restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

How to Pray for Us

 David Alan Black  

Alan Richardson, in his brilliant book The Miracle Stories of the Gospels (p. 9), writes that “the Kingdom of God is an irresistibledunamis silently at work in the world.” This is precisely the point I make in Paul, Apostle of Weakness. In the present age, Jesus’ power is displayed primarily in and through our weaknesses. He works “silently,” as Richardson says. But we need to remember that He does not always work that way. Sometimes the work of God is a noisy affair. “Lazarus, come forth” was shouted, not whispered.

This may seem like a trite point, but when you are facing a terminal illness you are eager to be reminded that “power came forth from Him and healed them all” (Luke 6:19). It is entirely false to the theology of the New Testament to reject the possibility of miracles today. The Disciples’ Prayer ends with the words, “For Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.” It is a mistake to put God in a box.

Of course, the Bible also knows the power of weakness. Just ask Joni Eareckson Tada. Which would be the greater miracle — to see her walk again or to see Christ’s peace and joy manifested in the midst of her “handicap”? Paul would answer, “The latter.” In the Pauline sense, human weakness can become the showplace of God’s exceptional power. Thus Paul’s own 3-fold request to be relieved of his “stake in the flesh” led to the realization of God’s sufficiency in the midst of the pain.

However puzzling Becky’s illness may seem to me (she had none of the predisposing factors so common with uterine cancer), I have to realize that there is a world of difference between humbly asking God for a miracle and being guilty of presumption. Jesus is not ignorant of Becky’s condition. When He saw the man at the pool of Bethesda He knew immediately that he was a chronic sufferer. Nothing had happened to him for 38 years. Then Jesus intervened for the man — but apparently not for all the other sufferers at the pool. King Jesus is sovereign, and He sovereignly disposes.

So Jesus can be trusted. We can rely on His good judgment when it comes to our health. The only thing we can never justify is disobedience to His commands.

So as you pray for Becky do not pray primarily or even exclusively for her cancer to be healed. Pray that we will remain obedient, trusting, and joyful in the valley. Ask God to help us to follow our upside-down Messiah who upset the political status quo so much so that he got the Roman electric chair. Pray that Becky and I would never forget that, in the kingdom of God, down is up and that it is indeed God’s kingdom we are serving, and not our own, until that day when we will stand, side by side, brother and sister, in His presence.

September 2, 2010

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

How to Master a Foreign Language

 David Alan Black 

“What does it take to learn a foreign language?” Advice-seekers ranging from Ph.D. students learning German to missionaries learning French often ask me that question. In my opinion, a person needs two qualities if he or she is to master another language.

The first is determination. In my library is a conversational grammar that I used when teaching myself German many years ago. A week into my studies I wrote the following words on the title page: “Ich will sprechen Deutsch.” Now in German the verb “will” is not the future tense marker that it is in English. It means “want to” or “desire to.” I was, in effect, saying, “I want to – I am determined to – speak German.” What was behind my determination and drive, you ask?

In 1978 I had been invited to play trumpet on Greater Europe Mission’s “Eurocorps” brass octet. We would spend the summer in Germany playing evangelistic concerts. The music would attract the crowds, while our German-speaking director would share the Good News. However, I wanted to do more that “toot my own horn,” as it were. I hoped to share my personal testimony during the concerts and to engage in conversation with the audience afterwards. And thus I purchased my grammar book and began meeting regularly for conversation with a native German-speaker. When we arrived in Germany in June of 1978 I could hold an intelligible (if simple) conversation in German and could even share my faith, in a very limited way, with others. I was thrilled!

Are you a motivated student? Are you determined to succeed? Without determination you won’t get very far in language learning.

The second essential quality needed to master a foreign language is lowliness of mind or humility. It is the opposite of pride and hubris. Take, again, my week-old German sentence, “Ich will sprechen Deutsch.” As anyone who has studied German knows, the syntax of my sentence was backwards. In German the object comes before the infinitive: “Ich will Deutsch sprechen.” I had gotten the words right but the word order wrong. And that was hardly the last mistake I made. But if you want to learn a foreign language you must be willing to actually use it, even if it means making mistakes and even if others have to correct you.

Allow me another personal anecdote, if you will. By the time I arrived in Basel, Switzerland in 1980 to begin doctoral studies with the Swedish New Testament scholar Bo Reicke, I had acquired a fairly good working knowledge of German with (I was told) a slight Prussian accent. I immediately began speaking German whenever I could, even though I knew my speaking ability was far from perfect. The Swiss, I soon discovered, were quite willing to correct you when you committed a verbal gaffe. This is as it should be, of course, but it takes some getting used to. Being corrected in public is never pleasant but it is essential it you want to master a foreign language. Becky and I were never too proud to use our German in public, and our efforts were always warmly appreciated.

But back to my story. On my very first day in Basel I had gone to the university library to seek out Professor Reicke. When I found him in the stacks, what language do you think we conversed in? Here I was, a fledging student from Kailua, Hawaii, meeting with a famous Swedish scholar. Naturally we spoke the language of the university – German! When Dr. Reicke mentioned that he was thinking about getting a cup of coffee, I asked him, “Darf ich Ihnen begleiten?” (“May I accompany you?”) “Darf ich Sie begleiten” was his gentle corrective, and off we went to a local café. (Note: he did not switch to English.) So it was throughout my stay in Basel – me speaking German at every opportunity, and others correcting me until I reached a high level of fluency in the language, even preaching in it numerous times.

How many people do you know who have had three years of high school Spanish and cannot utter a single sentence in the language? Even when they are among Spanish-speakers they are too proud to open their mouths for fear of being laughed at or corrected.

Friend, do not be afraid to make mistakes. Do not fear correction. Swallow your pride and speak out!

August 14, 2006

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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How to Abandon New Testament Christianity in Ten Easy Steps

 David Alan Black 

1. Separate children from their parents at church.

2. Have an exciting youth ministry.

3. Be committed to a one-man leadership model.

4. Refuse to allow believers to speak or exercise their spiritual gifts during the service.

5. Make discipleship an option.

6. Have long, drawn out altar calls.

7. Focus on evangelism instead of edification in your meetings.

8. Make a huge fuss over Christmas and Easter.

9. Spend lots of money on buildings and maintenance.

10. Apply Jesus’ words “Do this in remembrance of Me” to everything but the Lord’s Supper.

My friends, I am of the firm belief that not only do the “old paths” conform to biblical patterns, they work better. This may seem radical to some, but let’s face it – “getting back to the root” is the original meaning of radical. Without realizing it, our practices have been conformed to the spirit of the world in ways that would have shocked the earliest Christians. Few and far between are those who are seeking to hold the church to the realties of the simple Gospel, who boldly invite others to “ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein” (Jer. 6:16).

Personally, I am convinced that ignorance of God’s ways – particularly his ways of “doing church” – lie at the root of much of the church’s weakness today. The time has come to bring our local church practices under the scrutiny of God’s Word. If there are practices in our tradition that are in conflict with the New Testament revelation, we have only one option: we must correct our practices.

All of the above topics, from an age-integrated philosophy of ministry to the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper as a full meal, are discussed at our Unleashing the Church page. I invite you to peruse these essays prayerfully and carefully. And may God richly bless you as you study what His Word says about His church.

March 27, 2005

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. If you would like to know more about becoming a follower of King Jesus, please feel free to write Dave.

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How Tall Was Robert E. Lee?

 David Alan Black 

If people want to show respect for the Southern cause, they can begin by properly honoring the man who is perhaps its greatest hero, General Robert E. Lee. Many portrayals of Lee are, frankly, less than accurate. Rather than exalting his character, they diminish it—both literally and figuratively.

Take Lee’s physical height. If you were to ask people today what Lee looked like, many would respond, “Why, just like Martin Sheen in the movie.” The “movie,” of course, is Ted Turner’s $20 million Gettysburg, which has been called the most ambitious and magnificently flawed cinematic undertaking since Apocalypse Now. Unfortunately, Gettysburg fails to deliver the goods. It depicts the South’s greatest general—and arguably the greatest military leader who ever lived—as a dwarf-like creature astride a diminutive, clumsy horse. As movie critic Martin Treu has put it, “In scene after scene, General Robert E. Lee, a man of erect bearing just over 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing 170 pounds is shown among men who tower over him, both on foot and on horseback. If this were the case, the entire Confederate army would have to have been over 6 feet 4 inches tall. The only people obviously shorter than Robert E. Lee, in this film, are the 12-year-old drummer boys.”

Treu’s conclusion? “The viewer is led to picture Robert E. Lee as a Leprechaun instead of the giant he was.”

Washington Post staff writer Ken Ringle agrees: “The film’s weakest role is its most crucial. Martin Sheen’s woolly-headed performance as Robert E. Lee conveys little of the character, charisma or aura of infallibility that made the legendary general the closest thing to a universal hero among the generals of the Civil War. Instead he emerges at film’s end as a kind of crazed religious mystic: a Confederate Jim Jones invoking his legions to bullets instead of poisoned Kool Aid for no more clearly discernible reason.”

The tragedy of Gettysburg is that Lee keeps getting smaller and smaller, until at the end we are left with little more than a stubby, hand-ringing neurotic who wonders out loud, “What now?”

Of course, none of this is historically accurate. Take the height issue. By the standards of his day, Lee was tall, and so was his horse. The real Traveller was fully 16 hands high and over 1300 pounds, but in Gettysburg the great charger is transformed into a stumpy pony-like animal tripping over itself. What is more, the real Lee was a superb horseman, having served as a Colonel in the cavalry. In Gettysburg, Sheen’s clumsy horsemanship is almost as inauthentic as his contrived Southern accent.

In addition to the photographs taken of Lee during his lifetime, we are fortunate to have a number of written descriptions of his appearance. What is surprising is the large number of references to Lee’s height. He was, apparently, considerably taller than most men of his day. After Lee had visited Fort Sumter in 1861, a soldier gave the following description:

Glancing round we saw approaching us the then commander of the fort, accompanied by several of his captains and lieutenants; and, in the middle of the group, topping the tallest by half a head, was, perhaps, the most striking figure we had ever encountered, the figure of a man seemingly about fifty-six or fifty-eight years of age, erect as a poplar, yet lithe and graceful, with broad shoulders well thrown back, a fine, justly-proportioned head posed in unconscious dignity, clear, deep, thoughtful eyes, and the quiet, dauntless step of one every inch the gentleman and soldier…. And this superb soldier, the glamour of the antique days about him, was no other than Robert E. Lee, just commissioned by the President, after his unfortunate campaign in Western Virginia, to travel southward and examine the condition of our coast fortifications and seaboard defenses in general….

At Appomattox, a Northern newspaper correspondent wrote:

General Lee looked very much jaded and worn, but nevertheless presented the same magnificent physique for which he has always been noted. He was neatly dressed in gray cloth, without embroidery or any insignia of rank, except the three stars worn on the turned portion of his coat-collar. His cheeks were very much bronzed by exposure, but still shone ruddy underneath it all. He is growing quite bald, and wears one of the side locks of his hair thrown across the upper portion of his forehead, which is as white and fair as a woman’s. He stands fully six feet one inch in height, and weighs something over two hundred pounds, without being burdened with a pound of superfluous flesh. During the whole interview he was retired and dignified to a degree bordering on taciturnity, but was free from all exhibition of temper or mortification. His demeanor was that of a thoroughly possessed gentleman who had a very disagreeable duty to perform, but was determined to get through it as well and as soon as he could.

Finally, upon Lee’s death the New York Herald ran an obituary that included the following description:

In person General Lee was a notably handsome man. He was tall of stature, and admirably proportioned; his features were regular and most amiable in appearance, and in his manners he was courteous and dignified.

There you have it—Lee was tall, and strikingly handsome to boot! It is historically inaccurate to portray him as anything less. And it is only a short hop from depicting Lee as a stubby historical figure (as in Gettysburg) to the conclusion that his ideas were small.

Etymologically, the word “tall” comes from the Old English getael, meaning “swift,” “brave,” or “quick.” The word was synonymous with “courageous.” This metaphorical meaning can, of course, also be applied to Lee.

Lee was a man’s man. He was the idol of his people, men and women alike. Mary Chestnut, the famous Richmond diarist, called him “the portrait of a soldier.” A British journalist said he was “the handsomest man I ever saw.” Confederate General Clement Evans described Lee as “…nearest approaching the character of the great and good George Washington than any living man. He is the only man living in whom the soldiers would unconditionally trust all their power for the preservation of their independence.” And Theodore Roosevelt, of New York, wrote, “The world has never seen better soldiers than those who followed Lee, and their leader will undoubtedly rank as, without any exception, the very greatest of all great captains that the English speaking peoples have brought forth.”

Among the many outstanding qualities of Lee’s character, his Christian faith was paramount. Indeed, our Confederate ancestors, regardless of their church affiliations, were uncompromising defenders of orthodox Christianity. To leave the Christian element out of the Southern drive for independence would be like trying to describe Switzerland without mentioning the Alps. Not for one moment did our ancestors think their own unaided efforts could achieve victory.

Lee had learned through personal hardship and tragedy to possess an unrelenting faith in the sovereign counsel of God, both in personal and national matters. Upon hearing of the death of his 23-year-old daughter, Annie, and unable to attend her funeral, he insisted that these words be carved on her tombstone: “Perfect and true are all His ways, whom Heaven adores and earth obeys.” As for his views on the Bible, Lee once remarked to Chaplain William Jones: “There are things in the Old Book which I may not be able to explain, but I fully accept it as the infallible Word of God, and receive its teachings as inspired by the Holy Spirit.”

On Lee’s humility, John Cooke, in his Life of General Robert E. Lee, wrote: “The crowning grace of this man, who was thus not only great but good, was the humility and trust in God, which lay at the foundation of his character.” Cooke then added: “He had lived, as he died, with this supreme trust in an overruling and merciful Providence; and this sentiment, pervading his whole being, was the origin of that august calmness with which he greeted the most crushing disasters of his military career. His faith and humble trust sustained him after the war, when the woes of the South wellnigh broke his great spirit; and he calmly expired, as a weary child falls, asleep, knowing that its father is near.”

Finally, Lee considered himself a sinner who had been saved, not by church attendance or by good works or by any other human endeavor, but solely by the grace of God and the blood of Christ. In his Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee, the Rev. J. William Jones, who was Lee’s chaplain at Washington College, wrote: “If I ever come in contact with a sincere, devout Christian—one who, seeing himself to be a sinner, trusted alone in the merits of Christ, who humbly tried to walk the path of duty, ‘looking unto Jesus’ as the author and finisher of his faith, and whose piety constantly exhibited itself in his daily life—that man was General R. E. Lee.”

There are Southerners today who would prefer to leave the Christian element out of our drive to return America to its constitutional foundations. Such people betray not only our Lord and Savior but also the memory of such Confederate leaders as Davis, Lee, Jackson, Early, and many others. These were men whose every thought, word, and deed derived from a belief in the saving work of Christ and the sovereignty of God. People who deny this Christian influence fail to grasp one of the most fundamental facts about Lee: that he was devoted to the Southern cause precisely because of his devotion to Jesus Christ.

Lee’s Christian faith determined how he lived his entire life, and it alone can explain his intense devotion to duty. The greatest injustice we can do to Lee is to make him out as some secular hero or, worse yet, as a spiritual and intellectual buffoon.

As a lasting tribute to a man of sterling Christian character and Southern patriotism, Benjamin Harvey Hill gave us these words in his address before the Southern Historical Society on February 18, 1874, just four years after Lee’s death:

When the future historian shall come to survey the character of Lee, he will find it rising like a huge mountain above the undulating plain of humanity, and he must lift his eyes high toward heaven to catch its summit. He was a foe without hate, a friend without treachery, a soldier without cruelty, a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices, a private citizen without wrong, a neighbor without reproach, a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar without his ambition, a Frederick without his tyranny, a Napoleon without his selfishness, and a Washington without his reward.

If I had to pick one American to represent the best values in our nation, that man would be Robert E. Lee. He stands taller than anyone else. But to see him you must lift your eyes “high toward heaven.”

January 19, 2006

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

How Much Lettuce in Hebrews 12:1-2?

 David Alan Black

Can we talk about vegetables for a moment? Lettuce to be exact. How much lettuce is there in Hebrews 12:1-2?

The NIV has three “let us”s in Hebrews 12:1-2, two more than the original Greek has. Even the NASB has two “let us”s – one more than the original author wrote. The national security of the United States may not depend on this issue, but accuracy is, after all, the goal of every translator. If the passage contains only one explicit command – only one “lettuce” if you will – shouldn’t that be taken into consideration?                                                      

Hebrews 12:1-2 form a single sentence in Greek. The main clause is “let us keep on running,” which is qualified by three dependent clauses introduced by the participles “having,” “throwing off,” and “looking off.” Rendering the last two clauses with “let us” is grammatically permissible but causes certain problems, for such a rendering would suggest that they carry the same weight as the main clause. In other words, while it is true that we are to throw off what hinders us and look off to Christ, the main command – and the only real “lettuce” – remains “let us keep on running.” This may be reflected in translation as follows:

Therefore, having so vast a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, and throwing off everything that hinders us and especially the sin that so easily entangles us, let us keep on running with endurance the race set before us, looking off to Jesus, the Founder and Finisher of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Now, how can this bring clarity to Bible study? One way is in terms of constructing an outline for teaching or preaching. The following analysis of Hebrews 12:1-2 demonstrates how we can get in touch with the text through an awareness of its structure:

Therefore,

let us keep on running with endurance the race set before us

having so vast a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, and

throwing off everything that hinders us and especially the sin that so easily entangles us,

looking off to Jesus, the Founder and Finisher of faith….

Here the basic thought units jump out like the white lines on a football field. The theme is brought out to the left, while the more subordinated ideas cluster to the right. We can immediately see the author’s main point – running the race with endurance – as well as his qualifications of the “race”:

By knowing that others have finished the race the present generation of runners can expect to complete it;

No runner, however, can hope to attain the goal without an abhorrence of personal sin;

The runner must look to Jesus, “the Pioneer and Perfecter of faith.”

By reducing these elements to an outline, we can move directly from analysis to presentation:

Text: Hebrews 12:1-2
Title: Run to Win!
Theme: The Christian is called on to follow the example of Christ into a life of submission and obedience (“let us keep on running with endurance”)

Outline:

1. Our Encouragement (“having so vast a cloud of witnesses”)
2. Our Entanglements (“throwing off everything that hinders us”)
3. Our Example (“looking off to Jesus”)

I once heard Corrie ten Boom, one of my favorite lay theologians, summarize it this way: “Look inside and be depressed; look outside and be distressed; look to Him and be at rest.” So the question today is: Are you looking at, fixing your eyes on, focusing all of your attention upon the Lord Jesus Christ? If you are, then you can be at rest despite the vexations and cares of life.

This simple outline clearly demonstrates how by analyzing the text one can move from theory to practice. But you can’t get there without just the right amount of “lettuce”!

October 1, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book is Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.

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How Can Bush Write a New Iraqi Constitution When He Doesn’t Follow Our Own?

 David Alan Black 

As you may have heard, the U.S. is putting together a constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? Think about it—it was written by very smart people, it’s served us well for over two hundred years, and besides, we’re not using it anymore.”   Tonight Show host Jay Leno

It has been said that America’s most original contribution to political theory has been the fact that it has no theory. In one sense this is true. American political thought is an aggregation of slogans, phrases, shibboleths, and traditions that has never been reduced to a single doctrine, unless one wishes to follow the example of Procrustes.

Yet our Founders, whose leading ideas were incorporated into the charter that was to be cornerstone of American political institutions, were not ignorant of political theory. Together they rejected the mystically-based state and the notion that government was divinely ordained. Because they felt that human nature could not be trusted where political power was concerned, they produced a Constitution with a system of strict checks and balances. The federal Constitution was based on the assumption that men were not angels. Government was therefore to be laic, libertarian, and limited. These ideas are seen not only in the Constitution but also in our most notable quasi-official documents such as the Declaration of Independence and Washington’s Farewell Address.

Today, however, an entire generation of Americans has grown up without a clear picture of our republican history. Our schools fail to teach children the Declaration of Independence and the principles of the Constitution. Few Americans understand the foundation for our freedoms. Even less do they understand where our freedoms are threatened today. The principles that guided our Founding Fathers are almost totally ignored. Freedom as a pervasive ideal and goal as incorporated in the great documents of American life has been replaced by government mendaciousness and coercion. The traditional emphasis upon freedom from government intervention has been replaced by the extreme of the warfare/welfare state. The American ideal, once rooted in the concept of personal freedom and limited government—that is, government shorn of its power—has become a shabby and despised creature. The philosophy of “the less government we have the better” no longer permeates the American mind and attitude.

The masters of Iraq and their spokesmen defend their occupation on two main grounds: on the basis of America’s “self-interest” in the Middle East and on the threat to American national security posed by Islamist terrorist groups. In pursuing these goals there is no problem if we send our sons to die for an undeclared and unconstitutional war, or if we waste billions of taxpayers’ dollars on rebuilding a nation that has the second largest oil reserve in the world, or if Saddam didn’t plan the attacks on America, or if the president misled the public when he said we were in “imminent” danger from WMD (which, after six months of searching, are still missing). Surely the irony is not lost on the American public. Bush wants to write a constitution for Iraq while freely breaking our own.

Though fully alive to the vigorous and widespread protest movements—on the part of the middle class, intellectuals, deployed soldiers’ parents, etc.—Bush fails to sense that the time is ripe for some sort of action against the unprecedented steps taken by his administration. “Freedom” in our country has turned out in practice to mean perfect freedom for the powerful to wrong the weak. In no other country in the world—not even in Blair’s Britain—is there such contempt for the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

For better or for worse, the president serves as a teacher to the nation, both by precept and example. If nothing else, Bush has helped crystallize world opinion concerning the use of American power and the meaning of the balance of power in international relations. What his next step will be, no one can know. But one thing is certain: The consequences of the current Bush policy for the future of America will be incalculable.

September 30, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. He is currently finishing his latest book, Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.

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How Bush Survives

 David Alan Black 

Once again, Christians have given George W. Bush a pass for his unconstitutional actions. My question is: Why? How does he survive?

Basically, Mr. Bush gets away with his usurpations because the evangelical public views him as a sincere and earnest Christian. Christianity has come to be identified with the state in such a way that would have shocked the earliest Christians. How did this fundamental transition take place?

The sharp distinction between the pre- and post-Constantinian church may help us answer this question. Tertullian (150-220), an early Christian apologist, argued that if law was not based on justice it was tyranny. He affirmed a strong notion of conscientious commitment to the “good,” even if that meant disobeying a law. As he wrote in his Apology, “If I have found what your law prohibits to be good…has it not lost its power to debar me from it?” He furthermore insisted that a law is not only to be justly administered, it must be seen to be just by those who were expected to obey it: “…it is not enough that a law is just, nor that a judge should be convinced of its justice; those from whom obedience is expected should have that conviction too.”

Unlike President Bush and most neocon evangelicals, Tertullian affirmed a sharp distinction between the divine and human spheres. “As the divine and human are ever opposed to each other, when we are condemned by you [the state], we are acquitted by the Highest.” Ultimately, it was this kind of radical obedience to God that formed the basis of Tertullian’s response to the state. It led to the sort of uncompromising resistance and a measure of indifference to the complexities of civil rule that characterized (former) Judge Roy Moore’s stance in the Alabama Ten Commandments case.

The contrast between Tertullian’s Apology and Eusebius’s (260-337) panegyric written to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Constantine’s reign on July 25, 335 is remarkable. Constantine had become the supreme ruler in the West, having seen (according to tradition) the sign of the cross in the sky with the words In hoc signo vinces, “in this sign you will conquer.” Largely as the result of a series of bloody and treacherous deeds, he had become the sole ruler of the Empire and had made Christianity its official religion. It was at this point that a fundamental shift in the church’s perception of the state took place and a new attitude toward political power was assumed by Christians.

Although Eusebius never acknowledged the emperor as divine, he regarded him as more than a mere mortal. In his “Oration in Praise of the Emperor Constantine Pronounced on the Thirtieth Anniversary of His Reign,” he came to view the emperor as the favored one whom God “receives,” “a transcript of divine sovereignty,” “an imitation of God himself,” a representative of the divine Logos who “reigns from ages which had no beginning.” He was a “friend of God” and “an interpreter of the Word of God,” one who frames “his earthly government according to the pattern of that divine original, feeling strength in its conformity to the Monarchy of God.”

Thus with the rise of Constantine a decisively new phase of church-state relationships had been reached. The political implications of the early church’s radical monotheism were cast aside, the monarchy was sacralized, and the church elevated civil authority to a status not hitherto known within Christianity. Note carefully that this was not the result of official persecution by the state. On the contrary, it was the church’s willing theological legitimation of Constantine that sealed its political captivity.

It seems to me that this close relationship between church and state is a major reason, perhaps even the ultimate reason, why so many evangelical Christians excuse the unconstitutional federalization of our country, a process that has only increased in celerity since the Bush administration came to power. But the ideological foundation was laid in the fourth century. Since that time the concept of political rule (and blind obeisance by the public) would enjoy a theological legitimation against which opponents of a particular civil authority could only prevail in the most extenuating circumstances.

Tertullian of Carthage was not primarily interested in political renewal at all. He simply wanted a government that would leave the church to affirm its obedience to God without unnecessary interference from the state. It was this theological commitment that led to political confrontation between the church and the Roman state. The highest loyalty that Tertullian believed he could bring to the state was to convince it that its authority was under God and that it therefore was accountable to Him. But that was then. Today, accommodation for political advantage is the name of the game, even if this means theological compromise.

Alistair Kee once noted: “Constantine achieved by kindness what his predecessors had not been able to achieve by force. Without a threat or a blow, and all unsuspecting, the Christians were led into captivity and their religion transformed into a new imperial cult.”

And that just about says it all.

November 25, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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How Are Your Verbs?

 David Alan Black  

My sabbatical officially ends today. On Monday I’ll resume my teaching duties at the seminary with my J-term Greek class.

I can honestly say that 2008 was a tremendous year in every way. I have learned more about language than ever before – the language of love in particular. I have seen how the intellect is so easily enslaved by bizarre abstractions. Education has become a Utopia for Americans, and becoming a “Christian intellectual” a god.

What is the use? Knowledge is an impotent end incapable of creating the means. Why, then, do we so easily “Christianize” it? I refuse to believe in the power of education. For truth we need a source outside ourselves – a far greater Light than our puny human candles can provide. I want to proclaim only the Word of God this year – not by words alone but by sharing in Jesus’ sufferings. I no longer want to camouflage my bondage by calling it “scholarship.” Jesus alone is Truth. He Himself says so. It is Him I want to know. No more disguises! No more pedantic, puerile obfuscations! What good is life without Truth?

In Ethiopia I taught the book of Acts for a week. Here’s my rendering of a key verse (2:42): “They spent their time learning from the apostles, taking part in the fellowship, eating meals together, and praying for each other.” Note the second element if you will: “taking part in the fellowship.” That’s how the early believers spent a good deal of their time, says Luke. They emphasized Body Life and genuine relationships. Each one of them had a gift, a talent to share with others. The same is true today. Each one of us has a contribution to make to the health of the Body. Why is that so hard to see? It is a false humility that says, “I have nothing to contribute.” Your ability may be small or large, but your gifts are vitally important to the fellowship. No talent or ability is of our own making. Peter puts it like this: “As each of us has received a gift, we are to use it for the good of one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet. 4:10). The Bible says plainly that I have a gift, and I am being just plain lazy if I do not exercise it!

The essence of stewardship is responsibility. I have a divinely-ordained responsibility to live a life of blessing to others. How, then, can I be so responsible with my finances but not with my gifts and talents? No gift is small in the eyes of God. Every gift is a token of His grace in our lives. And the early Christians realized this. They did not shake off or shirk their responsibility to serve others. They did not reason, “I have nothing to give.” They did not bury their talents in the ground. They did not write books about the New Testament but not practice its simple teachings.

This is the question I am asking myself this year: Am I giving to the Lord what is His? Is He first in the stewardship of my time, my friendships, my possessions, my resources, my strength, my abilities? I often think, How much more I could do for my Lord if I wasn’t so lazy and self-centered! It’s as if Jesus is telling me, “Don’t neglect the gift you have!” (1 Tim. 4:14). I returned from Ethiopia with a new realization that God will reward me in heaven according to my stewardship, not my knowledge. I must seek to be a wise and trustworthy steward of all He has given me. Only by a diligent application of the truth can I prove that I am a trainee of Jesus. My faith must be proved by my actions. Otherwise I will be like that student who once told me, “My Greek is excellent, except for the verbs.” My profession to be a Jesus-follower is worthless unless it has verbs to back it up!

I can say this: I am ready this year to lay down my life for Jesus if necessary. But even more, I am ready to forfeit things so that others might find the Way of Jesus more easily. I will not evade the burden. I will not say but not do. I will not pray for prisoners – I will visit them. I will not debate the morality of capitalism – I will feed the poor. I will not discuss the Gospel – I will share it with one and all. I am done with debates about this or that. How dare I claim to know truth and display the approachability of a porcupine!

So back to school I go – after a glorious rest and a wonderful romp in Africa. On Monday I will teach my students something about the Greek language. But I don’t want to stop there. I also want to teach them, by actions and not merely by words, that nothing remains more important yet more demanding than that we reflect in our lives the unfailing, scandalous love of Jesus.

How are your verbs?

January 2, 2009

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

How’s Your Garden?

 David Alan Black 

Your spiritual garden, that is. Did you know that Paul talks about such a garden in Phil. 1:9-11?

Writing to a church characterized by division and strife he says: “And this I pray, that your love [like a plant] might keep on growing yet more and more in knowledge and full discernment.” Here Paul uses a harvest metaphor to describe the good works planned by God for those who know Him. They are to produce “the fruit of righteousness…to the glory and praise of God.”

The term “fruit” is a familiar, almost trite, figure of speech, yet it should not be allowed to lose its meaning. It describes the Christian life as a life of growth, staring with a seed (v. 9) and issuing in a harvest (v. 11). It is the picture of one who is advancing step by step. It defines a course of life, yet life in its more usual and ordinary aspects and experiences.

Paul dwells upon the metaphor in these verses, and he emphasizes that the growth he has in mind is luxuriant indeed. It begins with love – the starting point from which all else flows. This love is (1) to “abound” (a verb in Greek that conveys limitless growth), (2) to “keep on abounding” (so the Greek tense used here), and (3) to keep on abounding “yet more and more” (the piling up of adverbs in this way is a typical Pauline device to emphasize that the Christian life is a process of many small stages, not one great leap.). “Let your love for one another keep on growing and growing yet more and more,” writes Paul.

Abounding love, then, is to be the rule of the Christian life. It is to be the seed from which the perfected fruit of righteousness is to grow. Its shoots are to be held by the twin stakes of knowledge and discernment, the former term referring to biblical knowledge, the latter to the ability to grasp the true significance of something. The seed of love, thus controlled and directed by knowledge and discernment, begins to put forth leaves and blossoms – the ability to discern what is best, as well as the twin virtues of purity and blamelessness.

The climax of the paragraph is reached as Paul adds, “having been filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.” Paul’s beautiful prayer is really an exhortation to a lifestyle of love that discerns what is of eternal value and issues in a holiness of inner and outer life. The motive for such a life of love is the provision that Jesus Christ Himself has made available.

Just as at creation God made the earth to teem with good things to satisfy men and women, and just as He has made many a backyard garden to overflow with delicious and nutritious vegetation, so He has showered us with an abundance of good in our salvation. James 1:18 declares, “Of His own will He brought us forth [like plants] by the word of truth, so that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” As a result, the life of Christ within produces the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-23), with God Himself as the vinedresser who exposes us to the sunshine of His presence, enriches the soil in which we are planted by the nutrients of His word, protects us from spiritual drought, and prunes us so that we may bring forth even more fruit.

Will you permit the Spirit to produce a lavish garden in your life? Will I?

August 11, 2005

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. If you would like to know more about becoming a follower of King Jesus, please feel free to write Dave.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

How’s Your Hekastology?

 David Alan Black 

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians pulsates with theology. It treats such majestic themes as the grace of God, predestination, reconciliation, the sovereignty of God, justification and sanctification, and the church as the body of Christ. It is a grave mistake, however, to think that the theology of Ephesians is limited to these topics. A note of “Hekastology” pervades the letter. Allow me to explain.

Throughout the book of Ephesians Paul shows how God is working out His plan of salvation by calling men and women to Christ and by forming them into a new redeemed society called the church. The blessings of salvation come to us in keeping with the eternal purpose of God, “according to which He has chosen us” (1:4). Note that salvation has its origin in the gracious choice of God. Thus Paul emphasizes the utter helplessness of man and God’s gracious and sovereign choice of individual sinners to be saved in and through Christ. Believing Gentiles, along with believing Jews, are now being built into a great spiritual structure “upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone” (2:20). Christ alone (and not any pastor or church leader) supports and holds together both the foundation and the walls, and it is He who gives to this spiritual edifice its unity and strength.

In the second part of the letter Paul deals more specifically with how members of this new edifice are to “walk” (a Jewish metaphor that describes Christian living). Rather than remaining spiritual infants, believers are to mature in their Christian life. In particular, Paul shows how God has provided for the growth of His church by bestowing manifold gifts upon His believing people. Christians are to perform two kinds of ministry. In relation to the world, they have a missionary task to make disciples of all the nations. In relation to one another, they are to recognize and use their gifts for the edification (building up) of the church. Each member of the body of Christ is to do his part in this task until it attains “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (4:13).

In 4:11 we learn that believers who are endowed with gifts by Christ are themselves gifts to the whole body of Christ. The apostles and prophets are mentioned first, as through them God gave guidance and direction to His people in the early years of the church. Evangelists and pastor-teachers continue that work. Evangelists may be considered as missionaries to the unconverted who possess an unusual power in recommending the gospel to others. Pastor-teachers function both to shepherd the flock of God and to instruct them in divine truth. Incidentally, this is the only place in the entire New Testament where the term “pastor” is used to describe church leaders. Elsewhere they are called “overseers” (Acts 20:28; 1 Tim 3:2) and “elders” (Acts 20:17; 1 Pet 5:1).

Paul says it is the task of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers to “build up the body of Christ” (4:12). This is accomplished not only by pastors teaching the Word of God but also by each believer employing the “gift of grace” that God has given him (4:7). As far as the goal of edification in concerned, Paul says that every believer has a contribution to make. Paul pictures the church as an organism in which each member contributes to the growth of the whole, a process that takes place “according to the effectual working in the measure of every part” (4:16).

Please notice how Paul addresses himself deliberately to “every” believer. The Greek word for “every” is hekastos—hence “Hekastology.” This isn’t just an insignificant detail! Paul seeks to drive home the truth that every believer has a special service in the church. Every saint is to make his own contribution to the mission and unity of the church, each cooperating according to his ability. This truth is also evident in 1 Corinthians 14:26: “When you assemble, everyone (hekastos) has a psalm, teaching, revelation, tongue or interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.” Unfortunately, many Christians meet together on Sunday without ever “assembling” as the body of Christ in this manner! But Paul is clear: every believer has a ministry, and everyone is to participate and give to others what God has given him. The same principle is stated in Hebrews 10:24-25: “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as you see the day approaching.” Here the purpose of gathering together as the body of Christ is made crystal clear: mutual ministry. The emphasis is not on where we so often put it (“go to church!”) but rather on the truth that each of us should minister to the others when we come together as a group. In most of our churches, this is not allowed and not possible. I like how Jim Davis puts it:

Church attendance is often substituted for fellowship. To some fellowship is like a jar full of marbles. The marbles are in the same jar but there is little togetherness. The marbles have little effect on each other as they roll around in the jar. They just bump into one another. But real fellowship is more like a jar of grapes that bleed on one another. Fellowship should allow our faith to rub off on one another. The first believers had real spiritual needs that led them into fellowship with others. As they came into this fellowship of other believers with the same needs, they actually bled on one another.

Too often church attendance turns us into iceberg Christians where we just float around and bump into one another…. The first fellowship meeting [Acts 2:42] had little to do with church attendance and everything to do with togetherness.

Dear reader, may I ask you some questions? Is Christ or custom lord in your church? Is your assembly a place where Christians are stirring up one another to love and helpful deeds? Is it a place where people are free to admonish, warn, and encourage one another? And are you a participant or merely an observer?

In other words, how’s your Hekastology?    

December 22, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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