Ethan R. Longhenry's Blog, page 14

Witnesses

One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established (Deuteronomy 19:15).

How can we know a thing is true? A matter can only be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses.

This principle is established in its most abstract in Deuteronomy 19:15: a charge of iniquity or sin could only be sustained by the mouth of two witnesses; in fact, any matter could only be established at the mouth of two or three witnesses. Previously this premise was established for capital crimes: no one was to be put to death on the basis of one witness alone, but only if there were two or three witnesses, and the witnesses were expected to begin the execution (Deuteronomy 17:6-7; cf. Hebrews 10:28). Joshua called upon the people to witness regarding themselves that they had chosen to serve YHWH (Joshua 24:22). Boaz calls upon the elders and people in the gate to serve as witnesses of his redemption of the house of Elimelech and taking Ruth the Moabitess as wife (Ruth 4:9-11). YHWH called upon Israel and His servant to be His witnesses to testify that He is God and there is no other (Isaiah 43:10-12, 44:8-9). Isaiah has a message certified by witnesses (Isaiah 8:1-2); Jeremiah’s redemption of a relative’s property is certified by witnesses (Jeremiah 32:10-12, 25, 44). Attesting all things by the mouth of two or three witnesses was manifestly an accepted part of Israelite legislation and life; its value was recognized even when Israel proved disobedient in many other ways.

The importance of two or three witnesses is not restricted to the old covenant; it is fully manifest in Jesus’ life, the proclamation of the Gospel, and in how Jesus and the Apostles expected Christians to adjudicate issues and disputes among them. Jesus appealed to the Law regarding witness and declared that both He and His Father testified to the truth of His judgment (John 8:12-18). Jesus’ intended second step in handling a brother or sister who sins against us is to take two or three with us so that every word is established (Matthew 18:16). At His trial the High Priest found no need of witnesses after they all heard Jesus speak “blasphemy” (Matthew 26:65, Mark 14:63). After His resurrection Jesus declared the Twelve to be witnesses to Him and what He had accomplished (Luke 24:48); note well how the Apostles, as they proclaim Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord, deliberately always evoke at least two witnesses, generally the prophetic word declared in the Law, Psalms, and the Prophets, and their own eyewitness testimony (e.g. Acts 2:22-36, 3:12-26, 13:16-41). A Christian’s confession was to be heard by witnesses (1 Timothy 6:12); the teachings regarding God in Christ were to be taught before many witnesses (2 Timothy 2:2). Accusations against elders were not to be heard unless certified by two or three witnesses, and Paul explicitly quotes Deuteronomy 19:15 to the Corinthian Christians as part of his warning before he came to visit them in judgment (2 Corinthians 13:1, 1 Timothy 5:19). Not for nothing, therefore, does God send down two witnesses to the earth in Revelation 11:3-13!

Establishing all things by two or three witnesses proves to be a pervasive and important theme in Scripture, but why? God made man, and God is aware of mankind’s limitations, frailty, and the corruption which has taken place since the fall (Romans 3:23, 5:12-21). Even in situations where a person has the most sincere of motives, one person may be convinced he or she saw something that did not actually take place. Whereas we may want to believe our senses and brains work like a database, accurately remembering sense perceptions, our brains prove more plastic: memories change to some degree or another as they are remembered. One person may be absolutely convinced what they feel or believe is true, even if in “objective reality” it is not. Beyond all this, what evidence or recourse does a person have if they are the only witness, and another contradicts that witness?

It is much harder to contradict a story told by two or three witnesses. Individual memory may be somewhat plastic, but if the testimony of two or three agrees, they most likely are attesting to what truly happened. One person may suffer from terrible motivations; it is harder to convince two or three people to share in that motivation. Furthermore, while one might easily dismiss the claims of one person as delusional, it proves much harder to claim that two or three (or more!) all suffer from delusion when they independently claim to have seen or participated in the same thing.

Is this standard foolproof? Very few things in life prove foolproof. Two or three people can collude and conspire against another. People even in Scripture are said to have borne false witness, and the ninth commandment is given for a reason (Exodus 20:16, Matthew 26:59-60). Throughout time there have no doubt been times when two or three witnesses bore false testimony and one person could testify accurately concerning what he or she saw.

Yet we do well to remember the reason for two or three witnesses: to establish a matter as true. One person may be accurate, but there is no faithful means by which to establish it on the basis of only one witness. We do well to establish this as the posture in our own lives.

How do we adjudicate claims of truth? What is true must be established by the witness of God in Christ: in the creation and through what has been spoken by God (John 14:6, Romans 1:19-21). If something cannot be established by these witnesses in Scripture and in what God has made, then it cannot be established as true. The Gospels provide four witnesses to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The Apostles provided prophetic testimony as well as their own. We should be wary about any doctrine or practice for which there is but one proof text; by the mouth of two or three witnesses all truth should be established.

How do we handle claims of wrongdoing? Accusations should not be accepted, and judgments of sin rendered, on the basis of only one witness: this should be true in all relationships, with the one exception of sexual assault in open or private spaces, with the benefit of the doubt given to the one who was assaulted (cf. Deuteronomy 22:25-27). In intimate relationships it proves all too easy to confuse feelings for reality; merely because we feel does not mean someone has done wrong. Perhaps we misunderstood; perhaps we misread. If a matter in intimate relationships arises, Jesus provides the way forward: we are to speak directly to anyone whom we believe has sinned against us to win them back (Matthew 18:15). If the person refuses to hear us, we then take two or three with us to establish the truth of every word (Matthew 18:16): this does not mean that these people become witnesses of the original infraction but of how each party in the dispute handled themselves. If they will not hear then, it is to be taken to the church, and if they refuse to hear the church, it is no longer really about the original transgression, but the refusal to restore relationship and to be held accountable, and thus they are to be marginalized until they repent (Matthew 18:17). Two or three witnesses is of the greatest importance among the people of God, for not one of us has been given the right to stand as judge, jury, and executioner, and for good reason (James 4:11-12)! Accusations of unrepentant sin are very serious matters, and should be treated with the highest levels of integrity by the people of God: we must be above reproach on how we handle sin in our midst, and prove willing to purge leaven but only when leaven has been verifiably identified.

We do well, therefore, to establish “by the mouth of two or three witnesses let a matter be established” as a mantra for our lives. God in Christ has provided two witnesses. The Apostles provided two witnesses. We should learn to seek two or three witnesses to establish the validity of a thing, and never presume the right to serve as judge, jury, and executioner for anyone in any relationship. May we glorify God in our lives and ground our faith in God in Christ!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Bias

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may gain their sight, and the ones who see may become blind.”
Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and asked him, “We are not blind too, are we?”
Jesus replied, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but now because you claim that you can see, your guilt remains” (John 9:39-41).

Have you ever noticed the “new car” phenomenon? If you purchase a car of a new make or model, all of a sudden, you start noticing a lot more of that make and/or model on the road.

Have you heard of the “gorilla suit” study? People were invited to participate in a study in which they were told to focus on a particular activity going on in a video. During that video a person in a gorilla suit would appear. When asked if they saw anyone in a gorilla suit, a not insignificant percentage of people said “no.”

Likewise, have you recently wondered if you have become a prophet or a son of a prophet because you seem eerily able to predict exactly how people are going to respond to a given piece of news or a new finding based on their political or philosophical perspectives?

In all of these examples, cognitive bias is in play.

A significant part of the development of critical thinking involves awareness of bias. Bias is generally reckoned as a form of distortion or prejudice, and is itself often brought up with extreme prejudice: an inclination, for a host of reasons, to favor a given idea, group, or stance against another in a way perceived to be unfair. We have all become quite familiar with confirmation bias: the impulse to receive and interpret all data in ways which confirm our prior beliefs and perceptions, and great resistance and skepticism toward any data which would undermine those beliefs. Attribution error and implicit bias involve judging behaviors based on perceived personality traits and subconscious prejudicial judgment of an individual based on perceived group association, respectively. Our predilection to favor people “like us” is affinity bias; our great confidence in ourselves and our judgments is the overconfidence or “Dunning-Kruger” effect. Our desire to continue to do things as we always have, and concern about or resistance against change, is the status quo effect. It is easy for people to believe people who are aesthetically attractive must have other attractive characteristics, and for us to believe people who have been highly successful in one field will be successful in others. We prove far more willing to take credit for the things we have done well and to downplay or suppress all things in which we have not done as well. We are convinced we had well predicted what would happen. For that matter, our judgments about a given situation often prove dependent on our physical condition: for good reason we say that we are not ourselves when we are hungry. Bias thus manifests itself in manifold ways.

Bias remains antithetical to the endeavor to obtain “objective” information and understanding regarding the world around us. We can well understand why many prove very hostile to bias if their desire is to develop a transcendent perspective which purports to overcome all personal prejudices.

This aspiration to objectivity is a major hallmark of Enlightenment rationalism. While we might be able to appreciate the goal of objectivity, and commend attempts to grapple with one’s own prejudices and limitations in perspective, the time is well past to presume any human being can truly become objective in their perspective. Enlightenment rationalism was founded on overly optimistic assumptions regarding human capacity which never sat well with Scripture and now stands at variance with scientific discoveries regarding cognition.

According to the witness of Scripture God made human beings as part of the creation, finite with broad but not unlimited understanding (Genesis 1:1-2:3). Humans have always been “contextual” creatures, living in particular times and places and formed by those times and places more than forming them. God’s thoughts and ways have always been higher than man’s (Isaiah 55:8-9); if there is any hope for “pure objectivity,” it will only be manifest on the divine level. Humans are not merely created and finite; they have also been corrupted in their fallenness: the ways we think, feel, and act are subject to corruption and futility on account of sin and death (Romans 5:12-21, 8:17-23). Anxiety and fear prove as powerful as motivators for how we understand things as any noble quest for truth.

Science has also cast aspersions on many of the assumptions we have maintained about our ability to perceive our environment. Everything we perceive through our five senses are, to some degree or another, constructed by our brains. The brain’s ability to take in the electrical impulses generated by the sense organs and construct what we see, hear, etc., is amazing, astonishing, and should compel us to give glory to God our Creator; at the same time, the brain is both filtering out a lot of data and interpreting a lot of data lest it, and we, get overwhelmed.

Both the “new car” phenomenon and the “gorilla suit” study exemplify for us, and explain, the situation in which we find ourselves. Our brains are not mere “objective” data processors; in order to be able to focus on certain details we deem important at any given moment, the brain by necessity must de-emphasize, or functionally ignore, many other details. While it remains possible that a given car make and/or model truly has become more popular and thus more visible over time, it is more likely that there have always been plenty of those car makes and/or models driving around; the brain had no particular reason to notice, and so it, and we, did not. It is beyond a doubt that the images of a person in a gorilla suit were processed by the eye and brain; but in pursuing the task to focus on a given activity, the brain filtered out that data which proved extraneous to the task at hand, and thus plenty of people did not “notice” the person in the gorilla suit.

What proves true regarding perception also proves true regarding cognition. Just like our brains interpret sensory data to construct our perception of our environment, so we interpret how we understand ourselves and our world by means of the ideological framework(s) we have built and cultivated over time. These frameworks prove necessary for our sanity: we do not have the brain processing capacity, let alone the time, to take each piece of data we receive, examine it thoroughly and objectively, and adjust our frameworks accordingly. Just like the brain takes in data and filters out what it deems less important or relevant so as to focus on or highlight what it deems more important and relevant, so we likewise privilege certain forms of information and comparatively ignore or dismiss other forms of information.

Ironically, therefore, our bias against bias is unhelpfully overly prejudicial. Bias is not some aberration based on the naivete of the simple masses; instead, bias is built into the way we receive input from our environment and how we process the information we receive. Since we will continually remain human, and thus subject to the limitations and frailty common to humanity, we will never be able to escape bias.

Any attempt to fully overcome bias, therefore, proves a fool’s errand. We cannot stop being human; none of us have God-level perspective on anything. Yet such does not mean we should fall into some kind of existential despair. The Lord Jesus Christ knows what mankind is and has given us a way forward.

In John 9:39-41 John concluded the story of Jesus healing a man born blind. The Pharisees wonder if they are blind. Jesus told them they would be without guilt if they were blind; because they said they saw, their sin remained. Likewise, in warning people about judgment in Matthew 7:1-4, Jesus encouraged people to see themselves as having beams in their eye while seeing specks in the eyes of others. Only a hypocrite could point out the speck without noticing the beam; Jesus counseled people to first remove the beam from their own eye before they could take out the specks in the eyes of others.

Both exhortations direct us to proper humility. We are very cognizant of the way others express bias; yet how often do we prove willing to come to grips with our own? We find no lack of people willing to baptize and justify their biases and prejudices by presuming the way they understand things to be the way God understands things, as the “Biblical” way of understanding things, and the like. We get into the most trouble when we dogmatically insist on our perspective as the correct one, presuming that we truly see, yet according to the perspective of God in Christ, prove truly blind.

It is good to aspire to have one’s viewpoints shaped by what God has made known in Christ and to resist the seductive ways of the philosophies of this world (cf. Colossians 2:1-10). We do well to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6, 2 Peter 3:18). At the same time, we remain human and our perspectives remain limited and thus biased. We will not be able to fully overcome that bias; the best we can do is to consider different perspectives so as to become more aware of our biases, and to hold more lightly onto our ideologies, perspectives, and viewpoints since they all do reflect biases in many ways. We should show charity toward those with whom we disagree and prove willing to submit the ideas of those with whom we feel we have affinity to as great, if not even greater, scrutiny as those with whom we feel we do not have affinity.

Human beings, therefore, cannot escape bias. The best we can do is recognize it and prove less dogmatic in our confidence in our frameworks and perception. May we prove humble, confessing our limitations in perspective and understanding, and thus prove willing to hold our judgments lightly so that we might be found faithful to God in Christ through the Spirit!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Greece

It is a heavily mountainous, rocky outpost, on the extreme southeast of what would become Europe. It existed on the periphery of the known world of the ancient Near East. No one in the world of the Bronze Age would have expected it to have ever amounted to much especially after its existing palatial civilization collapsed. Yet out of the long-term reckoning of that collapse would come new forms of government and ways of exploring and viewing the world. However one wishes to conceive of “Western civilization,” it certainly found its origins in Greece.

Greece (Hellas in Greek) sits at the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula as it juts out into the Mediterranean Sea. The modern nation of Greece extends over the historic territory of Hellas along with areas of ancient Macedon and Thrace; in the ancient world the land of Greece was reckoned the peninsula of the Peloponnesus and mainland Central, or Continental, Greece, with Epirus and Thessaly representing its northern border, along with the constellation of islands which filled the Aegean Sea to the east, Ionian Sea to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Most of the land of Greece is quite rugged; only within the past century have many of its towns and cities been connected by overland routes. Most association and trade among Greek towns took place by sea, and the geography well explains the ancient Greek penchant for many city-states (polis in Greek): sometimes at war, sometimes in alliances, but always in competition.

In Genesis 10:2-5 the Genesis author spoke of Japheth as a son of Noah who himself had a son named Javan among whose children were Elishah, the Kittim, and the Dodanim, who would populate “the coastlands”; Japheth is Iapetos in Greek and is reckoned as the ancestor of the Greeks; Javan is associated with the Ionians of western Asia Minor and Greece; Elishah with Cypriots; the Kittim with southeastern Asia Minor (and in later writings, the Romans), and Dodona was an ancient and well honored location in ancient Greece (and “Danaan” was one of the terms the most ancient Greeks used to speak of themselves). The Biblical record well accords with DNA evidence suggesting the islands and mainland of Greece were populated by people from Anatolia. Throughout the Hebrew Bible the “coastlands” and “islands” would be used to speak of lands controlled or heavily influenced by the Greeks.

The earliest flowering of civilization in Greece, and all of Europe, centered on Crete and the Cycladic islands of the Aegean Sea which we now speak of as the Minoan civilization (ca. 3200-1450 BCE). Minoan art and trade goods can be found throughout the Aegean, the Levant, and Egypt, and strongly influenced its successors, which we deem the Mycenaeans (ca. 1750-1050 BCE). The Mycenaean was a palatial civilization based in mainland Greece, with Mycenae as perhaps the strongest and most representative city-state. The Mycenaeans built well-fortified cities with what would be later deemed “cyclopean” walls, wrote in proto-Greek in what is called Linear B, and were active in trading and warfare among the various city-states which comprised the Mycenaean world along with the western coast of Asia Minor. Yet in most respects the Mycenaeans modeled themselves after the Bronze Age civilizations of the ancient Near East, maintaining a very top-heavy hierarchy centering on the palace and gifts and trading with other palaces.

Yet everything would change for Greece between 1250 and 1050 BCE: the Mycenaean, and in fact the entire Bronze Age ancient Near Eastern, system collapsed. Cities and palaces were destroyed or ultimately abandoned, as was writing and the Linear B script. Ramses III of Egypt, in the days of the judges of Israel (ca. 1150 BCE), testified to the ravages of the “Sea Peoples” whom he claimed destroyed cities and civilizations around the Mediterranean and who had invaded Egypt itself; while the “Sea Peoples” may have included many other people, it certainly featured many Mycenaean Greeks. After defeating the “Sea Peoples” Ramses III settled some of them, the Peleset, in the southwestern Levant; they would become the Philistines of whom Amos would declare originated from Caphtor, likely Crete (Amos 9:7).

From this period until ca. 776 BCE, the days of the judges, united monarchy, and the beginning of the divided monarchy in Israel, Greece experienced what had frequently been called its “Dark Age”; modern scholars prefer the less judgmental “Early Iron Age”. The population of Greece was halved by this time; later Greeks would claim an invasion of the Dorians, a Greek speaking people from the north, also took place during this time. The palatial administrative structure had completely collapsed and fallen, and quite notably, no one attempted to replace it. We have very little information about this period, which is why many referred to it as a “dark age”; while the characters and many of the details of the Iliad and the Odyssey are Mycenaean, many believe the social imaginary of these epic stories better reflects the Greek Early Iron Age. The ancient Greeks would always look back to the time of the Mycenaeans as a lost “golden age” and prized the Iliad and the Odyssey like we do the Bible. And yet what they would develop barely resembles the world of the Mycenaeans.

The period from 776 BCE until the defeat of Xerxes and the invading Persians in 480 BCE, the rest of the divided monarchy, the exile, and the early days of the Second Temple Period in Israel, is known as Archaic Greece. Everything which would reach its full flowering in the Classical period found its origins in Archaic Greece. Greece experienced a population explosion in the 8th century BCE which led to the consolidation of the smaller villages and kinship groups of the Early Iron Age into the poleis, or cities, developed as such for the first time, and also Greek colonies would again form on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor and throughout what would become Magna Graecia, “Great Greece,” in the southern half of Italy and on Sicily. Beginning this period with the first Olympic Games in 776 BCE is appropriate: representatives of the Greek poleis would convene and compete in various athletic contests, with great glory and honor bestowed upon the victors. Thus the elite among the various Greek cities cultivated and fostered this competitive spirit which also led to many other artistic, cultural, and military innovations. At some point in the ninth or eighth century BCE, a single individual (it would seem) developed a version of the Phoenician alphabet modified to reflect the Greek language which we now know as the Greek alphabetic script (which the Romans would modify to become the Latin script we use to this day), and according to some scholars, not primarily to record economic activity but in order to preserve the epic cycles we know as the Iliad and the Odyssey. The different cities were all Greek in language, religion, and character, yet developed different forms of governance: in the late Archaic period the democracy of Athens was prepared by the laws of Solon and the work of Cleisthenes, and the Spartans, having defeated and enslaved the neighboring Messenians and reducing them to “helots,” fine-tuned a highly disciplined militaristic society, and many other Greek city-states vacillated among tyrannies, oligarchies, and other forms of governance. During the Archaic period some Greeks devoted themselves to exploring the world around them and through such investigation attempted to explain how everything came to be and how everything should work: this quest for wisdom and understanding would be called philosophy, the pre-Socratic philosophers all date to the Archaic period, and Pythagoras advanced the study of mathematics and music. Archaic Greeks also developed new military strategies centered on what would be known as the phalanx, armed infantry formed in close rank and files, and they would soon be tested in a significant way.

From its inception the Persian Empire had maintained a significant presence in western Asia Minor. Since the Greek colonies on the coast of Asia Minor constantly instigated rebellions against the Persian authority, Darius I sent an invading force to conquer Greece in 490 BCE. Such began the Persian Wars, and on paper, it should not have been a contest: the Persian Empire was the largest the world had ever seen, with all the nations of the ancient Near East at their disposal, and the naval fleets of the Egyptians and Phoenicians; the Greeks, even at their most unified, were far smaller. And yet the Athenians and their allies defeated Darius’ forces at Marathon. A decade later, Darius’ son Xerxes (the Ahasuerus of Esther) vowed revenge against the Greeks and personally led an impossibly large army and navy against Greece. The Greeks would suffer defeat at Thermopylae and Athens would be burned; yet the Greeks completely smashed the Egyptian and Phoenician navies at the Battle of Salamis, and Xerxes’ land army would be decisively defeated the next year at Plataea. Against all odds the Greeks preserved their freedom from Persian domination; otherwise what we deem the origins of Western civilization would have been snuffed out before they could be well established.

The defeat of the Persians inaugurated what we now call the Classical period of ancient Greece, lasting around 150 years until 340 BCE. During the Classical period the Greeks rebuilt Athens with its Parthenon and many other marvels which we can see to this very day. The Classical period was the age of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, philosophers of metaphysics and the natural world whose teachings and questions continue to drive philosophy and how we understand the world to this day. The Classical period also saw the flowering of Greek theater with the comedies of Aristophanes and the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, often using the characters and stories of the Mycenaean heroic age to explore and sit in the challenges and difficulties of the present world, and studied and presented to this very day. Herodotus, the “father of history,” explored the known world and wrote his discoveries down in his Histories, which remains a primary source for a lot of ancient Near Eastern history and the Persian Wars.

During the Classical period Athens remained a democracy but cultivated and developed a maritime empire around the Mediterranean and Black Seas. They were resisted by the Spartans and the Peloponnesian League, leading to the Peloponnesian Wars (431-404 BCE), chronicled in a rigorous historical exposition by Thucydides. The Spartans ultimately defeated the Athenians but would lose hegemony over Greece to the Theban Boeotian Confederacy in the early 4th century BCE. Between the Persian Wars and Philip II of Macedon, the Greek world thus featured the rise and fall of coalitions centered around Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, and always with intrigue stemming from the involvement of the Persian court.

The Classical period featured the flowering of all sorts of intellectual, philosophical, and technological advancement rarely surpassed in human history. Yet the Greeks could never find unity among themselves. The Classical period would meet its end at the hands of those whom the Greeks would have considered backwater half-barbarians, the Macedonians to their north, who under Philip II defeated the Greek coalition at Chaeronea in 338 BCE and thus conquered Greece. His son Alexander, tutored by Aristotle himself, finished what his father started, exerted authority over all of Greece, and then set out and conquered the Persian Empire, and thus the whole ancient Near Eastern world, and even reached the Indus of India by 323 BCE.

From 323 until 146 BCE the Greeks experienced the Hellenistic Age. The Greeks may not have had much military power at this time, but their cultural and intellectual influence was rapidly transforming the world around them by means of the Macedonian empires throughout the Near East. Many Greeks decamped for the cities of these empires to the east or the Italy in the west.

Rome’s influence in Greece would grow throughout the second century BCE, culminating in the Battle of Corinth in 146 BCE, in which Corinth was completely destroyed, and all Greece would be absorbed by Rome into its Empire by 27 BCE. The Roman period in Greece would technically not end until 1453 CE and the fall of Constantinople. The Romans organized most of historic ancient Greece into the province of Achaea, and some of its northern areas were made part of Macedonia. During this time Greece would have no political power whatsoever beyond the local level; but in a very real way the Greeks would “conquer” the Romans in terms of intellect and culture. Roman elites highly valued well-studied Greeks as the tutors of their children, and such is why we speak rightly of Classical and Late Antiquity as “Greco-Roman.” Koine Greek remained the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean world; in the early part of the Roman period Paul would visit Greek cities such as Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and Corinth, and established churches there. Over time the Greeks would come to see themselves as Romans, and in the days of the “Eastern Roman Empire” (or “Byzantine Empire”), the people of Greece identified as Romans (ca. 350-1450 CE).

The prophet Joel chastised the Phoenicians and Philistines for capturing Judahites and selling them into slavery to the Greeks (cf. Joel 3:4-6). In the days of the Maccabees, the Israelites appealed to the Spartans and entered into a league of friendship with them (ca. 145 BCE; cf. 1 Maccabees 12:20-30). We otherwise do not see many direct connections made between the Israelites and the Greeks proper before the days of Jesus. And yet it would be the Greek culture into which the Seleucids would compel the Jewish people to assimilate; the Hebrew Bible would be translated into Greek to become the Septuagint; Koine Greek was spoken throughout Israel in the Second Temple Period. The Gospel would come to Greece; while the Greeks would become Orthodox Christian, the prevalence of Greek-speaking and Greek philosophically instructed Christians would lead the story of what God accomplished in Christ to take on much of the scaffolding afforded by the Greek philosophical systems. The New Testament was communicated first and foremost, after all, in Koine Greek. The medieval world in the West was profoundly shaped by the synthesis of the Christian religion and Greek literature, mathematics, and philosophy, and in truth all philosophical theories to this day, in some way or another, represent a re-hashing of the various philosophical schools and ways of thought manifest in ancient Greece.

Thus Greece became the cradle of Western civilization; its religion and philosophy would dominate the ancient world; Judaism and Christianity would both be significantly defined by their engagement with, absorption of, and resistance to the thought world of the Greeks. We can marvel at and appreciate the contributions of the Greeks while also being on guard lest we are beguiled and captured by such philosophies (cf. Colossians 2:8). In all things may we submit to God in Christ through the Spirit and obtain the resurrection of life!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Futile Frustrations

Not only that, but I have seen the wicked approaching and entering the temple, and as they left the holy temple, they boasted in the city that they had done so. This also is an enigma.
When a sentence is not executed at once against a crime, the human heart is encouraged to do evil.
Even though a sinner might commit a hundred crimes and still live a long time, yet I know that it will go well with God-fearing people – for they stand in fear before him. But it will not go well with the wicked, nor will they prolong their days like a shadow, because they do not stand in fear before God.
Here is another enigma that occurs on earth: Sometimes there are righteous people who get what the wicked deserve, and sometimes there are wicked people who get what the righteous deserve. I said, “This also is an enigma.”
So I recommend the enjoyment of life, for there is nothing better on earth for a person to do except to eat, drink, and enjoy life. So joy will accompany him in his toil during the days of his life which God gives him on earth.
When I tried to gain wisdom and to observe the activity on earth – even though it prevents anyone from sleeping day or night – then I discerned all that God has done: No one really comprehends what happens on earth. Despite all human efforts to discover it, no one can ever grasp it. Even if a wise person claimed that he understood, he would not really comprehend it (Ecclesiastes 8:10-17).

We have some unanswerable questions about the way things seem to work in the world. These questions display our frustrations with the capriciousness and unfairness we see in the world. The Preacher addresses them, but few will appreciate his “answer.”

Throughout Ecclesiastes 1:1-6:12 the Preacher meditated upon the hevel of life under the sun: all is vain, futile – truly absurd. He compares most human endeavors toward meaning as “chasing after wind”: people pursue pleasure, wealth, wisdom, or other things looking for ultimate purpose and satisfaction and will be disappointed and frustrated by all of them. To rage against such truths is itself futile and striving after wind. God understands better than we do. In Ecclesiastes 7:1-8:9 the Preacher seemed to have set forth a series of aphoristic exhortations not unlike the proverbs for which he is well known loosely organized around the theme of wisdom. In Ecclesiastes 8:1-9 the Preacher would continue in the same aphoristic vein and loosely organized his exhortations around wisdom in terms of the exercise of and submission to power.

The Preacher made a series of “observations” regarding life “under the sun” and drew some conclusions about it all in Ecclesiastes 8:10-17. Our understanding of the first observation is complicated by textual ambiguity in Ecclesiastes 8:10. A good number of translations try to make sense of the Masoretic Text as is, reflected in the ASV: “so I saw the wicked buried, and they came to the grave; and they that had done right went away from the holy place, and were forgotten in the city: this also is vanity.” The NET follows a slight emendation of the Masoretic Text, as above. Thus the Preacher has either observed how wicked people were buried while righteous people would go to the temple and enjoyed no regard; or he has observed how the wicked enter the temple and would then boast in the town, ostensibly justifying themselves in their wickedness by claiming God’s provision, protection, and thus justification. Either way the Preacher observed how the wicked could justify themselves and rationalize their behavior and the righteous would receive no such benefit. People then and now have become quite frustrated with such a miscarriage of justice and perpetuation of oppression. The Preacher considered it hevel, futility or absurdity, here well understood as an enigma, something which we cannot and will not be able to understand.

The Preacher followed up with an apt observation in Ecclesiastes 8:11: when justice is not meted out quickly, the human heart can easily rationalize evil behaviors. This is a premise few would dispute; people everywhere can point to examples of people behaving badly in flagrant ways, and the lack of punishment emboldened them, and perhaps others, to continue in such behaviors. There will always be people who will push the envelope regarding the kinds of behaviors with which they can get away; if such people receive no consequences for what they do, they will keep doing it until consequences are thus meted out.

Ecclesiastes 8:10-11 would be enough to leave almost everyone in despair regarding righteousness and wickedness. The Preacher might have sensed as much and would not allow this to be the last word. In Ecclesiastes 8:12-13 the Preacher conceded the strong likelihood of some among the wicked living long and peaceful lives despite their flagrant sinfulness yet still maintained greater confidence in the righteous who stand in fear before God. We do well to hold firmly to all dimensions of the Preacher’s words here. There will be some people who flagrantly sin and disregard God and who do not get struck down immediately. But those who fear God will be vindicated at some point or another; the lack of a fear of God will eventually cause great pain, distress, and downfall for the wicked, whether in this life or in the hereafter.

The Preacher then set forth his second “observation”: he has seen how some people suffer despite or even for being and doing good, while others live in wicked and sinful ways yet seem to prosper and succeed as God had promised for the righteous, or, as we would put it, good things happened to bad people while bad things happened to good people (Ecclesiastes 8:14).

Such is one of the most pressing questions for many modern people, part and parcel of the challenge of theodicy: how can a good God allow such evil to take place? Many might imagine such a question and challenge would be thoroughly examined and explained in Scripture, but the matter is only addressed in such terms in Ecclesiastes 8:14 and in the book of Job.

And modern man, in his quest for knowledge unto mastery, cannot help but be all the more frustrated with the Preacher’s “answer”: yes, good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people, and it also is hevel; futile, absurd, an enigma. It seems to be the “non-answer answer,” yet there is great and profound wisdom in it. The Preacher understood two important premises: there is a Creator God who shows covenant loyalty to His people, and bad things happen to good people while good things happen to bad people. How the former could allow for the latter is beyond our understanding. Why it all is the way it is remains well beyond our pay grade. In no way, shape, or form is the Preacher justifying or commending wickedness; he pointed out how we cannot get any of the answers we seek.

As a result, the Preacher commended enjoying life: under the sun we do well if we can eat, drink, and to enjoy life and the work we do (Ecclesiastes 8:15). We will easily drive ourselves to despair and defeat if we obsess over the questions we cannot know and understand. A better life can be enjoyed by coming to grips with our finite, limited understanding and ways and to find enjoyment in what we can in life. Such is not a call for epicurean hedonism; remember well how the Preacher has commended righteousness in the fear of God. But it is a reminder we can drive ourselves to despair by trying to figure out the things we were never meant to understand.

And such ultimately represents the conclusion from the Preacher’s “observations”: in trying to obtain wisdom and to understand the way of all activity on earth, even though to do so would mean to never sleep, he could see the hand of God since there was no way he or any other human being could understand it all (Ecclesiastes 8:16-17). The “wise” person who claims to understand it all must be deluded, for it is beyond him.

If there has been anything our modern scientific and technological advancements have demonstrated regarding the wisdom of the Preacher, this is it. Yes, indeed; we have a far better and greater understanding of the way things work than the Preacher could ever imagine. And yet every time we learn more about how something works, we open up new questions and horizons for consideration. Our scientific and technological advancements are like climbing the foothills of a mountain range: every time we reach a new height, an even greater mountain will appear before us. We keep reinforcing Socrates’ maxim, which is very consistent with the Preacher’s wisdom: the more we learn, the more we recognize we know nothing.

If such is the case in terms of how the material universe operates, how much more then in terms of the ways of cosmic justice and morality? Our frustrations regarding matters of theodicy and injustice are understandable, and we are not the first to express them. We do well to cry out to God in lament regarding the injustice of the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous. Yet in the end, as in the Psalms, we do well to confess God is our Creator and is faithful, and to humbly submit to Him, recognizing we do not and cannot understand how everything works, but remain confident that He does, and that He will strengthen and sustain us until we can share in the resurrection of life.

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Categorization

In the Western world we have inherited a significant predilection for categorization.

This impulse likely derives all the way from our Greek philosophical progenitors who attempted to ascertain how things work and why things are the way they are in a systematic way. Any kind of attempt toward a systemization will almost invariably lead to the impulse to categorize; otherwise, how can one make sense of the data one is systematizing?

And yet the Greek philosophers still sought to understand their environment in more cohesive and coherent terms. As we have expanded our understanding and insights into the world we have encouraged the move toward specialization. Specialization can only really exist when people have strictly circumscribed various disciplines, and this is being done to ever narrower degrees as our knowledge and understanding expands.

Yet this impulse toward categorization in the Western mindset goes well beyond knowledge and its disciplines. Modern Westerners have established categories for seemingly everything. We categorize different groups of people based on our experiences and prejudices. We categorize our lives based on various events, milestones, or experiences. We even categorize ourselves, looking at ourselves and conducting ourselves differently in various environments and contexts.

This Western impulse to categorize has become so thoroughly enmeshed in our understanding that we cannot imagine the world otherwise. We assume everyone everywhere has participated in such categorizations. The way we lump ourselves, others, and all things into various categories is so normal for us we assume it must be the case for others as well.

It is not as if categorization is inherently a bad thing. We have been able to advance human knowledge and understanding in significant ways on account of establishing and maintaining categories and standards for exploring and learning in those categories. We all very much want specialists to be very well versed in their specialties. Many insights and connections can be made within the disciplines of various categories which may not have been as evident or perceptible otherwise.

Nevertheless, despite Western conceit, such levels of categorization are not inherent or intrinsic to all humanity. Many other cultures have envisioned their world in different ways and did not feel the impulse to categorize to the extent manifest in modern Western thinking. And from those cultures we can obtain and appreciate some critique of our impulse toward categorization.

We are only beginning to grapple with the ugly, sinful, and abhorrent heritage inherent in the Western categorizations of various people. From the beginning the Scriptures indicate all humans derive from Adam and are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:1-2:3, Acts 17:26); people may be part of different nations, but none are intrinsically better or worse than any other. Those in the West saw themselves as the “superior” and “master” race and opined on the “subhuman” origins of other races; within living memory the superiority and supremacy of the white race was still held as “common sense” which “everyone understood.” Plenty of people today presume themselves superior to others on account of the category of people in which they have placed themselves and look down on those whom they have placed in other, “lesser” categories.

Categorization breeds such dehumanization and depersonalization. Much has been built regarding various forms of stereotyping masquerading as categorizations. People are defined by their generation, their place of ancestry, their current geographic location, their political proclivities, their income level, their education level, their religious affiliations, and such like. People then assume they know all about others based on the alignment of these various categorical boxes. While it is likely many people in a similar stage of life or framework may have many beliefs and feelings in common, few people fit entirely neatly in any individual box or category. Have you ever felt alienated or dismissed because someone identified you as fitting into a given category and thus assumed you thus must affirm or believe a given set of ideas or perform a given set of practices? Furthermore, how many people shift their views in order to fit within these categories because they have been pigeonholed into such categories? How much better might our discourse and interpersonal relations be if we did not assume we understood what people believed or practiced merely based on certain demographic categories?

Our impulse to categorize often leads to a failure of imagination in an inability to perceive a greater whole. While Western categorical and specialist approaches in medicine have led to significant advancements in understanding, the “silo effect” is very real, and many people have endured great suffering because their difficulties cross different specialties and their medical practitioners seem incapable of seeing the whole picture. Many times, great advancements and developments in one specialized field could well illuminate others, yet there is no generalist who can be found to make such connections. Advancements in specialties generally outpace ethical and moral considerations. Such is how we now have many technological advancements which involve a nontrivial chance of the devastation of human life on the planet that seem to continue to advance without any sort of check or restriction.

Personal categorization remains the breeding ground of hypocrisy. We can easily fall prey to the temptation to separate out our “work lives” from our “personal lives,” and especially our “Christian” lives from either or both, despite the exhortation to bring the Reign of God in Christ to bear in every aspect of our lives (cf. Ephesians 5:21-6:9, etc.). The impulse to specialize has also led many Christians to justify themselves in their lack of experience and effort in many aspects of the faith: they have become used to leaving various specialties to “the professionals,” and thus imagine they can leave the work of the faith to the “religious professionals” and just keep paying them and all will be well, even though the work of the “religious professionals” is really to equip said Christians so they can also jointly participate in the work of faith (Ephesians 4:11-16)!

Obsessions with categorizations have often led many to fall prey to category errors in the interpretation of Scripture. Far too often we are tempted to invent categories, impose them on the Scriptures, and then come to conclusions quite foreign and strange to the Biblical text on account of them. This temptation exists across all the various spectra of belief and faith. The premise of same-sex sexual relationship affirmation can only be sustained by imposing on the Scriptures the Victorian-era categorizations of sexuality in terms of “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” and then presuming since Paul could not have conceived of a “loving same sex sexual relationship,” such are not condemned. At no point in these conversations is the conceit of the legitimacy of the new categorizations ever questioned despite the fact queer theory would completely undermine the Victorian framework, and this remains true even of those who are on the other side of the spectrum, who have normalized the same framework and thus find ways to commend “heterosexuality” over “homosexuality.” It is worth noting how the Roman framework of understanding the honor/shame of sexual behavior in terms of penetrator/penetrated is also not assumed, commended, or justified in Scripture. Instead, Scripture speaks regarding sexual conduct, not exhorting anyone to “heterosexuality” or any specific kind of “-sexuality” but chastity (1 Corinthians 6:12-20, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8).

Sometimes these categorizations may even be based on distinctions witnessed in Scripture and yet too much can be made of them. A notable example of this regards the nature of the church. In Scripture we can discern uses of ekklesia which speak of what we call the “church universal,” the one body of all believers (e.g. Romans 12:3-8), and other uses of ekklesia which speak of what we call the “local church,” an individual congregation or a group of individual congregations (e.g. Romans 16:16). Much effort is then expended regarding the attempt to distinguish between these two categories and to systematize the portrayal of each. And yet the Apostles throughout use ekklesia for both and do not make explicit distinctions, most likely because individual congregations of the Lord’s people should reflect the universal body at a given place and time. Thus, even when our categorizations retain some merit, we must be careful lest we make much more of those categorizations than the inspired authors ever intended.

Considering things in terms of categories is not merely a Western phenomenon, and it is not inherently or intrinsically bad. Yet as with all things involving humanity, we can easily make categories absolute or view or use categories in corrupt ways. Such abuses and corruption in categorization have led to many disastrous results in human history and have been part of how horrible atrocities have been rationalized and executed. We do best to hold to categories lightly, recognizing their utility while cognizant of their limitations. We must resist the failure of imagination which comes from uncritical acceptance and clinging to categories and categorization. We do best when we subject all things to God in Christ and seek to bring His reign to bear in all things so we can obtain the resurrection of life!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Wisdom and Power

Who is a wise person? Who knows the solution to a problem? A person’s wisdom brightens his appearance, and softens his harsh countenance.
Obey the king’s command, because you took an oath before God to be loyal to him. Do not rush out of the king’s presence in haste – do not delay when the matter is unpleasant, for he can do whatever he pleases. Surely the king’s authority is absolute; no one can say to him, “What are you doing?” Whoever obeys his command will not experience harm, and a wise person knows the proper time and procedure. For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, for the oppression of the king is severe upon his victim.
Surely no one knows the future, and no one can tell another person what will happen. Just as no one has power over the wind to restrain it, so no one has power over the day of his death. Just as no one can be discharged during the battle, so wickedness cannot rescue the wicked.
While applying my mind to everything that happens in this world, I have seen all this: Sometimes one person dominates other people to their harm (Ecclesiastes 8:1-9).

It is wise to obey the king. But the king must remember why it is important to exercise power well.

Throughout Ecclesiastes 1:1-6:12 the Preacher meditated upon the hevel of life under the sun: all is vain, futile – truly absurd. He compares most human endeavors toward meaning as “chasing after wind”: people pursue pleasure, wealth, wisdom, or other things looking for ultimate purpose and satisfaction and will be disappointed and frustrated by all of them. To rage against such truths is itself futile and striving after wind. God understands better than we do. In Ecclesiastes 7:1-29 the Preacher seemed to have set forth a series of aphoristic exhortations not unlike the proverbs for which he is well known loosely organized around the theme of wisdom. In Ecclesiastes 8:1-9 the Preacher would continue in the same aphoristic vein and loosely organized his exhortations around wisdom in terms of the exercise of and submission to power.

Yet the Preacher introduced this portion of his exhortation by speaking of how a person’s wisdom can brighten and soften their appearance (Ecclesiastes 8:1). Perhaps the Preacher considered this a matter of fact; or perhaps it is an aspiration, an exhortation to those with wisdom to loosen up a little bit and not look so harsh once in a while. When we feel we have come to an understanding of something, a “eureka” moment, we do generally exult in it and such can be seen on our faces. So there is likely something to what the Preacher has declared here.

Then the Preacher considered how a person should conduct himself around a king in Ecclesiastes 8:2-6. A subject should obey the king’s command because he swore an oath of loyalty before God to do so. A subject should not leave the presence of the king quickly nor should he delay to come when he knows it will not be a fun time, since the king has great power. Who has the power to ask the king about what he is doing? Those who obey the king will not be harmed by him, and a wise person knows the appropriate time and protocol for matters. It is good to know as much since the oppression of the king is strong against anyone to whom it is directed.

Such insight, knowledge, and wisdom would prove most apt for the king’s advisers, counselors, officers, and staff; the average subject would rarely, if ever, receive an audience with a king. It might seem somewhat self-serving for Solomon the Preacher, as king of Israel, to encourage such deference; nevertheless, as a king with such power, his exhortation comes somewhat from experience, and yet also somewhat from aspiration. Ancient kings did tend to rule with absolute authority over their subjects, but plenty of intrigue was generally afoot in the court, and just as familiarity breeds contempt, so too the intimates of the king could easily fall prey to not providing him with due deference and honor.

As Christians we do well to appreciate the Preacher’s wisdom about honoring the king in terms of the ways of the world. Christians have been called upon to provide appropriate honor and subjection to the earthly authorities (Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:11-25), and they recognize their power over earthly life and death. No Christian should find him or herself providing undue offense to the dignity of governmental authorities. At the same time our primary loyalty is to the ways of God in Christ; and we might well be called upon to prioritize our higher loyalty (Acts 5:28-29). No one will be justified before God in Christ in doing heinous evil in the name of “just following orders.” Christians will generally find it difficult to navigate the tension between honoring God as God and proving subject to earthly authorities who tend to arrogate for themselves the prerogatives of God.

The Preacher then meditated some on the future. No one knows what will happen (Ecclesiastes 8:7). We do not have power over the wind, and likewise we do not have control over the day upon which we die (Ecclesiastes 8:8). As no soldier is dismissed in the heat of battle, so wickedness cannot rescue the wicked (Ecclesiastes 8:8).

Few things cause modern humans as much distress as their inability to know the future, especially since modern life is very future oriented. How much of our entertainment imagines what our lives would be like if we had insight into our future? How often have we lived more for the hope of a better future so we can endure the trials of the present? And yet we do not really know what will happen. We hope tomorrow will be better than today; perhaps today will prove better than tomorrow.

The Preacher has hit modern humanity right where it hurts: we do not have control over the day of our death. Modern life is all about mastery and control; we constantly strive to gain greater mastery over the forces of this creation which beset us. But our control will always be limited, and we rail against anything over which we cannot maintain control. We do better to heed the Preacher’s wisdom and accept our finite, created nature, and to live well as opposed to railing against the coming darkness.

The Preacher rounded out this section of his exhortation by an observation he has made in the world: people can dominate others to their own harm (Ecclesiastes 8:9). Certainly oppressed people primarily suffer from the oppression of those with power over them, but the Preacher here has the harm of the person with the power in view. This observation is an important counterweight to Ecclesiastes 8:2-6: a king has great power, and kings have been known to abuse their power, and in the process, the person most degraded and dehumanized is the king himself. Thus it goes with all who abuse their power; they are made less human as a result.

Few of us think about the amount of power we exercise in our lives; we tend to take it for granted until our power is threatened or we are deprived of it. We should all seek in wisdom to glorify God in Christ in all of our relationships, to subject our influence and power to His will and purposes, and in Christ seek to obtain the resurrection of life!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Conclusion | 1 John 5:18-21

We know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not; but he that was begotten of God keepeth himself, and the evil one toucheth him not. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil one. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. My little children, guard yourselves from idols (1 John 5:18-21).

Thus John concludes his first letter: perhaps not in a way we would expect, and certainly not according to conventions of the day. Yet the letter began in unconventional ways, and it should not surprise us that it would end in a similar way.

John continues to discuss matters of sin as he began in 1 John 5:16-17. Those who are born of God do “not sin,” are kept by God, and the Evil One does not touch him (1 John 5:18). But did not John say in 1 John 1:8 that we all continually sin? Are we not to be wary of the Evil One (1 Peter 5:8)?

We must not create contradiction in Scripture by making false inferences based on 1 John 5:18. Christians are not to be in the habit of sinning; thus, “does not keep on sinning,” as in the ESV.

The Scriptures make a distinction between the believer who seeks to follow God and stumbles occasionally and those who sin without any inclination toward true repentance or change (1 John 1:7-9 vs. Hebrews 10:26-31, etc.). We saw such a contrast in 1 John 5:16-17: the “sin leading to death” and the “sin not leading to death.” Christians may be guilty of the latter; if they are guilty of the former, they demonstrate that they are not truly “born of God.” Furthermore, Christians who are God’s obedient servants are justified in Christ and there is none to condemn (Romans 8:31-34), yet the danger of being tempted and to fall into sin remains (James 1:14-15, 1 Peter 5:8).

We must remember that John is attempting to encourage his fellow Christians. As part of God’s redeemed new creation, they are distinct from the world, for they know that the world is entirely in the hands of the Evil One (1 John 5:18-19; cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 John 2:15-17). They have been transformed by the renewal of their minds, and are born of God, kept by God, and from God (Romans 12:2). Thus John summarizes a main theme in his letter: believers are born of God, should cease from sin, and are not of the sinful world (1 John 1:5-2:6, 2:12-17, 2:28-3:10, 3:19-24, 4:4-6, 5:1-5, 16-18).

John continues by summarizing what has been said about Jesus the Son of God: He has come and given us understanding so we may know the One True and Eternal God, and we who believe in Him are in Him (1 John 5:20). John has spent much time making known how Jesus is God’s Son in the flesh, opposing the Gnostic teachings advancing in those days, and how believers abide in the Son (1 John 1:1-4, 2:16-25, 4:1-6, 5:1-15).

John concludes his letter with what, on the surface, seems to be a puzzling exhortation: “little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). “Little children” has been one of John’s favorite expressions for believers (1 John 2:1, 12, 28, 3:7, 3:18, 4:4).

But why warn them to stay away from idols? There has been no previous discussion of idolatry per se in 1 John. Is John really concerned that believers are going to start straying from the One True God and go serve idols in the pagan temples in their midst?

While such might be a concern for a few it is not John’s primary meaning. Throughout the New Testament the concept of idolatry is expanded beyond prostration and service done before an image. Jesus speaks of “mammon,” or money, in “god-like” terms, declaring that man cannot serve both it and God (cf. Matthew 6:24). Paul twice equates covetousness with idolatry (Ephesians 5:5, Colossians 3:5). The idol that one serves, therefore, may not be an image of gold or silver. It may be an abstract concept, a lust of the flesh, or any number of things.

This is John’s final concern for his fellow Christians. They must place their emphasis in life on doing God’s commandments and abiding in Him. They must not be distracted by the world and its idols: false teachings, the lusts of the eyes and flesh, the pride of life, and so on. We have received life through the love of God manifest in Jesus Christ His Son, and the world cannot provide anything of such quality and duration. Let us be strengthened and encouraged by John’s first letter, abide in God, and keep ourselves from idols!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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1 John 5:18-21: Conclusion

We know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not; but he that was begotten of God keepeth himself, and the evil one toucheth him not. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil one. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. My little children, guard yourselves from idols (1 John 5:18-21).

Thus John concludes his first letter: perhaps not in a way we would expect, and certainly not according to conventions of the day. Yet the letter began in unconventional ways, and it should not surprise us that it would end in a similar way.

John continues to discuss matters of sin as he began in 1 John 5:16-17. Those who are born of God do “not sin,” are kept by God, and the Evil One does not touch him (1 John 5:18). But did not John say in 1 John 1:8 that we all continually sin? Are we not to be wary of the Evil One (1 Peter 5:8)?

We must not create contradiction in Scripture by making false inferences based on 1 John 5:18. Christians are not to be in the habit of sinning; thus, “does not keep on sinning,” as in the ESV.

The Scriptures make a distinction between the believer who seeks to follow God and stumbles occasionally and those who sin without any inclination toward true repentance or change (1 John 1:7-9 vs. Hebrews 10:26-31, etc.). We saw such a contrast in 1 John 5:16-17: the “sin leading to death” and the “sin not leading to death.” Christians may be guilty of the latter; if they are guilty of the former, they demonstrate that they are not truly “born of God.” Furthermore, Christians who are God’s obedient servants are justified in Christ and there is none to condemn (Romans 8:31-34), yet the danger of being tempted and to fall into sin remains (James 1:14-15, 1 Peter 5:8).

We must remember that John is attempting to encourage his fellow Christians. As part of God’s redeemed new creation, they are distinct from the world, for they know that the world is entirely in the hands of the Evil One (1 John 5:18-19; cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 John 2:15-17). They have been transformed by the renewal of their minds, and are born of God, kept by God, and from God (Romans 12:2). Thus John summarizes a main theme in his letter: believers are born of God, should cease from sin, and are not of the sinful world (1 John 1:5-2:6, 2:12-17, 2:28-3:10, 3:19-24, 4:4-6, 5:1-5, 16-18).

John continues by summarizing what has been said about Jesus the Son of God: He has come and given us understanding so we may know the One True and Eternal God, and we who believe in Him are in Him (1 John 5:20). John has spent much time making known how Jesus is God’s Son in the flesh, opposing the Gnostic teachings advancing in those days, and how believers abide in the Son (1 John 1:1-4, 2:16-25, 4:1-6, 5:1-15).

John concludes his letter with what, on the surface, seems to be a puzzling exhortation: “little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). “Little children” has been one of John’s favorite expressions for believers (1 John 2:1, 12, 28, 3:7, 3:18, 4:4).

But why warn them to stay away from idols? There has been no previous discussion of idolatry per se in 1 John. Is John really concerned that believers are going to start straying from the One True God and go serve idols in the pagan temples in their midst?

While such might be a concern for a few it is not John’s primary meaning. Throughout the New Testament the concept of idolatry is expanded beyond prostration and service done before an image. Jesus speaks of “mammon,” or money, in “god-like” terms, declaring that man cannot serve both it and God (cf. Matthew 6:24). Paul twice equates covetousness with idolatry (Ephesians 5:5, Colossians 3:5). The idol that one serves, therefore, may not be an image of gold or silver. It may be an abstract concept, a lust of the flesh, or any number of things.

This is John’s final concern for his fellow Christians. They must place their emphasis in life on doing God’s commandments and abiding in Him. They must not be distracted by the world and its idols: false teachings, the lusts of the eyes and flesh, the pride of life, and so on. We have received life through the love of God manifest in Jesus Christ His Son, and the world cannot provide anything of such quality and duration. Let us be strengthened and encouraged by John’s first letter, abide in God, and keep ourselves from idols!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Challenges With Oral, Written, and Digital Knowledge

Humans, especially in the Western world, very much prize knowledge: its acquisition, its exercise, and its advancement and development.

Our relationship with knowledge, however, is fraught with many problems. We are finite, created beings; thus, there is only so much we can know and understand (cf. Isaiah 55:8-9). We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23): our faculties for knowledge have been thus corrupted. Such corruption is manifest in the reasoning and exercise of knowledge as well as in our ability to retain knowledge. In our corruption we are prone to misremember, consciously and unconsciously, promoting and advancing what is truly error in our limitations or with nefarious motivations.

We would like to imagine our brains as supercomputers, able to process memories and knowledge and to retain them for instantaneous recall when needed. Yet such is not how God has designed the human brain, nor is it how the human brain, in its current corruption, functions. Various aspects of memories are stored in different parts of the brain; it would seem every recall of our memory is in its own way a refabrication of what we are remembering. This function is by necessity, and in many ways, preservation: if we could remember every sense impression we ever received, we would get lost in details and not remember anything substantive; furthermore, we have plenty of memories we do best to forget or remember in a different light on account of the trauma we have experienced.

And yet all these factors mean our memory is not as reliable as we imagine it to be. The way we understand what has happened in our lives is not infallible, let alone the way we understand what has happened to others or the state of the knowledge we have thought we have obtained.

All such things reflect the challenges of life in a society in which knowledge is primarily maintained in oral transmission. It is not as if information cannot be transmitted throughout generations by means of oral transmission; but the information communicated by oral transmission will often go through various changes, often unintentionally and unconsciously, and all while the transmitters of oral knowledge insist they tell the same story. Furthermore, oral knowledge endures only as long as the information is transmitted: plague, pestilence, and/or violence can easily lead to the extinguishing of information about a given people or culture. Such is why we continue to categorize the past in terms of “historical” and “pre-historical” periods: there is only so much we can know about a culture or a people who have not preserved written records or have not communicated to others who have written it down.

For various reasons people began to develop systems by which thoughts and words could be recorded through signs on various media and could be preserved for later retrieval by the writers themselves or by those of a later time. The first of these seem to originate 6000 or so years ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt and endure to this day.

The strength of written knowledge is the creation of a fixed standard which can be maintained and referred to over time. Humans can memorize information and retain it well as long as they have a written standard to which they can make reference. Today we have far greater understanding about many aspects of ancient life in cultures which wrote down such information.

Yet written knowledge comes with its own set of challenges as recognized even in antiquity. In many respects the whole point of written knowledge is to replace “knowing something” with “knowing where to learn about something”: it fosters a “card catalog” approach to knowledge, in which the thing itself is less known but we know where to go to learn about it. Such a challenge was not entirely foreign to primarily oral cultures; we can consider how many Israelites would have made an appeal to a prophet or one trained in the Torah to figure out information about how to serve God as opposed to themselves knowing how to thus serve. But it is a challenge exacerbated by written knowledge. In terms of the Christian faith we must always insist on not just knowing about Scripture, or knowing where to find things in Scripture, but the actual knowing of Scripture, to allow the Word of God to be within a person (e.g. 2 Peter 3:18). No one has ever been transformed by God in Christ through the Spirit merely by knowing where to learn; they must actually learn the thing itself and be transformed by it.

Written knowledge is also only as good as the writings are preserved, and such was a major difficulty in the world before the printing press. Wet clay can be re-formed and thus writing on it can be erased; papyrus and paper easily decay or fall apart. We are aware of all kinds of written works which are no longer extant, most likely lost in the ravages of time; we are probably ignorant of far more. Just because something is written down does not make it true: plenty of people have written things to distort or manipulate intentionally, and far more have written with the best of intentions but ultimately in ways which did not maintain full integrity. Many arguments and disputes about doctrines in Christianity were generated or made worse by the existence of “pseudepigraphal” works, in which someone later wrote in the name of a famous ancestor, and people in later generations accepted the “pseudepigraphal” works as authentic, and drew conclusions. And even if something is written and true, errors intentional and unintentional can creep in through the copying process. Furthermore, all written language, by necessity, is interpretive: we all have to interpret what the signs written actually mean. We have some written documents from the past which we cannot read because we have not deciphered the writing system. Many English Bible translations will frequently note how “the Hebrew is uncertain” in many passages: many words in the Hebrew Bible show up once or only a few times and we do not have strong confidence in their specific likeness in English because what those terms originally meant have not been handed down. Even when we have written words well preserved through the copying process and a decent understanding of the original language, no two languages have exact equivalence in terms and thoughts; the multiplicity of Bible translations testify to the various layers of understanding which we can obtain from the text. Interpretation and application of texts also are places in which we can easily distort the original purpose of the author.

From the beginning of writing until the modern age the great barrier for people has been one of access. Written knowledge is only valuable if you know how to read and write and you have access to sources of written knowledge. Such access was often jealously guarded as the prerogative of the literate elite. As Christians we do well to remember how challenging access to the knowledge of the Scriptures proved for the first 1500 years of Christianity: only a few could read, and even then, to read would require texts available to read. Therefore, most Christians who have ever lived most likely did not read much or any of the Scriptures. Their experience with the Scriptures was mediated by those who read it and explained it to them (cf. 1 Timothy 4:13). We can find many benefits to our personal study of Scripture, and we do well to come to understand God’s purposes in Christ better through our study of Scripture; nevertheless, we never have a right to assume the only way a person can be a Christian is by means of studying the Scriptures, and should be on the lookout for how the reading and studying of Scripture can itself prove idolatrous. Far too many have confused the Author of Scripture with the Scriptures themselves; far too many have confused learning about God in Christ with the actual practices of following God in Christ.

Current generations are living through the third great revolution in knowledge: the prevalence of digital knowledge. By means of computers and the Internet the challenge of access is significantly reduced. We have instant access to a wealth of knowledge beyond anything any individual can well understand. Information is now everywhere.

The great challenge of digital knowledge involves trust. We can all easily and quickly search for information: but how can we know the information is any good? Search engines are monetized to direct you to the sources of information which pay the search engines money to that end. On almost every issue and matter we will easily find highly contradictory explanations and understandings of almost anything and everything. “I found it on the Internet” as a source is now a running joke.

Digital knowledge, therefore, is only as good as the integrity of those who post it; and our understanding of digital knowledge must be well informed with critical perspectives watching out for confirmation bias. Digital knowledge is simultaneously expansive and siloed: you can learn just about anything on the Internet, but you can also find specific and epistemically closed communities on the Internet. Such is how many people have “done their research” and believe certain things very strongly, even though others have also “done their research,” believe in certain things very strongly, and have come to radically different conclusions. With digital knowledge we must cultivate healthy self-skepticism in our critical thinking, subjecting what we want to believe and the claims of those who we deem are like us to the same critical standard to which we subject that which we do not want to believe and the claims of those we deem are not like us.

Thus no form of knowledge is a panacea; challenges persist regardless of how we know things and seek to retain knowledge. We cannot dismiss the existence of the challenges, nor can we despair of knowing anything because of the challenges. Instead we do well to navigate the challenges with the wisdom expressed by God in Christ through the Spirit and focus primarily on that which leads to greater trust in God in Christ so we are living more consistently with the witness of what God has accomplished in Christ through His Spirit!

Ethan R. Longhenry

The post Challenges With Oral, Written, and Digital Knowledge appeared first on de Verbo vitae.

Seekers of Evil Schemes

Wisdom gives a wise person more protection than ten rulers in a city. For there is not one truly righteous person on the earth who continually does good and never sins.
Also, do not pay attention to everything that people say; otherwise, you might even hear your servant cursing you. For you know in your own heart that you also have cursed others many times.
I have examined all this by wisdom; I said, “I am determined to comprehend this” – but it was beyond my grasp. Whatever has happened is beyond human understanding; it is far deeper than anyone can fathom.
I tried to understand, examine, and comprehend the role of wisdom in the scheme of things, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the insanity of folly.
I discovered this: More bitter than death is the kind of woman who is like a hunter’s snare; her heart is like a hunter’s net and her hands are like prison chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is captured by her.
The Teacher says: I discovered this while trying to discover the scheme of things, item by item. What I have continually sought, I have not found; I have found only one upright man among a thousand, but I have not found one upright woman among all of them. This alone have I discovered: God made humankind upright, but they have sought many evil schemes (Ecclesiastes 7:19-29).

All explorations of wisdom and folly must grapple with the depth of human depravity.

Throughout Ecclesiastes 1:1-6:12 the Preacher meditates upon the hevel of life under the sun: all is vain, futile – truly absurd. He compares most human endeavors toward meaning as “chasing after wind”: people pursue pleasure, wealth, wisdom, or other things looking for ultimate purpose and satisfaction and will be disappointed and frustrated by all of them. To rage against such truths is itself futile and striving after wind. God understands better than we do.

In Ecclesiastes 7:1-10 the Preacher seemed to have set forth a series of aphoristic exhortations not unlike the proverbs for which he is well known. Ecclesiastes 7:11-18 presented a series of pericopes a bit more focused on wisdom and life principles. In Ecclesiastes 7:19-29 he persisted in the same theme.

In Ecclesiastes 7:19-20 the Preacher transitioned effectively by means of his two declarations: wisdom providing protection hearkens back to Ecclesiastes 7:11-12 and well ties together the pericopes of Ecclesiastes 7:11-19, and the confession of the sinfulness of everyone anticipates the rest of his theme in Ecclesiastes 7:20-29. The Preacher connected these two themes together in Ecclesiastes 7:19-20: wisdom provides protection for the wise person because everyone, even the wise person, commits sin. The wise man has been corrupted by sin and is fallible. He does well when he relies on wisdom; yet no one always behaves according to wisdom. The Preacher would know: he is honored as the wisest among men, and yet his follies regarding women and idolatry remain exposed for all to see in 1 Kings 11:1-43.

Yet even on its own Ecclesiastes 7:20 remains salient, reinforced by Paul in Romans 3:23 and John in 1 John 1:8. No one is fully and truly righteous; all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Nothing good has ever come from any attempt to presume we have transcended sin. For good reason Paul wanted Christians to be continually reminded of their past sinfulness (Ephesians 2:1-11, Titus 3:3-8): such remains the necessary ground in humility to relate properly to God and to fellow human beings.

The Preacher then provided a bit of practical wisdom: do not give heed to everything people say, or you might even hear someone you think is socially inferior to you or who is very close to you cursing you. If you would find this terribly offensive, you do well to remember how you have cursed others in your heart many times (Ecclesiastes 7:21-22). This pericope has a light connection with how everyone commits sin in Ecclesiastes 7:20 and almost no connection with what will follow. Nevertheless, the Preacher’s advice is good; we are tempted to get very incensed or offended if we happen to hear the way others negatively feel about us, but has that ever stopped us from having negative feelings about others? We do well to lightly hold onto offense because of such things; while we might do well to reflect on how we have related and treated people who would curse us, we must also remember their cursing might well tell us more about them than it does about us.

The Preacher has considered all the things he has thus mentioned according to wisdom, yet in the attempt has perceived how all such things are beyond his understanding and remained far beyond what any human being could imagine (Ecclesiastes 7:23-24). As in Eccclesiastes 6:10-12, so again the Preacher grappled with the limitations of human capacity. Such is why wisdom cannot be the ultimate good; even at our best, humans remain finite created beings, and thus cannot fully understand anything and everything. The Preacher consistently returns to this humble recognition which has become quite lost on people today across the socio-political spectrum. We remain finite creatures; we cannot understand anything to its fullest extent. Such remains true about how we view the creation; yet such is also true about inquiry and investigation regarding spiritual matters. We have good reason to maintain strong confidence in God as our Creator and His covenant loyalty, but must be careful about how dogmatically we hold onto any specific belief or idea, for whatever we think we know is only a shadow of a much more profound reality beyond our capability to understand. Whenever we want to make any thing God has made absolute, whether a substance or our understanding or even ourselves, we commit idolatry.

In Ecclesiastes 7:25-27 the Preacher developed serious rhetorical scaffolding around the danger of the temptress or covetous woman. He investigated wisdom in the grand scheme of things as well as the mad folly of wickedness; in so doing he came upon the woman “like a hunter’s snare,” whose heart is as the “hunter’s net” and hands as prison chains; she is more bitter than death. The man who pleases God would escape such a woman, but sinners are captured by her.

The Israelite wisdom tradition personified Wisdom and Folly as contrasting women. Wisdom cries out, inviting everyone to learn humility and wisdom from God (Proverbs 1:20-33, 8:1-26). Folly, on the other hand, is described as the seductive adulteress, leading naïve men to their doom (Proverbs 2:11-18, 5:3-15, 7:6-27). We should understand the Preacher’s exhortation in Ecclesiastes 7:26 according to this paradigm. Today we would speak of such women as “gold diggers”, those seeking significant material wealth from their romantic relationship without much regard to the well-being of their partner. Any woman who would prove emotionally or otherwise abusive would also fit the paradigm.

While the Preacher’s exhortation is gendered, we would be remiss and naïve to assume such gendering is entirely prescriptive as well as descriptive. Men can also prove abusive in relationships, and we can imagine many situations in which men who display certain behaviors would be more bitter than death for women.

We do well to similarly understand how the Preacher concludes his pericopes related to wisdom: he has not found what he sought, for he found only one upright man among a thousand, and no upright woman among any of them. If he discovered anything, it is this: God made humans upright, but they have sought many evil schemes (Ecclesiastes 7:28-29).

We understand the general nature of the Preacher’s observation: humans are depraved. We do well to understand this observation as returning full circle to Ecclesiastes 7:20 and it provides a nice rhetorical finish. And yet he has communicated this observation in a misogynistic way. It is not as if the Preacher is really commending men or masculinity here; finding only one upright man out of a thousand is not a good testimony for men. But what do we make of him not finding any upright women? Is it the misogynistic perspective of the Preacher himself? Or does it testify more to the kind of women with whom he has surrounded himself, or, perhaps, the kind of women who would be around a wealthy king like the Preacher?

Any attempt to use Ecclesiastes 7:28 as some kind of cudgel to degrade women is itself depraved; men and women have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory; men and women can equally find salvation in Jesus and equally share as joint-heirs of the grace of life (Romans 3:23, Galatians 3:28, 1 Peter 3:7).

In this way we do better to focus on the Preacher’s general observation than his specific explication: people sin. The Preacher well observed how humanity’s propensity to sin is not God’s fault because of how God made humanity, for God made humans and they were very good (Genesis 1:1-31). Instead, in their corruption, humans have sought evil schemes. They fall prey to their anxieties and fears and act in ways which harm others in a misguided attempt to establish benefits for themselves and those they deem their associates. The Israelites well perceived this tendency among the nations; God, and the Preacher, could also see this tendency among the people of God as well.

To this day people have sought evil schemes. We all remain very attuned to the evil schemes which “they,” whomever we define as not “us”, have propagated and perpetuated; yet we do well to explore, like in the wisdom of the Preacher, how we ourselves, and those we associate as among or allied with us, have sought out evil schemes as well. We are not intrinsically upright; we have been corrupted by sin and our anxieties and fears which attend to our decay and death. Our only hope has been salvation from our condition and plight from God who has richly bestowed His love, grace, and mercy in Jesus Christ His Son and our Lord. May we in wisdom recognize our limitations and our depravity in our corruption, and in humility trust and depend on God in Christ through the Spirit to overcome sin and death!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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