Willingness
for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11 NASB
Christ the Lord – “The Church cannot indefinitely continue to believe about Jesus what he did not know to be true about himself.”[1] So writes John Bowman. But, of course, Bowman is a heretic, isn’t he? He doesn’t respect the authority and tradition of the Church. He questions the non-Semitic “Jesus,” the “Jew” without ethnic and cultural heritage. The “Christ,” rather than the Jewish Messiah.
It seems relevant today to consider this comment, and the comment of Charles Wagner, when he writes, “We today believe in the Trinity not because of direct biblical revelation but because of majority votes in certain counsels—in other words, by extra-biblical revelation.”[2] If we investigate the origin and development of this central Christian doctrine, we must agree with Wagner. The Trinity is not found in any direct scriptural passage. It is the production of three hundred years of theological debate (and a good deal of violence) about the relationship between Greek philosophical concepts and a re-reading of the Hebrew writings. As Chandler points out, this development occurred because of the shift from a way of living to “creedal rules of faith,” necessitated by the power of the Roman Empire intertwined with the bishops of a newly created Christian religion.
When we investigate this development, we discover the appalling fact that some intellectuals within the Church used whatever means necessary to quash differences in exegetical opinion, including murder. Both Luther and Calvin, those heroes of the Reformation, were involved in acts of brutality that make today’s political scandals seem mild. Protestants demanded the right of the individual to interpret the text as God directed each one, but the leadership was quick to execute those who disagreed. Perhaps they didn’t read the history of Israel in the book of Judges. They certainly didn’t pay attention to God’s punishment for such arrogance.
Today millions of believers will worship a man as God, without any clue why they do so. They know nothing of the historical background of this claim or anything else about the real Jewish “Jesus.” They believe what the Church tells them, as dutiful sheep among theological wolves. As McGrath notes, “many evangelicals fear engaging in scholarship precisely because, when done honestly, it can lead to conclusions that one set out hoping to avoid drawing.”[3] Today is a day to ask yourself, “Am I afraid to look?” “What if I discover something that raises questions about what I think is true? Would I be willing to change?” Given the universality of “Christmas” as a celebration with no biblical authority, it seems it’s just easier to believe whatever makes you comfortable, isn’t it?
Topical Index: Christ the Lord, christos kyrios, Luke 2:11, Jesus, Trinity
[1] John Bowman, The Intention of Jesus, p. 108.
[2] Cited in Kegan Chandler, The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma, p. 10.
[3] Ibid., p. 33.
A Sad Note: Tom and Marilyn Walter, faithful readers and travelers to Israel, sent me this tragic note:
…About 3 weeks ago my wife’s niece had a root canal. Shortly after that she started having headaches. Thinking they were caused by the root canal she went to a clinic complaining and they treated her. A few days later the headaches got worse in fact they were so bad that she told her husband that she couldn’t stand them anymore. She said “if I die tell everyone I love them.” From the story we heard, a few moments later she slipped into a coma. After tests, it was determined she had a cyst in her brain that was probably with her from birth. It had cut off the blood supply to half of her brain. After much pray and all the medical treatment possible she passed away…yesterday…she was 36. While the loss and pain is heart wrenching, her sister, through many tears, told my wife, while we will always miss her, her death was not in vain, many people will be blessed because of the organs she left them.
Please pray for the family.
Skip for you and your family and extended family may God guide and direct the pain to find peace through the love shared during this life short life. May YHWH comfort and console in the truth that behind this experience is His purpose and saving. God be with you all in this period of grief.
For Tom and Marilyn I apologize for reading Skip’ note so half. May you all find comfort in the power of God through His grace and mercy.
As for Skip I apologize for being such a sloppy reader.
Tom and Marilyn, may the Lord give peace to you and your family’s hearts, knowing that our Father is full of mercy for each one of His children and trusting that He alone knows how to heal you from such loss.
Skip, perhaps you should have titled this post “Bah Humbug” 🙁 I read Today’s Word daily–while I don’t always agree with you, I respect greatly your scholarship and pursuit of truth. (I also cherish our long friendship, which could not be affected by any intellectual or theological disagreement). Reading today’s post leads me to believe I may have missed something fundamental in your writing (or maybe never wanted to read it). What exactly do you mean by “Today millions of believers will worship a man as God, without any clue why they do so. They know nothing of the historical background of this claim or anything else about the real Jewish “Jesus.” Do you believe that Jesus was just a man?
Merry Christmas brother.
Paul, I am the least person qualified to answer on behalf of Skip, but what exactly do YOU mean by the word “just”?
“Just a man” as compared to “fully God and fully man”.
But this is the essence of the issue. So substantiate the obvious contradiction of your statement biblically speaking. Without implications or misinterpretations. Using words like “just” mean nothing in and of themselves. Chandler uses more than 500 pages doing this and more than 1600 references including many Trinitarians who agree with him on many aspects in dispute. As a former RCC I know what this sounds like when you are living in an echo chamber that says “trust us, we voted for this and it was enforced by our Emperor friends 1700 years ago with the ultimate weapon, DEATH. So there! Its over.
Read Chandler with an open mind and then respond.
I should add substantiate “fully”.
OK, here’s my reply. I suggested that nearly all Christians who worship Jesus as God incarnate have no idea where that idea came from or how it became part of Christian thinking. So, in this regard, they worship something they truly do not understand. But that doesn’t really bother them since they believe what the Church teaches, not what they themselves have investigated. So, they don’t think about Jesus as a JEWISH messiah, or the message of the KINGDOM OF GOD, or the strict monotheism of the disciples (and Paul). They believe the Christmas event is biblical, not pagan, because they have never looked at its origin. And when someone actually raises questions about all this, the questioner is often treated as a heretic. In my personal experience, I have known devout pastors who began to serious investigate Christmas and were subsequently told by the congregation, “Pastor, we know Christmas isn’t in the Bible but we won’t give it up.”
And, MANY people HAVE investigated deeply, and still conclude that Yeshua was God incarnate. They aren’t worshiping something they don’t understand…quite the contrary.
As for the December birthdate, my post below offers information to an interview with some more accurate information.
Thank you Skip and Judi. We seem to be entangling several questions: (1) is Jesus God incarnate, (2) is Christmas (particularly the date) Biblical and (3) do people who believe the answers to 1 and 2 are “YES” really understand the basis for their belief. My initial question was simply about Skip’s belief as to 1 above–which I still don’t think I know.
Merry Christmas.
Hi Paul,
I’m not sure we’re even called to celebrate the Messiah’s birth. There are only 3 examples of birthday celebrations in Scripture and all were surrounding terrible events.
My only point in bring up the date issue is because, if people are going to celebrate, I think it would be nice to have the correct date. That said, I have no expectations that the world would ever change Christmas from December to Nissan 1 (March/April).
The Jonathan Cahn youtube interview on “When was Jesus REALLY Born?” was especially helpful in helping me understand why so many Rabbis an theologians believe Nissan 1 is the date.
Paul,
If Skip’s answer wasn’t plain enough, you may (or may not) want to catch up on the issue. It has been going on for a long time (years?) One post that is easy for me to remember is, “Beating a dead horse”. Type that phrase into Skip’s search engine near the top of this page and then click on the Oct 6, 2016 post. But not until you have a lot of time to spare. This horse is still alive and kicking.
PS to Judi
Thanks for suggesting the video. Previously I thought perhaps it was the Feast of Trumpets but this certainly got my attention.
Sometimes you see or read something and you’re just speechless. My heart and prayers go out to this family, life is precious and fragile. We forget that all too often. May the strength and peace of the Living God sustain them.
If anyone is interested, I just watched a youtube interview with Jonathan Cahn titled “When Was Jesus REALLY Born?” I think many people will be surprised with the answer. I’ve know for quite some time that it wasn’t in December, and have heard many people have suggested it was in the Fall, around Succoth. But, after watching the Scripturally convincing and logical video, it appears to be Nissan 1. That said, I believe God is pleased whenever we worship Him, even if we don’t get the dates correct.
Thank you for confirming my understanding of the birth happening in March , I also first had it somewhere in July or August but the more I read the more the comments pointed to March around three years earlier than we are made to believe…
But that being that, our only everlasting feast in this period seems to be passover. The rest are all man made choices that have become a money making racket…
Interesting is all these births and deaths of biblical figures in this month add up to the time of change from death to life, captivity to freedom, forced obedience to freewill obedience…
Just out of curiosity… Does any one know during which month Joshua lead the people into Canaan?
Hi Seeker,
And, since Nissan 1 is the Hebrew lunar calendar date, it’s not always in March on our solar calendar. It’s different each year, but it always falls in March or April.
Also, Passover is among several other feasts that God calls us to observe… First Fruits, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth. They are His appointed times that He shows up for and expects His followers to as well. None of these are man made and none of them are intent on money making. They can all be found in the Scriptures.
Christmas it the man made money maker for much of the world. And while Hanukkah is not man made, it’s sadly become quite materialistic for many people…like Christmas.
Thank you for the reference to the other appointed times, I was invited to try out sukkoth but have not tried it yet ..
Skip you asked:“Am I afraid to look?” “What if I discover something that raises questions about what I think is true? Would I be willing to change?” Being a “long time” follower of your work
I was glad to have also long ago found and employed this simple prime directive that Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor & Jim Myers composed:
“My Belief System will be large enough to include all of the facts, open enough to be examined and questioned, and flexible enough to change when errors or new facts are discovered”.
You have brought to light many errors that I had at one time or another bought into (nearly bankrupting myself spiritually in the process), as well as presented new facts which caused me to question my inherited paradigms and easy assumptions. I have changed my beliefs and therefore I am a changed person. Thank you brother. I am indebted and therefore grateful for you, your words and your ministry.
Michael, Perfectly said. Thank you, Skip, over and over again. I, too, am indebted to you and most grateful that you have the guts to go against the mainstream when you discover that the route is wrong, no matter the risk to you (your recent unemployment comes to mind.) Ric and I praise YHVH continually for you and we pray for you and Rosanna very often; she, being your Ezer Kenegdo, keeps you going… which helps keep us going!
Thank you, too, brother, for walking the talk. We have been so blessed throughout the years of fellowship with you here on TW to be involved with people’s lives (we prayed for you as you stood in front of students as a Bible professor, we pray for you as you spend time in Haiti or “on tour” on a ship or land somewhere teaching TRUTH to those who have ears to hear, we love helping with needs of some of our brothers and sisters here, we are blessed to be a part of the “Children Under the Bridge” work, we were overjoyed in being able to help in some way the young African runner, Irene, with the damaged feet… we still pray for her today.)
When God overturned “life as you knew it” back in the days of having the big bucks, He had such beautiful plans for you… and for us! Praise YHVH forever.
So good. Wish there was more. Thanks for the reminder. Altought, It’s hard at times to process when you are writing with sarcasm and when you are literal. I had to reread this one a few times to make sense of it.
I’ll say this about the people I personally know that do Christmas, every one of them loves the Lord with a whole heart. We’ve all been wrong and grown in our faith so I give them that room as the Lord always gave me. And if the door gets opened, then we can have that conversation. I’m under the belief that we first and foremost serve a God of relationships. It’s through those relationships, many times, that we get occasions to speak into another person’s life. Take a wrecking ball to those relationships, and you never get that opportunity.
As to the comment made by Paul Michalski, I can’t speak for Skip but, me personally, yes, I absolutely bow and worship to the One given the Name above all names, Yeshua, without apology. Which literally means “Salvation”. Why? Because He saves “His” people. Yep, it’s true, the text tells us He humbled Himself and took on the likeness of mankind but, yes, He is certainly and fully every physical representation of YHVH that has been and will be on this earth, having come to save His people.
I know many here don’t see it that way, and that’s fine too, we’re all at different places in our journey. And it sure isn’t necessary to all agree but, the more I study the scriptures as a whole, in they’re historical grammatical and cultural perspective, I am even more convinced. I don’t really know much about what the RCC or early church fathers thought of the so-called “Trinity doctrine”, and I don’t care. I don’t have any need to place that label on my belief and conclusions. The text shows it to be true, IMHO, without having to place that name on the clear and obvious plurality of YHVH. It’s apparent the Apostles didn’t have any problems calling Him Kurios Theos either. Not to mention one has to do cartwheels around the plain text in Gen 18 with YHVH in the flesh standing before Abraham or even the God of Israel standing on the mountain, who has feet. Yeshua is called way too many of the same things the Creator of heaven and earth is called, many of which it says are only given to Him, including the One that created all, to not have to honestly struggle with those facts.
Struggle on my brothers and sisters!
Mark, I believe that none of us are anywhere CLOSE to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That is why it is faith that saves us, not creedal certainty about who Yeshua really is or isn’t, for example.
But I also think I may be starting to realize truth is the stuff that, like the sun C.S,. Lewis pointed out, cannot actually be seen by us (for it would blind us as He/it did Saul of Tarsus) but is what enables us to see everything ELSE clearly. Move away from the truth and not only does everything start to dim; it also starts to distort. Not just some things, but EVERYTHING. Move toward the truth a step, and things (especially Scripture) start to clear and ‘communicate’ better with everything else, etc.
If you find something that just is ‘too good to be true’ but in the process of assimilating it things that were clear and simple before start to get muddy and distant and start to need a whole lot more explanation and interpretation, be suspicious. The same set of facts is before us all. We don’t reject one set of ‘facts’ and only accept another; no, truth is the stuff, like the sun, that enables us to see everything else more clearly. That would include the entire subset of what the pagans have to work with, too.
Truth is not the set of facts; I believe truth is the Sun that illuminates it all. This is why we can only walk in the truth by faith (belief/paradigm glasses), not by sight (fact observation). I am starting to be suspicious that our paradigms are our biggest weakness, but also our biggest strength. DEPENDING on what(Who) we chose to build them on, which we are told will either be the sand of presumption of what we want reality to be or the bedrock of faith in what/Who undergirds what reality really is. Truth is reality, and vice versa, but because both can only exist in the present – which we currently don’t have access to except by faith – we are stuck with the fact.forms of the past to look at. Facts are NOT reality; facts are the footprints of reality past, but reality never walks the same way twice. Truth can only be grasped by faith, but it is not faith in facts; it is faith in the Holder of those facts. And, no, I don’t know what I just said, so please don’t expect me to! I have to say it in faith. Halleluah!
Laurita, I have much respect for and commonly enjoy your comments. This one though I’m gonna have to confess, I have no clue how to respond.
May our great and compassionate King continue to bring blessing to you and your home.
It is surely because I am still inarticulate, even to myself! I am starting over.
Take the sky. I can make statements about it all day long. I can say “the sky appears blue”. A Greek might say that is a ‘true’ statement. But, even if you added all the sky statements up, they would still not be the sky.
I think I am seeing that the sky (reality) is the truth; everything else, even statements about the sky, are just forms of that truth. The form (statement) that posits that the sky is blue is not the sky itself. So, what is ‘true’; the statement about the sky, or the sky? Pilot asked this, but he didn’t hang around for the answer, because if he had, he would have had to conform to that truth. If Yeshua were really King, he would have had to do obeisance.
If the sky – and not statements about it – is the real truth, then we have an obligation to a relationship, as part of reality, with that sky. What is more important: to ‘know’ that the sky is blue or realize that people who do not get to relate directly to the sky in all its facets and fulness are sick and incomplete? We might even have to take our children out of the classroom that is generating statements about things and give them a direct experience WITH those things.
And Gabriel said this is a magnificent thing that is happening in you, Mary. And the shepherds responded let us go and look at this thing that is happening in Bethlehem…. Sounds as if everyone considered the conception and birth to be a thing…
Translation predicament… Did they speak this why or was it all about uncertainty until the truth was revealed…
So do we all wonder what is the truth about this biblical thing we are reading and discussing until it is revealed and we can truly name it …
And the discussion continues. Thanks Mark. You and I have a great relationship regardless of theological differences. That’s what matter here, my brother.
True statement! I have nothing but pure love and respect for you my brother. Even if we do disagree on so many theological issues 🙂
It’s my understanding that we shouldn’t run from differences of opinion. Certainly, not everyone is able or willing to engage in those differences but, I think all learn something or at least they leave with something from the engagement to ponder.