Interpretation

The scriptures referred to are Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10.

I saw a one-panel cartoon recently that showed a police car on the side of the road. Another car had obviously just been pulled over and its driver was standing on the side of the road with the cop. And because this is a cartoon, the driver of the other car was a chess piece, specifically a knight, with the big horse head on a pedestal body. The cop is doing a field sobriety test and saying, “Walk in a straight line please.” And the knight is thinking, “Oh boy.”

I bring this up because there is a way of interpreting the Bible that has been called “knight's jump exegesis.” Exegesis is just a fancy word for the critical interpretation of the Bible. It comes from the Greek word “to lead out” and ideally what the exegete is doing is merely bringing out what is there in the text. He or she should not be reading things into the text that aren't there. The most infamous example of that was a preacher in the 1960s who thought there was something wicked about women putting their hair up in a top knot. So he found a proof text. And he preached that Jesus actually said, “Top knot come down.” Except he was taking the words completely out of context. In Matthew 24, Jesus is talking about the end times and what he actually says in verse 17 is “Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house.” [King James Version, emphasis mine] That is hilariously bad exegesis of a single verse.

Since the knight is the only piece in chess that doesn't move in a straight line, but goes 2 spaces in any direction and then one space laterally, “knight's jump exegesis” is stringing together a verse here and a verse there, and then arriving at an entirely novel interpretation. It is wrenching verses out of their contexts and performing a shotgun wedding on them in order to support your view.

You see this when preachers take Paul's saying that Christians who are alive when Jesus returns “will be caught up together with them [the resurrected dead] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,” and then try to make that fit into any other apocalyptic text. This is the so-called “rapture” that some preachers go on about, where they say Jesus will come down out of heaven, scoop up believers and like a yo-yo return to heaven while all the unbelievers on earth suffer through the Great Tribulation. It is mentioned in only one of the 33,000 verses of the Bible (1 Thessalonians 4:17) and you both have to take it literally and then force it into the series of events constructed from the highly symbolic visions recorded in Daniel and Revelation. I have to confess that I love the elaborate and often brightly colored End of the World timelines that certain fundamentalists draw up to ingeniously include every apocalyptic detail mentioned. But I wonder why, since no one ever proposes that the Antichrist will actually have 7 heads and ten crowns, they are so sure the other stuff is literally true?

What got me thinking about this is a comment someone once left on my blog, decrying interpreting the Bible. I went to that person's blog and Lo and Behold! he was offering his interpretation of the Bible. His case would have been stronger had his blog merely been passages of scripture, without anything else. And ideally those sections of the Bible would be in the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, because it is impossible to translate from one language to another without making some interpretive decisions.

I thought about this as I was perusing our passage from Nehemiah. After the Persians conquer the Babylonian empire, Nehemiah gets permission to go to Jerusalem in the 3^rd wave of returning exiles to rebuild its walls. He finds that not only are the walls of the city broken down, so are the people. They feel God let them down. In today's passage the priest Ezra, who had a hand in rebuilding the temple, leads a ceremony in which the people renew their covenant with God. He reads aloud from “the book of the law of Moses.” We are not sure if this is the whole Torah or one of the books in it or parts of it. I don't think it was everything from Genesis to Deuteronomy because the session takes 6 hours and we are told, in a verse inexplicably dropped from our reading, that the Levites, assistants to the priesthood, “instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there.” (v.7) It goes on to say, “So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” The Hebrew can be translated, “making it clear and giving the meaning...” In other words, this wasn't a bare-bones reading of the text and only the text. They were explaining the meaning of the text. In essence this was a 6 hour Bible study.

Why were they interpreting the scriptures rather than merely reading them? Possibly because, since the texts were first written, Hebrew had evolved, as all languages do. The King James version is only 400 years old but parts of it are hard to understand because English has changed in that time. Or the Levites had to interpret it because the people spoke Aramaic or the Babylonian tongue and Hebrew had become mostly a liturgical language, like Latin in the Roman Catholic church. But it might have been the problem we all have when diving deeply into some parts of the Bible, especially the Old Testament. Some passages are difficult to take in on an initial reading. A superficial reading can obscure the deeper meaning. Context and the culture at the time must be taken into account. The post-exilic Jews were not the Israelites coming out of Egypt. They were farther removed from them than we are from Shakespeare. They needed help getting the right message from the scriptures read.

This is especially true today. Most passages from the Bible can be taken at face value. There is nothing ambiguous about what Jesus says at his trial when the high priest asks him, “'Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?' 'I am,' said Jesus.” (Mark 14:61-62) There is nothing unclear about Jesus saying that the two greatest commandments were to “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength' The second is: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31) There is nothing equivocal about Jesus saying, “I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35) But not every passage in the Bible is that clear.

I have a book entitled Hard Sayings of the Bible. In it 4 biblical scholars tackle just about every passage that bothers or confuses people. Currently I have it at the jail because I have to field a lot of inquiries from people with little to do but read the Bible and puzzle over the difficult passages. There are other books with scholars wrestling with different interpretations and approaches to topics like the Canaanite genocide in the book of Joshua. I have on my Kindle such titles as Banned Questions about Jesus, Four Views of Hell, and Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God. I am learning a lot through books like Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes and the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. And while I can't say there is one definitive answer to every question, neither are there any questions for which no answer exists and which unravel the faith and everything we know about God.

Our older brothers and sisters in faith do not have any qualms about interpreting scripture. Go to a yeshiva, an Orthodox Jewish school or seminary, and you will be overwhelmed by the noise of students and teachers questioning and offering interpretations and debating every line of the Torah. Basically the Talmud is a yeshiva in writing, a commentary on the Torah in the form of a multi-generational discussion among rabbis. They feel God's Word is rich with meanings that are not always found on the surface.

This is not to say that every interpretation is equally valid. For instance, the story of a city gate named the Needle's Eye doesn't really explain Jesus' comment about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of God. That gate didn't exist in Jesus' time but only goes back to the Middle Ages. Jesus' point is that it is impossible. The disciples realize this and ask “Then who can be saved?” To which Jesus replies, “This is impossible for mere humans, but for God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:23-26) In other words, we are all dependent on God's grace for our salvation. The rich, who have a lot of resources, may have a harder time not relying on them or the tactics they used to get or stay rich, and thus might try to save themselves. What they should do instead is humble themselves and simply trust in God's grace.

Interpretation is not the problem; bad interpretation is. Bad interpretation comes from taking things out of context, ignoring the culture or the history, or not comparing it with other biblical passages on the same topic to see how it fits in or how it or the other verses might lend nuance to the subject. The worst interpretations come from people reading things into scripture that simply aren't there. I have bookmarked an article entitled 67 Surprising Things Not Found in the Bible [here]. Among the things that writer David Housholder points out as missing in scripture are the battle of Armageddon, a singular apocalyptic Antichrist figure, any mention of abortion or transgenderism, pro or con, the idea that women can't wear pants (nobody in the Bible does), the existence of ordained clergy, most Christian holidays and church seasons or whether Jesus had long hair, a beard or was single. As the author says, “I'm just stating a list of things that the Bible simply does not explicitly teach. They may be true, but not because 'the Bible tells me so.'” He admits that we can deduce some things by connecting the dots, like the Trinity, and acknowledges some things are implicit. And it is often what is implicit that can be brought out by careful interpretation.

For instance, at last week's Bible study we looked at the wedding in Cana. The fact that Jesus' mother was there and working with the food and refreshments implies that this is probably the wedding of a relative. Jesus and his disciples probably got their invitation because of that or because Nathaniel was from Cana. Most scholars acknowledge that. What someone at the Bible study pointed out that when Mary ignored Jesus' comment that the wine situation had nothing to do with him, it must mean she knew Jesus had the power to rectify the situation. What had Jesus done before his ministry to convince her of that? And someone else pointed out that if Jesus converted all the jars of water into wine, what were the guests to wash with? Were there other jars of water in the house?

To understand the Bible you have to interpret it. And the best way to do that is to not only study the Bible but use multiple translations, commentaries, Bible dictionaries, concordances, and topical bibles, all of which can be found online at sites like biblehub.com or the Logos Bible app. Studying the Bible with other people is enlightening because they will sometimes notice things you don't or share a perspective you don't have. And remember, no one is always right nor is anyone always wrong. Don't fail to use your own mind simply because you usually agree or disagree with someone. Knee jerk acceptance or rejection of an interpretation isn't much better than knight's jump exegesis.

Interpreting the Bible is a very biblical thing to do. And some passages are difficult. We may have to wrestle with them as Jacob wrestled with the Lord. He didn't give up but said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” And he got that blessing. Often struggling with some text yields a greater understanding and sharper insight. Martin Luther's struggle with the text “The righteous shall live by faith” brought him a whole new understanding of our relationship with God.

I believe everything in the Bible is there for a purpose. That purpose might be to stimulate us to question why we think one way or the other about something. It might be for us to move beyond a simplistic understanding of a verse or passage or topic. We may even have to embrace paradox, as researchers in quantum physics have to do. And don't think that scientists have everything figured out. In fact, the wisest ones realize that it is questions and acknowledging what we don't know that moves science forward. It is our questions about God and his word that moves our spirituality forward.

Some people think God is unknowable. The truth is that while we cannot comprehend the totality of God, we can know the essentials: that he is loving and just and merciful and that he created us in his image and desires that we grow to be like him. Our most vital information about God comes from Jesus, our vast God focused in terms we can understand: a human being. What we learn from him is that we need not fear what we do not know about God. We can trust him. And because of that, we need not fear anything. Not pain, nor death, nor judgment, nor our own imperfection. Though we don't know everything about him, he knows all about us. And he loves us anyway. In that solid fact, we can put our faith.

Gifted

The scriptures referred to are 1 Corinthians 12:1-11.

A little boy was very restless during the sermon one Sunday. He was fidgeting, playing with the cards and envelopes in the pew pocket in front of him, dropping the pencil and getting down and crawling under the pew to retrieve it, then dropping the hymnal, climbing over his parents and being none too quiet about it all. At first it was cute but eventually he was distracting everyone including the preacher who lost his place a couple times. Finally, the kid's mom bent close to his ear, whispered something and the boy sat stock still for the rest of the sermon. As they were leaving the church, the preacher shook the little boy's hand and complimented him for being so quiet for the last half of the sermon. Then he shook the mother's hand and asked what she had said to him. She said, “I just told him that if he didn't stop interrupting the sermon, you were going to start over.”

Which reminds me of a joke my friend Arnie told me. After the service a woman goes up to the preacher and says, “Your sermons remind me of the grace of God.” Pleased, the preacher says, “Thank you!” Fishing for more compliments, the preacher asks, “In what way do they remind you of God's grace?” And she says, “They are beyond human comprehension and neverending.”

I have to confess: I don't like listening to most sermons. Part of that is how hard it is not to critique how others are doing what you do. It takes you out of the sermon when you are aware of the rhetorical techniques and the gaps in information being shared or in the logic being displayed. You find yourself going, “I would have done it differently.” I imagine it is the same problem that any director or conductor or actor has watching someone else's performance of something they had done.

Another part of it is being so familiar with most topics that after 5 minutes you kinda know what they are going to say. I used to love listening to an aged colleague preach because, with 50 years of doing this behind him, every sermon was a medley of his greatest hits. You couldn't be bored because he didn't stay with any topic for very long. If you didn't like what he was saying at present, just wait a few minutes. It would change. Because I never knew where his sermon would ultimately take us, I found the wild ride to get there exhilarating.

Sadly, we assume that sermons, and worship services in general, are inevitably dull. That doesn't appear to be the case in the early church where we are told everyone would contribute: a song, a lesson, a revelation, a message in tongues and an interpretation of that message. We are told that 2 or 3 people might get up and speak, with others evaluating what is said. And if someone had a revelation, the current speaker was to shut up. (1 Corinthians 14:26-31) No one person was allowed to drone on. Except Paul, whom we are told in Acts once preached so long one night that a young man named Eutychus who was sitting in the window fell asleep and fell out. He plummeted 3 stories and died. “But Paul went down, threw himself on the young man, and embraced him. 'Do not be alarmed!' he said, 'He is still alive.'” You'd think Paul would have learned his lesson, but the passage goes on to say, “Then Paul went back upstairs, broke bread, and ate. After speaking until daybreak, he departed. And the people were greatly relieved to take the boy home alive.” (Acts 20:10-12) Not to mention relieved that Paul had stopped talking. I will never do that to you. I haven't the gift to raise the dead.

And most of our epistle today is about spiritual gifts found in church members, some of which we don't see much of these days. Before I get to them, though, I want to point out a few things Paul emphasizes. First, there's the source of the gifts. “Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God that activates all of them in everyone.” Many gifts, one God. And I like how Paul is not merely being rhetorical but enumerating the types of things given and the roles of the persons of the Trinity. The gifts are all distributed by the Spirit; the ministries are all serving the Lord Jesus; the Father is actively working in each person and in each gift.

There is also the nature of the source of the gifts. There is that odd verse where Paul says, “Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says 'Let Jesus be cursed!' and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Spirit.” Why would anyone ever assume that someone filled with God's Spirit would say “Let Jesus be cursed?” But according to the New Bible Commentary, the Greek can be translated “Let Jesus [grant] a curse.” Archaeologists have excavated curse tablets from ancient pagan temples. A worshiper would write on lead or some other material a request that a god curse an athletic, business, political or romantic rival. In the temple of Demeter in Corinth, they found a curse tablet that said, “Hermes of the underworld [grant] heavy curses.” Paul is saying that God doesn't act that way. He is not a genie, granting wishes for curses on your opponents. He is the God who is love.

It follows that the various gifts that come from God are intended to serve “the common good.” This is especially important because some of these gifts are flashier than others but the purpose is not to draw attention to the person exercising the gift but to serve everyone. You see this principle violated all the time in organizations. Some people have roles that are more eye-catching, and if they let that go to their heads, they end up aggrandizing themselves at the expense of the organization. You see it in rock bands where a lead singer or musician leaves the group to launch a solo career, which may or may not work out for them but never helps the band they left. A character in a sitcom stands out and all of a sudden the show is not about the Cunningham family but the Fonz, or not about the Winslow family but Urkel. We see it in business where a superstar CEO makes the business all about them and the fortunes of the company rise and fall with the person's popularity or infamy. You see it in politicians who forget they are supposed to be serving their state or their country. Paul is saying “It's not all about you.” You need to be thinking about others and serving the common good.

Then Paul gets down to the individual gifts. First he mentions the “utterance of wisdom.” Some people have the ability to take the long view, to see the big picture, to foresee the consequences of a course of action. They ask not “Can we do something?” but “Should we? And if we should, how do we go about it?” These people are invaluable. They keep the church focused on what is essential, what is ethical and what is practical. Sadly, this is one of the less flashy gifts. And sometimes in the heat of the moment these cooler heads are often seen as wet blankets, even when they aren't saying “Let's not do this” but “Let's not do it this way.” People who are excited about something don't want someone saying, “Slow down and let's think this through.”

Next Paul looks at the “utterance of knowledge.” Certain people soak up facts and useful, if sometimes out of the way, details. They tuck away information on how things work and how to make, use or fix them. They know how to deal with organizations or bureaucracies. They know the legal issues one will encounter. They may have picked up their expertise from their job, or their hobbies or their experiences. But what they offer are not their gut feelings but actual knowledge. They offer their opinion only if asked.

Then Paul moves to the gift of faith. Wait! Aren't we all to have faith in God? Yes, but we have it in various degrees. It doesn't take much to be effective. Jesus said that faith as small as a mustard seed would enough to remove a mountain. (Matthew 17:20) The father who said to Jesus, “Lord, I do believe; help my unbelief” had his son healed by Jesus. (Mark 9:24) After all, the power is not in us but in our God. Yet some people trust God more. It's not that the amount of faith you have increases the amount God can do for you; it increases what you are willing to attempt. Peter was able to walk on the water towards Jesus at least briefly. (Matthew 14:25-31) None of the other disciples stirred from the boat. I sincerely think that when Jesus said to the disciples concerning the 5000, “You feed them,” he meant it. (Mark 6:36) They had just returned from going out two by two to spread the good news and heal people. (Mark 6:7-13) But they did not yet trust God enough to try to feed the multitude, so Jesus stepped in to show the how to do it. Some people have the gift of trusting God more than the average Christian and those people can do wonders.

Speaking of which, Paul now gets into the miraculous gifts. What are we to make of these? Some churches have members who apparently manifest them; other churches feel that this was phenomena reserved for kicking off the new thing God was doing by creating the church, rather like the tongues of flame and mass speaking in tongues on Pentecost. They feel that time is over. I must confess that I am ambivalent about this subject. After all my own recovery can be seen as miraculous, considering the severity of my injuries. Hundreds of people prayed for me. And I don't like to discount the experiences of other Christians. Yet there is little evidence of this being widespread these days. We also know that unscrupulous religious leaders and so-called “faith healers” use all kind of illusions and tricks to fake miracles. And I feel that too much focus on such things can be unhealthy, as indeed Paul felt. The whole reason for this discussion is that the church in Corinth considered those with flashier gifts to be more spiritual than those with the less dramatic ones. Paul is saying that no one has every gift and all gifts are important.

So does that mean the rest of this passage has nothing to say to those who do not manifest the miraculous gifts? I don't think so, any more than I think Paul's discussion of the problem of eating meat previously offered to idols is irrelevant. That issue was about the attitude and behavior of Christians who recognized that other gods don't exist, and whose consciences were strong enough not to be bothered by it, towards those who, recently converted from paganism, could not bring themselves to eat meat. The underlying principle, that the stronger Christians should accommodate the ones whose consciences were troubled by the issue, is still valid.

Plus, as we saw with faith, the gifts exist on a continuum. Even if someone can't cure people with a touch and a prayer, there are those with a knack for healing. Though someone may not be able to perform miracles like multiplying food, there are those who can do "powerful works," which is closer to the literal Greek. Even if someone can't speak tongues one hasn't learned, there are those with a talent for acquiring languages. When I and my fellow classmates were struggling with Greek, I had a friend who never met a language he couldn't master. Again someone might not be able to miraculously interpret tongues, there are those who can translate what others say into words that folks can understand. C.S. Lewis, for instance, read classical theologians in their own languages and was able to communicate the riches of their thoughts in conversational English.

You may have noticed that I skipped two gifts on Paul's list: prophesy and discernment of spirits. That's because those two gifts are not as rare as the others. We tend to think that prophesy is exclusively about prediction but it is not so much about foretelling events as relaying God's message, whether it has to do with past, present or future. At Pentecost, the Spirit spoke through all the disciples but they weren't talking about what would happen but what had happened in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, as well as the present outpouring of the Spirit. The key to prophesy is God speaking through the person. If you look at the prophets in the Old Testament you will see that they are giving messages of God's judgment on certain behaviors and attitudes as well as words of reassurance and restoration to the oppressed and those who heed God's word and turn their lives around. As someone has put it, the prophet is called to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

A good preacher can be prophetic, provided she/he is intent on communicating God's word rather than personal opinions. The preacher's focus should be on God's agenda, not his or hers. The preacher should expound the principles of the kingdom of God, not the policies of a specific political party or politician.

Which brings me to a gift rarely mentioned: the discernment of spirits. Remember that the worship service described by Paul had opportunity for anyone who had a contribution in the form of song or a lesson or a prophesy to share it. Obviously that format could allow some people to push their own agendas or their own peculiar interpretations of scripture or their own supposed revelation. Paul said some others had to evaluate what was offered. Some people had the gift of distinguishing if these things were in fact being offered in the right Spirit. Were they in line with the Spirit of God who produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control in us? This is a much needed gift today where we often hear of so-called Christians saying and doing awful things in the name of Christ. Someone needs to point out that these things are not done or said in the Spirit of Jesus.

The purpose of all of this should be, as Paul says elsewhere, “to equip God's people for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ...” (Ephesians 4:12) Again all of these gifts are to be used for the common good. And everyone has a gift. Though maybe not these. This is just one of 3 such lists we find in Paul's epistles. None are exhaustive. But we are assured that God activates gifts in everyone.

So how do you figure out what your gifts are? They are usually at the intersection of what you are good at and what is good for the body of Christ. And often they are also what you enjoy doing, at least once you really get into using them. Sometimes the reason you haven't found your gifts is because you haven't stepped out of the rut of what you usually do. Move out of your comfort zone; try doing something else and see if you have the knack for it. The only way anybody learns if they can do something and if they like it is by trying it. That's how kids find their talent for music, sports, drama, writing, making stuff, etc. And as Paul tells his protege Timothy, “God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

It is God's intention that we all have some ministry, some way of serving others and building up the body of Christ. Or as it says in 1 Peter 2:5, “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood...” Too often we think the only priest is the person with the most visible ministry. But, to paraphrase Paul, if the whole body was a mouth, how would you see or hear or do anything? The guy at the altar or behind the pulpit can't do it all. Fortunately he doesn't have to. Each of you has been given gifts to equip you to minister to the church. Which means each of you is a gift to the church, bestowed upon us by the Father of lights, the giver of every good and perfect gift.

Mystery Solved

The scriptures referred to are Ephesians 3:1-12.

One of the things that motivated Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes was that he hated mystery stories that relied on coincidence or sudden hunches on the part of the detective. Consequently, he created Sherlock Holmes in the mold of his medical teacher Dr. Joseph Bell who could diagnose patients before they sat down by observation and logical inference. Doyle wanted to have his detective solve mysteries by using his intelligence to put together the clues. In the world of mystery writing, laying out all the facts is called “playing fair.” The writer is supposed to share all the information needed to solve the mystery with the reader, albeit in ways that are not obvious. Diverting the reader's attention from telling details are legitimate provided the crucial facts are there or can be worked out by the truly attentive. Ideally the clever reader should be able to figure out whodunnit or howdunnit before the detective reveals the solution. If the reader doesn't, he or she should be able to go back through the story and see that the clues were there all along. Unfortunately, Doyle wasn't always good at this as Holmes would sometimes get vital information from personal investigations or in telegrams he did not share with Watson, and therefore the reader, until he revealed his findings at the end. But subsequent mystery writers like Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers or J.K. Rowling have been scrupulous in laying out the clues that will reveal the solution to the discerning reader.

The word “epiphany” goes back to the Greek word for “revelation.” It is the day that the church celebrates the Jewish Messiah being revealed as the savior of the Gentiles as well. We remember the wise men or magi arriving at Bethlehem. We remember the prophesies that this would happen in the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh. And we remember Paul's ministry to the Gentiles, which initially came as a surprise to him.

In our passage from Ephesians Paul is playing with an idea that was current in the pagan world; namely, that the truth about existence was only known to initiates in what we call mystery religions. One of the most insidious was actually a philosophy called Gnosticism. Gnosis is Greek for knowledge. The core of the Gnostic mystery is that the material world is evil and only the realm of the spirit is good. Therefore the material world was not created by God who is pure spirit but by a lesser being. The divine spark is imprisoned in our bodies and could only be liberated by learning this secret knowledge, which was revealed only to the elite. Thus it is not about sin so much as ignorance. And some Gnostics were ascetic in an attempt to be as spiritual as possible while others, figuring that you couldn't avoid the body and material world in this life, indulged in anything they desired, while mentally trying to stay above all that.

These ideas were attractive, even to certain Christians, and I think they crept in and damaged the church regarding attitudes towards sex and the body. But they go against our basic beliefs. For instance, we believe that the material world is not inherently evil but was created by God and pronounced good by him. Evil is rather the misuse, abuse or neglect of those good gifts. While gaining knowledge is good, using that knowledge wisely is more important. And salvation comes not from merely knowing things about God but by putting your trust in him and in especially in Jesus who reveals what God is really like.

So Paul is using the then-popular idea of mystery differently. But he is using it appropriately. The Tanakh, the only Bible extant at the time of the apostles, was widely seen as God's message to the Jews, his chosen people. But like any good mystery the clues that God was interested in saving the whole world were there all along.

It begins in Genesis when God first calls Abram. “The Lord had said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.'” (Genesis 12:1-3, emphasis mine) So God may be choosing the descendants of Abram but not merely as recipients of his favor. He is choosing them as his instrument to bless the whole world.

Again, in Isaiah, God says to his servant, the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel, ie, the Messiah: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6) God intends to restore and save not only his people Israel but people from all nations. Like any mystery, the clues are there for the perceptive person to find.

But the mystery goes deeper and might surprise even the cleverest puzzle-solver. It is not that God has a different plan for non-Jews than for Jews but that “the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” The largely Jewish church is not to provide a “separate but equal” ministry to the Gentiles but welcome them into the same group, that is, the body of Christ.

A lot of Jews missed the clues in the Tanakh that the blessings of Abraham were to go to the Gentiles as well, and that God's salvation was for all the nations of the earth. (“Nations” is the literal meaning of “Gentiles.”) Some even thought the purpose of the Gentiles was simply to fuel the fires of hell. But even the most charitable did not see that God would make one people of the Jews and the Gentiles. Indeed Paul did not see this at first.

When he entered a city on his early missionary journeys, Paul would go to the local synagogues and preach from the scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. (Acts 13:5; 18:4) And while he did convince many Jews, he had more response among the God-fearers, Gentiles who, without quite converting to Judaism, nevertheless were attracted to it enough to come to the synagogue. When opposition from the leadership in the synagogues was fierce, Paul would turn to such Gentiles. (Acts 13:44-52) Eventually those who followed Jesus were no longer welcome in the synagogues and met in the houses of believers, usually those with homes big enough to accommodate such a gathering. There were churches that met in the house of Lydia, the first convert in what is now Greece (Acts 16:14-15, 40), the house of the husband and wife ministry team of Aquila and Priscilla (Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:9), the house of Nymphas (Colossians 4:15), the house of Philemon and others. (Philemon 1:2) Indeed we have a lot of evidence that the way the number of believers grew was through the social networks of friends and families and so we have entire households who converted. (Romans 16:10-11; 1 Corinthians 1:11, 16) It is probable that on subsequent journeys Paul visited these house-churches more than the synagogues and they became his bases for his operations in the areas. The first buildings made specifically for Christian worship don't appear until the 2^nd half of the 3^rd century. Most were destroyed in the first half of the next century during the last great persecution of the church under Diocletian.

So hosting a church meant inviting both Jews and Gentiles into your house to worship and to dine together. Christian worship originally involved an agape or love feast, from which we retain the Eucharist. So do you serve only kosher food, so as not to offend Jewish Christians? Do you not serve meat, so as not to offend the consciences of new Christians who can't get over the fact that most meat markets sell the surplus of pagan sacrifices? These are some of the issues the churches had to deal with. And having people from different cultures complicated things.

But Paul would not back down on this. Not even when the self-described “least of the saints” saw Jesus' right hand man waver on the issues. In Galatians Paul describes how Peter, who baptized the Gentile household of Cornelius, withdrew from eating and associating with Gentile Christians because of Jewish Christians visiting from Jerusalem. Paul confronts him about this, reminding him that we are not saved by following the law but through trusting in Jesus. (Galatians 2:11-16)

Even though he was called to be the “apostle to the Gentiles” (Romans 11:13), Paul seems to always be conscious of the amount of difficulty this brought to the church. Thus he exhorts believers to unity and peace in practically every letter he sends to the churches. He wrote that Jesus went to the cross not only to reconcile God and humanity but to reconcile human beings of different types. (Ephesians 2:11-22) After all, our divisions are also the result of sin. In fact, God's plan ultimately is “through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:20)

We are given the “ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18) And so Paul says, “...from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view...if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17) What a person was before coming to Jesus is no longer relevant. And it goes beyond racial and cultural differences. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave or free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) And that statement of equality in Christ was quite radical.

In his book The Triumph of Christianity, sociologist Rodney Stark argues that “Women were especially drawn to Christianity because it offered them a life that was so greatly superior to the life they otherwise would have led.” Stark explains that Greek women lived in semi-seclusion, not only largely confined to the home but forbidden access to the front rooms in the house. When they went out they were covered from head to toe and accompanied by a male relative, very much like women today in very conservative Islamic countries. Roman women had a bit more freedom but not much. And even Jewish women, who were not sequestered, were under the control of men. Based on Roman funerary inscriptions, we know that half of pagan women married before the age of 15, with 20% aged 12 or younger. But nearly half of Christian women were not married until they were 18. At that time there were few if any barriers to men divorcing their wives, nor in the case of non-Jews, forcing them to have abortions (and there was no such thing as anesthesia!) In an era before soap or antiseptic technique, this led to the death of many women, with the survivors often left sterile. Husbands could decide to have a child “exposed” or left on the side of the road, if it was considered too sickly or if it was a daughter! Few Romans raised more than 1 daughter. Consequently there was shortage of pagan women.

On these matters Christianity dramatically differed from the culture. Christians did not support divorce, abortion or the exposure of infants, so more girls got to live and women lived longer. In fact, so lopsided was the ratio of men and women that Stark writes, “Many Christian girls had to marry pagan men or remain single, and for many pagan men, it was either a Christian bride or bachelorhood.” This led to secondary conversions of husbands to the Christianity of their wives, as well as more children raised in the faith of the more religious parent, which holds true today.

In addition early Christianity offered women a role in religion that most pagan religions didn't. In the last chapter of his letter to the Romans, Paul sends personal greetings to 18 men and 15 women. Among them are Phoebe, a deaconess, Priscilla, who with her husband are called “my fellow workers in Christ Jesus,” and Junia, whom Paul calls an apostle! (Romans 16:1-3, 7) There are also 4 women who we are told “work hard in the Lord.” (Romans 16:6, 12) Women held positions of leadership rather like their Jewish counterparts. Stark writes, “in some Diasporan communities (beyond the reach of patriarchs in Palestine) women held leadership roles in some synagogues, including 'elder,' 'leader of the synagogue,' 'mother of the synagogue,' and 'presiding officer,' as is supported by inscriptions found in Smyrna and elsewhere.” We know that in early Christianity women held similar positions, whereas only in a few temples devoted to goddesses were pagan women allowed any significant religious roles. Stark concludes “The rise of Christianity depended upon women.”

In addition, though scripture did not call for the abolition of slavery, Christians could pick up on the clues on this issue. Paul tells slaves, whom Rome allowed to make and save money, that if they could buy their freedom they should. (1 Corinthians 7:21) He tells masters not to mistreat or threaten their slaves, because they are their siblings in Christ and both have a Master in heaven who will judge all. (Colossians 4:1; Ephesians 6:9) He hints pretty heavily that Philemon free his runaway slave Onesimus, rather than punish him. (Read the whole of Philemon.) It became so common for Christians to free their slaves, or buy fellow Christians out of slavery, that the practice was prohibited by the emperor Diocletian under the last great persecution of the church. Slaves were also allowed to become clergy, including 2 popes, and even a bishop of Ephesus named Onesimus!

God is love and love brings people together, including combinations of people you wouldn't think would go together. A good example is the House of All Sinners and Saints, an ELCA church started by recovering alcoholic and stand up comic turned Lutheran pastor, the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber. Originally, it was for people who did not fit in at your average church. Preaching a message of God's radical grace and forgiveness, word of her church, which met in the parish hall of an Episcopal church, started to spread. And when people who look like they normally go to church began attending, Bolz-Weber was afraid it would lead to the dilution of her unique congregation. Then an LGBT parishioner said he liked that their church included people who looked like his parents but who accepted him. That convinced her that God was indeed at work in her mission.

Spoilers! The mystery of Christ has been revealed: God is love and there are no limits to whom God loves. So it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that as followers of his son, we should not exclude anyone from access to his grace. The body of Christ is open to all who respond to his call. The first few generations of Christians understood that and practiced radical inclusiveness and self-sacrificial love. It looks like we have forgotten the very thing that made the early church grow. In order to fulfill the ministry of reconciliation entrusted to us, we need to go out of our comfort zones and invite people of every variety to join us in following Jesus. As he said, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd.” (John 10:16) Any sheep who hears the call of Jesus and comes must be welcomed into the flock. We mustn't second-guess the Shepherd. He came to save the lost at any cost. As someone has said, Jesus leaving 99 sheep to find just one seems illogical, irrational and senseless...until that one is you.