hit. The logical thing would be to check "Jesus life story" as "done" and move on to the next thing. But that isn't what happened.

Instead the Holy Spirit moved on these early Christ Followers to write it again. And again. And again.

Not because they didn't get it right, but because it would add to the depth of the story and the foundation of the expression of God's love to us through Christ in a way that is deeply moving and needed for the richness of insight that God knew we would need.

2. They are Remarkable in Their Message and Vision

The aforementioned biographies of Lincoln are:

"Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005)

"Abraham Lincoln: A Life" by Michael Burlingame (2008-2019)

"Lincoln" by David Herbert Donald (1995)

All of these biographies are quite different in focus and scope. They agree that Lincoln was a great man, a great President and in Hegelian terms, a World Historical Individual. Beyond that, they are wildly diverse in terms of style, in approach, and in key themes. Goodwin focuses tightly on Lincoln's political acumen and his cabinet as the key to his success. Burlingame goes into meticulous detail of the life of Lincoln outside of the political arena, showing how the man in his formation eventually played out on the world political stage. Donald plays it straight with a balanced and scholarly approach to life, then to Presidency.

My point is that the Lincoln biographies are wildly different works, with wildly different points of interest and influence. They will often disagree about Lincoln's primary formation and motivations. They continue to write because Lincoln hasn't been adequately captured in some sense. But somehow the Gospels are not in this vein.  Even with distinct authors and features, they maintain a clarity of focus which is extraordinary. They all point the same direction, using very similar styles, stories and points of view. They all portray the same Jesus.

Instead of divergent tales that occasionally overlap, they are more like different eyewitness accounts of a single event.

3. The Differences of the Eyewitness Accounts in the Gospels is Singular and Compelling

When one eyewitness reports an amazing story that defies belief, we frown and investigate. We look for corroborating or discounting evidence. The narrative of a single witness may even be viewed with suspicion even with a complete lack of any facts to dispute their story. We may listen. Their single report will often be enough for action and futher gathering of evidence, or may become a lead to eventually bring all the facts together.

If four eyewitnesses tell exactly the same story with no variation - the conclusion among experts of evidence is that they have colluded with intentionality. They all agreed upon a story, rehearsed it, then recited it after the fact. It actually lowers the credibility of the eyewitness account instead of raising it. Too much agreement will increase the value of other circumstantial and fact finding mechanisms.

But if multiple sources each independently give an accounting of events from their point of view, with subtle differences in perspective, in emphasis, and in expression while maintaining decisive agreement on the key facts and events... that account is given the most weight a piece of evidence can own. It's a slam dunk. It rings true, because it is true and the Gospels fall into exactly this kind of multiple eye witness account. The differences are tiny and helpful and easily explained, the larger themes are resonating in agreement.

The Four Gospels bring us a mutlifaceted story of the life and work of Christ which becomes credible in a way that no early historical document can (or ever will) match. How can this book be meaningful in the first century and under the level of scrutiny that biblical texts undergo still be meaningful today? How can these books speak to provinces in the Roman era, then to every generation since then, then continue to speak to us?

God is involved. I don't have a better explanation.

That's why the Gospels, along with 10,000 other neon signposts, has convinced me that the Bible, as God's Word to us, is necessary... and it's the real thing.

One of the remarkable things about Scripture is what I call the Consistency of Metaphor. Writers, commentors and theologians for thousands of years have commented on the consistency of the biblical text and while that is what I'm referencing here, the thought is more specific.

I'm taking "metaphor" in the literary sense, which is a statement of comparison between two dissimilar things to bring depth to an idea or description. This is one of the things that makes language beautiful, and that we can easily understand this is an incredible and noteworthy facet of language itself.

Let's take a page from the Bard...

          All that glistens is not gold;
          Often have you heard that told:
          Many a man his life hath sold
          But my outside to behold:
          Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
          Had you been as wise as bold,
          Young in limbs, in judgment old,
          Your answer had not been inscroll’d:
          Fare you well; your suit is cold.
​                                                   ~The Merchant of Venice, Act II, William Shakespeare

In context, this is a test related to the eligibility of Portia for marriage from The Merchant of Venice. The idea is that while Portia is outwardly beautiful, her true and lasting beauty is internal and not merely flesh deep as it were. The complicated idea Shakes is strikingly communicating is that a shallow appreciation and perception of beauty is like the ornate decoration of tomb. Pretty on the outside, decaying and worm-ridden on the inside.

In a handful of lines and with the comparison of people to tombs, Shakespeare elegantly leads us to the idea that the love of money is ultimately consuming, while the apprehension of virtue and character is of undiminishing value. This is the power of metaphor. The image expressed well can communicate directly, while still maintaining a nuance that brings immediacy to understanding even a difficult and multi-facted idea.

So with biblical metaphor. The pictures we receive from inspired text can open our minds and hearts to truth that is harder to get to by more direct means. The pictures, while necessarily incomplete, help us form a better connection with the ideas of virtue and God than we can get to through our own direct experience alone. This way of speaking can effectively lead us from the known to the unknown.

So, in the words of a favorite professor, "I never metaphor I didn't like."

Truly. 

Here's the amazing thing: the Bible is stunning in it's Consistency of Metaphor. Let me give you an example...

www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=shepherd&version=ESV

This is every mention of the word "shepherd" in the Bible. Check it out and skim the results. Two things here: first, sometimes a shepherd is a reference to the actual occupation of shepherd and sheep husbandry. Second, you'll quickly see that the idea of God as "Shepherd" has a lot of touches from the Torah, the Prophets, the Psalms and the Gospels, along with the letters to the early churches in the New Testament. From there, you'll see numerous references to the idea of spiritual and political leadership as shepherding, with good shepherds being terrific, and the lack of a shepherd being very bad.

It's not that the picture of shepherd always means the same thing. It's way more complicated and interesting than that. It's that the metaphors will strongly tend towards a cluster of ideas that point in a singular and helpful direction.

And this works for any metaphor you care to look at. Bears, birds, trees, honey, water, fire, you name it - if you look at the pull of all the biblical references you'll find a wonderful consistency and direction to the figurative nature of the language.

Try if for yourself at biblegateway.com or any concordance of your choice! Pick a word, or phrase, or picture and look up every reference in scripture, read through them and ask the question, what do these things have in common?

To be fair, a part of this is the nature of language itself, and when a helpful metaphor emerges it tends to enter language and is repeated over time to communicate the idea it hits upon. Yet what I'm seeing here goes far beyond that simple durability of language. I am amazed at how beautifully this expresses, and expresses continually throughout the biblical text. Again, this is my opinion, but one that I'm very confident in: no one is smart enough to do this at this level. Even more incredible, is that this consistency is present, across multiple languages and generations, with over 40 different authors.

Pastor Christoph Römhild and researcher Chris Harrison, tracked this idea through a series of data pulls and graphical representations. A famous one is shown below - this is the direct connections of the bible referencing itself (i.e., one book quoting or referring to another book in the Bible). This happens specifically close to 65,000 times. It is the world's greatest self referencing hyperlinked text. With the multiplicity of the human part of authorship, this pattern of facts and Consistency of Metaphor lead me to believe that the Holy Spirit did in fact inspire the Bible, that it is in fact, God breathed...

And it's one of many reasons why I believe that the Bible is the real thing.

The Crazy Level of Symbology

One area of fascination for me is the nature of language itself.

Charles Hartshorne, in a wonderful lecture on this topic, commented that he believed that (in some sense) God was above language, the animals were below it and we inhabit this space in-between. And it is not to be missed that in orthodoxy it is primarily in the space of words and ideas that God speaks to us.

Subjectively, from the very beginning, God walked and talked with us in the cool of the day. His voice came to and through the patriachs, the prophets, the priests and even a king or two. Even in this world of incredulite skepticism, if we pause, our bones remember.

Exhibit B would be the cathedral of holy scripture.

In that expression, we are told in the gospel of John that Jesus, as Incarnate, comes to us as "the Word" of God and the idea here is worthy of note. A huge part of His coming was the expression of the divine, in specificity, in a language that can be learned and understood. As Hartshorne pointed out, God meets us with words, in this case perhaps, the Word of words. Certainly there are mystical encounters of emotion, of dreaming, of visions and the ineffable presence that believers have experienced from the beginning as well.

But it is words that win the day.

It is the foolishness of preaching that still oddly serves us well. We dig and write and speak and sing and ponder as the "meta" meanings with Inception-like layers retain their sense of playful fun while losing none of their weight. We read God's word, in translated words, talking about the Word that came and lived among us with our words. Every level filled with meaning, packed with significance, even as the weakness of language points beyond itself to strength of the highest sort.

I don't know how you account for that outside of the simple acknowledgement that language itself, shares something like a divine nature. Also, this is why lying is a very big problem indeed.

Tying this back to the Bible, let me give you an example of what I mean. The depth and richness of figurative symbols that tie Hebrew Bible to the New Testament are incredible.

First, in Genesis 40:8-19, these are the dreams in prison from the story of Joseph:

8 They said to him, “We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.” And Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me.” 9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, 10 and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.” 12 Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days. 13 In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office, and you shall place Pharaoh's cup in his hand as formerly, when you were his cupbearer. 14 Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. 15 For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.” 16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream: there were three cake baskets on my head, 17 and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head.” 18 And Joseph answered and said, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days. 19 In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you!—and hang you on a tree. And the birds will eat the flesh from you.”

Subsequent events happened exactly as Joseph foretold. Notice some of the primary images and outcomes of each dream:

Cupbearer:
Wine (along with vines, grapes and preparation)
Prominent number 3 (becoming 3 days)
Prominent cup, placed in hand
Restoration
Remember Me

Chief Baker:
Bread
Prominent number 3 (becoming days again)
Bread as flesh, being eaten
Death
Hanging on a tree

Does any of this sound familiar? It's not a stretch to notice that these are the elements of communion. And what is the Cross and the Gospel at it's heart but a Dream of Death and simultaneously a Dream of Restoration? The Bread that is broken, the Wine that we consume in remembrance, in the story of Joseph become the catalyst to bring redemption to the known world. 3 days? Remember Me!

Here's the thing. Genesis was written thousands of years before the Last Supper. As far as we know, Jesus or Paul or Luke never mention the dreams of Joseph as a direct tie to the early act of communion. This kind of figurative picture and connection doesn't happen only here, it literally happens thousands of times, in extraordinary consistency and clarity. 

As someone who loves great writers, Shakespeare, Dante, Eliot and all the rest... I'm telling you that no one is that smart. And that would be assuming a single human mind with uncommon clarity of vision and focus. The reality is that the Bible was written by 40 different authors, over 1600 years, in multiple languages - yet the depth of agreement with foundational principles, unfailing direction and detail is impossible to imagine. 

Ever try to get 5 people to deliver on a group project for a class due on Friday? Multiple that by a billion and you have the authorship of the Bible. The only way it works is if you have a single Showrunner Who is driving the train, even while a variety of authors are working pen to paper.

That's one of the reasons I believe this text is the real thing.

THREE NOTES ON ASBURY, PART THREE:

Short version, this is the real thing.

Pray for these folks.

Be slow to speak.

Be open to what God is doing in your context.

We made it to Wilmore, Kentucky on Friday, Feb 17th around 6pm and the revival had been in progress for about 10 days at that point.

They were starting at 10am and continuing until about 1am in the morning, with the room pretty much completely full the entire time. People would deliver short messages, surrounded by much prayer and worship. When we arrived, there were (guessing) 5000 people outside, waiting patiently to get in the room - with folks queueing in as others eventually left. Asbury volunteers were ushering folks in and out and were really sweet about it.

A couple of thoughts.

1 - It was really cold. Just below freezing to be precise and in a fit of shortsightedness we really weren't dressed for it. They had setup periodic propane heaters and volunteers from local churches and well wishers were handing out water and a variety of snacks. We waited for over three hours, slowly walking toward Hughes auditorium. You could hear the room singing well outside and it sounded heavenly.

Interesting that the cold did not seem to be stopping anyone. We talk so much about barriers to connection in church stuff - having no good answer to waiting 3 hours in freezing temperature would be a non-starter in almost any other context. This is how hungry people are for something real.

2 - The people in line were really fun. We met a pastor and worship leader from New York who recently divided the city of Manhattan into 21 sections and his church walked and prayed over the entire city over 21 days. We met a seminarian, actually from Asbury, who is looking to plant a church in Hong Kong. His vision is to mobilize and encourage and be as strategic as possible for the next decades in the Chinese church. We met folks from Ohio, a lovely young lady from Texas and many others.

I just want to say that the people we met weren't crazy, or the lunatic fringe. They were smart, funny and real and we had a great time on the way to the meeting. I was deeply encouraged before we even made it inside.

All of the people we saw clearly felt drawn to what was happening at Asbury, and we were in the same bucket. Curious, hopeful, encouraged, and simply acknowledging that God was up to something here - just look around.

3 - The utter lack of production was really interesting. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE production things that make our lives a little better. I've done music with no sound guy and pro sound guy and pro sound guy is way better. But in the room, the music was basically one instrument, a piano or a guy on guitar and maybe one or two vocals in support. No drums, no bass, no smoke and mirrors of any kind.

The music was lovely, but it wasn't slick or polished, or canned in any way. That was intentional, the whole ethos of the movement is to get back to what's real and what is primary. In that setting the Asbury kids found that you don't need the wall of sound full band thing to support a revival of simple truth and repentance. This does not diminish my sheer enjoyment of wall of sound - that will likely continue for me - but in this context it was fascinating for that to be one of the things that wasn't "need to have."

This is hard to express. It wasn't ANTI drums, or ANTI technical... it wasn't quite Jack White pitching guitar effects into the fire...  but the heart of the movement, in some sense, is to clear away all of the extraneous and just give God your whole heart. So the "how" of what they were doing was simple, to further support the "what." It worked. The room was really engaged and worshipping deeply.

It was more take off your shoes on holy ground, and less big show with lights and fog.

4 - Everything said was really grounded and biblical. The knee jerk is to write this off as kids, with the hair and the music and the phases and the flash in the pan. But everything we experienced from the leaders there in terms of what was said was stuff that right on the orthodox button. It wasn't clever, it wasn't emotionalism, it wasn't manipulative, it wasn't gimicky. It wasn't manufactured through process or strategy.

It was just deep and real.

5 - This is a revival of repentance and relationships. God spoke to me clearly about things I could be doing better, specifically related to my family.  And I will do my utmost to follow through. I didn't get "zapped" as much as I got some needed insight into how to bless my daughter and my wife.

And if you consider for a minute, that's the deep magic isn't it?

I wasn't alone in that, tons of the stories of God moving were about forgivness and reconciliation with real people - it seems to be a big part of what's going on.

So for my money, Asbury is real, take that with a grain of salt - because I am not nearly as smart or as discerning as I would like to think I am. The things we saw were extraordinary, the people we saw were beautiful and real and the impact will go futher than you think, in really good ways.

God bless these kids and our generation!

If you have questions, or want to hear more, I'm happy to talk about it! Ping me at [email protected] and I'll look forward to connecting with you!

THREE NOTES ON ASBURY, PART TWO:

Why am I going to Asbury?

It's a good question. My answer is both near and far.

From the macro perspective, I've been praying about this kind of revival for more than 20 years off and on. If this is the launch of our Great Awakening, I'd like to see it with my eyes and hear it with my ears.

I mean, if you could hear Charles Finney preach, or wander down to sing with the mixed crowds of Asuza Street, wouldn't you want to go? Why would you not go?

Also, it's a decision that Karen and I made shortly after we got married. In my seminary degree from Southwestern, there was a wonderful man of God named Dr. Garnett Pike. He told us that he and his wife had agreed that they wanted to be a part of what God was doing - and to never resist the new thing that He might bring. That idea really struck me, so I pitched it to Karen and she agreed.

And here we are!

I want to support and encourage. I want to show up and pray and experience, and listen and sit and be quiet and sing and cheer and give and maybe write a bit.

My daughter is in a cycle where she is setting aside the faith of her parents and investigating what faith of her own looks like. In that context I wanted her to see this firsthand.

I tend to be more of a risk taker than my beautiful and talented wife Karen. She balances and grounds me nicely thank you very much. I'm more of the throw down the musket and go for the claymore too early kind of guy - whereas Karen is more of a "hey you probably want to be wearing pants when you go do this..."

To be sure, that is the sound of the unreasonable voice of caution, but sometimes I'll listen just to humor her.

I've noticed that if Karen doesn't pump the brake or ask for a conversation when I suggest something like this, it is often a clear sign that God is leading. So when I said, hey, what are we doing tomorrow? Would it be an option to clear our schedules, have you take a day of vacation to miss muster, blow off our daughter's classwork and drive 20 hours roundtrip for a few minutes in what may or may not be a  revival in Kentucky?

And not having heard or read anything about Asbury, Karen said, "let's do it" and started organizing the trip. It was cool enough to even make me pause for a minute.

And the last, and perhaps most authentic reason I wanted to go and see for myself.

Hope. Simple hope.

The last three years have been tough. Between Karen and I, we buried three parents during (but unrelated to) COVID. And I've been desiring that God would show up in my life, in my ministry and in my family in amazing ways that haven't happened as I would have hoped, at least not yet.

Our church is such an amazing place in many, many ways. We were able to give away almost $300,000 during COVID which is incredible for a congregation our size. That work continues with local, national and global organizations. My writing and teaching have never been more prolific or focused. I feel like I'm better than I've ever been musically.

And at the same time, there is such a discouragement that seems to surround.  Some of it is unfair and internal, but I often feel like Jeremiah in the rubble, or Isaiah and the good word, on mute. Like the guy you don't hear much about in the back half of Hebrews 11 who gets to be lion food or a nite lite for Nero.

I've been thinking about how church could be vibrant in the life of this next generation and that connection seems so very absent.

Until about 12 days ago. 

I'm not looking for Asbury to fix me. I'm not looking for Asbury to give me 11 secret revival herbs and revival spices to make delicious revival chicken to light the next generation in revival fire, although if that happens, I'll get a little paper hat and giddy up. I will load all of you up with napkins and sauce.

If there are really thousands of students who are hungry for God, for what is real, in the center of the Gospel, who want to be a blessing to this generation and God in His power and sovereignty is in their midst...

I want to see it. I want to rejoice with them. I want to offer my deepest supprt and enouragment. I want to see the joy in their eyes and hear their song in the air. So off to Asbury we go!

So we took a road trip to Wilmore, Kentucky to see the Asbury Revival.

The TLDR version is, it's real.

Beyond that, there are thoughts and reflections I wrote on the way to and from the visit that I'll share here, in three parts.

Part One is me being equal parts hopeful and annoyed with the internet comment level criticism of a movement that is in it's infancy.

Part Two is why we went.

Part Three is what we saw when we got there.

​_________________________________________

THREE NOTES ON ASBURY, PART ONE


We just entered Kentucky and I'm hopeful about the events surrounding Asbury. Here are some stream of consciouness thoughts in no particular order... at the time of this writing, I haven't been in the room yet.

- Revival is not a bureaucracy or a result of systemic process. It's organic and surprising and part of the nature of it is that it is God-breathed. This is a feature, not a bug, or we would bask in how clever we are as we make a Tower of Babel of Revival right up to heaven with our man-made wisdom and effort. It's not that we can't be wise, or in any way organized - but we have to know that our own administration will never cause God to outpour.

- The response to Asbury has become a weird Rorshach Test. It tells me almost nothing about the movement itself, but it tells me a good deal about the people talking. "Why does the Asbury Revival look like my father being disappointed in me again?"

Most of the things I've read are from people who haven't been to see it - which is strange. And while I understand the hopeful permissiveness and the skepticism ranging from cautiously optimistic to shrieking troll level 11 - it is odd to me that people have trouble reserving judgment on something they clearly don't understand, or at least don't have enough information on yet to make any sort of informed call.

I wouldn't recommend the serious study of philosophy to most people, it has some real downsides in terms of internal life impact. But a very good thing from that work is the ability to have an internal "hmmm, I don't know what I think about that - I haven't really looked at it yet" bucket. A cosmos sized container of no opinion, which is as warm as a beautiful blanket and hot cup of cocoa in mid-winter.

- The Judas Argument. One of the most repeated criticisms so far says something like, "well, I'll believe it's a REAL revival when they start feeding the poor and move out with social issues."

Sigh.  Three quick things here. First, generosity is right and good. But it's not the only right and good thing. Second, this has been going on for about 5 minutes now; settle down. Third, does it strike anyone as ironic that this was the exact argument given by Judas when Mary poured out the expensive perfume on Jesus in a stunning act of worship? That the people saying this don't realize this tells you everything you need to know about that idea.

And by the way, if you've said this, tell me - how much of your income do you give to the poor and to charitable organizations every month? How about over the last 12 days? If that number is less than 20 percent, I have a suggestion that I will refrain from sharing here for public consumption.

- A quick re-iteration of my most basic Theological assumptions:

1) God can do what He wants.
2) God is not dumber than Oprah Winfrey.

That's not intended to be a slam on Oprah, I'm fond of Oprah - but you know exactly what I mean by that.

- Emotionalism! It's all emotionalism! Wow. OK, most people who know me would not describe me as particularly emotional or empathetic. I'm not a sociopath, but no one is coming to me for advice on how to feel things. That being said, my response to the idea that this is emotionalism is: so what?

If that is ALL this turns out to be, fair enough, but it's way too early to say that at this point.

The Enlightenment is a serious two-edged sword. Science, literacy, medicine, cities, good. The reduction of human definition to the natural and rational, bad. The asssumption that we are primarily rational beings is only partly true. We are spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and physical beings and the path to human flourishing needs to touch all of those pieces. Jesus taught people stuff, and also wept and was kind to us, and spent a couple of miracles on food and drink, lest we forget.

It's been about 12 days since this thing started, and we've all had emotional states that lasted that long.

Grieving can take months or years, depending on situation and context. The squishy, dopey, "love makes you stupid" high can last for months, even years sometimes. I'm imagining a Babylon Bee headline in this vein:

MAN FROM ASBURY ON 130TH HOUR OF BEING GRUMPY FOR NO GOOD REASON

If a bunch of college kids had pulled a really hard and focused couple of weeks on a research project would we be shrieking, "Intellectualism! This isn't real! Their translation of the cuneiform is bogus and one sided!"? Yeah, probably not.

As a nation, we spent literally billions of hours on Stranger Things in it's first weekend. I certainly did my part. Why is it amazing that people would similarly binge the presence of God?  I didn't see the internet rise up and tell kids to stop watching Wednesday to go spend some time in a soup kitchen instead.

- It occurs to me that this is the first revival in the era of social media. Or the 24 news cycle. Or the era of anonymous internet comments. So this really shouldn't be surprising. It's cool that the word got out early... and I suppose revival has always seen exactly this kind of criticism - just the timeline is compressed by our informational overflow at present.

- Birth is messy. Beginnings are rarey clean and polished. I remember being at a conference with Dennis Jernigan, a talented creative in songwriting, worship and books. He showed us his song journal and you know what? It looked almost exactly like the songs that I've written in first draft form. Notes all over the place, scribbles up the side of the page, things written, crossed out, written again. It's just the nature of things that are new. Imagine someone being in a delivery room saying, "That's not a real baby, there is blood everywhere! Listen to all the crying!"

- For my part, I want to assume the very best, until I can't do that anymore. What I've heard from firsthand accounts so far has been encouraging and I'm hopeful.

- This seems to be driven by college kids. Oh man, that is terrific - go get em. We should be giving these young men and women as much encouragement and permission as we can muster.

So here is my suggestion:

Pray for these students and the good people at Asbury who are trying to support and not smother what God is doing. Give them encouragement and the benefit of the doubt. Send them some cash to support the work and the eventual social spillover into good works. And don't be afraid to be part of the spread. The Gospel is an amazing idea and we are overdue for a generation level event.

Philippians 4:8 says: 
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

And sure, we can all nod to that one. We love true, and honorable and just, at least we like to think we like those things...

The medievalists taught us, even if we've fogotten, how to meditate on the things that scripture brings. In their writing, they would often stop to provide a list of virtues, or the attributes of God, or of a series of good things that are revealed to us in God's word. The modern reader frowns while we slog through a list, but the intention was for us to sit... and consider... each word... for a moment. Only then moving on to the next line, or thought or paragraph to come.

If you haven't done this kind of meditation, Philippians 4 is an excellent place to start. I'll walk you through it, but green light to daydream a bit on your own. It's interesting how the mind can be a springboard for the spirit in exactly this sort of way.

Something true: kids and animals are adorable.

In the photo above, who cares about economic status, or the suffering we endure in life, or the notion that camels can be quite unruly... for a moment, grin and let your heart laugh like a girl enjoying her camel.

Something honorable: a great teacher pouring into their kids. 

Didn't you have one of these? The teacher that was amazing, and that was a safe place for a kind word or a great conversation? Someone who went the extra mile to help a class that needed it, or came early to stay late to develop the class that was needed, but wasn't a part of the curriculum already? The kind of teacher that inspires effort, and careers, and even calls without calling, students to become teachers themselves, to pass the goodness on another generation - these folks are honorable!

Something just: a judge who gets it right.

They do, a lot more often than you might think. Yes, the stories are legion about this case or that one that doesn't end like it should. But here imagine the judge who gets it right. Who lays down a ruling with wisdom and with balance. Who weaves mercy with justice in way that is good for society AND the individual. I've stood in the dock before such a judge and appreciated their insight and kindness even as I paid the fine and court costs. True justice is a good thing and we should celebrate it when it comes.

Something pure: clean, cold water on a hot summer's day.

It's no accident that water is a symbol of purity in almost every culture. But for this exercise, think of being hot... and of being thirsty... and then of acquiring a very cold bottle of water. That first drink is something isn't it? Simple, life-giving, non-partisan, non-agenda driven pleasure. It's something pure. Let our lives be more like that.

Something lovely: the color green.

Not that green, you contrary colorist, the good green! The deep, rich, royal, relax, and exhale green. The life giving springtime green. The green of Irish moss in the lee. The warm, swirling ocean green leading you to the coral reef with it's dance of life and color. The green of the fir in the dead of winter, standing his post with faithfulness and unassailable life. The green of a Yucatan lime.

That green is lovely! Think about that green.

Something commendable: the person who fixes a problem, without making it a thing.

They quietly do this, in homes, and in digital spaces, and in organizations of every stripe, every single day. She moves the welcome mat so it doesn't stick the door to irritate her family when they go out for the day. He sees the typo misspelling and just corrects it, without grammer policing anyone. It's the million little things, adjusted, tweaked, bumped and nudged and loved and all without an ounce of credit. If you've done this lately - I commend you in absentia. Consider your life and context and take a moment to be grateful for the one who made your life a tiny bit easier - without you even realizing it.

Something excellent: the student who writes a sonnet, as a ghost story, and pulls it off.

Yes, Evangeline is well above average, I couldn't hold it in any longer, settle down. But if you don't think that was excellent, on her first try at a sonnet, then you need to go through the list again and be more positive. It was Bill and Ted level excellent.

Something worthy of praise: the great musical performance.

Think about the artist you love that just clocked it.

​Don't you dare hold it in, give out a healthy whoop and put your hands together. There are things that are fun, and that are extraordinarily worthy of praise. *Insert crowd noises and applause here.*



There now, wasn't that a worthwhile 4 minutes of time? In our unending era of tragedy porn and 24 hour cycles of bummer cable content, take a moment to think about these things, more often.

As we prepare to celebrate another baptism at the Surge, I’m reminiscing. 

At age nine I noticed that the preacher’s sermons usually worked around to Acts chapter 2 where Simon Peter says this:

I was already trusting Jesus and his principles.  Acts chapter 2 and especially Matthew chapter 3 convinced me I should obey:

So on a January day I announced at Sunday lunch that I ought to be baptized.  I figured the preacher and I were in for a chill. The next Sunday I found that a caring farmer had put warm water in the baptistery. Here’s a recent photo during communion time of this spot in Callao, Missouri:

Thus for me baptism was an odd but well-established demonstration of obedience to God.  I didn’t think of baptism as washing away much. Sin and stupidity continued working on me and everyone I knew. There’s corroboration from Peter in his first letter, chapter 3:

The water is not just a bath. It is a barrier. Paul points out that by going through the water, the people following Moses left behind the Egyptian army and escaped slavery:

Ten years later, another Missouri winter: I saw the biggest thing baptism re-enacts.

Mizzou Christian Campus House was a mile from an old gravel quarry that had accumulated a pond. Through the autumn I witnessed and assisted baptisms at the quarry. I supposed that when winter came, for baptisms we might borrow a church facility or the University’s swimming pool. That we did.  But some new believers wanted the authentic Rock Quarry dip, even in January and February. That we did:

That’s my housemate Greg Stephenson with the axe making a path for campus minister Roy Weece and those being baptized that day. I see Rick, Marv, Brian, and Steve. Imitating Greg is young Jud Weece. While we waited, Roy elicited from the crowd verses and thoughts about following Christ, including those quoted above.  He pointed out that baptism offered a profound re-enactment that Paul describes in Romans chapter 6:

Roy asked the bundled baptizees a few easy questions besides the usual, who is Jesus to you? Roy asked: Under the water, will you breathe?  Will you see much? Will you hear anything? While you are under, what will you say?  You will have much in common with a dead person. Will you want to delay coming up?

Roy observed: We've baptized in churches, in households, in prisons. But here, outside, is a demonstration in the world, to the world, of your commitment to Jesus. It's not just your statement. God shows through baptism that He raised Jesus from the dead. God demonstrates that He raises people to a new life.

The above photo from Missouri Alumni Magazine March 1975 was not of our coldest baptism.  There was one with about a foot of ice. “Buried with Christ,” indeed!

A bonus: After that baptism, participants walked on water!  There were a lot of warm hugs—with blankets.

Baptism demonstrates many things: Obedience to God. Public commitment to Christ. Washing. Escape from slavery. Burial. Resurrection!

​In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle argued that it is impossible to be virtuous without friends.

The following is a direct quote, where he is imagining a good person contemplating friendship.

The best kind of friendship, he maintains, is friendship with those to whom we wish well and with whom we can spend time in shared valuable activities, all because of their virtue.

This is why church is important. It's why Jesus had disciples... and it's why He called us His friends. There are times of isolated prayer, of solitude and reflection. But no man is an island and it's not good for us to be alone.

So come to a place where we can be together. It matters! And this is the heart of church, to dream about God and the good things he brings, pressing into virtue in community.

Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30, was composed in the summer of 1909. In the spring of 2022, Staff Sergeant Christopher Schmitt played it very, very well.

I don't have a metaphor ridiculous or crass enough to do it justice, so I'll simply say it was stunning.

Technically, it's one of the most difficult pieces to perform that has ever been written. Over 30,000 notes, all of them on purpose, and it is pushing what is possible for a human to play, or hear. Kudos to Sgt. Schmitt for not just playing it, but playing it as it deserves to be played - at the very highest level. There are perhaps 50 people on earth that could play it as well as he did... and without being an expert in this world, you could count on one hand the virtuosos that could have played it better.

I didn't hear a single buzz, or note that seemed out of place... on the contrary; he was calling out individual notes in the nutty 64th note runs - playing with dynamic - with his hands literally leaving blurry afterimages and moving faster than the eye can follow. It was, as my Karen would say... Musical.

He just clobbered it. I was there. Evangeline was too, which I am thankful for. And I will remember the performance forever. The communal spirit of the audience was with me, happily doling out four standing ovations, followed by the lovely foot stomping from the Band itself, and the encore was a breathy, afterglowing, momumental testament to a highly musical moment.

Also, a hearty handclap for Major Ryan J. Nowlin for the gumption to program this piece. That's a risky move, showing a lot of trust in Chris, and in the Band, somehow knowing they could pull it off. And he prepared the band well to lay a most excellent foundation for Chris to soar. He put a guy on the tightrope, in high wind, over the canyon... and brought him back alive.

You could have heard a pin drop, it was breathtaking.

Ok, Ok, I'll stop gushing. But one more thing...

It may be my lack of knowledge or taste, but I prefer older composers to newer ones, at least outside of movie making. Too often the modern composition will be technically incredible, with neat ideas, that quickly drive off some atonal cliff into "something", without heart or resonance, at least for me.

But Sergei is doing something else. He is pushing the technical further than almost anyone, without sacrificing the idea of beauty or coherence. Rachmaninoff is such an interesting composer and it seems to me that a central communication of his music is the idea of human potential and how it touches the ideas of chaos, or madness, or hubris that has potential to fall to it's own destruction. Is it possible to go too far? Is it possible for humankind to reach too high? Is it possible to create too well and have that not be Good? Is there a line where it is too much to bear, or understand, or see, or express? If there is such a demarcation, Rachmaninoff has his toes on that line.

It's a popular theme in myth making; Icarus flying too close to the sun and being destroyed. The nations gathering for the Tower of Babel, only to be frustrated, confused and scattered by direct divine intervention. You have Prometheus with his liver and chains and Sisyphus with his rock and hill. In our shared bedrock of stories, the verdict is clear enough: reach too high at your peril.

Our knee jerk is to take the side of the punished and shake our fair fists at the gods. But maybe, just maybe, there is something true here. That there are some things we shouldn't reach for on our own.

Is there a possible truth in that terrifying and disturbing thought? That we can overspend the currency of genius or the limits of our own soul in our attempts to control Everything and there are times when we get beaten back for our own good?

We see it and shake our heads in popular culture as well; even in the small subculture of music, as recent decades have seen Jimi Hendrix, and Amy Winehouse, and Jaco Pastorius (and many others) shining brightly, and flaming out all too quickly in troubled and genius ridden light. Can we agree that it would be better to back off just a bit, find some pace and live?

It seems to me that the Rach 3 in particular dances with this idea. The movement of the piece flows from a lovely theme, surrounds it with harmony, and then steps on the gas. Increasing in complexity and speed, while retaining beauty, the music starts to add notes of dischord, followed by runs of beauty battling with dissonance and surprising flourishes of what can only be genius and with speed so complex it can scarcely be apprehended and the torrent of notes starts to wiggle into chaos.

But then he pulls back, from the cliff's edge as it were, from the burning of the melting wax, from the building of the forbidden tower, back into beauty. Back, into humanity and community and serenity and rest and peace.

Then he does it again. A few times actually. Sgt. Schmitt was as cool as the other side of the pillow... but my hair was all messed up and my eyes were bloodshot and haggard just from listening.

With Rach, we all took a moment to peer into the abyss, then he reminds us that there is an edge to our map and there be dragons. He takes us for an Icarusian flight, but somehow gets us back to earth alive, if a little singed.

The idea that I'm struck by is this: that the limit here isn't a bad thing. To recognize these boundaries can be a protecting influence for the better angels of our natures and in the final calculus, Plato and Christ are better guides for human flourishing than Sartre, and Nietzsche, and Epicurus with the freedom that flings itself off of the edge. We can deny the existence of the edge itself, or spin ourselves off of it claiming that it doesn't matter anyway. That only jumping matters.

Don't misunderstand what I'm suggesting here. I think we're much more beguiled by sloth in our screens and games and shows and food and comfort and you get the idea.

I think you should put your phone down and go for it. Whatever "it" is for you (well for the most part). I really do. But Sartre's vision of get moving isn't the only game in town. Rachmaninoff is a lot of things, but I'm not buying that he is the waiter in bad faith.

Rachmaninoff is making a compelling case for the existence of beauty, for the reach of human greatness and for, perhaps, our human relationship to the limiting principle of the sacred... which frames, bounds, and focuses our ambition to the Good.

Here are some songs of Christ's coming that "speak to me, and speak for me." 

This year's presentation consists of several YouTube playlists. Most of these are live 2018 performances of Keith and Kristyn Getty, including videos licensed to YouTube. In performance, Kristyn read the Bible passages listed here to introduce the songs that follow.

Christmas with the Gettys Part 1    (25 minutes)

Sing We Now Of Christmas (alt)~ God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen ~ Inishowen ~ Sleigh Ride Medley ~ Elizabeth, w Ellie Holcomb

Christmas with the Gettys Part 2   (16 minutes)

From Isaiah chapter 9

The people walking in darkness have seen
   a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
   a light has dawned.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
     Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel ~ Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus  ~ O Children Come, w Ladysmith Black Mambazo ~ Silent Night, w Phil Keaggy ~ Wexford Carol/Magnificat

Christmas with the Gettys Part 3    (19 minutes)

From Luke chapter 2

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby,
keeping watch over their flocks at night.
An angel of the Lord appeared to them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid.
I bring you good news that will cause great joy
for all the people. Today in the town of David
a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah,
the Lord. This will be a sign to you:
You will find a baby
wrapped in cloths
and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of
the heavenly host
appeared with the angel,
praising God and saying,

    “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
      and on earth peace to those
      on whom his favor rests.”

Sing We the Song of Emmanuel, w Matt Boswell & Matt Papa ~ Joy Has Dawned/Angels We Have Heard On High  ~ Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendor ~ Go Tell It On The Mountain

Christmas with the Gettys Part 4     (38 minutes)

In the Bleak Midwinter ~ In Christ Alone ~ Joy to the World  ~ An Irish Christmas Blessing  ~ O Come All Ye Faithful.   Bonus: Getty Kids on the move

Christmas Cheer   (38 minutes)

White Christmas, The Drifters ~ Songs of Praise Christmas Big Sing 2018, BBC One ~ We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Illinois State Madrigal Singers

or, Pselected Psalms

Stretching increases flexibility.
 
One type of flexibility exercise is frequent, varied, one-sentence prayers. These one-liners take several forms:  Flash prayer, "can I help you" prayer, reflexive prayer, Practice of the Presence of God prayer, arrow prayers. Haven't heard of these? A frequently-cited Biblical example of a flash prayer is in Nehemiah chapter 2.
 
The king said, “Why do you look so sad? You’re not sick. Something must be bothering you.”
Even though I was frightened, I answered, “Your Majesty, I hope you live forever!
I feel sad because the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins, and its gates have
been burned down.”
The king asked, “What do you want me to do?”
I prayed to the God who rules from heaven. Then I told the king, “Sir, if it’s all right with you, please send me back to Judah, so that I can rebuild the city where my ancestors are buried.”
 
Nehemiah also prayed long prayers,. But you don't want to pray a long prayer while a scary king is staring at you.

So, like Nehemiah and many others, pray for what you most need right now.  Take 10 seconds to pray for someone you meet. Hear an ambulance? Pray. Thank the Almighty for whatever good thing you’re experiencing. 
 
We see further examples of these streaming and steaming prayers throughout the Bible. One-breath prayers are the only practical way to pursue Paul's directions in 1 Thessalonian's 5:
 
"Always be joyful and never stop praying.
Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ.
This is what God wants you to do."
 
All that said, I've been yammering for several blog entries about preparing for prayer, about improving prayer by stretching my grasp of what prayer can be. We've considered prayers Jesus approved. Another rich source of prayer stretches is one Jesus used, the book of Psalms. 
 
Not all psalms are prayers. For example, Psalm 1 is not addressed to God but aims to instruct believers: 
"God blesses those people who refuse evil advice and won’t follow sinners or join in sneering at God...." .
 
Psalm 2 is addressed to non-believers: "Be smart, all you rulers, and pay close attention. Serve and honor the Lord; be glad and tremble. Show respect to his son..."
 
Psalm 3 is a prayer to God. However, David’s prayer is not entirely my prayer: "Ten thousand enemies attack from every side, but I am not afraid. Come and save me, Lord God! Break my enemies' jaws and shatter their teeth, because you protect and bless your people…." Many of David's prayers are like this; hyperbole about ten thousand enemies and asking God to punish said enemies in painfully memorable ways. Should I pray this about the handful of knaves who irk me? In Matthew 5, Jesus said, "You have heard people say, 'Love your neighbors and hate your enemies.' But I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you." Not all prayers in the Bible speak to me or speak for me.
 
Jesus applied some of David's prayers to himself, for example Psalm 22: "My God, my God, why have you deserted me?... Brutal enemies attack me like a pack of dogs, tearing at my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones, and my enemies just stare and sneer at me. They took my clothes and gambled for them...."  Maybe I need to be more like David in earnest defense of God’s people and more like Jesus driving the money-lenders from his Father’s house. Psalm 22 serves to build my appreciation for Jesus but not yet as my own prayer.
 
When David or the other Psalmists simply ask God for mercy and grace, those are prayers from which I can learn, prayers I can make my own. Take Psalm 6: "Don’t punish me, Lord, or even correct me when you are angry! Have pity on me and heal my feeble body. My bones tremble with fear, and I am in deep distress. How long will it be?..." . Such psalms encourage me to boldly confess and request.
 
The Psalms, like much of the Hebrew Bible,  use words that identify something that can be seen, touched, smelled, tasted, or heard, rather than abstractions. Once in a while a Psalm lapses into Greek-style abstraction, as in Psalm 103: "The Lord is merciful! He is kind and patient, and his love never fails." As though the psalmist realized his lapse, he comes roaring back with specifics:
 
"How great is God’s love for all who worship him? Greater than the distance between heaven and earth! How far has the Lord taken our sins from us? Farther than the distance from east to west!  Just as parents are kind to their children, the Lord is kind to all who worship him, because he knows we are made of dust.  We humans are like grass or wild flowers that quickly bloom. But a scorching wind blows, and they quickly wither, to be forever forgotten...."
 
People love such sensual Psalms even when they are outside their experience.
 
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
    He makes me lie down in green pastures...."
              
Raise your hand if you’ve herded sheep or even just chickens. Have you smelled a sweet meadow after a rain or after mowing?  Rolled around in it?  Have you known someone you can 100% trust? Not many urbanites have had such earthy privileges, but still can kind of appreciate them.
 
No more than the rest of the Bible, most of the 150 Psalms do not prepare me for the modern prayer requests which tend to be about medical and relationship problems and progress. Psalms that do touch on such matters include Psalms 6, 16, 31, 34, 35, 38, 41, 73, 107, and 147.
 
Many psalms praise and thank God. These speak to me and speak for me.  They encourage me to be demonstrative in worship. These include Psalms 7-9, 34, 40, 65, 89, 92, 95-101, 103-118, 135-139, and 144-150. The Psalm writers were emphatically ecstatic about God’s goodness. How much more can I, with a clearer perspective of Messiah’s work, sing Joy to the World!

There are hundreds of prayers in the Bible. One could start at Genesis and buzz through, snarfing insights like a bee among the flowers. I was tempted to do that. Tempted for about six seconds. But I knew of two prayers that Jesus presented as exemplary. 

First: "God, have mercy on me a sinner." Genuine humility is fundamental to prayer. Humility is a basic stretch before the activity of prayer. Humility is not simply focusing on how I have messed up, or how messed up I am. Continued self-focus can do more harm than good. Humility best starts from appreciating what the Creator has done for all of us! Humility includes trusting that the Almighty can disolve my debt of disobedience, the debt I cannot pay.

Here is the second prayer that Jesus endorsed. In Matthew chapter 6. Jesus frames this Model Prayer with two ways not to pray.

Before presenting this model prayer, Jesus encouraged his students to "go into a room alone and close the door. Pray to your Father in private." The King James Version says, "enter into thy closet."

In the "Lord's Prayer", do you see the words "my", "me", or "I"? Go ahead, look!

Nope. It's "Our Father", "Help us", "give us", "forgive us", "we forgive", "keep us", "protect us".  That's a crowded closet!  On one hand, Jesus says to hide out when one prays.  But then his Model Prayer has no "I" or "me". This is not an innovation Jesus introduced.   Praying in the plural had for centuries been expected practice in Jewish public and private prayer, and remains so today. One difference here: Of the many ways Jews carefully addressed the Almighty, addressing prayer to "our Father" occurs only twice in the Hebrew scriptures. Jesus addresses not so much God's power but rather God's love.

Prayer is fundamentally unselfish, but rather relational.  The Lord's Prayer first addresses what Father God wants, and secondly concerns his children's shared needs.

The Model Prayer is shockingly unlike my typical prayer and unlike what I hear in most prayer meetings. It doesn't directly address medical needs. It doesn't end, "in Jesus' Name, amen." Ha, how can it be a prayer without that closing?

The first three requests of the Lord's Prayer are not about my worries, not about any human worries. Read it again. The first half of the Lord's Prayer is completely about what God wants.

I once felt that whatever the creator of galaxies and goldfish wants is beyond my understanding. There's truth to that. But wait. The scriptures quite clearly name several things God wants. A previous post lists around a dozen Bible passages that say, here is God wants. Such as: "He does not want anyone to be lost, but he wants all people to change their hearts and lives." And: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" 

It should be perfectly clear that God is not presently getting what he wants from humans generally and from me specifically. God can get whatever he wants, but he does seem to have priorities, to have standards about how his wants are to be fulfilled. Part of this involves me, praying.  Really, us, praying. A useful prayer stretch is for me to recollect what God wants. A form of this stretch can happen hours or days before the prayer. Discuss with other believers the topic, "What does God want?" Then together and individually you can confidently pray, "Our father", "Help us", "Give us".

The first half of the Lord's Prayer is a way for me to say—for us to say—"God, I, with other believers, give up what we want. As our first priority, we really, really, really want what you want."

The second half of the Lord's Prayer considers needs that I have in common with all other people.

These are "stayin' alive" needs!  Just this one day's food; forgiveness; God's leadership. I try to treat "daily bread" as literal, not representative. I'm not praying for all the cupcakes, challah, ciabata, and cornpone I want for future days. I'm praying for this day. I don't doubt that God will provide for tomorrow.  Rather, I do remember that for some people the cupboard. is. bare. They are in such dire need that "daily bread" or "food for today" quite fills their desperation. Have you ever had a week, or a month, or a year where you lived one day at a time? Are you aware of hungry people? Stretches consisting of humble reflection and compassion for the poor will help me pray, "give us this day our daily bread."

The Jews who first heard the Lord's Prayer would have remembered where the idea of "daily bread" came from. It came from Exodus chapter 16:

Moses answered,
“This is the bread that the Lord
has given you to eat.
And he orders you to gather
about two quarts for each person
in your family.
That should be more than enough.”

They did as they were told.
Some gathered more
and some gathered less,
according to their needs.
None was left over.

Moses told them
not to keep any overnight.
Some of them disobeyed.
The next morning what they kept
was stinking and full of worms,
and Moses was angry.

Each morning everyone gathered
as much as they needed,
and in the heat of the day
the rest melted.

I want more than today's food. God does sometimes direct us to stock up for predicted trouble. But isn't it better to trust God continually?  Can I not trust God that I can ask next Thursday for next Thursday's biscuits? You think you need more? You expect more?  First. World. Problems.

Not that prayer about my needs is wrong. Most of the prayers in the Bible, including Jesus' prayers, have "I", "me", and "my" in them. Jesus endorsed the humble man who prayed simply, "Lord show mercy on me a sinner." Still, look again. Do you find any medical requests in the Lord's Prayer?  Petitions to overcome injustice?  Pleas for discernment?  Relationship problems?

These all are exemplified elsewhere in scripture! "Pray for one another, that you may be healed." (James 5) But such specifics simply aren't in the Model Prayer.

Perhaps my observations here are old news to you.  Great!  But only recently I came to stretch my prayers by better understanding some bits of the Lord's Prayer that have puzzled me for over fifty years. I had shrugged them off.

You might understand then when finally I compared my prayers to the Lord's Prayer, the Model Prayer, I didn't come close. For days I was ashamed to pray. I'm meeting the Creator!  What insanity.  I approach the King who ultimately gets what He wants. I petition One who gives daily bread to all on this ball. I represent not just me and uncle Ted, but all our common dependence on our Provider.  I stand anxiously before the only Judge who can forgive anyone, and I'm naked. I seek One who can lead me out of testing and disaster. Given that I am addressing the Almighty, the Redeemer, the Orderer of all things, I ought to be a little nervous.

But eventually after some prayer paralysis, I gained boldness. How? Because I can greet the Almighty as "Our Father".  That's how the Lord's Prayer begins. That's how Jesus' personal prayers proceeded. The prayers of Peter, James, and John had been addressed to Lord, King, Holy One, Redeemer of Our Nation, the Name Above All Names. The new Christ-followers now prayed "Our Father".

"For all who are led by the Spirit of God
are sons of God.
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons,
by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'" - Romans 8

The Lord's Prayer is for me not a stretch. Just the opposite.  It's the Olympic event that demands I stretch beforehand. The Lord's Prayer does mention a stretch, something that prepares us for prayer, and that is actionable after prayer. The stretch is this: "forgive us for doing wrong, as we forgive others." Jesus emphasizes that line in his comments after the prayer. Jesus graphically urges me to do forgiveness before I come to my Judge and Redeemer.

So if you are about to place your gift
on the altar
and remember that someone
is angry with you,
leave your gift there in front of the altar.
Make peace with that person,
then come back and offer your gift to God.

To me, forgiveness is giving up what I believe someone owes me. Forgiveness is not passivity. Forgiveness is obeying the order, "Stand down, soldier!" But it's more than that. Forgiveness is signing over to the Almighty my right, my right to justice. Repeatedly.

Jesus has lots to say about forgiveness, doesn't he? Forgiving someone involves more than changing my attitude and altitude. It involves communication and other action. Before God I can pray, help me forgive. But the way Jesus puts it, before God I must forgive, and forgiveness helps me pray. Forgiveness is an earthbound stretch before walking with God.