The scriptures referred to are 1 Corinthians 15:1-11.
Melissa Dougherty is a Christian whose videos I sometimes watch. She is a very intelligent and analytical observer of Christian theology. This week YouTube was flooded with interviews of her about her new book. It's called Happy Lies and it notes a troubling theological thread found in many practices and beliefs of popular Christianity. It tracks the idea back to a 19th century movement called New Thought. This philosophy says that our thoughts can change reality. Dougherty traces this idea from hypnotist Anton Mesmer through faith healer Phineas Quimby whose Mind Cure inspired Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. Its influence on Baptist preacher E.W. Kenyon in turn influenced Kenneth E. Hagin, father of the Word of Faith movement which underlies many Charismatic ministries. In its Christian form, this idea of mind over matter teaches people that through faith you can achieve health, wealth and power. God wants you to have these things and what's holding you back is your lack of faith.
What was weird is that I was independently studying the influence of New Thought on things like faith healing and the prosperity gospel. And then I watched an interview with Dougherty and it all snapped into place. Like me, Dougherty saw a distant connection to Gnosticism, a philosophy that tried to worm its way into the early church. This was the idea that only spirit is good and that you have to master this secret body of knowledge to be saved. We see this in teachings about manifesting and affirmations and visualizing and the law of attraction and exercising our authority to claim a comfortable life.
Of course, like all powerful lies, it contains a kernel of truth. Our thoughts do affect us. A positive attitude helps in life and a negative one can cause us needless problems. In medicine we call these the placebo and nocebo effects. People who go for radiation therapy thinking they won't have much nausea do better than those anticipating getting violently ill afterwards. Our thoughts can have a greater impact on us than we might imagine. But thoughts alone cannot change outside reality. That's called magic.
Dougherty spent years thinking this “name it and claim it” doctrine was Christian. She read and believed a lot of books that taught this as a central Christian doctrine. Only when she studied Christianity did she realize that this was a distortion of the gospel.
The problem is that it ultimately invests human beings with the power of God. We create health, wealth and success through our faith. This puts human beings at the center of Christianity and shifts our focus onto improving our own lives, rather than on serving Jesus and others. In fact, if others don't have these good things, it is not God's will but their insufficient faith that is the cause. People who are poor or sick or not successful are to blame for their own suffering. They just need to believe harder.
The center of Christianity, however, is not ourselves but Jesus. And that is what Paul is saying in our reading from his first letter to the Corinthians.
Apparently there were some who were saying that there is no such thing as the resurrection of the dead. Paul points out that if that's true then neither was Jesus raised from the dead. “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless; you are still in your sins. Furthermore, those who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. For if only in this life we have hope in Christ, we should be pitied more than anyone.” (1 Corinthians 15:14)
The gospel or good news is that “Christ died for our sins...and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day...” (vv.3-4) Anyone executed by the state is not someone the world would consider successful. Jesus did not name and claim that he was healthy and powerful and thus avoid the beating, the whipping, the nailing and death. He did pray that God would let the cup of suffering pass him by. “Yet not what I will, but what you will,” he prayed. (Mark 14:35-36) The Gnostics, who thought matter was bad and only spirit was good, denied that Jesus had a physical body and was crucified. It was at most an illusion. But Paul says that Jesus' death on the cross is of “first importance.” As he wrote earlier in this same letter, “For I decided to be concerned about nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2) Nobody had a greater trust in God than Jesus and yet he suffered terribly. Nor do we get off the hook. Jesus said, “If anyone wants to become my follower, they must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) Following Jesus doesn't mean a comfortable, trouble-free life. As the Dread Pirate Roberts tells us in The Princess Bride, “Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
Nor did Jesus somehow survive crucifixion. He was buried. He was wrapped in a shroud and laid in a tomb and a big rock was rolled in front of the entrance. If he wasn't dead on Friday afternoon, he would most assuredly have perished, lying there without modern medical care, by Sunday morning.
Then God raised Jesus on the third day. If he hadn't, Jesus might have been remembered as a Jewish prophet, though that's doubtful. There were other would-be Messiahs after Jesus. Few people except historians know anything about them. But within 20 years after his execution, Paul and Peter and the other apostles have spread the word about him throughout the Roman empire. Furthermore, they are dying for their faith in Jesus. Would they do that if he hadn't been raised from the dead? Before Jesus appeared to them, the remnants of his disciples were hiding from the authorities in a locked room. (John 20:19) Less than 2 months later, those same authorities arrest and try Peter and John. “And they called them in and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, 'Whether it is right before God to obey you rather than God, you decide, for it is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:18-20) The one thing that eradicated their fear of death was having seen and touched and talked to and eaten with a man who had conquered death. The resurrection convinced them that Jesus was God's son.
Because Paul's letters were written before the gospels were, what follows in the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians is the first ever account of Jesus' resurrection appearances. Besides the ones the gospels mention, Paul tells us “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.” (v.6) That's a pretty bold statement. Paul is essentially saying, “Don't take my word for it. There are hundreds of people who saw him alive after his crucifixion.” In fact, I think that's why the gospels were not the first books of the New Testament to be written. What need was there for them when on any given day of worship, one of the eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus might visit your church and give you a firsthand account? Only when the apostles began to be martyred, as Peter and Paul were under Nero, did it occur to people like Mark, who worked with both men, to get their testimony to Jesus' life, death and resurrection written down. Then Matthew and Luke, using Mark as a template, added what they knew. And then John, writing last, added his account, skipping some parts covered by the others and filling in some gaps left open by them.
Now if anybody had enormous faith, it was the men and women who had encountered the risen Jesus. Yet they did not become wealthy or enjoy worldly success. Paul recites a litany of miserable things he endured as an apostle, including being flogged 5 times, beaten with rods 3 times, being stoned, being shipwrecked, being in danger, suffering hunger, thirst and insufficient clothing during cold weather. (2 Corinthians 11:24-27) In addition, though he healed others (Acts 14:8-10; 20:9-12; 28:8), Paul suffered from some affliction that he called “a thorn in the flesh.” He prayed 3 times that God would take it away but he didn't. Paul came to realize that it kept him from being arrogant. What God told Paul was “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)
It is God's grace that Paul realized was truly essential. He tells us, “For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am...” (vv.9-10) Paul did not merit God's favor because of all he had done in persecuting Christians. But God's grace is his undeserved and unreserved goodness to us and that is the only thing that saves us. As Paul says elsewhere, “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) God's grace saves us, not faith. Faith is not a magical power. Rather it is the conduit through which God saves us by his grace. Faith is trust. We put our trust in God's promises and that allows God to work in us.
Nor does it need to be some huge quantity of faith to be effective. When a father took his son to Jesus to be healed, he said, “'But if you are able to do anything, have compassion on us and help us.' Then Jesus said to him, 'If you are able? All things are possible for the one who believes.' Immediately the father of the boy cried out and said, 'I believe; help my unbelief.'” (Mark 9:2-24) The father admitted that he both believed and yet had some doubts. But that was enough faith for Jesus to work with.
The purpose of faith is to allow us to let God work in and through us. Right after saying we are saved by grace and not works, Paul goes on to say, “For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ for good works that God has prepared beforehand so that we may do them.” (Ephesians 2:10) We are not saved by good works; we are saved by God for good works. Paul says, “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ...It was he who gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God—a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ's full stature. So we are no longer to be children, tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes. But practicing the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head. From him the whole body grows, fitted and held together through every supporting ligament. As each one does its part, the body grows in love.” (Ephesians 4:7, 11-16)
God's grace is given for the ultimate purpose of us growing together in love until we attain the maturity of being like Christ. We are not to fall for clever and attractive twistings of the gospel, which make this all about our achieving our personal desires. We are to use our gifts to equip and help each other as we build up the body of Christ.
In the interview with Michelle Dougherty one of the interviewers gave a very good summary of the questions we should ask whenever we hear some novel version of the gospel.
First, we should ask, “Is it new?” Scripture contains all that is necessary for salvation. God did not forget for 2000 years some key part of what he wanted us to know and preach.
Secondly, we should ask, “Is it secret?” Again Jesus wanted us to proclaim the good news. Secret doctrines are the stuff that cults traffic in. Paul mocked those who were selling secret divine knowledge by saying the open secret of the gospel is that God wants everyone, not just an elite, to become part of the body of Christ. (Ephesians 3:4-6)
Thirdly, we should ask, “What is emphasized?” If it is something other than the good news of the incarnate, crucified and risen Jesus Christ, who came to save us by offering his grace to us through faith in him, then it is probably leading us away from a genuine Christ-centered faith.
Finally, we should ask, “Who gets the glory?” Is it us for our tremendous faith and our authority to manifest our desires or is it God, who sent us Son to save us and sent his Spirit to make us more like Jesus?
Of first importance in our faith is Jesus Christ, who died for us and rose again, vindicating what he taught and assuring us that death should not determine how we live our life. We should not be focused on earthly blessings but spiritual ones. As we see in the Beatitudes, they do not always appear to be blessings in worldly terms. (Matthew 5:2-11) And as we've seen, wealth can be a severe hindrance to entering into God's kingdom. (Luke 18:25)
But even when seeking God's blessings, let's not be like the members of the church at Corinth who were pursuing the flashier spiritual gifts. In response, Paul said, “I will show you a more excellent way.” And he launched into his chapter on the superiority of love. (1 Corinthians 13) Love is the primary fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-23) Jesus said that our love for one another is how the world will know we are his disciples. (John 13:35) As J.B. Phillips put it in his translation, “Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8) Even scientists in a 80 year long study of more than 200 people have found that it is love, not things, that makes for a good life. To paraphrase Jackie DeShannon's song, what the world needs now is love, God's love.
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