Our group is growing. Brother and sisters from South Africa and America and other parts of the world will come to Israel to learn and share lives together at the end of April, 2012. If you are planning to come with us, please contact Linda Moore soon.
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Today I received a newsletter from a rather famous Christian author. The centerpiece was an except from one of Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s sermons. The title, “Making Certain of Heaven” left little doubt about its content. As Randy Alcorn remarked, “Can we really know in advance where we’re going when we die? The apostle John, the same one who wrote about the new heavens and the New Earth, said in one of his letters, ‘I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that may know that you have eternal life.’ (1 John 5:13, NIV, emphasis added).” Spurgeon’s sermon and Alcorn’s commentary are focused on this one thought: “Do we not wish to mount above and fly away, to enter into the rest which awaits the people of God?” Spurgeon’s sermon is filled with euphoric illustrations of the restoration and relief we will experience in heaven. The worn-weary mother who will be young again. The day laborer who will cease his toils. The poor man who will wear a crown. How exactly Spurgeon knows all this is left to the imagination, but the picture captures an idyllic paradise, the longing of every person’s dream of endless vacation and perpetual youth. Perhaps Spurgeon listened to Fastball’s tune, “The Way.”
I have no doubt at all that this picture appealed to the thousands who heard Spurgeon. I don’t doubt that many Christians today hope for the same swift transportation to paradise. But I don’t think Spurgeon or Alcorn have a firm foundation for such a claim nor do I believe that Scripture offers tourist packages to our fly-away destination. Since when did heaven become the goal of the righteous? It is seductively popular to portray heaven as the end of the line, the final escape, the endless summer at the beach. But that is not Scripture. That is fairy-tale indulgence.
Consider Alcorn’s use of the passage in 1 John. Does John’s statement claim that we will know that we are going to heaven? No, it doesn’t. It says that we will know we have eternal life. But eternal life doesn’t begin when we reach heaven. It begins as soon as my yetzer ha’ra is domesticated by the influence of the Spirit. It begins here, on earth. In fact, all of my experience of eternal life is worked out on this earth, in my circumstances. I have no experience of “eternal life” on the other side of the grave. Eternal life only becomes “heaven” if I make the supposition that my everlasting existence is held in abeyance until I die. Scripture is hardly concerned at all with the question, “Where will I go when I die?” It is far more interested in the question, “How will I live while I am here?” Heaven is a by-product of a righteous life, not the end-product of a moment’s decision. God’s purposes are served here, not in the bye-and-bye.
Alcorn comments, “The goal of getting to Heaven is worthy of greater advance planning than we would give to any other journey.” That is true, of course, if the goal of life is getting out of here. But what use is planning to leave if we are called to stay? Doesn’t Yeshua actually pray that we not be removed from the world? Doesn’t Peter make it clear that we are assigned the tasks worthy of alien residents? Isn’t Paul at odds with himself about the possibility of leaving this world? Even Yeshua didn’t come here in order to “get to heaven.” But if we focus our efforts on needed right steps for jumping ship, we will avoid worldly entanglements, precisely the entanglements that offer the best opportunities for redemptive actions. I might even question whether it is possible to be righteous while being consumed about leaving God’s created world.
This pervasive idea, the Great Escape, the preoccupation with knocking on heaven’s door, diminishes God’s purpose of Torah-obedience here and now. It circumvents the obligation of the covenant, to live in such a way that we become magnets attracting others to YHWH. What reason would we have for maintaining a life of disciplined behavior if the goal is to get out? If all that is required is confession and forgiveness, and I am on my way to paradise, then why get distracted with all this nonsense about following some long-forgotten code? Those of rules for people who are staying behind, but as everyone knows, those who have been forgiven are on their way up and out. In fact, were it not for the problem that suicide is sin, the obvious solution to this living dilemma would be voluntary early exit. Why stick around if paradise, youth and pleasure are just on the other side of the grave? And if you happen to follow the Qur’an, this option is particularly appealing.
Here’s what we actually do know about what happens when we die. We go into the grave. Our bodies decay. We return to dust. Someday, and only God knows when that day will arrive, we will once again live as embodied persons. God promises this – and that is sufficient to hold us over while we accomplish the assignment He has given us here. But since God’s purposes are not to get us to heaven, I suggest we pay attention to the job that lies before us and refuse to be sidetracked by the illusion of a return to some primordial bliss. Let God worry about that. He’s the only One who can.
It is a trustworthy statement; if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. 1 Timothy 3:1 NASB
Overseer – If any man? But what about Carol or Ann or Linda or Jan? What if they desire to be “overseers”? Ah, if only Paul weren’t so gender conscious. Wait a minute! If we look at the Greek text, we find that the verse doesn’t say, “if any man.” It says, “if anyone.” The reason the NASB and other translations introduce gender specificity is a result of the next verse with its statement about “the husband of one wife.” The assumption is that this must be about men since the prohibition only applies to men. But not so fast!
Let’s start with the theme. That theme is service, not authority. Sometimes translated “bishop,” the word episkopos literally means “a watchman, someone who looks after something.” Because this term was used in classical Greek for officials who were sent to outlying provinces, we have assumed that the word is about an office (notice the NASB translation), not a role played by anyone in the Body. But what do we find when we look for the word episkopos in the LXX? We find words associated with visiting (like paqad). Sometimes the subject is God Himself. Sometimes it is men. But there is little to suggest that these “visitors” are rulers or officials simply because they have been sent. Since Paul is speaking in general about the theme of providing service to others, I suspect that his view of an “overseer” has more to do with hands-on help than it has to do with micro-management. And I doubt very much that these people came with titles in front of their names.
How does one become an episkopos? Perhaps by desiring to help. Perhaps by being where the work needs to be done. Perhaps by offering to direct the project or the effort. Perhaps by making sure that everything anyone else needs is provided. One thing is abundantly clear. Being an episkopos has nothing to do with getting the credit.
Now what about Carol? Why can’t a woman be an episkopos? Don’t women desire to be helpful visitors? Aren’t women capable of directing endeavors of the Body? Of course they are. In fact, there are many examples in both the Old and New Testaments of women who were overseers in every sense of the word except the Church-endorsed “title” (which came much later). The entire exclusion of women from the role of director for helping depends on Paul’s subsequent statement, “the husband of one wife.” But that is a completely culturally-dependent condition. It is the prohibition against polygamy, still practiced by the wealthy in the first century. It is not about divorce. It is about the inevitable stress caused by more than one wife at the same time. Why doesn’t Paul make a statement about the monogamy of women? Because there was absolutely no need to. Polyandry was not practiced in the first century Mediterranean world.
The conditions for being an overseer are limited to these: purity, goodness, temperance, modesty, not greedy, not argumentative, gentle, not prideful and not a novice. Gender has nothing to do with it. Living by the Spirit has everything to do with it. Those translations that suggest this is an office limited only to men are more a reflection of the male hierarchy’s desire for power than they are a reflection of the nature of God.
Topical Index: overseer, bishop, episkopos, paqad, 1 Timothy 3:1
CORRECTION: Yesterday’s TW should have ended like this:
The pagans in Corinth were not categorically resistant to the new ekklesia of Jews and Gentiles together. They just weren’t ready to believe it until they could see it actually work.
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