Gender

I have been playing with a SHACK version of my Bible paraphrase, and I’ve run into the issue of gender. I am referring to the Father as ‘Papa’ and to the Spirit as ‘Sarayu.’ And it occurred to me if I want to be speaking the scriptures in SHACK language, then I should refer to both of them as ‘she’ and ‘her.’

It’s fascinating how jarring a feminine pronoun can be. And I think the jarring is good. Paul Young wanted to yank people out of their ruts and just get them to start thinking in fresh ways. The depiction of Papa as a woman certainly does that.

But it still feels weird. Because I know gender is theologically relevant. There is nothing of the feminine that is lacking in God, but still, Jesus prayed to his Father, not his Mother, and there’s a REASON for that. I know from being a parent that the father-child relation is not interchangeable with the mother-child relation. Besides, Jesus HAD a mother; her name was Mary, and he was never interested in praying to her.

I’ve read Gary Deddo’s stuff where he grounds human gender differences in the Triune life. I thought that stuff was interesting, but it’s still foggy to me. If I recall correctly, Gary says the Father plays a masculine role as giver, while Jesus plays a feminine role (in relation to the Father) as a receiver of the Father’s gifts. But in that case, does that mean we should be calling Jesus “she”? That doesn’t sound right.

Anyway, I’m really just wrestling today; I don’t have answers to these questions. Anybody got some feedback for me?

- John Stonecypher

“Christian or Non-Christian?” Is Not The Gospel!

The Gospel, or Good News, is Jesus Christ in His Relationship with God the Trinity, Humanity and all of Creation!

This is not to say that there is something wrong with being a Christian or being a Non-Christian. I am a Christian and believe it my earnest obligation in the grace of the Trinity to identify myself with the Body of Christ. I believe it to be the earnest obligation in the grace of the Trinity for a non-Christian to identify themselves with the vision they have been handed on by Triune God!

Please notice that with regard to non-Christians, I said “The vision they have been handed on by the Triune God” NOT “their own personal vision about God,” as there is a SIGNIFICANT difference in those two ways of putting it!

Rather than trying to explain myself thoroughly with regard to the things I have noted so far, I would like to present you with three quotes that will do the job much better. Chew on these quotes in the light of Jesus Christ in His Relationship with All things and see if you can’t feel my heart rather than just read my words.

The world does not consist of 100 per cent. Christians and 100 per cent. non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influ­ence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agree­ment with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teach­ing on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together. Consequently, it is not much use trying to make judgments about Christians and non­-Christians in the mass. It is some use comparing cats and dogs, or even men and women, in the mass, because there one knows definitely which is which. Also, an animal does not turn (either slowly or suddenly) from a dog into a cat. But when we are comparing Christians in general with non-Christians in general, we are usually not thinking about real people whom we know at all, but only about two vague ideas which we have got from novels and newspapers. ~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 208-209

Karl Barth: On the basis of the eternal will of God we have to think of every human being, even the oddest, most villainous or miserable, as one to whom Jesus Christ is Brother and God is Father; and we have to deal with him on this assumption. If the other person knows that already, then we have to strengthen him in that knowledge. If he does not know it yet, or no longer knows it, our business is to transmit this knowledge to him. On the basis of the knowledge of the humanity of God no other attitude to any kind of fellow man is possible. It is identical with the practical acknowledgement of his human rights and his human dignity. To deny it to him would be for us to renounce having Jesus Christ as Brother and God as Father. The Humanity of God, p. 53. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982.

Michael Jinkins: Think again of [Karl] Barth’s statement: “Jesus Christ is the secret truth about the essential nature of man.” The deep, hidden secret about our humanity is not that we are descended from Adam, it is not that we have in our family tree a fratricidal character like Cain, nor is it that our family closet is full of skeletons that rattle in the dark, which we must keep hidden at all costs. No indeed. Jesus Christ is our family secret. This is the heart of Paul’s gospel, and it turns the Fall on its head. Christ identifies so completely with our humanity that we come to discover our true identity only in and through him. Christ is, to use Paul’s expression, the one for the many or the one for all. Who Christ is, he is for all humanity and not merely for the Jewish nation and certainly not [merely] for the members of some Johnnycome-lately Gentile cult [i.e. Christianity]. ~ Invitation to Theology, pp. 166-167. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarstiy Press, 2001.

~ Timothy J. Brassell

The Salvation of Adam

This is one of my favorite quotes from the writings of the Church Fathers.

It comes from Irenaeus of Lyon’s discussion of the question of whether Adam is saved:

. . . inasmuch as humanity is saved, it is fitting that he who was created the original human should be saved. For it is too absurd to maintain that he who was so deeply injured by the enemy, and was the first to suffer captivity, was not rescued by Him who conquered the enemy, but that his children were — those whom he had begotten in the same captivity. Neither would the enemy appear to be as yet conquered, if the old spoils remained with him. ~ Against All Heresies, Book 3, Chap. 23, Para. 2 .

This is one of my favorite quotes because it is radically different from what you usually hear modern, American, evangelical preachers of the gospel say.

I think most of us, if asked, wouldn’t know how to answer the question “is Adam saved?” But to Irenaeus it is a no-brainer. He says “it’s absurd to think that Jesus would save the human race and not save the father of the human race!”

How many contemporary preachers do you know who begin their gospel thinking on the premise that the human race has been saved in Jesus? No too many, I think.

Is Irenaeus, then, a universalist? No – he understands that all humanity has been adopted into the life of the Trinity and saved from the devil, but that doesn’t mean that all humanity believes this truth about themselves. In our distinction we can still choose to believe the enemy’s lie that we are his captives, even when the truth is that Jesus has rescued us all.

But the starting point of the gospel – in the Bible and in this quote from Irenaeus – is not what we believe about ourselves but rather what is actually true about us. And what is actually true is this: we have all been adopted and rescued in the humanity of Jesus.

Thank you Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit!

~ Jonathan Stepp

Amazing Wrath, How Sweet the Sound

When I was a kid, I thought anger was a bad thing.  The only anger I knew about was the kind of anger that said “You hurt me, so I need to hurt you.”  I thought the purpose of anger was to inflict pain.  Growing up, I didn’t like that the people around me were angry.  And I hated the idea of God being angry.

From a very early age, I coped with anger by ignoring it, by denying it and refusing to express it.  I became so good at suppressing my angry feelings, I learned to not even experience them.  Anger was inside me, but I taught myself to be blind and numb to it.

It sounded like a good idea at the time.  I never got mad; I thought it was a wonderful character trait.  I sometimes even found myself wishing that God could be as understanding and patient as me [Pause for lightning bolt to smite John].

But as I came into adulthood, I discovered that when anger is inside, it eventually gets out.  I looked at my life and saw a lifetime of passive-aggressive behavior that I hadn’t even noticed.  I had gone through life, spreading subtle unkindness wherever I went.  And sometimes it wasn’t so subtle.  My anger issues came to a head one day when, in the middle of a crowd of people, I assaulted a total stranger.

That is a day I don’t like to talk about.  But I want to be open about it because it was a turning point in my life.  That day I learned some ugly truths about myself.  I learned that I – “gentle, patient, long-suffering John” — had a serious problem with anger, that my problem was out of my control, that it was harming innocent people, and that I needed help.

In the years of therapy and hard work after that day, I learned that anger is supposed to be my friend.  Anger is my body’s biochemical way of telling me that my boundaries are being violated, that I am being harmed in some way.  That anger is an important part of any healthy relationship between free persons.  That anger can be expressed (and that my boundaries can be protected) without malice and vengeance.

I will spend the rest of my life coping with my anger issues.  I am learning to accept the fact that I can’t take back the hurt I’ve caused, and that my past actions have broken some relationships beyond my ability to repair them.  By accepting and confessing these unpleasant truths about myself, I have become able to experience forgiveness – receiving it and giving it.

The truth has judged me, saved me, and set me free.

Among the many freedoms I have gained, I have become free to know God more fully.  I have come to accept and embrace his wrath.  My Father’s fiery anger is part of who He is, a GOOD part.  He has claimed the human race as  his children, and he has drawn a line in the sand (a boundary) between his children and the forces that threaten to darken and destroy us.  And he has set the full weight of his infinite Being against anything that would violate that boundary.

His wrath burns against the darkness that caused some people to harm me when I was a kid.  His wrath burns against the darkness that caused me to pass that harm onto others.  His wrath burns against the darkness that haunts me every time I have to decide whether I will deal with my anger in healthy ways.

But I know the Good News:  Darkness has no future, because my Father’s wrath has prevailed.

~ John Stonecypher

YOU Are the Object of God’s Love!

And that means that you will be alive forevermore, somewhere!

Another way of saying that you are the object of the Father, Son and Spirit’s love is to say that the goal of the Father’s love is YOU! That is a far different expression of love than what we sometimes think and express. For instance (and for far too long!) when I didn’t know that the end result of God’s love was the object of his love, I could easily think and say something like this:

That poor man or woman, I sure wish they would repent and embrace God rather than rebel and promote evil. However, because God so loves them, I know that if they don’t repent he will put them to sleep and wipe them off the map forever; annihilate them! Awesome! You see, God’s love is so kind (like mine, only a little stronger!) that he wouldn’t possibly let that man or woman suffer being alive forever, in their rebellion.

Yikes! Do you see the problem with that in the Light of the Trinity?

Understanding in the Person of Jesus that God is the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit, and that this God IS Love, informs us that within the Being of God is the truth that the Father is FOR the Son and would never want to get rid of Him! That the Son is exactly the same toward the Father, and that the Holy Spirit is exactly the same toward the Father and the Son, and so on!

And if God so loved the world when he gave us his Son and the Holy Spirit, what kind of love did he have toward the world when he did this? Did the Triune God Who so loved the world love his creation with a different love than the love that he IS and shares as Father, Son and Spirit? Could that possibly make sense seeing that he does not change and that he sent his Son and the Spirit, Who are of the same essence and being as himself? If the Triune God sent THAT Son and THAT Spirit, then isn’t God the Trinity loving us with the same love with which he loves the Son and the Spirit (in order to GIVE us Himself, permanently, in the Son and the Spirit?)

And of course that is exactly what the Apostle John writes in John 17:23 regarding Jesus (Who is One in Essence and Being with the Father and the Spirit and the Fullness of God in flesh. Col 2:9):

I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

So, if God the Father, Son and Spirit loves each of us with the love with which he loves himself, and each of the Persons is the object of the other Persons affection and Love (or One they would never think of being apart from in any way!), YOU ARE ALWAYS GOING TO EXIST MY ADOPTED BROTHER AND SISTER!

It is YOU the Father wants, whether you ever respond positively to him or not! This is NOT to say he doesn’t care if you respond or not!  He absolutely DOES care about what you think of him and he DOES want you to return his love to him! That is why he sent his Son and the Holy Spirit into our humanity with the same love he’s always shared with the Son in the communion of the Holy Spirit, so that we might share in his EXACT love!”

Summing things up, and in one very important sense, the Father, Son and Spirit’s love is totally unlike ours! Our fallen love is so weak that it actually seeks to get rid of the object of its love in the name of being nice and loving! You know the way some people in the name of “love” and “kindness” are ready to totally annihilate animals and/or certain races of people, or push the people they “love” into a far away country or place where they can “love” them without seeing or helping them! In the name of God the Trinity, that is NOT the love of the Trinity!

The One and only Triune God wants who and what he has created because he is a true Lover! He is passionate about his creation and has embraced his creation in Jesus in such a permanent way that he will never let it, or any of us, go, even at the risk of our forever rejection and rebellion!

This is, after all, the relational God of scripture who doesn’t even believe in divorce!

“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Matt 19:6

~Timothy J. Brassell

Romans 8:9

A friend of mine recently asked me how I understand Romans 8:9 in light of the good news of humanity’s adoption into the Trinity through Jesus Christ. In case you don’t have a Bible handy, Romans 8:9 reads:

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

First of all, I believe we all have to stop trying to interpret Jesus in the light of the Bible and start interpreting the Bible in the light of Jesus. At the most practical level this means that clear, Christological passages such as Colossians 1, Ephesians 1, John 1, Hebrews 1, and Romans 5 take hermeneutical precedence over less clear or less directly Christological passages such as Romans 8:9.

Since Romans 5:18 says that all are forgiven in Jesus and Colossians 1:20 says that everything is reconciled in him, then it is not right to interpret Romans 8:9 in a way that contradicts these clear Christological passages. If we come up with an interpretation of Romans 8:9 that contradicts Romans 5:18 then we have the wrong interpretation of 8:9 and we have to go back to the drawing board.

All scripture is inspired and useful but not all scripture is equal. “Come, let us be going” (John 14:31) is not as important as “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16.) And in the context of our conversation, “those who do not have the Spirit of Christ do not belong to him” is not as important as “while we were utterly helpless Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6.)

Secondly, I think we need to listen to what we are saying – I know when I started listening to myself I was shocked at what I was saying! Many of us Christians will acknowledge that “God is the King over all of His creation and nothing, not even ‘hell’ is outside of His presence and authority.” But then we will quickly move on from this as though it were nothing, or only incidental to the discussion. I used to do this all the time and then one day it hit me like a ton of bricks “I don’t really believe that Jesus is Lord of All! I sing a song with those words but I don’t believe it!”

We have all been guilty of, in essence, saying:

Oh yeah, Jesus is Lord, everything is under his control – but forget all that mumbo-jumbo, let me tell you what really matters: WE really matter, it’s our work, it’s our decision that makes everything happen. We adopt ourselves into the Trinity. We make ourselves into children of the eternal Father. We summon the Holy Spirit from heaven by our words and compel him to pour himself out on us because we prayed the right prayer, got dunked in the right water, or tarried at the right all night meeting.

Or, let me put it this way: if unbelievers don’t belong to the Father then who do they belong to? Satan? Does Satan sustain them by his powerful word the same way Jesus does? (Heb. 1:3) Are Jesus and Satan co-equal gods and part of humanity lives and moves and has its being in Jesus and part of humanity lives and moves and has its being in Satan? (Acts 17:28)

What I’m getting so worked up about is this: it is highly significant and foundationally important that we begin all our thinking about everything in the universe from the reality that nothing is outside of Jesus’ presence and authority. This is not a fact to pay lip service to and then move on from. This is the fundamental nature of reality. This is the basis of existence in the universe. It’s so important that John’s gospel, and the epistles to Colosse, Ephesus, and the Hebrews all begin with this point before they talk about anything else.

So, Romans 8:9 has to be interpreted in light of two foundational truths on which we will never compromise: everything exists in Jesus and everything is reconciled in Jesus. Therefore, whatever else Paul means when he says “does not belong to Christ” he cannot mean “is not adopted, is not forgiven, or does not exist in Jesus.”

Paul says that whoever has the Spirit of Christ belongs to Christ. Therefore, it is not possible to have the Spirit and not belong to Christ nor is it possible to belong to Christ and not have the Spirit. Why? Because the Spirit comes from the Father, through the Son (John 14:16.)

There is no part of Jesus disconnected from the Spirit. There is no humanity disconnected from Jesus. Therefore, there is no humanity that does not have the Spirit of Jesus.

This reality is, in fact, reinforced in the Greek where Paul uses the word “eiper” in the first clause of the verse. “Eiper” means “since” or “if it is true that” and therefore that first half of the verse could – and, I think, should – be translated “since the Spirit of God lives in you.” Since all people live and move and have their being in Jesus, all people have the Spirit of God.

But, as Paul knows, and we can all see, there are billions of people who don’t walk in step with the Spirit.

That’s what he means when he says “don’t belong to Christ.” He means they are living as thought they don’t belong, even though – in fact – they do belong. They are adopted children of the Father in Jesus and don’t know it and don’t live like it. In fact, even those of us who know it forget it all the time and often indulge the sinful nature instead of walking with the Spirit. As Paul has already established in Romans 1-3, there is no one who lives a good enough life to earn his place in the Triune Life. If we think that belonging to Christ, and having his Spirit, is something that we do by our right belief and right behavior then we are all up the creek without a paddle because none of us are ever able to believe correctly or behave correctly 100% of the time.

So, Romans 8:9 cannot be saying “if you do the right thing then you can make yourself into someone who belongs to Christ and compel the Spirit to come down from heaven and make himself your personal property.” Romans 8:9 has to be saying “since you have the Spirit of Christ, because of who Christ is for humanity and what he has done for humanity, start believing and living this truth.”

In the light of who Jesus is, what Paul means in Romans 8 is that there are two ways human beings can live: we can live as the children of the Father that we really are in Christ by keeping in step with the Spirit or we can live a lie.

We can live out of step with the Spirit, living like we don’t belong to Christ (even though we really do) and living like we aren’t the Father’s children (even though we really are). Paul is saying “live the truth of your real identity as those who belong to Christ.” This message applies to us as much as it applied to the ancient Romans because we all belong to Jesus and it applies to the whole world – this is why we give Bibles to everyone, not just believers – because the whole world belongs to Jesus.

~ Jonathan Stepp

The Spirit of Adoption

A Trinitarian, Christ-centered paraphrase of Romans 8.14-27

(14) The Holy Spirit is leading you deeper into your true life as Papa’s child. (15) He is not a spirit of bondage and fear. He is the Spirit of Adoption, the Spirit who puts Jesus’ sonship inside of us.  When we cry out “Papa! Daddy! Father!” (16) it is the Holy Spirit who is speaking the truth from inside OUR spirit.  The truth that we ARE Papa’s children, (17) the truth that we are the inheritors of the super-abundant life Jesus shares with Papa.  And of course, sharing in his glorious life means sharing in his sufferings as well. (18) But be encouraged:  The pain we’re experiencing now—and indeed, all the suffering in the history of the world—is NOTHING compared to the boundless joy and strength for which we are destined.

(19) We aren’t the only ones in pain.  The whole universe groans as it waits for the full unveiling of the human race as Papa’s children, as it longs for us to step up the plate and play our assigned role in the cosmos. (20) For the universe itself is slowly winding down, running out of gas, moving slowly toward its own death.  Papa chose to restrict his creation in this way, (21) with the intent of eventually moving it beyond those limitations.  The day will come when the cosmos will be free from its chains of slow decay.  The very fabric of space-time will be transformed in the luminous freedom of Papa’s children in the world. (22) The old created order will give birth to New Creation, but in the meantime, the universe writhes and groans in the pain of childbirth. (23) We ourselves are experiencing that pain now, because through the Spirit we have already tasted the fruit of the new world.  We groan inwardly as we long for more, as we wait for the full effect of our adoption—the liberating transformation of our bodies.

(24) We were saved so that we would have a future! The Triune Life was given to us with an eye toward a glorious future in which that Life would fill the cosmos to overflowing.  This is our sure hope, and hope by definition involves stuff we don’t yet see. (25) We hope for what we can’t see yet, and because of this hope the Spirit has given us, we can be content while we wait.  (26) This is the way the Spirit’s strength makes up for our weakness.  When we don’t know how to talk to Papa, it is his Spirit in us who does the talking for us, expressing what’s inside us in ways too deep for words. (27) The Holy Spirit knows us deep in the guts of our soul, and he shares his knowing with Papa.

~ John Stonecypher

Dealing With The Sting of Death

I can’t help writing about the subject of death. Over the last 5 weeks I have had to officiate at three funerals, including the death of my last grandfather. And now the death and devastation of our brothers and sisters in Haiti. There is no doubt about it, when death strikes, it stings!

Death MUST sting because of Who Jesus is and who we are in him. As the Adopted humanity and children of the Triune God in the humanity of Jesus, the Love and Life of the Father, Son and Spirit is being so shared with us that we share in Their grief over death. We share in Their pain, and in Their sorrow.

As sinners, how could we possibly know how stinging death REALLY is apart from that sting being shared with us by the Trinity? Since Life originates in God and God is Life, only God could know the true sorrow of something that is not life as God is and has intended for his creation. Yes, there is sorrow in the Being of God!

We see this sorrow in Jesus as he approached the physical death of his body (Matt 26:36-39), in the death of our human flesh and minds (Luke 23:21), and as he literally died in our sinful flesh without being sinful (Mark 15:34). What we are called to take seriously is that in his flesh Jesus was the fullness of God (Col 2:9) and the exact representation of the Triune God’s being (Heb 1:3)! Embracing this truth about Jesus  helps us see that God was not play acting in Jesus for our sake, but truly experiences and knows sorrow like we can’t even begin to imagine in our sin-filled minds and sin-filled sorrow!

Don’t get me wrong! It’s not that our sorrow over death isn’t genuine or real, that’s not what I’m saying! I’m saying that there is way more realness in our sorrow than we realize because of our gracious union with God in Jesus, but that we have no power on our own to know sorrow in its truest depths because only Jesus has really gone there having not sinned or being a sinner (which taints things negatively, including sorrow!)

BUT, be encouraged, there is no hopelessness  in the sorrow of the Triune God over death! How could there be when there is no such thing as death in the Essence and Being of God, Who is our Life? (Col 3:4!) And the even more exciting thing for all of humanity within this truth is that we are now in union with this God in such a way in Jesus Christ such that we can say in one real sense that we will never really die. Yes, our bodies will die and perish naturally or through immediate transformation (1 Cor 15:51!), but that doesn’t mean WE, ourselves, will be dead!

We must take some idea of an intermediate state between our dead, corruptible bodies and our Resurrected body, seriously, because of who we are in union with Jesus (not because we have an immortal soul or some power source of our own!!) Speaking on this subject of all of humanity’s union with Christ, author Darrell Johnson writes on p.68 of Experiencing the Trinity,

This, by the way, is why death does not end our relationship. We are now within the circle of God’s Self-knowing. Death does not take us out of the circle. Death changes the way we share but not the fact that we are still there in him and with him. That is what we mean by “the communion of the saints” – communion within the Trinitarian communion, a communion that death cannot destroy.

Think about what this means for those who have died in my family, in your family, in horrible ways, in less horrible ways, and in Haiti!

And, of course, this Life after death in Jesus is scriptural as well:

35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:35-39, NRSV – emphasis mine)

And so, we must and will cry, and scream, and pout, and shout as we face death till our transformed bodies come! But the only REAL note we can end the subject of death on is the note of truth that Jesus, The Father’s Son made human, and anointed in the Holy Spirit, entered death’s domain from within our darkness and has now robbed death even of its sting!

54 Then the saying will come true: Death swallowed by triumphant Life! 55 Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now? 56 It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. 57 But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three – sin, guilt, death – are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God! 58 With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort. (1 Cor. 15:54, The Message)

Let’s be as encouraged as we can be in the grace of the Father, Son and Spirit!

~ Timothy Brassell

Haiti

I believe that Jesus, the Son of God as Man, is with the people of Haiti in their pain today. He shares with them in their suffering as the whole creation groans “as in the pains of childbirth” (Rom. 8:22.)

What we are seeing is another contraction in the birth of the new heaven and the new earth – and contractions hurt. They hurt a lot! Or so I’m told by mothers who have experienced them, I have obviously never given birth to a child. And I have also never experienced the pain of a devastating earthquake. But I have witnessed both and expect that I will witness more of both as the years go by.

The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to compare the suffering of humanity to the suffering of childbirth. This comparison reveals at least three important realties about suffering:

Suffering – disease, earthquakes, war, famine – is the result of the fall. Remember what the Lord said to Eve after the fall? “With pain you will give birth to children” (Gen. 3:16.) Because of the fall no child is born without pain and likewise the new heaven and the new earth are not born without pain.

Like childbirth, the pain of the birth of the new heaven and new earth is leading to something far more wonderful than the present and temporary pain we are experiencing. Even in the midst of the birth pains we can have hope for what is coming.

God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, does not leave us alone to endure our pain without help. The Son was born of a woman, coming into our world in the midst of pain, and he endured the pain and suffering of our fallenness on the cross.

While we wait for the new heaven and the new earth to be born we endure the birth pains with hope because of what we know is coming: the end of death and sorrow and the wiping away of every tear. And our brother Jesus waits with us, and endures our pain with us, and pours the Spirit of his Father’s love into the hearts of millions of people who will pray, give, rescue, and rebuild to ease the pain we are going through.

~ Jonathan Stepp

Update: Click over to The Surprising God Blog to read more of Ted’s thoughts on this subject and to find out how to donate to help through the G.C.I. disaster relief fund. The info on helping out is at the end of Ted’s Post:

http://thesurprisinggodblog.wcg.org/2010/01/where-is-god-when-world-suffers.html

Trinitarian Economics

Traditional economic theory is all about how people compete for scarce resources, as if Me-Getting-What-I-Want is the center of the universe.  But what if the center of the universe is occupied by something (or Someone) else?

The word “economy” has beautiful roots in Greek, evoking the image of making a home (Greek: oikos) for yourself and your family.  The truest economics class you ever took was Home Ec.  Because the reality of economics begins and ends in the Triune life—Jesus, his Dad, and their Spirit, each one being “at home” in each other’s life, and each one working to make himself a home for the others.

But it doesn’t stop there.  The Triune Home-Making decided to open itself, to make itself the home of others.  There were no “others” yet, so Father, Son and Spirit made some.  They began the hard work of including finite creatures into their infinite life.  We made messes on their floor.  We stuck things into our mouths that weren’t food.  We were reluctant to share our toys with each other.  Housebreaking us was a messy, painful business for the Triune persons.  They re-arranged their life in unthinkable ways, so that they could live in ways that are hospitable to us.  In short, they made their shared life into a home for us.  And it was their joy to do it.

This is the ground and grammar of economics.  What does that say about human economic life, which lives and moves and has its being within the Triune economy?  Some preliminary observations and questions:

• Economics is primarily about persons and their relationships.
• The point of economics is hospitality.
• Hospitality is primarily about self-giving, and only secondarily about stuff-giving.
• The giving of goods and services is secondary, not primary.
• Hospitality is costly to the giver; it involves sacrifice.
• It is up to the giver to decide if the cost is worth paying.
• Hospitality is other-centered.
• Hospitality is motivated by love.
• Hospitality is the driver of creativity and innovation.
• At the most fundamental level, economic relationships are mutual.  They involve giving AND receiving.
• At the most fundamental level, economic relationships are free.   They are covenantal rather than contractual.
• At the most fundamental level, economic transactions are gifts.  Whatever else buying-and-selling is, it is a form of gift exchange.
• The ultimate product of economic activity is joy.
• The Triune economy is incarnate in the earthly human economy.  The Triune mutual gift-giving is present (in varying degrees of pleasure and pain) in every human economic transaction.
• The earthly human economy involves clouded, darkened minds that see reality with less than perfect clarity.
• Therefore, the human economy involves fear, dishonesty, and malice.
• It is fitting and good for humans to protect themselves from economic predators.
• A contract is a tool for clarifying economic transactions and making people safe from predation within the system.
• Can a covenantal relationship have contracts in it?  In other words, can my friend also be my customer?  I don’t see why not.
• What does it mean for a piece of creation to become my “property”?
• Or to put it another way, how does a piece of creation come under my stewardship?
• Is poor stewardship a form of theft (For example, if I poison a well, am I robbing future generations)?
• If poor stewardship is theft, what role does human government have in enforcing basic standards of stewardship?
• In what ways is my neighbor’s well-being under my stewardship?  In what ways is it not?

~ John Stonecypher