The Tests and Trials Communications Protocol
[[skip discussion of faith, and refer to 12/31/10 notes on 2 timothy 1:6-8]]
The communications protocol that I will now discuss is the Tests and Trials communications protocol, in which God the Holy Spirit brings on, or allows, what the scriptures call tests and trials to happen to us that will lead us unto specific truths. In my mind I had called this the simulation communications protocol to get around the negative connotations and the pre-existing emotional and intellectual baggage associated with the phrase "tests and trials" that seemed to block my ability to think it through. However, as I worked on this essay, I realized that this area is so rife with confusion that alternative language without any reference to existing terminology would create even more confusion than illumination since there would be no explicit linkage from what I was saying to what my readers have encountered in their past and what they would encounter on a daily basis from well-meaning souls. Since any "pain" I would feel by addressing this issue would be the one-time expenditure of mere intellectual effort, while the pain that would be potentially relieved in my readers would be quite actual and continuous, dictated the use of the conventional terminology used by the Western Church.
Another bit of confusion that needs addressing is my classifying tests and trials as a communications protocol. The confusion arises when one decides that the term "communications" should be exclusively restricted to the conveyance of ideas by way of speaking, reading, and watching. This restriction is improper because not all truths are best expressible or learned as spoken or written words. Immediately after the Second World War, when the United States took upon itself the task to rebuild Europe, Germany, and Japan with the aim of nuturing and fostering democracy, it was quickly recognized that, while the factories and houses needed physical re-building, what was more important was the transmission of the knowledge necessary to perform that re-building and to best use what was built. That "knowledge of performance", not easily communicatable by speeches, lectures, or books, was known then as "American Know How". An essential component of the truths that are properly classified as "know how" is that merely knowing them as words is not enough: there is a performance component producing results that confirms that the knowledge is truly understood because the goal is not the knowledge itself, but the products that come about when one applies it. For years, I "knew" the verses that said that the Holy Spirit resided in me, as well as "knowing" the verses that said that I was supposed to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, yet all that "knowing" did not deliver me from anger fits, jealousy, or my pornography compulsions. What I finally grasped on Independence Day of 2008 was not "knowledge", but "know how". It was not the mere "knowing" of those facts, but the "knowing what to do" with those facts that made the difference in my life.
Bible teachers, bible scholars, pastors, and theologians deal in knowledge.
Theo-engineers deal in "know how".
The previous essay dealt with how to work with God to get knowledge.
This one deals with how to work with God to get "know how".
The Scriptural Basis For Tests and Trials
That God sends or allows tests and trials is quite plain from scripture. The most noteworthy test is given in Genesis 22, where the first verse explicitly says that "God tested Abraham". In 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4, Paul talks about the persecutions they endured as God testing their faithfulness in preaching the full word of God, rather than moderating it to please men so as to lighten or escape persecution. The wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness was a 40 year "test", as the following passage states in Deuteronomy 8:1-6:
1 All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers. 2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. 3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live. 4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell , these forty years. 5 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee. 6 Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.
This passage is worth examining, since it was actualy cited by Jesus as an answer to the first temptation of the Devil. In addition, though I mentioned that the wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness was a 40 year test, it was initially intented to be a 2 to 3 year test, but the consequences of them failing the first exam at Kadesh (Numbers 13 and 14) we quite fatal, and thus should lend some urgency to our examination, lest we share their fate as well (Hebrews 3 and 4).
This passage gives three of the four reasons why tests and trials occur.
Reason #1: Validating Obedience
The first reason is to validate that the person under test or trial will obey God (v. 2). This may seem a very strange thing for an all-knowing God to do. However, we must realize that God knows and acts based on actualities rather than hypotheticals. That is, God's perception of what we do in the future is a perception of what we actually do, not what we might do, but it is still a perception when looked at from within our universe. While we would prefer that God would credit us for passing a test or trial that He forsees that we would pass, without actually giving us that test or trial, do we really want God to condemn us for failing a test or trial that He forsees that we would fail, without actually giving us the chance to really fail that test? Imagine God condemning someone for failing a test that they never took or underwent! How would you expect that person to justify God's justice if he is condemned for nothing that he did, nor acknowledge God's mercy for sparing him from the consequences of failing a test never taken? Clearly, God would never do such an unjust thing, being the Judge of all the Earth and holding justice as a primary principle and value. The warnings of coming tests and trials is echoed by Jesus, Paul, Peter, and James (Revelation 3:10, Acts 14:21-22, 1 Peter 1:6-7, James 1:2-4), so it isn't as if we haven't been warned!
The flip side to this aspect (there always is one) is that He cannot justly bless a man for passing a test that was never actually presented, and for the very same reasons that He cannot justly condemn a man for failing a test that was never actually presented. In a sense, there are two ways that God knows, only one of which is by His "foreknowledge" (or more properly, "forerememberance"). The second way is the knowledge that He can point to that has already taken place in objective reality (I.e. knowledge "whose time has come"). Obviously, the knowledge obtained from both ways is precisely and exactly the same, but in the first way, God knows because of His Omnitemporality, while the other way is based on His Omnipresence. What is essential to realize is that, judicially, when it comes to punishments, curses, blessings, and rewards, only knowledge derived from the second way is admissible because the people being judged are bound within the frame of this Universe, which is subject to time. This is why the Last Judgment must necessarily be held at the END of time and human history, for it is only at that time when all the knowledge that God "foresaw" would be required to render a proper Judgment would have come to pass and thus be legally presented as evidence for or against anyone.
However, it would be equally wrong for us to believe that God necessarily waits until "the End of Time and Human History" to act upon knowledge "whose time has come" before that "End of Time": When Abraham successfully passed his test regarding the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22), God was able to justly say "now I know", because "the time of the test" that God "foresaw" Abraham passing "had come". Mind you, God did not reward Abraham because he passed the test, but because he proved obedient when the test came and he passed it. Successfully passing God-sent tests and trials essentially satisfies the Justice aspect of God's character, opening Him, and us, to receiving the blessing from the Mercy and Love aspect of God's character (Ex. 34:5-10). In essence, God wants to bless those obedient to Him, but only when it is right to do so.
Has God ever acted based on knowledge gained by His "foresight" whose time had not yet come? In other words, are the Calvinists right that God acts on that "secret will" that they insist exists? For starters, it does exist because such a will represents God's inflexible intention of how He would act in response to that "secret knowledge" acquired by his Omintemporality. However, they are very wrong when they insist that God rewards and punishes men based on that knowledge before that knowledge's "time has come". For the proof of this, I cite Job as the prime example. One of the most bewildering aspects of the story of Job has been God's strange willingness to be swayed by the devil when the latter insinuated that Job was righteous because God had blessed him. However, in light of this distinction between knowledge whose "time has come" compared to knowledge whose "time had not yet come," God's seeming compliance makes sense, for God's blessings on Job were totally out of proportion to the man's behavior. After all, with the aid and power of the Holy Spirit, any average Christian meets and exceeds what Job did, but who is often not as equally blessed. Why? Because God was rewarding Job based on Hs foresight that the man would endure the tests of satan and the insults and indignities heaped upon him by his three friends and Elihu. In a word, the devil was right: it was unjust for God to pre-reward Job for faithfulness that was unbacked by any evidence based on facts that had not happened yet! This injust behavior, even when bestowing blessings, was enough to allow the devil to even call into question God's ability to fairly administer the trial, which explains why God let satan impose the trial and test on Job rather than Himself since the latter could be counted on not to pull his punches! After his initial failure to break Job, the devil came back and blamed the restriction God placed on him not to touch Job's body, which permission God granted with the obvious stipulation that Job not die, since a dead man cannot curse God. That God bestowed twice as much goods on Job afterwards was the best God could do to show, to a patently materialist society, His approval of Job after being so severely tried, tested, slandered, and maligned.
An aside: Elihu is often made out to be a hero by many people and commentators, but in reality he was more vile than Job's "friends". He copycatted, rehashed, and rephrased the arguments of his "friends", vainly imaginging Job's problem was that he needed their rebukes heard in a different light or from a different angle, clearly scoring zero for originality. What was truly sinful was that he alternately demanded that Job answer him in one breath, then told him to shut up and listen to him "who has perfect knowledge" in the next! Heck, even God Himself paused long enough during His discussion with Job to let the man present his case. When God appeared out of the whirlwind to Job, asking "who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" He was referring to Elihu. To cap it off, it should be pointed out that Elihu was not included in the chance God gave Job's three friends to repent and be spared His wrath because they had not "spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath," even though he merely said the same things they did. In fact, we never hear of the man again, in the same way we don't hear of the devil again. Why not? If he was the "hero" as everyone wants to believe that he is, why doesn't God mention him as being one who had "spoken of me the thing that is right"? It seems to me the reason why we never hear of Elihu's fate or "reward" is that he was no longer worth mentioning or considering, just as the devil was no longer worth mentioning or considering. Not the sort of company one should keep if one wants to be considered the "hero" in the most difficult book of the entire Bible! Merely because your name means "He who speaks for God" doesn't mean you actually do when you open your mouth!
Reason #2: "Growing" Faith
The second reason for tests and trials is to educate the recipients in how to trust in the word and power of God (Deuteronomy 8:3). Since this is the major purpose of this essay, I will defer my discussion of it while I finish this train of discussion.
Reason #3: Correction
The third reason for tests and trials that we get from this passage is to correct the wayward. (Deuteronomy 8:5). Simply put, some tests and trials occur because we make bad choices, either to sin or in responding to previous tests and trials. That is, if you flunk the tests in a required college course, you either give up or take the course again, implying that "trials" are the consequences of failing a specific "test". Taken out of context, the testing of Abraham in Genesis 22 seems paradoxical, but when viewed in the light of the bad choices (and outright lies) he made over the course of the preceeding 10 chapters, it should have been forseen as inevitable. That God risked appearing greatly out of character presenting the test in the form given in Genesis 22 is evidence of how seriously God felt Abraham needed this correction. Saul of Tarsus' decision to persecute Christians resulted in a severe trial when Jesus struck him blind that he profited from (Acts 9). And we should not miss the analogy of God chastening us "as a man chaseneth his son". Here is Hebrews 12: 1-16:
1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. 4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. 5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down , and the feeble knees; 13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed . 14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: 15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled ; 16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
The last five verses of the above passage are worth considering as the possible outcomes of accepting, or rejecting, God's chastening. The first outcome is given in verse 12, which talks about "straightening up" and "shaping up": we sometimes fail because we have not made adequate preparation or underwent the "strength training" necessary to overcome the trial or test, so God's chastisement is intended either as the "shaping up" process, or encourages us to do what it takes, or get the mental attitude to accept what it takes, to "shape up"! The second outcome is given in verse 16, where God's chastisement is intended to prevent us from making bad choices in the future, as Esau's bad choice cost him his birthright. The third outcome is given in verse 15, and is an outcome of negatively taking God's chastisement: this chastisement is to be seen as a form of grace which, if we fail to benefit from it, would be the cause of bitterness within us that would defile us. (An aside: this passage is a definite proof that not all men are God's Children, since he obviously does not discipline every man, but only those who follow Jesus and believe in the merits of his death on the Cross. This discipline is as real as our Sonship/Daughtership in God's family via the joining of ourselves to the Godhead through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.)
Of course, our ability to accept chastening goes to a new level when we deliberately address it within the context of Homo/Deus symbiosis, which should render it impossible for us to credibly believe that the Godhead is unaware of the pain that we experience while They are administering it. Besides, the point of chastening a wayward child while they are a child, is to avoid having to chasten them in the future when they attain, and practice, maturity. We are constantly urged to move toward maturity throughout the New Testament Scriptures, so this goal should be seen as both desirable and attainable. Unfortunately, many translations of the Greek improperly translate the word "mature" as "perfect", which we are educated to believe is unattainable, or (at best) much harder to attain than the goal that the underlying Greek implies. "Perfection" means attaining the ability to never ever make a mistake. In contrast, being "mature" implies that one has two abilities. The first is that one does not make the common mistakes of childhood and youth, while the second is that one has learned to think maturely and not as a child or teenager (1 Corinthians 13:9-12). One explanation of the effect of drugs on an individual that I heard during a training session to get accredited for re-entering prison ministry is that it "freezes" the mental and social maturation process of the drug taker to the level that it was when the user first got into drugs while leaving the physical maturation process unhindered. This was said by a former drug user, and was confirmed by the prison chaplain who was training us, who pointed out that much of the trouble that prisoners who were drug users experience is the fact that they continue to mentally and emotionally think at the same level of maturity that they were as teenagers and children when they first started taking drugs, but have the chronological age of adults. The symmetric compliment of the problem is that the former addict must be legally treated like an adult due to their chronological age, not their intellectual/social/emotional age! Well-meaning Christians feel that they must treat such people like mature adults rather than like the youth in their church group. I don't know about how your church's youth ministry works, but in a real youth ministry, mature Christian members in the church have no problem saying "no" to another member's kids and reporting problems they see to the youth minister and that kid's parents! A church that successfully integrates addicts must treat them (and love them!) like their own youth until the pastor or a trusted member blessed with a proven gift of discernment (derived from experience, training, or the Spirit) determines that they have "matured" in the Greek "telios" sense.
Reason #4: Perfecting the Saints
The fourth reason for tests and trials coming on us is given in Hebrews 11:39-40. After recounting all the various works, tests, and trials of the faithful, the writer of Hebrews says:
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40 God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. (NIV)
Correctly parsing verse 40 reveals a seeming paradox: there is no issue with us becoming "perfect" (greek teleioo, mature) by a process of taking to heart what the Ancients went through, but the text indicates that it is not us who are being made "perfect", but that "they" are made "perfect" with us. It is as if I tell my son in 2010 about how I overcame a trial in 1990, but I discover, when I get to heaven, that the reason for my overcoming in 1990 was that my grandson overcame a similar trial in 2039 by calling to mind what his father (my son) told him in 2020 of the trial his grandfather (me) had in 1990!
The answer, of course, is that the "something better" that God had planned for us was the impartation of the Holy Spirit that would join us forever with the Godhead. In that joining, we partake of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), which includes omnitemporality. That is, if we are in Christ, and Christ is in God, and God transcends time so as to be present in all moments of time as He is present in all points of space (omnipresence), then it is possible for the benefits that we get from learning of how the saints of old handled a problem "leaks back" through time to benefit those saints, just as the victories of the saints in the future, or elsewhere in our time, can "leak back" through time and space to benefit us who taught them how to obtain their victories by enduring and passing the trials and tests we are given. It is by the same mechanism that the beatings that Jesus endured during his Passion "leak through" time and space to benefit us (1 Peter 2:24), and how his death atones for our sins. This is a subject that is best discussed in an essay dealing with Unification, but in the meantime, it should be sufficient to realize that becoming joined to the Godhead, while bringing unestimable benefits, also entails the taking on of certain familial responsibilities, one of which involves undergoing seeming unnecessary tests or trials unique to our time and society that do not personally and directly benefit us, but would benefit other co-symbionts via Unification in the same way that the tests and trials of Jesus benefit all of us. (If, in response to this observation, you suddenly have second thoughts about this entire symbiosis business that run along the line of "Holy cr*p! This stuff is REALLY REAL!", then I solicit your advice on how I can communicate that fact in the earlier essays more plainly.)
As I promised, I will now explain the second reason for tests and trials in more depth.
The Training Aspect of Tests and Trials
The training aspects of Tests and Trials is illustrated in 1 Peter 1:3-7:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
We need to be clear on what is being stress-tested in verses 5, 6, and 7: it is not us, but our faith (v. 7) that is being put under trial. And not just any faith, but faith that invokes the power of God that actually preserves us "unto salvation". What I mean to say is that it is not faith that preserves us or saves us, but the power of God that preserves us and saves us, just as it is the work of Jesus Christ, not our own works, that justifies us. It is by God's grace that the medium of exchange is faith and not works of the Law, making that salvation more widely available to men. What makes the knowledge that one learns from the tests and trials "know how" is that the proof of knowing is evidenced by an actual deployment of one's faith to the point of being "kept by the power of God". While there are many purposes of every test and trile, most of the time the only purpose of every true test/trial is to learn a deployable faith.
Faith in who or what? Here is Philippians 4:10-13:
10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity. 11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. 12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
The highlighted portions of this passage emphasize that there is an interactive learning and instruction process that Paul underwent that the Spirit taught, where he learned, through the trials and tests, how to be both abased and blessed, both full and hungry, and both rich and poor. At the end of the process, he could truthfully boast, in verse 13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." The key point to realize is not that he learned "how to do it", but "how to do it through Christ which strengthens". Simply put, we must replace the phrase "if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself" with "If you want something done right, you gotta do it with the Holy Spirit".
It is here that the metaphor of being in "God's Family" fails when we appeal to the human manifestation of it. In human families, the adults teach the children how to survive on their own without them. Why? Because the adults become unable to help their children when they become poor or, due to old age, become infirm or ill. And death, of course, puts a final stop to any aid parents can give to their children. These considerations do not apply to God.
Let me repeat that: These considerations do not apply to God.
While it is safe for me to assume that all those reading this essay believe in a living God, and regard the phrase "God is dead" as blasphemous, exactly how many of my readers live as if God is dead, or believe that He is teaching them and disciplining them as if He was going to eventually die? While the job of an earthly parent is not done until they hear the words "I can do this on my own." coming from their kids without panicking, at what point in time do we say to God, "I can do this on my own"? I do not recall any time when God gave a nearly impossible task to an Old Testament saint and not say "I will be with you!" Indeed, the Hebrews in the wilderness didn't break camp until they saw the Cloud that shielded them during the day and warmed them during the night start moving.
Since faith is involved, a closer examination and analysis of it here is necessary.
Can Faith be Grown?
Those of my readers who have read these essays chronologically, as they were written, rather than in the order that they are laid out, are aware that I had promised, in "The Symbiotic Refinery", to discuss how to grow one's faith in the section that was formerly called Stage 4 and is now called Manipulation. At the time, I believed faith and doubt to be cell-based, and thus subject to stimulated growth (of faith cells) and Spirit initiated destruction (of doubt cells). This proved incorrect, for are we to believe that the Devil, in the form of a serpent, created doubt cells within the brains of Adam and Eve all by himself? Hardly! There is a need for healthy doubt of claims whose truth or falsehood need to be established. Without doubt cells, we would be very gullible indeed, subject to every wind and wave of false doctrine! While the faith that a child demonstrates is very powerful indeed, being unalloyed by doubt, it does tend to make the child trust people that they should not! Adam and Eve's mistake was to doubt God Himself, rather than to doubt the claim that the serpent was making regarding God.
Another shortcoming of that essay was that, although the subject matter was definitely revolutionary, the treatment suffered from the presupposition retained from Traditional Christianity that, because faith was classified by Jesus as "great" or "small", that there necessarily is a process of human-driven growth that takes place that turns small faith into great faith. While I believe that the concept of "isopistic miracles" was helpful in that discussion, it now appears to be as faithful to reality as the concept of using water in pipes to explain the behavior of electricity. That is, it was a good second order pedagogical model that was useful within the context of a partially understood concept that extracted the most good out of it, but was not something that would fully take the place of understanding the concept as it truly is in reality. This is because the concept it was explaining (faith) was not truly faith but what was partially known about faith. The Ptolemaic model of the solar system had a good run because it could answer the questions asked of it, but could not take the place of a model closer to reality when the questions became more demanding and the observations more sophisticated and precise.
The authoritative answer on the question of whether faith can be grown is revealed by Jesus' "answer" to the disciples request in Luke 17:5-10:
5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. 6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you. 7 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat ? 8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself , and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink ? 9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not. 10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
We, of course, know that in Matthew 17:20, Jesus ups the capability of that mustard seed of faith to moving a mountain (about 17.5 gigatons), a level of power that Paul reaffirms as possible in 1 Corinthians 13:2. I don't know about you, but it seems to me he did not answer the question in a way that could be turned into a process, weekend seminar course, or technique. Rather, he merely states how little is required to get some impressive results, then goes into a discussion of the master/servant relationship when it comes to who eats first after a hard day of work in the fields. That's an answer?
Like the parables he used, we must assume Jesus actually answered the question in his answer. Considering the importance of faith, we must also assume he answered it sincerely, with no intent to deceive, mislead, or obscure anyone in light of its great importance. Given that the audience was his disciples, to whom it was given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom, we also have to believe that his answer was the very best and plainest one he could give, with the intent that they were to really know how their faith would be increased. Judging from his answer, it would be safe to say that Jesus' response indicates that faith doesn't grow. In a rather oblique way, my discussion of isopistic miracles in "The Symbiotic Refinery" was correct, but in a backwards sense: some miracles are indeed isopistic to each other, but only because all miracles are isopistic to each other due to the fact that there is only one size of faith (i.e. it is true that "If all A are B, then some A are B."). The intent of introducing the concept of isopistic faith was to lead people to believe that certain miracles were possible to be worked because other miracles logically requiring the same amount of faith were actually being worked, so the only "error" in the exposition arose from a failure of boldness.
Given this kind of misunderstanding, it is worthwhile to go back to the foundations and ask "What IS faith?" In doing so, we should keep in mind verses 7 to 10 of the above passage.
Defining Faith
As theo-engineers, we require an "operational" definition of faith that is scriptural. While the Hebrews 11:1 definition of faith ("the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen") is scriptural, it is not "operational" in the sense that the terms "substance" and "evidence" refer to things not present: if you hope for something, you don't have it and you don't see it, and an engineering treatment based on the principle of "by their fruit ye shall know them" requires that the fruit (or evidence of it) be visible. I am not saying that Hebrews 11:1 is not true, but that the expression of that underlying truth does not point us to a practical test for its existence. The Writer's use of the greek word that we translate as "substance" was a technical philosophical term that indicates that this verse was intended for use by philosophers and theologians rathern than "engineers" (who, at that time, were very strange fellows who built machines that helped the Roman Army more efficiently kill people and break things).
Providentially, the author of Hebrews gives us a definition that is ideally suited for our purpose a few verses later! Here is Hebrews 11:5-6:
5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found , because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony , that he pleased God. 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Incredible! Here, The God to Whom a thousand years is as the watch that passes in the night, and Whose nature lacks nothing and needs nothing, is here said to be unable to bear the thought of Enoch being in any state that would make the man unavailable for any length of time, and that the solution God came up for this "problem" was to "take him"! The writer of Hebrews understands the tremendous import of Enoch's translation, and goes on to tell us that it was because Enoch pleased God, informs us that the part of Enoch that pleased God was his faith, and gives us the two critical properties of faith in practical and usable forms.
The first critical property of faith that pleases God is that it believes that He Exists. Recall that the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, the proper name God gave to Moses when the latter asked Him His Name, comes from the Hebrew word that says "I AM", or "He who IS". I am Here, God is saying. I am Present, He assures the Hebrew slaves. The very first step to really understanding Christian Symbiosis is to grasp, understand, and believe that you literally and truly are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, that His presence (evidenced by literal and real neuro-chemical changes) links you as a member in full and good standing into the body and life of the Corporate Being called God, and to live like it. A man or woman who believes that they possess a car will act as if they owned a car when they needs to go grocery shopping. They will possess something called a "car key" to operate the car they "believe" they own. Their plans for transportation will rely on the capabilities of the car they believe they own. More importantly, they will not make transportation plans that require the capabilities of a truck that do not exist in a car, or require operation of the car outside of its capabilities. These behaviors, as well as the use of the car, are observables that are subject to confirmation and verification.
The second critical property of faith that pleases God is that it believes that that linkage, and those associated neurochemical changes, is something good and worthwhile to diligently seek. There are two greek words in the second phrase worth examining. The phrase "diligently seek" comes from the single greek word "ekzeteo", and was used by Jesus to describe the attitude of Justice demanding an accounting for the murder of innocent blood in Luke 11:50-51. It was used by James to describe the kind of seeking for God that the Gentiles were supposed to do in Acts 15:17, but Paul says men don't in Romans 3:11. Peter used it in 1 Peter 1:10 to describe the level of inquiry the Prophets of old subjected the prophecies that God gave to them that predicted future events. Most significantly, the Writer of Hebrews re-uses the word later in Hebrews 12:16-17 to describe the desperate seeking of repentance that Esau employed after he lost his birthright so that it could be restored to him. This last usage ideally describes the attitude we must have with regard to the great Birthright of the Holy Spirit within us right from the start, lest we lose Him with equal regret. A man or woman who believes that they possess a car, and have resolved to use that car to go grocery shopping, will keep their car keys in their purse or pocket, and will curse and swear at themselves while ekzeteo-ing for them if they are misplaced, and will panic if they believe them lost or stolen.
The second greek word of importance used to describe the second critical property of faith is the word "misthapodotes", and which the KJV translates as "rewarder". This is the only place in the entire New Testament that this word is used, and it refers to a paymaster, the payer of a bounty, or the one handing out rewards. Given how often the word "reward" is used in the New Testament, it is incredible that proclaiming a distain for rewards from God is a mark of piety in some circles, and that some Internet Calvinists counsel those desperately seeking salvation that they should be grateful if they are sent to Hell "for God's Glory"! These misguided people have confused the righteousness required for salvation with the service one renders to God after being saved and receiving the Holy Spirit in response to believing in Jesus Christ as God and Savior. These people lump the vain and useless works "righteous" people do to merit salvation with the works "God prepared beforehand so we could walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). Paul's discussion in 1 Corinthians 9:1-12 was in opposition to people with this pseudo-pious attitude who went so far as to deny that a pastor or evangelist should be financially supported. In that passage, Paul states that the whole point of people getting involved in plowing, sowing, and reaping was that by "putting a stake into" the operation, they would be able to have a reasonable hope of sharing in the harvest . He even pointed out that God, through Moses, specifically ordered the Israelites not to even muzzle their oxen while they were threshing out the grain so that even they could share in the harvest! It is not credible to believe that God has such a regard for other people's kine, but not for His own Kin.
While these two words are enlightening in themselves, combining them creates additional synergy: Faith is believing that God exists and surely rewards those who intensely seek for Him. This assurance of being rewarded is founded on hope that God is just and gracious, based on a history of grace shown to others. This is why Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, included hope with faith and love because he viewed hope as an essential component of faith. It is to encourage others to believe God is a rewarder that the writer of Hebrews recounts the experiences of the Faithful in chapter 11.
A Seeming Contradiction
At this point, astute readers may think that I've run into a sort of contradiction: how could a servant with an attitude of "We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do", as Jesus mandated in Luke 17:10 rightly expect to be rewarded by God as if He were a paymaster?
Part of our problem in looking back at that era, especially if we are Americans, is that we look at servitude (submission) through the lens of the odious institution of Southern slavery. Although Southern slavery was somewhat more enlightened and kinder than the way the Romans practiced it, the way the Hebrews handled slaves, especially fellow Hebrews who had to sell themselves into bondage is the most ideal way to implement any form of forced servitude, and was initially imitated in Colonial America by the practice of apprenticeship and bond service. (It devolved into Southern slavery during a period of over 10 years when the Virginia legislature used a loophole in the royal charter to avoid individual accountability while passing patently self-serving laws that those with money and land found useful and profitable to keep and extend.) In the Hebrew model, servitude was limited to six years, and was to be cut short if the Jubilee year rolled around during the period of service (Exodus 21:1-11; Deuteronomy 25:10). In some cases, the freed Hebrew servant was to be liberally supplied with enough goods to make a new start (Deuteronomy 15:12-17). Cruelty to the servant that resulted in disfigurement as small as losing a tooth required emancipation (Exodus 21:26-27, more on this later). The mandate that servants were to enjoy the Sabbath rest along with their masters were uttered by God Himself from Sinai (Exodus 20:8-11). In fact, if a master wanted to keep a particularly valuable Hebrew servant, the only legal way to do so was to literally win his affection so that the man would declare it in front of the city judges (Exodus 21:5-6) and submit to being bored through the ear to seal the deal (Deuteronomy 15:16-17). (In actuality, the practice of releasing Hebrew servants on the seventh year was never practiced, and the only time it was done was by Zedekiah during the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 34:8-22). Shortly afterwards, the former masters re-enslaved their servants despite having made an oath similar to what God cut with Abraham (Genesis 15). In response to this, God swore, through the prophet, that no mercy was available to any of those who participated in the emancipation ritual, thus sealing the doom of Judah.)
It is an essential article of the Christian faith that Jesus Christ perfectly kept the Law of Moses. That law included all of the references that I have cited above with regard to the treatment of servants, so if we wanted to know how a True Jew should have treated his servants, we Christians believe you can't get a better example than Jesus.
Even a cursory examination of the New Testament shows that not only was being a servant of Jesus a good condition to be in, but was viewed as a better one than being a Son! Take, for instance, the parable of the prodigal son: the prodigal hated his father and wanted distance from him, but the (perceived) better treatment his father gave his servants compared to himself led the prodigal to return to his father's house as a servant rather than a son. There was very good reason to believe this is true, for when the fatted calf was killed and everyone was bidden to party up, it was the servants who were partying while the elder son was left in the field, forgotten and unappreciated (which people seem to refuse to consider when trying to make him a greater villian than the prodigal. Or the father, who probably drove the prodigal away by the same thoughtlessness demonstrated toward the elder brother). The decision of the father to reaccept the prodigal as a son rather than a servant worked against the prodigal in the long run: I believe the "parable" of the prodigal son actually happened, and that what the father said to the elder son ("all that I have is yours") resulted in the prodigal not getting anything when the father died and the elder son inherited everything. Doubtless believing that the father intended that he"double dip" by taking another third out of the elder brother's two thirds of the estate (the eldest son got twice the portion of the others to help finance the care of the surviving mother), the prodigal went to the elders. He was rightly rebuffed since a bit of math shows that giving him what he wanted would have left the Elder son with 44% of the estate, contary to the Law requiring that he get 66%. Frustrated, the prodigal appealed to Jesus, who also rebuffed him (Luke 12:13-15), labelling that attitude as covetousness. Doubtless, the prodigal then got with Jesus and told Jesus his side of the story hoping Jesus would change his mind, only to get rebuked a second time when Jesus later re-told the story in response to the Pharisees complaining about his ministry technique and put in the part about the Elder Brother getting the entire estate (Luke 15:11-32). We don't hear about how the Elder Brother reacted to his father's entreaty, because the prodigal obviously left that part out of his version of the story. What we can most probably deduce was that the father failed to properly assuage the hurt the elder son felt, and when he died, the elder son kicked his brother out of the house. Ironically, given the above laws regarding servants, the elder brother would have been obligated to take care of his brother if the latter had been accepted as a servant!
An aside: Treating the "parable" of the Prodigal Son as an actual event that happened in rural Palestine during Jesus' ministry rather than a parable clears up a lot of "bad behavior" on the part of those wresting the story into a parable. By casting the father as God, interpreters feel they need to justify the father's thoughtless slighting of his older son as something perfectly okay. They also feel pushed to demonize the elder brother who, being so badly treated, reacted as any deeply hurt child would in real life who sees evidnce that he is perceived by his father, not as equally favored, but as literally dis-favored. In their eagerness to emphasize the forgiveness to the prodigal son that they want everyone to practice, expositors sometimes feel the need to kick the face of the elder brother. In doing so, they convey the message that patient faithfulness is to be disregarded, ignored, and is of no value. By ignoring the lessons to be taught from this real-life (mis)behavior, such shallow expositors create more unnecessary bitterness than if they treated this as a real story populated by flawed people. There was plenty of blame to go around, and a real live counselor would have had plenty to say about everyone's behavior. In the end, treating this as a real-life story puts the emphasis on the fact that the father, though flawed, still loved and forgave his prodigal son while respecting the faithfulness of the faithful one. What is irritating about those who use the parable form is that it allows them to excuse bad behavior toward the faithful, and gives themselves "permission" to demonise them some more when those faithful point out that bad behavior toward themselves. If there are any such "expositors" who are saying "I don't mean to hurt anyone!", then I point out to you that your problem is that you think you aren't hurting anyone because you don't feel any pain yourself when you do it. That, of course, should be obvious, for if you are the one doing the spearing, you are not the one feeling the pain!
If anyone feels, like I do, that the elder brother got a raw deal in return for his faithfulness to his father, be assured that Jesus' attitude toward faithfulness is far different and much better: the parables of the talents and the pounds indicate that if you are a good and faithful servant, you were treated very very well, but if you are a lazy and unfaithful servant, you are treated very very roughly. I don't know about you, but if I worked to turn one pound ($300) into ten pounds ($3000) and was given 10 cities in return, I would certainly say "We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do"! On the other hand, Sons in the parables don't do very well: servants have a better chance of surviving trying to deal with rebellious tenants than the Son the vineyard holder sent (Luke 20:9-16). Based on this, the fact that that the disciples and Paul (including James, Jesus' own half-brother) consistently portrayed themselves as Jesus' and God's servants should be seen as them prudently "counting the cost" and rightly concluding where the better and more sure returns that would be manifested lay.
Still, at the same time, God strives to ensure that there is balance in all things, especially in His dealings with us, for what we have to understand before we can truly understand what Jesus was saying regarding servants and servitude is that God follows the Jewish model of treating servants and slaves, scrupulously following those rules and regulations that He commanded his people the Hebrews to follow in the Mosaic Law ("Yes Calvin, God DOES practice what He preaches"). Under this scheme, the way servants were treated required that their master take the initiative to reward them openly, and it is this time of "openly rewarding" His servants that Jesus is speaking of in the two parables of the servants increasing that which their master entrusted to them. On the other hand, the parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates the way sons and daughers were expected to have their needs met, which was by exercising their right to draw upon the resources of their own family on their own initiative. A servant can neither specify the "when" nor the "how much" of their reward, while sons, once they come to maturity (James 4:2-3), must take the initiative. The Younger Son/Prodigal took the initiative to demand his full share (one third) of the entire family estate, while the Older son inadvertently surrendered all the possible opportunities to throw parties because he did not take the initiative to ask for or get a kid to make merry. We "have not because we ask not" (James 4:2). We should not regard the (very real and hurtful) mistake of the father in forgetting to call his faithful older son to the party being thrown for his "lost but now found" younger brother as representative of the normal way he treated his older son, for it was very excusable given his joy at the return of his younger son: The father was showing more respect to his elder son than we do today, for he did not degrade him to the role of a servant waiting anxiously for the date and amount of any "servant's reward". For sure the servants partied while the Elder brother labored in the field, but keep in mind that they did not have his right to choose what to slaughter, and certainly not the right to decide whether to party at all. In Psalm 77, when Asaph struggles with the fear that the problems he is facing are indicators that God has forsaken him. His response is to recall what God did for Israel in the past as a precedent for assuring himself that God had not forsaken him. The Elder Brother could have boldly approached his father to demand a kid for a party, and if he had been refused (very doubtful), could have easily (and very justly) complained to him, and everyone else, "You Scrooge! You begrudge me a kid to make merry while you gave my brother his third of the estate to party up? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Wait until the village hears of this!" Far be it that God, the greater and more perfect Father, behave like that! The sons are treated as slaves as long as they act like slaves.
So what was it that Jesus was not only trying to say, but live out, before those disciples and us?
Symmetry runs throughout the universe because justice, equity, and fairness are such an essential aspect of God's character that they inevitibly must "leak out" of the Creator during the process of Creation and subsequently "stain into" His Creation. For each thing, there is a symmetric compliment that moderates and regulates its behavior. A more mundane way of saying this is that everything has a proper flip side to which it must, in some way, answer.
We may not be able to see "the flip side" of a thing, or detect it, or realize it, or recognize it yet, but it does exist.
Thus, despite all the talk and focus that leaders at all levels of society, both governmental and religious, obviously direct onto bible verses that teach submission to the exclusion of anything else, there is a flip side to submission. This exclusive focus on the one side of a symmetric complimentary pair has been so absolute and calculated that care has been devoted to ensuring that there is no name given to it. This leads one to think that the demand that men submit to superior authorities is absolute and cannot be contradicted, since one cannot even think of an opposing principle that is equally absolute that the superior authorities to which they must submit. Within such a paradigm, the only check on authority can only be superior authority. Where that superior authority does not speak, it may as well not exist, even though one can reasonably argue what that superior authority would say in specific circumstances.
Given the way the human mind thinks, that-which-has-no-name Cannot be Thought. Cannot be Spoken. Cannot be Discussed, Cannot be Acted upon. Cannot be Appealed To. Cannot Moderate, Cannot Contradict, and Cannot Control.
Thus, I beg the indulgence of my readers for contriving a name to label that-which-has-no-name, and show where it appears in Scriptures to counterbalance this unhealthy emphasis on submission.
Command Responsibility-The "Flip Side" of Submission
The name that I will give to the symmetric compliment of submission is "Command Responsibility." It is the recognition of those in authority that they have responsibilities and obligations to those who submit to them whose violation justifies the termination of submission outside of the chain of human command. That is, these responsibilities and obligations are placed on human authorities by God at the same time they are given their authority, power, and mission. Although they may be enforced by superior human authorities, they cannot be waived by any human authority. More importantly, in the event of violation of those responsibilities and obligations, those under submission are no longer are obligated to submit. As proof, recall what I said earlier about a slave who lost a tooth or an eye due to cruelty on the part of the master: the slave had the right to walk away! (Exodus 21:26-27)
I do not apologize for deriving the term of "command responsibility" from behavior demonstrated by the best Officers of the United States Armed Forces (especially seeing that this paragraph was written on September 11, 2010). In the context of American military operations, completing the mission given to the group is understood as paramount by everyone in the group. In order to do this, it is understood that not everyone in the group knows everything, and that everyone should work together toward the goal of completing the mission. Thus, the line soldiers completely submit to the orders of their superior officers. However, it is always understood that those officers, within the parameters of the mission as well as in contexts, have a command responsibility to treat their subordinates well. In fact, lower level officers obey with vigor because they themselves, being familiar with the idea of command responsibility, know that the same responsibility rests on their superior offiers that would obligate them to reward obedience! A platoon of solders does not voluntarily rise up and charge into withering fire at the order of their officers because they have a complete understanding of the geopolitical benefits to their nation of winning a warm water seaport. That sort of obedience is gained by soldiers seeing, day in and day out, their officers exercising care and concern for them so when that order comes, they would obey because they know that their officers would refuse to send them into any situation not worth their lives. In fact, there is a practice followed by the officer corps of the finest armies of this world that is uniformly not practiced by the officer corps of lesser armies: the officers lead the charge. Those giving the orders live them out and live under them themselves. Israel has survived partly because their officers lead from the front, suffering from higher casualty rates than their troops, while their Arab counterparts command from the rear, feeling themselves too valuable to risk in situations into which they are ready to send others.
While Jesus denied that faith could not be grown, he did talk of faith being great or small. After an examination of the incidents where he labelled faith great and small, my current working hypothesis is this: A small faith has little or no confidence that God will carry out His Command Responsibilities, while a great faith not only acts on the belief that God will carry out His Command Responsibilities, but also understands that God Himself feels obligated to carry out those Responsibilities toward those who understand that He has them, and who therefore calculatedly obeys so as to benefit from that feeling of obligation. Recall that the slave Jesus spoke about in Luke 17:5-10 had the right to eat after obeying all the commands given to him.
To put it another way, a man of great faith does not obey God and work to advance God's known interests hoping that God will reward him.
He's deliberately counting on it.
The Example of Little/No Faith
I will start by covering the single case where Jesus labelled faith as being "little" to the point of nonexistence. This case is given in Matthew 8:23-27, where Jesus, after calming the storm, asked the disciples why their faith was so little. The parallel account in Luke 8:22-25 has Jesus asking "where is your faith?" However, the account that I will use is given in Mark 4:36-41:
36 And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships. 37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. 38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? 39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? 41 And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?
While all three accounts have Jesus commenting on the disciple's fear and amount of faith, this one has Jesus stating that they had no faith (V. 40).
It should be obvious, from the highlighted portion of verse 38, that the disciples not only were certain they were going to die, but accused Jesus of not caring. This obviously displayed a lack of trust in Jesus' personal commitment to his Command Responsiblity toward them: they were his disciples and hand picked by him so they were submitting to him and acted as if he had authority over them up until the storm came. The other passages have them begging him to save them because they were perishing, but have no comment about how much he cared about them, so their faith was seen in those contexts as little or temporarily absent, not non-existent as is implied here.
A bit more probing revealed to me that my understanding of what the disciples were thinking had to be revised: in the Matthew and Luke passage, the disciples beg Jesus to save them because they are perishing, but when they actually got saved they were astounded and deeply fearful. What's with that? How exactly did they expect Jesus to save them? Levitate the boat? Throw a cocoon around them? Tell everyone to grab hands, form a circle, and make all of them walk on water?
It seems to me that they did not expect any miracle whatsoever. Their request to be saved because they were perishing should be seen in the same light as the request of the repentant thief on Calvary that Jesus remember him. The request to be saved was for eternal life and salvation after death, not for the rescue from death due to the fierce storm. They were expecting Jesus to probably deliver a quick blessing and prayer over them before the boat got swamped, and when he took time to assess the situation, they panicked at his slow response and implied that he didn't care that they would be eternally lost. Instead, they were saved physically and in such an extraordinary manner that the method left them astounded and fearful.
I cannot help but believe that the purpose of working this extraordinary miracle was not just to save the disciples physically, but start the process of impressing on them the belief (necessary to turn their little-to-no faith to great faith) that Jesus not only had the power to save, but intended to deploy that power to save those who obey him. Many today have faith to believe that God and Jesus can work miracles on their behalf, as well as believe that They are good, but the doubt that keeps their faith small arises from the thought that God's heart or Jesus' heart does not contain the intention of being good to them. Recall what the Children of Israel said at Kadesh afger they heard This situation is not helped by the Calvinist teaching of God's Secret Will that overrides God's Spoken Will: on top of contradicting everything we read in the scriptures about the Universe being voice activated (Genesis 1), this teaching encourages people to discount what God says because it leads them to believe that God's "heart is not in it" when He says anything. Who can know the mind of God, so that they can divine the "Secret Will" behind the "Spoken Will" that will override it and truly decide what happens? Who can blame them for doubting when experience with people informs them that a person "is not worth a flip" when given a task while "their heart is not in it". I have long ceased to wonder how such a doctrine is supposed to help increase someone's faith in God (it doesn't), but still have problems comprehending how Calvinists continue to believe in their own intelligence when they maintain that it does.
We will now look at the two examples of faith that Jesus Himself called "great".
I will cite the two examples of great faith together before commenting on them. The first is located in Matthew 15:21-28, with a parallel account given in Mark 7:24-30:
21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And, behold , a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying , Send her away; for she crieth after us. 24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying , Lord, help me. 26 But he answered and said , It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. 27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
The second example of great faith is given in Luke 7:1-10, the parallel account being Matthew 8:5-13. Both have details that I want to comment on, so I will cite both. This is Luke's version:
1 Now when he had ended all his sayings in the audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum. 2 And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear unto him, was sick, and ready to die. 3 And when he heard of Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. 4 And when they came to Jesus, they besought him instantly, saying , That he was worthy for whom he should do this: 5 For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue. 6 Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself : for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof: 7 Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed. 8 For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go , and he goeth; and to another, Come , and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. 9 When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about , and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. 10 And they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick .
And here is Matthew's version:
5 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, 6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented . 7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. 8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. 9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. 10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. 11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed , so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
There are two things I think we need to note before analyzing these passages. The first is that there is no contradiction between the two passages provided that one keeps in mind that the elders and the Centurion's friends in the Luke account acted on behalf of the Centurion as his parakletos, his "comforters", that spoke in his place due to the mis-match between his state and position, and Jesus' more exalted one: after all, he was asking Jesus to divinely heal his servant with a word where he was unable to despite spending real gold on real physicians who had clearly failed! The way the custom worked, those interceding on the behalf of another as their parakletos were considered one and the same: when the elders and friends spoke, it was as good as if the Centurion was actually there, so the Luke account is more technically and literally correct, although he left out the comment Matthew included in verses 11 and 12 of his account. Matthew's gospel was specifically written to the Jews, and the revelation of Jesus' words was doubtless Matthew ensuring that the Gentile Christian believers were accepted by the Jewish Christians. The point I want to make is that Matthew's conflation of the elders and Centurion's friends into the Centurion himself be recognized as the template upon which the conflation of Our Comforter with us is based (John 14:16 and John 14:26): when we speak, the Spirit speaks, and it is just as good as if the Spirit Himself was speaking on our behalf (Romans 8:26).
The second thing to note is much more germaine to our discussion: the faith of both of these individuals is called "great" even though they are pagans, not Jews. This is very important for it means that a great faith can be had apart from a detailed knowledge and experience of a God-appointed lifestyle. These incidents took place before the creation of the Church, and it is acknowledged that the various incarnations of the nation-state that descended from the Hebrews of the Exodus up to the Crucifixion were God's Chosen People, a fact acknowledged by both Christians and Muslims. Jesus was being very correct (albeit unpolitically so to those of modern taste and sensitivities) when he said to the Samaritan woman that "salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22), and stated, in so many words, that the Syrophonecian woman was acting like a "dog" demanding the bread from the mouths of the (Jewish) children! Certainly the Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, scribes, and priests had added a great deal of unscriptural and unsupported "fluff" to the Law of God as given to Moses and recorded in the Pentateuch, but Jesus himself directed lepers to abide by the leprosy laws outlined in it and counseled people to obey what the scribes and Pharisees said when they were officially teaching, while warning that their lives were not to be imitated (Matthew 23:1-7).
What this second point tells us is that a great faith is firstly a matter of attitude, and secondarily of knowledge. The primary attitude can be discerned by comparing the differences between the Jews of that day and these two Gentiles. The supporting role of knowledge in tweaking that attitude into a proper configuration that gets God and Jesus to act will be discerned by comparing the differences between the Syrophonecian Woman and the Centurion.
Now, this is a rather hard point to swallow, for it was hard for the Jewish Christians to swallow with regard to their Gentile Christian brothers: these pagans were called great in faith because they were not hampered by a detailed knowledge of the Jewish religion! The fact of the matter was that the Jews of Jesus' day knew a great deal about the scriptures regarding the Messiah and the future exaltation of Israel, and thus were looking for a liberating conqueror. Like the Elder brother, they were so intent on obeying God to merit the coming of their Messiah that they failed to have the simple freedom that their Younger brother had when he asked for a third of the entire kit-n-kabootle!
We Christians have lived so long in a culture heavily influenced and conditioned by Christianity that we are clueless as to how real religious pagans lived and thought: our modern pagans would be regarded as godless barbarians by the kinds of honorable, god fearing and god seeking pagans that Jesus and the Apostles dealt with on a daily basis.
This is not to say that those ancient pious pagans had no worries: their big problem was that they, like the Samaritan Woman, worshipped that which they knew not. God was very reluctant to honor the prayers and requests of pious pagan Greeks lest He, the God who required that the marriage bed be held in honor and kept undefiled, be confused or remotely associated with the wayward, adulterous, and letcherous Zeus/Jupiter fathering half of the minor gods through adulterous laisons with human women! Because of this reluctance on the part of God, pagan religions were, to put it bluntly, powerless. Pagan priests made up elaborate rituals and
To put it bluntly, they failed to "be converted and become as little children" (Matthew 18:1-6). How much does a little child know? Not much, other than to know that he/she can trust their Father to know what to give them to eat (Luke 11:11-13)when they themselves know so little that they'd eat anything. I may not remember when *I* was 1, 2, or 3, but I sure do remember when my two boys were 1, 2, and 3! Been there, know all about that!
=============
An aside: I want to pause here to emphasize the danger of misunderstanding the process whereby God undertakes to bless the world by way of the Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12:1-3). Verse 2 outlines the way God interacts with Abraham and his seed, which is to bless him and make him a blessing. However, it is incorrect to add "to the world" to the end of the second phrase of verse 2 to make it read "thou shalt be a blessing to the world." Such a reading, which adds human beliefs and wishful thinking to God's spoken word, making it appear that the blessings would come from Abraham and his children. It is in verse 3 that everyone else in the world is explicitly included. While the blessings God gives to Abraham and his seed are directly initiated and directly come from Him, the blessings God promises to give to the world also directly come from Him, but are indirectly initiated. That is, while Abraham and his seed can interact directly with God and get blessings directly from God, the world cannot interact directly with God, and can only get blessings from God by blessing Abraham or his seed. Abraham and his seed act as a priesthood, and when we talk about priests rendering service to mankind, it is understood that such service means that the priests receive offerings and requests for prayer from petitioners (are blessed), and then go to God (or their gods) to intercede on the behalf of the petitioners. Nobody in any religious culture in the world that uses intermediaries like priests and witch doctors to communicate with the gods or spirits ever expects the priests to answer the prayers directly, for the expectation is that the gods or spirits hear the priests and answer the prayers themselves. After all, if the priests have the power and the goods, then the petitioners would ask the priests for help, not the gods or spirits whom the priests serve. God's intended method for dealing with the gentiles was to follow the Naaman model (2 Kings 5), where it is obvious that HE delivers the goods, not the priests, which explains why Elisha did not come out of his house to speak to Naaman when the man first came to him, but came out after God delivered the man. However, if verse 2 is incorrectly modified in the way I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, then the service of the priests is not a service of petitioning God on behalf of the people (like Abraham did for Abimelech (Genesis 20), but of serving the people without the benefit of God answering their prayers. This forces the priests to serve the people by giving from the blessings that God had intended that they, the priests, enjoy from their obedience. In a sense, the priests are made to forsake their intercessory duties in order to serve tables at their own expense, in the same way that the demands of the early Church for service from the disciples forced them to forsake the Word of God in order to serve tables. The disciples solved their problem by appointing seven men who were not otherwise occupied to serve the tables, but this solution fails when all of the church has already been called to forsake the Word of God in order to serve tables at their own expense. The scriptures state that only a fraction of the Church is gifted to serve because other gifts are given to others, but the current fad in some liberal denominations is to ignore the insight of the disciples that only a few (seven) were called to serve, and instead call the entire Church to serve, as if all of the body is the hand or the eye. The situation is then worsened by their active opposition to what they call "the prosperity gospel". This opposition logically follows from their mistaken belief that God is calling His priests serve (true), but at their own expense (not true). Consequently, like the Pharisees (Matthew 23:4 and Luke 11:46), they bind heavy financial burdens on the priesthood of believers and teach them to not expect God to help them in help lifting that kind of burden!
Leave Feedback for This Page