Today, 18 January, is a feast day for Anglicans, Lutherans, and Orthodox Christians, held in memory of when Simon Peter first publicly identified as Messiah. Weirdly, _not_ Roman Catholics, even though they’re huge fans of St. Peter, whom they consider the first pope. They’re the ones who started the feast too. It was part of their Feast of St. Peter’s Chair—which honors, as the title plainly states, St. Peter’s chair. His literal chair. (But probably not—unless they swapped out broken parts of it until it was _all_ swapped, Ship of Theseus style. The oldest parts of it date from the 500s.) It’s big, it’s wooden; they’ve got it in a place of honor in the Vatican. They think Peter sat on it when he ran the Roman church. Catholics moved that feast to 22 February, and dropped the Feast of the Confession, and celebrate his confession along with his chair. After all the _chair_ didn’t confess anything. The other liturgical churches kept the Feast of the Confession where it is, and celebrate it then. If you’ve read the gospels, you know the story. Here’s the _Matthew_ version of it. _Matthew_ 16.13-20 GNT 13Jesus went to the territory near the town of Cæsarea Philippi, where he asked his disciples, _“Who do people say the Son of Man is?”_ 14“Some say John the Baptist,” they answered. “Others say Elijah, while others say Jeremiah or some other prophet.” 15 _“What about you?”_ he asked them. _“Who do you say I am?”_ 16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 _“Good for you, Simon son of John!”_ answered Jesus. _“For this truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my Father in heaven. 18And so I tell you, Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church, and not even death will ever be able to overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven; what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”_ 20Then Jesus ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. These events took place near Cæsarea-Philippi, yet another one of the cities named for the Cæsars, but also named for Herod Philip, tetrarch of the Dekapolis, who founded it. (It’s now called Banias. It’s one of the sources of the Jordan River.) At the time Jesus and his Twelve were in the Dekapolis, which was largely populated by Syrian Greeks, who were less likely to recognize Jesus and his kids: Nobody would know their cultural background, nor what a Messiah is. So it was kind of a safe space for Peter to come right out and say Jesus is Messiah. Even so, Jesus shushed them and told them not to repeat this. In their culture “Messiah” means king. If you claim you’re the king, anybody else who’s using or who covets the title, might object. Especially when you have a really good claim to the title, as Jesus does. #### And how this statement makes Peter a big deal. As you may know, Roman Catholics take Jesus’s statement to Peter, and use it as the basis of the papacy. If Peter was granted the keys to God’s kingdom, it implies he’s in charge of who gets in. It’s why, when people tell stories about people dying and going to heaven, St. Peter is guarding the Pearly Gates of New Jerusalem, Rv 21.21 screening everyone. Once Peter relocated to Rome, and became the leader of _that_ church, he supposedly brought that authority with him. When he was crucified and succeeded by Linus Herculanus (the Linus from _2 Timothy_ 4.21), supposedly that authority and those keys passed down to Linus. When Linus died and was succeeded by Anacletus, supposedly _he_ got the authority and the keys; and so on to Clement, and all the way down to Leo 14. Catholics insist all these guys inherited Peter’s keys, by virtue of inheriting Peter’s office. I would remind you, however, the popes were elected by men, not Jesus. True, men who figured they were following Jesus, and many of ’em were… but you might recall there were some profoundly awful popes in Christian history, and it’s a safe bet _those_ guys were neither devout Jesus-followers, nor elected by devout Jesus-followers. If the keys were getting passed from pope to pope, it’s also a safe bet one of those popes dropped the keys along the road. Heck, they might still be in Avignon. I’ve heard various Christians claim when Jesus told Peter, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom,” it was a plural you; it really means every Christian. Nope. That’s not what σοι/_si_ , “to you¹,” means. Jesus only granted those keys, at that time, to Peter. But Jesus also says this to his followers: _Matthew_ 18.18-20 GNT 18 _“And so I tell all of you: what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven._ 19 _“And I tell you more: whenever two of you on earth agree about anything you pray for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20For where two or three come together in my name, I am there with them.”_ It sounds mighty similar to when Jesus told Peter whatever he permits and prohibits on earth counts in heaven. Sounds a lot like Jesus _does_ grant his kingdom’s keys to all his followers. Which only makes sense; we inherit this kingdom same as Jesus, right? We can debatably make the claim Jesus grants them to every Christian who confesses Jesus in the very same way as Peter. But enough about that. Today’s Christians use the day as the beginning of an eight-day “week” of prayer, from the 18th to the Feast of Paul’s Conversion on the 25th. The week is dedicated to Christian unity—to Jesus’s prayer that all his followers would be one, rather than separate. Jn 17.21 It’s not so much about Protestants and Orthodox joining the Catholics; it’s about every Christian working together with every other Christian, regardless of church and tradition; and all of us following our Lord together.

#### Ezekiel 37.1-10. You’re likely thinking, “How is an _Ezekiel_ passage a scripture for advent? Well, the passage is about resurrection, and resurrection takes place at the second coming of Christ Jesus. _Ezekiel_ is the first time the LORD explicitly shows a resurrection to someone—in the Valley of Dry Bones Story. The title of this article comes from the gospel song, “Dem Bones.” Most people have no idea it’s a spiritual, ’cause all they know is, “Ankle bone connected to the shin bone, shin bone connected to the knee bone…” They think it’s about anatomy. Or skeletons. Well anyway. The point of this passage actually _isn’t_ the literal resurrection of the dead. It’s the LORD trying to bring hope to ancient Israel. At this point in history, Israel had been conquered by Nabú-kudúrri-usúr 2 of the neo-Babylonian Empire (KJV “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon”), and deported to Tel Aviv, Iraq. (Tel Aviv, Israel is named after Ezekiel’s village.) Ezekiel and his family had been part of the first deportation, a decade before that destruction, so he wasn’t around to witness the temple get destroyed. He heard about it after the fact, from survivors. Nabú had installed Mattaniah ben Joash—whom Nabú renamed Zedekiah—to rule Jerusalem as his puppet king. Zedekiah proved insubordinate, and after 12 years Nabú had enough, and personally overthrew him. He invaded, besieged, and destroyed Jerusalem. His soldiers burnt the temple down. (The first temple was made of gold-plated cedar, which made it far easier to destroy than the stone temple the Romans knocked over.) Word got back to Tel Aviv. Up to that point, the refugees had hoped some day they’d go home. Didn’t know when; just knew Jerusalem was waiting for them. Now it wasn’t. No more homeland. No more city. No more daily worship for the LORD, so for priests like Ezekiel, no job to return to. They were gonna die in Iraq. If you’re an American who’s old enough to remember when the World Trade Center was destroyed in 2001, the destruction of the temple felt _way_ worse. For Israelis it was a blow to both their patriotism _and_ their religion. It didn’t only feel like their country was destroyed, but like they were now utterly cut off from the LORD. It felt like being damned. So, through Ezekiel, God sent ’em a message of hope. _Ezekiel_ 37.1-10 KWL 1The LORD’s hand took me, and by the LORD’s Spirit he brought me out: 2 _God_ put me in a valley full of bones. He made me walk round and round them. _“Look how very many, all over the surface of the valley!_ _Look, how very dry!”_ 3 _God_ told me, _“Son of Adam._ _Can these bones live?”_ I said, “Master LORD, _only_ you know.” 4 _God_ told me, _“Prophesy over these bones._ _Tell these dry bones, ‘Listen to the L ORD’s word.’ ”_ 5My Master LORD tells these bones, _“Look!_ _I put a spirit in you._Live.__ 6 _I put sinews on you. I grow muscle on you._ _I encase you in skin. I give you the Spirit._ _Live. Know I’m the L ORD.”_ 7I prophesied as instructed. At the sound of my prophecy, look: Shaking, and bone came together with bone. 8I saw—look!—sinews and flesh grew on them. Skin encased them. _But_ there was no Spirit in them. 9 _God_ told me, _“Prophesy to the Spirit._ _Prophesy, son of Adam!_ _Tell the Spirit this: ‘My Master L ORD says this._ _Spirit, come from the four winds!_ _Blow into these who were killed._ _They _will_ live.”_ 10I prophesied as instructed. The Spirit came into them. They live! They stand on their feet—a very, very great army. #### It’s not actually about _our_ resurrection. At about this point, Christians stop reading _Ezekiel_ and start preaching about how this passage foretells our resurrection from the dead. Because we _will_ rise from the dead at Jesus’s second coming. We’ll be dry bones and dust—or ashes, if we’ve been cremated or died in a fire. But God will reassemble us and we’ll live forever. And while that’s true, _Ezekiel_ is actually _not_ about us. It’s about the restoration of ancient Israel, which was fulfilled when Zerubabel ben Šealtiel brought exiles back to Jerusalem to reestablish it and rebuild the temple. As you can tell from the next batch of verses. Sometimes Christian preachers will actually read ’em to their audiences. But then they suffer a freakish bout of amnesia: They read it, then forget it, and _still_ interpret the passage to suit themselves. You remember how James wrote about a person who looks at his reflection, then immediately forgets it? Jm 1.22-25 You’d _think_ James was using hyperbole, but that’s precisely how some preachers behave with the bible. They read it, then it blinks out of their brains, and they preach their own agenda. Now let’s read it and _actually_ look at it. _Ezekiel_ 37.11-14 KWL 11 _God_ told me, _“Son of Adam,_ _these bones are the whole house of Israel._ _Look, they say, ‘Our bones are dry._ _Our hope is dead. We’re cut off.’_ 12 _So prophesy! Tell them this:_ _‘My Master L ORD says this.’_ _Look, I’m opening your tombs._ _I’m taking you out of your tombs, my people._ _I bring you to the _very_ ground of Israel._ 13 _You’ll know I’m the L ORD when I open your tombs._ _When I bring you out of your tombs, my people,_ 14 __I’ll_ put my Spirit in you. Live._ __I’ll_ put you on the ground, and you’ll know I’m the LORD._ _I said it; I’ll do it,”_ promises the LORD. The Jews were calling themselves dead. God reminded them he _raises_ the dead. Losing Jerusalem and the temple felt like the end of the world. Obviously it wasn’t. And the _real_ end of the world is actually the beginning of the _next_ world, so God’s followers _still_ have no reason to despair. That is, unless we’ve only put our hope in earthly things, like homelands, temples, wealth, heritage, good reputation, family, jobs, _anything_ with an expiration date. Our hope needs to be in God alone. ’Cause everything ends. But God raises the dead. And yeah, it took a few decades after Ezekiel’s prophecy, but God _did_ let his people return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. You _should_ know this from the fact Jesus went to temple. (You _do_ read your bible, right?) Anyway, because God resurrected the dead in this vision in _Ezekiel_ , Pharisees realized he’s gonna raise the dead at the end of the world, and made it part of their End Times teachings. Sadducees, who didn’t consider _Ezekiel_ to be bible, didn’t believe in resurrection either—even though the LORD had told Moses and the Hebrews, “I kill and make alive” Dt 32.39 in the books they _did_ consider bible. God can create humans from dust, Ge 2.7 and God can re-create humans from the dust we decayed into. Jesus’s own resurrection demonstrates how Pharisees weren’t wrong about resurrection. He will raise us at the End, same as he raised Jesus. Same as he raised those folks in Ezekiel’s vision. It’ll happen. #### Illegitimately borrowing the story. But like I said, people gotta borrow this story and make it about ourselves, and many a preacher will do just that. Wrongly. Because unless the Holy Spirit personally tells us, “I’m gonna do for you as I showed Ezekiel I can do for dry bones,” we have no basis for claiming this story for our personal circumstances. No Christian does. Imagine a Christian wants to have a kid, reads in _Genesis_ about how the LORD promised Abraham a kid, and now says, “See, God tells _me_ , through these verses, _I’m_ gonna have a kid.” Or if a Christian reads about how the LORD told Solomon he’d make him rich, and says, “See, God tells _me_ he’s gonna make me richer than every other king.” Or if I took God’s message to Joseph that his son would save his people from their sins, and start claiming, “See, God tells _me_ my son’s gonna be Messiah.” It’s just that stupid. But Christians commit this kind of stupidity on a regular basis. And because they do it, we get the idea _we_ can do it. _We_ can take prophecies which don’t belong to us, and claim ’em for ourselves. We’re even _taught_ this by various Christians: If you _don’t_ carjack a prophecy, it means you lack faith. You just gotta believe harder. Yeah, these people are only setting themselves up for failure and grave disappointment. ’Cause God is under no obligation at all to follow through with what they’re claiming for themselves. They’ll never prosper in the way they expect. The result is they’ll wind up doing one of these three things: > **SPIN.** When the prophecy doesn’t come true for them, they’ll stretch its meaning till it fits their circumstances. If they expect God will give them a child and he doesn’t, they’ll claim the prophecy actually meant _spiritual_ children, and the kids in Sunday School count as their own. If they expect God’ll give them money and he doesn’t, they’ll claim he meant _spiritually_ wealthy—or that God makes them comfortable despite their monthly struggle to keep ahead of their bills. The Jehovah’s Witnesses claimed Jesus’s second coming would happen in 1914, and when it didn’t they claimed they _really_ meant he took on a new heavenly position that year. Not that anything on earth really changed any. Or at all. > > Such people will claim, “God has fulfilled his every promise to me!” And they’re right; he has; he fulfilled his _legitimate_ promises to them. But he didn’t fulfill any of his _imaginary_ promises to them, and they’re totally lying to themselves about _that_. > > It may be misplaced faith. But their denial is actually damaging _all_ their faith, both misplaced _and_ well-placed. And when other Christians realize they’re claiming God fulfilled stuff when he didn’t really, it’s gonna ding _their_ faith. (As for people who don’t believe in prophecy and God’s promises, it’s just gonna give them something more to mock.) > > **STAGGER.** When the prophecy doesn’t come true for them, they’ll back up, look at what they’ve done, and realize they were wrong. “Wait: That verse wasn’t for _me_. Well, don’t I feel silly.” > > Which is great! But the reason I say they’re staggering, is because most of them don’t learn their lesson and never do this again. They totally do it again. Many times. Hey, everybody _else_ they know is doing it. > > I once had a pastor who’d regularly claim God wanted him to do some huge project… only for him to backtrack a few years later because nothing would come of it. I gotta give him props for admitting _he_ got God wrong. Problem is, in the beginning, he was so sure he was right, he’d nudge people out of leadership—even the church—because he was so insistent the project was God’s will, and _must_ go through. And he never _did_ learn his lesson: Get confirmation before you run amok with “God’s plan.” (And get it from _real_ prophets, not yes-men.) > > **QUIT.** Worst-case scenario: Their faith not only takes a massive hit, but they give up altogether. They quit God. > > After all, the only reason they glommed onto these promises, and insisted God was gonna come through for them, was because they wanted the stuff in those promises. They didn’t want _God_ so much; just the stuff. They wanted God to grant them a worry-free life, riches, good health, the usual. God promises none of those things. Mammon will, but it can’t raise the dead, y’know. This is why we gotta steer people away from faith-damaging misinterpretations of out-of-context scriptures. Our takeaway from Ezekiel’s vision is to remember: God _can_ restore anything. You may think it’s dead and gone forever, but if God gets involved, he can always bring it back. The catch is, he’s gotta _say_ he’s bringing it back, like he told Ezekiel and the Israelis he was bringing their nation back. If he doesn’t, we can’t hold him to the stuff he never promised.

Four Sundays before Christmas, the advent season begins with Advent Sunday. That’d be today, 30 November 2025. (Next year it’ll be 29 November. It moves.) Our word _advent_ comes from the Latin _advenire_ , “come to [someplace].” Who’s coming to where? That’d be Jesus, formally coming to earth. We’re not talking about the frequent appearances he makes here and there to various Christians and pre-Christians. It refers to the two _formal_ appearances: 1. His first coming, when he was born in the year 7BC, which is what we celebrate with Christmas. 2. His second coming, when he takes possession of his kingdom. Hasn’t happened yet. _Maybe_ it’ll happen within our lifetimes. Maybe not. Many American Evangelicals have lost sight of the advent tradition, figuring it’s only a Roman Catholic thing—as if American Catholics haven’t _likewise_ lost sight of this tradition. In the United States we’ve permitted popular culture to define the Christmas season for us. And of course popular culture much prefers Mammonism. Gotta buy stuff for Christmas! Gotta boost the retail economy. How much did people spend on Black Friday weekend? How early did you put up your Christmas lights and inflatables? Gotta buy seasonal Christmas food and drinks, and go to Christmas parties and give Christmas gifts, and fly home for Christmas to be with family, or at least send them expensive gift cards so _they_ can go shopping. Popular culture reduces the advent season to advent calendars: Those 25-day calendars which count down from 1 December (regardless of when Advent Sunday actually starts). Every day you get a little piece of chocolate-flavored shortening, unless you bought the calendars made with the _good_ chocolate, with the cacao beans hand-picked by slave labor. Or bought one of those advent calendars with different treats—like Lego minifigures, or a different-flavored coffee pod each day (admittedly I really like this one), or a daily bottle of wine— It actually turns out these bottles are table markers, but this photo’s been making the rounds of the internet described as an advent calendar. Still, you can easily find wine advent calendars on almost every wine-seller’s website. Pinterest —which, if you drink it all by yourself, means you’re an alcoholic. These 25-day calendars are pretty much the only “advent” most American Christians know about. And on the years where Advent Sunday falls in November, they’ve _no idea_ they’ve been shortchanged. As for the rest of the Christmas season: Nobody’s actually getting ready for Jesus. We’re getting ready for _Christmas_. We’re getting ready for pageants and parties and gift-giving. Wrong focus and attitude—meaning more humbug and hypocrisy, more Santa Claus and reindeer and snowmen somehow brought to life _without_ the aid of evil spirits. And less Jesus and good fruit and hope. You see the problem. It’s why so many _Christians_ dislike Christmas. Too much fake sentiment. Too much “magic.” Too many feigned happy smiles when really they _don’t_ like what so much of the “season” is about. So lemme recommend an alternative: Let’s skip the Christmas season, and focus on the advent season. Let’s look to Jesus. He’s coming back, y’know. Could return at any time. #### The advent candles. Yep, there are some traditional advent practices. Not many, so there’s lots of room for us to improvise if we wanna. First of all there’s the color scheme: Purple. _Not_ red and green. I like red and green too, but if we’re doing advent, the traditional liturgical color is purple. ’Cause Jesus is our king, and ancient kings wore purple. (Ancient purple dye was crazy expensive, so usually it was only the king who could afford it. Although some of them banned other people from wearing it too; it was _their_ color.) So if you’re not a big fan of red and green, that’s okay. Hope you like purple! Then there’s the advent wreath. That’s a relatively new tradition, started by Lutherans in the 1600s. (Yep, it’s _not_ a Catholic thing. Although today’s Catholics do advent wreaths too.) Ancient Greek and Roman kings wore olive-leaf wreaths around their heads, like Olympic athletes; yep, that’s the “crown” Jesus is gonna give his people when he returns. Rv 2.10 That’s the στέφανος/_stéfanos_ , “crown,” you see in the New Testament. _That’s_ what all the Christmas wreaths are about. An advent wreath lies flat on a table, and has four candles in it, which represent the four Sundays before Christmas. Although there was this one German who made a _huge_ wreath, put six little candles inbetween each of the four candles, and lit a new candle for each day before Christmas. That’s probably way too many candles, and your local fire department would discourage such behavior unless they’re electric candles. Originally the candles were white, but lately they’ve been purple or pink. Really they can be any color—white, purple, pink, red, blue, striped like candy canes, whatever. Often there’s a fifth, a big white one, put in the center of the wreath; sometimes it’s used to light the others, or it represents Jesus and is only lit on Christmas. Like I said, the four candles represent the four Sundays. But Christians have decided that’s just not good enough, so we’ve attached all sorts of _other_ special meanings to them. I’ve heard preachers claim, “So here’s what each of the candles mean,” and preach whole sermons on “their historical meaning.” And _none of these “historical meanings” are true_. Seriously. The Lutherans never formally declared the candles have any special meanings. None of the meanings we’ve come up with since, are consistent across the churches. Here are some of the meanings people _claim_ for the candles: * Hope, peace, joy, love. * Hope, preparation, joy, love. (If you’re a bigger fan of the flurry of preparation than peace, I guess.) * Promise, prophecy, peace, adoration. * Hope of the people, the prophets, John the baptist, Jesus’s mother Mary. * Prophecy, the journey to Bethlehem, shepherds visiting, angels rejoicing. * Expectation, hope, joy, purity. * Three purple candles for penitence, one pink one for joy. (For those who figure we oughta be more penitent.) * Prophecy, faith, joy, peace. * Death, judgment, heaven, hell. (The dark Christian advent, I suppose.) In the Orthodox Church, advent actually starts _six_ weeks before Christmas, ’cause they fast before Christmas same as they do before Easter. It’s like a Christmas version of Lent. So when they do advent wreaths, they have six candles for the six Sundays. Again, the meanings of the six candles vary. But one interpretation I’ve heard is faith, hope, love, peace, repentance, communion. More candles means they can cover more bases. I find most of the advent-wreath resources point to that first list—hope, peace, joy, and love. Unless you’re Catholic; then it’s the one with Jesus’s mom in it, because Catholics _love_ Mary. Wouldn’t be Catholic without Mary. Custom is to light another candle each Sunday, then have some sort of advent devotional time. Sometimes based on the candle’s theme—whatever theme you’ve assigned it—but sometimes it’s just generically on the idea of Jesus’s first or second advent. There are two additional kinds of advent candles: 1. There’s the christingle, which is usually a candle shoved into an orange. Sometimes it’s decorated, sometimes not. It’s a Protestant custom, started by Moravians in the 1700s. It’s meant to represent Jesus as the light of the world. The candle represents the light, the orange represents the world, and the other decorations represent… well, our very human need to overdo things, I guess. 2. And there’s the single advent candle, which is a candle marked with the days of 1 December to 25 December. Each day you burn it down to the next day… then probably fetch your chocolate from the commercial advent calendar. I _would_ suggest drinking your advent-calendar wine too, but y’might get too tipsy, forget to put out the advent candle, and let it burn through multiple days. For those who are nervous about fire, there are always electric and glowstick alternatives. #### Get ready for the Lord! Of course hewing too legalistically to advent-wreath themes (especially since there’s no actual standard!), or ditching ’em in favor of commercial alternatives, are an irritating way to prep for Christmas. The point of advent is to be the _antidote_ to all the rampant materialism. We’re to focus on Jesus! Not social custom. Not even gift-giving. Not all the stuff we’re expected to do every single year. _Jesus._ We claim he’s the reason for the season; now it’s time to take this saying seriously, instead of using it as an excuse to browbeat clerks into telling us “Merry Christmas” like we prefer. Part of getting ready for Jesus’s second advent is to _stop_ being this sort of argumentative, frenzied, self-focused consumer. Start behaving like he’s coming back! ’Cause he is. Maybe not for the whole world just yet; he’s still trying to save everybody. But at some point _you’re_ gonna die. As will I. As will everyone. So he’s coming for _you personally_. Are you ready? _Luke_ 12.35-48 GNT 35 _“Be ready for whatever comes, dressed for action and with your lamps lit, 36like servants who are waiting for their master to come back from a wedding feast. When he comes and knocks, they will open the door for him at once. 37How happy are those servants whose master finds them awake and ready when he returns! I tell you, he will take off his coat, have them sit down, and will wait on them. 38How happy they are if he finds them ready, even if he should come at midnight or even later! 39And you can be sure that if the owner of a house knew the time when the thief would come, he would not let the thief break into his house. 40And you, too, must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.”_ 41Peter said, “Lord, does this parable apply to us, or do you mean it for everyone?” 42The Lord answered, _“Who, then, is the faithful and wise servant? He is the one that his master will put in charge, to run the household and give the other servants their share of the food at the proper time. 43How happy that servant is if his master finds him doing this when he comes home! 44Indeed, I tell you, the master will put that servant in charge of all his property. 45But if that servant says to himself that his master is taking a long time to come back and if he begins to beat the other servants, both the men and the women, and eats and drinks and gets drunk, 46then the master will come back one day when the servant does not expect him and at a time he does not know. The master will cut him in pieces and make him share the fate of the disobedient._ 47 _“The servant who knows what his master wants him to do, but does not get himself ready and do it, will be punished with a heavy whipping. 48But the servant who does not know what his master wants, and yet does something for which he deserves a whipping, will be punished with a light whipping. Much is required from the person to whom much is given; much more is required from the person to whom much more is given.”_ Do you know what our master expects of you? ’Cause he’s coming when we won’t expect.

Years ago a friend—let’s call him Matty—led the college-age small group at his church. (Not my church; not my denomination either. They’re Christian though. I knew Matty from school.) They’d meet and chat, he’d give them some bible lesson, they’d pray, and at the end he liked to play Bible Answer Man for a bit—he took questions. Most questions were easy, with nice short answers. But sometimes they needed a more detailed answer, so Matty would put a pin in it, and make it the subject of next week’s lesson, where he could spend a half hour or longer on it. Which, he admitted, he appreciated; sometimes he didn’t know _what_ he was gonna talk about next week, but “God provided.” (Well, when his topics weren’t all _that_ profitable, I’m not so sure it’s _God_ who provided. But whatever.) So… one week the question had to do with women in ministry. The scriptures have no problem with it, and therefore neither does Matty, so the next week he made a thorough biblical argument in favor of it. Thing is, his church is sexist, so you can already see where this was headed: Someone at the small group who disagreed with him, tattled on him. In their denomination the board, not the pastor, runs the church; and the board decided Matty ought not teach the college-agers any longer. So he didn’t. Here’s the thing: The young’uns still had questions, and since Matty was the answer man, they’d bring them to him, class or no class. Pastor got wind of this, called Matty in for another meeting, and told him, “You gotta shut that down.” Shut _what_ down? These kids and their questions. If they have questions, they’re to take it to one of the pastors. _Not_ Matty. They didn’t trust Matty. I’ll be honest: This’d be the point where I left this church. But Matty had a lot of years invested in this church, so, y’know, sunk cost fallacy. He felt he oughta be a team player, so he agreed. Whenever the college-agers had questions, he now said, “Oh, you should ask Pastor.” So they did. Then they started leaving the church. Matty ran into one of those young people after she’d left their church, asked her what’s up, and got the whole story: Seems when Pastor got a question he didn’t like, his response was, “You ought not ask such questions.” The frustrated young people recognized a red flag when they saw one, and soon left that church. Some of ’em sought and found a church where pastors _do_ answer questions. But more of ’em simply presumed _Christianity_ didn’t have answers, and quit church altogether. (And I find if you grew up in one of those Fundamentalist churches which loudly declares or implies every _other_ church is misled, too liberal, too heretic, or otherwise dangerously wrong, you’re likely to despair: “There _are_ no other churches I can go to,” and likewise quit church altogether.) There’s more to this story, but I wanna stop here to say this is the point of this article: When churches don’t or won’t answer questions, they’re gonna lose the people who have those questions. And rightly so. I’ll be blunt: If you aren’t allowed to ask questions in church, it’s a cult. You _should_ leave. #### Legit questions, versus challenges to authority. To be fair, there are cases when a “question” isn’t honestly a question: The questioner already has their mind made up, and the point of the question isn’t to get information, but to pick a fight. They wanna debate you. Back when I taught at a Christian school, I’d have kids who claimed they “just wanna ask a question,” but really they wanted to disagree with, or pick apart, some assignment or requirement or rule. Kids with this agenda are really easy to detect; adults are sometimes much more subtle. But after a bit of discussion, anyone with half a brain should be able to tell what the questioner is up to. Cults don’t really trust people to have half a brain. They simply shut down _every_ line of questioning. To them, Christianity (really their hold on power, disguised as Christianity) is a Jenga tower, and if you knock out _just_ the right block, the entire structure will fall. You _cannot question_ church doctrines. You must only accept them by faith. Ideally blind faith: This way you’ll easily accept _any_ rubbish they feed you, on blind faith. Cults thrive on people who are willing to accept everything, including ridiculous things, on blind faith. Who never, ever ask questions. Who are _shamed_ into never asking questions: “Why are you doubting? Don’t you have faith?” But lots of ’em don’t have to be shamed into anything. Because they don’t think. They don’t have a deep faith. They don’t think all that hard about _anything_. You can kinda tell this by their career, their politics, their relationships… everything in their lives runs on minimal brainpower, and they’re happy with that. Try to go any deeper and it agitates them: “Why d’you gotta make things _complicated_? Why can’t you be happy with simple? Stick to simple. Jeez, you’re ruining _everything_.” Problem is, God didn’t make every human simple. (In fact I’m pretty sure most of us aren’t.) Some of us want more than a simple faith, than the same stuff we believed as children. We’ve put away childish things, 1Co 13.11 and want an adult understanding of the things we believe. We wanna know why, and how, and what for, and who says so. “The bible tells me so” is nice for children’s songs, but now we wanna know _why_ the bible can tell us so—why’s it an authority? And does it _actually_ tell us so, or is that that thing you _claim_ it decrees, based on a faulty interpretation of what it really _does_ say? Deconstruction happens, folks. When it does, we’re gonna have questions. Sometimes a few; sometimes lots. Sometimes they’re serious worries; sometimes they’re mere curiosities. Either way, we should be able to bring these questions to our fellow Christians—particularly the elders and leadership of our churches. And these fellow Christians need to take these questions seriously. And try to provide reasonable, helpful answers, based on valid interpretations of bible. If they’re not capable, if they don’t want to, or worst-case (like Matty’s pastor) _rebuke the questioner_ —don’t be surprised when these people don’t wanna stay in church anymore. Who might leap to the conclusion these Christians are fools, the pastor’s a con artist, this church is a scam—heck, maybe _all churches_ are a scam!—so they’re out of here. To be fair, sometimes those Christians _are_ fools, the pastor _is_ a swindler, and the church _is_ a cult; and the way the Holy Spirit reveals it to people is by giving them their doubts in the first place. But more often, none of these things are true. Okay yeah, it was extremely foolish to not help answer people’s questions, but the _rest_ aren’t true—but you _do_ realize the devil is trying its darnedest to get doubtful Christians to leave their churches, and unhelpful Christians are simply handing the devil some gasoline for the fire. There has always been an exodus of people who had questions, couldn’t get answers from their churches, and left. Its rate has simply grown greater over time, as more and more churches have wrongly decided there are certain questions we _cannot ask_. Lately it’s been, “How can you support political positions which run so contrary to the Sermon on the Mount?” I mean, if you wanna talk about an honest question which _instantly_ gets misinterpreted as a challenge to someone’s authority, it’d be that one. And partisanship regularly gets Christians who are ordinarily very rational, to justify all sorts of ungodly reasoning and behavior. Evangelical churches which are very much _not_ cults, suddenly rage like full-on cultists in the face of this question. _Still_ an honest question though—and it’s why a startlingly large number of “ex-vangelicals,” who can’t bring themselves to switch to liberal churches which make the same mistake in the other party’s direction, throw up their hands in despair and go to no church at all. #### Matty’s solution. Yeah, I know you wanted me to finish this story. So the young ex-churchgoer whom Matty bumped into, asked him since _his_ pastors are no longer _her_ pastors, is it okay if _he_ answers her question now? “What was the question again?” asked Matty—and answered it. It had a surprisingly easy answer. But he took her loophole and ran with it: If anybody _else_ who quit his church, or had no church at all, or even went to other churches, had a question, maybe they could meet, and he could provide answers. So he created an informal group which met at the local coffeehouse. The owner closed at 5pm anyway, so Matty’s group met there after hours. Yep, he had an unsanctioned, unaffiliated-with-his-church small group. And you _know_ it got back to his church. He got called into another meeting, in which the board ordered him to shut it down. This time Matty refused—this wasn’t a church thing; this was his own thing. Lots of people in the church had businesses and outside-the-church ministries, and the church didn’t boss _them_ around, did they? Except, well, the board members liked to imagine they very well _could_ boss them around, if they felt the need—if you’re cheating customers, shouldn’t your pastors be able to rebuke you? (And yes, cults can and do take this to crazy extremes.) But in the end, Matty refused to shut down his small group, and told the board if it meant he was kicked out of the church over this, so be it. The board decided meh; not worth the fuss, and let him stay. Matty stayed there—kinda uncomfortably—for another three years, and goes elsewhere now. His small group has been around nearly _20 years_. This isn’t a happy ending. See, Matty’s group grew—at the expense of his former church, and any other churches which do the same thing. In those last three years, Matty was kinda passively moving them to his group: They’d have questions, which Matty wasn’t allowed to answer, which the church leaders _didn’t_ answer, but the youngsters knew if they quit the church, they could now go to Matty’s group and get those answers. You see how dysfunctional the whole setup was. There’s _already_ a big exodus of young people from lots of churches, for lots of reasons. Kids who were never really Christian, and now that they’re adult, they stop pretending. Kids who wanna sin, feel too guilty to stay in church, and find excuses to not go. Kids whose work schedules conflict with the worship services, and they make no effort to still stay connected. Or good old-fashioned apathy. Doubts and deconstruction don’t _have_ to be one of the reasons; Christians can help them through their faith crises way better than anyone else. Matty’s old church is hemorrhaging more kids for a totally preventable reason. These youngsters who went to Matty’s group, who got answers, didn’t necessarily go back to any other church. Some of ’em think of _Matty’s group_ as their church—and it’s _not_. Might grow into one; some small groups _have_ evolved into churches over time. But they don’t do holy communion, don’t have any ministries; they’re not set up as any kind of Christian support system, and don’t even _exist_ outside of the hour a week they meet. They don’t exist when Matty goes on vacation either. He’s taken _summers_ off. _No_ church should shut down like that. And this group shouldn’t even _have_ to exist, seperate from a church. Okay yeah, this blog exists separate from a church, but _not_ because my church and its leaders don’t take questions. They publicly do! But I suspect most of the reason I get questions is because of this very problem: People don’t feel they can question their current churches and pastors and elders. So they gotta email some stranger on the internet. I’ll give answers, but really you _should_ have someone safe in your church you can go to. _Every_ church should be able to answer anyone’s legitimate questions about God and Christianity. If it avoids and shuns that kind of thing, there’s something wrong and unhealthy with that church. If it rejects and rebukes that kind of thing, it’s a cult.

#### John 6.41-46. As I’ve said previously, there are a lot of Christians who incorrectly teach the reason Jesus’s teachings in _John_ 6 made the Galileans freak out and stop following him, is because the teachings went over the Galileans’ heads. It’s a popular myth. It’s totally false though; the text of _John_ 6 doesn’t support it. The Galileans understood Jesus perfectly, and _that_ was their whole problem: Jesus is making radical divine statements about himself, which didn’t at all jibe with anything the Pharisees had ever taught ’em about the End Times. Jibes with the bible just fine, but not Pharisee teachings. Jesus is telling them he’s living bread. He came down from heaven. He’s going to resurrect people on the Last Day. Pharisees had taught ’em _God_ would resurrect everybody, not the Son of Man—because they had no idea the Son of Man _is_ God, incarnate. The Galileans were so thoroughly indoctrinated in what their rabbis had claimed, there was no room in their minds for anything Jesus claimed. They’d never heard anything like this before—even though plenty of it is found in the Prophets!—so they responded same as most humans do: Automatically presumed it’s wrong. And automatically presumed Jesus is nuts. After all, isn’t Jesus a man like them? Isn’t he Galilean like them? Don’t they know his parents? How did the son of Joseph and Mary of Nazareth come down from heaven? _John_ 6.41-46 KWL 41So the Judeans are bellyaching about _Jesus_ because he’s saying, “I’m the bread which comes down from heaven.” 42They’re saying, “Isn’t this Jesus bar Joseph? _Haven’t_ we known his father and mother? Now how does he say this— ‘I came down from heaven’?” 43Jesus replies, and tells them, _“Stop bellyaching with one another._ 44 _No one can come to me_ _unless the Father my Sender attracts them¹,_ _and I will resurrect them¹ on the Last Day._ 45 _It was written in the Prophets:_ _‘All of them² will be taught by God.’_ Is 54.13 _Everyone who listens to the Father, who learns,_ _comes to me._ 46 _Not that anyone saw the Father_ _except the one who’s from God._ _That one saw the Father.”_ Again, the Galileans (whom John calls “Judeans” because they are; the Galilee was settled a century before by Judeans) are ἐγόγγυζον/_egóngyzon_ , “complaining in a low tone; muttering” because they don’t like what Jesus is saying. They’re not loud about it, because _John_ eventually reveals they’re in synagogue when Jesus says these things, Jn 6.59 but the bellyaching _is_ making enough noise in Jesus’s class for their rabbi to overhear and rebuke. He knows why they’re bellyaching too—and he doubles down.

There are many reasons to read our bibles. One, obviously, is so we know God hears our prayers and answers prayer requests—sometimes with “no,” but that’s an answer!—and another is so we know God’s character and intentions, and know _why_ he’d answer yes or no. And another is so we know we’re not praying for something God _forbids_. ’Cause that’ll happen. God spells out what he approves of, and what he doesn’t, in the scriptures… but immature Christians don’t know the scriptures, and will pray for all the stuff God condemns. They’ll pray for evil things, immoral things, deceptive things, idolatrous things. We’ll ask God for money—and we’re not even _hiding_ how we worship money instead of Jesus, and we’re not even asking God to fund our daily provisions; we’re asking for conveniences, comforts, and luxuries. We’ll ask God to smite our enemies. Not because our enemies are evil; sometimes they’re actually not! But they’re competition, and _we_ wanna win. I’ve heard a lot of prayers before sporting events, both when I played in school, and among fans when professional teams play nowadays. A _lot_ of vituperative prayers are made against the opposing team. Do the players and managers of those teams deserve _any_ of the curses called down upon them? Not in the least. You think God appreciates any of this behavior? Not in the least. But fans do it anyway. Partisans do too. We’ll ask God to hide our sins. Nevermind the fact God specializes in _exposing_ hidden sins—if we don’t know our bibles, we won’t realize this, and actually think God might help us in our coverup. And he won’t. At _all_. He’ll tell on you. Ac 5.3 God’s our refuge in times of trouble, Ps 46.1 but not when we created and deserve the trouble, and _definitely_ not when God’s empowering our prosecution. We’ll even ask God for sin. We’ll ask him for idols; I already brought up money, but there are plenty of other things we prioritize over God. We’ll ask him for the things we covet—nevermind the fact we’re _forbidden_ to covet. Ex 20.17 We’ll ask him to aid and abet us while we lie, cheat, and steal. While we abuse enemies and strangers. While we deliberately overlook the needy. We’ll justify all that lying, cheating, and stealing to ourselves, and presume that might be good enough for God too, and of _course_ it’s not. Doesn’t matter what “righteous cause” you think you have which justifies evil. I already brought up partisans; some of ’em are far more familiar with what their party proclaims than what the scriptures do. They naïvely presume their party is God’s party, and always does the right and godly thing, and that’s why they pray for their party’s wishes and success. Now, what if the party’s gone wrong?—what if it’s actually in opposition to God? Well, they can’t abide that idea; don’t you dare even say such a thing. They’ll persecute you like the pagan kings of Israel persecuted the prophets who dared rebuke the king on the LORD’s behalf. But obviously if the party’s gone wrong, God’s not gonna grant its members’ unrighteous prayer requests. I could go on, but you get the gist. If you know God—if you know how your bibles describe God—there are plenty of things you won’t pray. Or you might pray ’em anyway, without thinking, but you _do_ know better, and need to stop it. #### “But God gave me peace about it.” There’s a messed-up phenomenon I’ve seen among certain Christians: They’ll pray for something which God, his prophets, his apostles, and his scriptures have forbidden. They’re _aware_ it’s forbidden. But they believe God’s granting them a special dispensation with this particular prayer request. That scripture which forbids it?— _doesn’t count_. Sometimes they’re dispensationalists, so they believe _lots_ of scriptures don’t count. We no longer live in the Old Testament era, so they claim none of the Old Testament commands count anymore. (Well, except the Ten Commandments, anything which forbids gays, and any commands they’d _like_ to still follow and enforce. Everything else is cancelled out by grace though.) So they can _totally_ request and receive what they want; it’s forbidden no longer! Wanna date your stepmom? Doesn’t matter if the Old Testament forbids it; Lv 18.8 do what thou wilt! Other times they _do_ believe the Old Testament still counts… but in _this_ case, under _these_ circumstances, God grants them an exception. Because they’ve prayed about it. Really hard. Yeah, they felt guilty as hell at first, but after praying and praying ~~and psyching themselves into feeling good about themselves~~ , they believe God has given them a peace about it. He’s no longer forbidden it to them. He’s okay with it. It’s like he told them, right in their spirit, “I myself am love, and I realize how much you love your stepmom, so I will no longer forbid her.” That’s why they feel just fine about praying for their depraved heart’s desires. I’ve used this stepmom example before in my bible study, and had someone in the group object: “Stop; it’s nasty.” Yes I _know_ it’s nasty. Nasty is the point: Plenty of sins, which people so casually justify to ourselves, are _super_ nasty. But people self-justify _so much_ , we’ll even ask God for nasty things. Even claim God gave us his peace about them. And God did no such thing. On the contrary; his Spirit is _still_ shouting into our spirits, “Stop it!”—but we stopped listening to him long ago. _That’s_ why these people have “God’s peace”: They shut God off. They numbed their consciences so much, they can’t tell the difference between God’s peace and spiritual numbness. Can’t tell the difference between good and evil. Can’t tell the difference between devotion and apostasy. Kinda scary when you think about it. Once again: If it defies the scriptures, it’s not God’s will. Not God’s peace either. Gotta repent, and start praying for what God _does_ want.