Ethan R. Longhenry's Blog, page 6

Infancy Gospels

Where did Joseph and Mary come from? What might Jesus have been like, and what kinds of things might He have done as a child?

These, and many others, represent natural and understandable questions a reader of the Gospel narratives regarding Jesus’ birth and early life in Matthew 1:1-2:23 and Luke 1:1-2:52 might have. And there would be people professing themselves as followers of Jesus as Lord who used their imaginations to come up with stories regarding the circumstances of Mary’s birth, Joseph’s origin, additional details about Jesus’ birth, and incidents involving Jesus as a child. Many of these stories would become extremely popular and were distributed widely in written form. We call them infancy gospels.

Six texts have come down to us from antiquity which are generally considered infancy gospels: they are, in roughly chronological order, The Protoevangelium of James, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Life of John the Baptist, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, the Syriac or Arabic Infancy Gospel, and the History of Joseph the Carpenter.

The earliest and most influential infancy gospels, by far, are the Protoevangelium of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Scholars remain generally convinced both were written sometime in the second century CE, with the Protoevangelium of James around 145 and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas at some point in the second half of the second century.

The Protoevangelium of James, also known as the Gospel of James or Infancy Gospel of James, purports to have been written by James the brother of Jesus in the wake of Herod’s death. It can be read here; I discuss it in greater depth here. In it, Mary was born of wealthy but older parents Joachim and Anna, and dedicated as a virgin in the Temple in Jerusalem until given to a widower Joseph as wife. The story would include the details from the narratives in Matthew and Luke but expanded upon them, speaking of the reproaches on Mary and Joseph from the priests in the Temple, and a sotah examination not only of Mary, but bizarrely, of Joseph as well (cf. Numbers 5:11-31). After Jesus’ birth, Mary’s virginity, even after giving birth, was assured by a midwife on site. In this story Herod the Great sent soldiers to kill both Jesus and John the Baptist; a mountain opened up to give shelter to Elizabeth and John, but Herod would later put Zechariah to death, and Simeon of Luke 2:22-38 fame officiated as priest.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is a modern name for what had formerly been known as the Gospel of Thomas; the name was changed because it is not the same thing as the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas re-discovered as part of the Nag Hammadi Codices. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas can be read here or here. The association between the text and Thomas existed in the medieval era; we cannot be completely confident of its existence beforehand. It is also called the Book of the Childhood of the Savior. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas represents a collection of short stories about various acts of Jesus while He was a child. Some of the most famous stories involve Jesus making clay sparrows which He brought to life; cursing a boy who then died, and later bringing him back to life; the accidental death of a child named Zeno, with claims Jesus knocked him off a roof, featuring Jesus bringing Zeno back to life, with Zeno then exonerating Jesus; healing James of a viper bite; and assisting His father by miraculously expanding a piece of wood to finish some furniture. On three occasions a teacher comes around and presumes he can teach the boy Jesus something, and the teachers are always humiliated and provide significant warnings about the Child.

The Life of John the Baptist was not claimed as written by an apostle or their associates but by Serapion of Thmuis around 390 CE; it can be read here. In truth, the Life of John the Baptist is not primarily an infancy gospel; as advertised, it represents the collection of the stories about John’s birth, life, and death as told in the Gospel narratives, the Protoevangelium of James, some additional church traditions, and concluded with the story of how that which was believed to be the body of John the Baptist was taken from Sebaste and brought to Alexandria in Egypt in the fourth century. The Life of John the Baptist is included among the infancy gospels since it would expand upon the stories leading up to Jesus’ birth, but also because of the story preserved in Life of John the Baptist 7, claiming Elizabeth died when John was seven and a half, and Jesus, at seven, came with Mary to John on a cloud, told His mother and Salome to prepare Elizabeth’s body for burial, for which Gabriel and Michael dug a grave, and then gave instruction to John so he might live and remain in the wilderness.

The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, called the Book About the Origin of the Blessed Mary and the Childhood of the Savior in antiquity, purported to have been translated by Jerome from an original Hebrew document written by Matthew to tell stories beyond what he wrote in his Gospel; it can be read here. Such “attestation” was added to the text two hundred years after its likely origins in Merovingian France in the seventh century. The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew can be best understood as a compilation of and slight expansion on the stories told in Matthew and Luke as well as the Protoevangelium of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Some notable additions include an immaculate conception of Mary by Anna (Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 3) and frequent demonstrations of how animals would subject themselves before Jesus as a baby and a child, including the first claim a donkey and an ox were in the stable where Jesus lay in the manger (Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 14, depending on Isaiah 1:3). The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, at variance with other portrayals of the story, declared the Magi visited Jesus in His third year of life (Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 16).

The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew would also expand upon Jesus’ time in Egypt and suggested many stories of miraculous events surrounding Him throughout that time. Such would become a major aspect of the Syriac or Arabic Infancy Gospel; it can be read here. It would seem the work derived from the Syriac History of the Virgin, perhaps written in the fifth or sixth century, but has become better known to us as the Arabic Infancy Gospel, likely a translation of the Syriac into Arabic, but possibly an Arabic composition using the Syriac story as a source. Influence from the Gospel accounts and the Protoevangelium of James can be identified in the Arabic Infancy Gospel, but the story quickly covers Jesus’ birth in order to more thoroughly focus on stories about Jesus’ childhood in Egypt and Judea. Even if its coverage of Jesus’ birth was short, the Arabic Infancy Gospel notably has Jesus confess Himself as the Logos and Son of God to Mary from the cradle (Arabic Infancy Gospel 1), and spoke of the wise men as traveling on account of a prophecy from Zoroaster (Arabic Infancy Gospel 7). Yet the novelty within the Arabic Infancy Gospel primarily remains in all of the stories it would tell of miracles in Egypt and around Bethlehem: while it incorporated a good number of the stories presented in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Arabic Infancy Gospel would tell many unique stories of Mary facilitating healing and miracles through her Child.

Around the same time, and most likely from Egypt, came the History of Joseph the Carpenter; it can be read here. It purported to be an apostolic recollection of instruction by Jesus from the Mount of Olives regarding the life, and especially the death, of His stepfather Joseph. The History of Joseph the Carpenter displays great dependence on the Protoevangelium of James for its narrative of Jesus’ birth. The author was quite insistent on Joseph as having been a widower, with sons Judas, Justus, James, and Simon and daughters Assia and Lydia having been born to a previous wife. The text claimed Joseph lived to 111, with a good portion of the text telling a story about Joseph’s final words and how Jesus facilitated his passage and promised his body would remain uncorrupted.

What, then, should we make of these six infancy gospels? They all are reckoned among the New Testament Apocrypha: by common confession, those claiming to have been written by James the Lord’s brother or Thomas remain pseudepigraphal, or written by someone later who ascribed their stories to an ancient authority. At no point have there been credible, serious claims that any of these infancy gospels are inspired.

All six infancy gospels represent forms of midrash, creative expansions on Biblical stories by later generations. As with most midrashim, we have no basis or ground upon which to believe or suggest these stories derived from actual eyewitness experiences of Joachim, Anna, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, or anyone else.

As we have seen, most of the infancy gospels prove dependent on the Protoevangelium of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The second century dating of these texts demonstrates how relatively quickly stories about Jesus’ birth and early life, and the lives of His parents, arose and were circulated. But even these betray more Greco-Roman than Hebrew origin: the idea virgins lived in the Temple has no basis or ground in any of the literature which has survived about the services of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, but very much sounds like how Vestal Virgins served Vesta in Rome. Perhaps Mary’s parents really were named Joachim and Anna; but it would be hard to imagine them as fantastically wealthy since Joseph and Mary dedicated Jesus in the Temple with a pair of doves, the secondary option given for the poor in Leviticus 12:6-8 (Luke 2:22-24). Furthermore, stories of Joseph and Mary having fame and reputation in Jerusalem at the Temple very much stand at variance with their more humble and anonymous origins as imagined in Luke 1:36-2:38. While the mischief and impatience of Jesus as a child as portrayed in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas bear witness to the author’s experience of parenting small children, it proves challenging to reconcile with the portrayal of Jesus as obedient and growing in wisdom and stature in Luke 2:51-52; furthermore, the Gospel accounts do not suggest Jesus performed miracles or signs before He was baptized by John.

Some have claimed a more Gnostic origin for the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, probably based on some of the things the author has Jesus say and teach. Nevertheless, nothing in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas is inherently Gnostic, and many of its stories would seem to work against the Gnostic portrayal of Jesus. Yet even in antiquity, prominent Christians deemed it heretical.

The challenges which attend to the Protoevangelium of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas are only compounded with the Life of John the Baptist, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, the Arabic Infancy Gospel, and the History of Joseph the Carpenter. These texts all date far later and manifest clear dependence on the Protoevangelium of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, including all their difficulties.

Whatever did not prove dependent on earlier sources represent imagined miraculous experiences framed in terms of later devotional and theological premises. And this leads us to considering why these infancy gospels exist.

To some degree these stories come out of a natural desire to “fill in the gaps” of the stories related in the Gospels. As many Jewish people told stories expanding on Biblical characters in the Hebrew Bible, with many of those stories preserved as the midrashim for those various Biblical books, so many early Christians did something similar, especially in terms of Jesus’ early years and regarding the lives of the Apostles. Much of the New Testament Apocrypha represents these kinds of stories. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas would represent this trend most purely.

But the storytellers were not merely motivated by simple curiosity. A good number of these stories, at least in part, were designed to advance and/or reinforce the developing hagiography and veneration, particularly of Mary, over the first few centuries of the Christian faith. As the doctrines of original sin and the practice of infant baptism advanced and were fused together, it became all the more important to shield Jesus from them; thus not only was Jesus portrayed as immaculately conceived, but also Mary herself, as we can see in the adaptations of the Protoevangelium of James seen in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. Before long Mary’s perpetual virginity would become a dogma among many early Christians, standing at variance with the portrayal of Joseph keeping Mary a virgin “until” she gave birth to Jesus in Matthew 1:25, and James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas as Jesus’ brothers in Matthew 12:46-48, 13:55-56. Since the Gospels no longer mention Joseph once Jesus reaches maturity, and his previous death is assumed by the need for John to take care of Mary after Jesus’ death in John 19:25-27, an alternative story could be put together. And, conveniently, these infancy gospels would tell of a much older widower Joseph marrying the virgin Mary more as a caretaker than anything else, and never having relations with her, and his sons from a former marriage would become Jesus’ “brothers.” We can also see Mary taking on greater prominence in the infancy gospels over time, especially manifest in the Arabic Infancy Gospel.

These infancy gospels have done their work well. Even though they are fully confessed as apocryphal writings and as midrashim, not inspired and not derived from truly apostolic witness, many of their details have become understood as part of the story of Jesus’ birth and early life. Many make much of Joachim and Anna as the parents of Mary based on the Protoevangelium of James. Muhammad was influenced by many of these stories about Mary and Jesus, most likely through the Arabic Infancy Gospel, and they are found in the pages of the Qu’ran. In every generation some will try to pass off stories from the infancy gospels as the “truth” which “the Church” worked to “suppress” and “keep out of the Bible,” and some will naively believe them.

In the end, the infancy gospels tell you a lot more about the faith and devotion of many early Christians from the second century onward than anything about the historical, or even canonical, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. We can appreciate the infancy gospels as imaginative ways in which early Christians told themselves stories about how Joseph, Mary, and Jesus came to be. At the same time, there is much about the story told by Matthew and Luke which get lost in the way the infancy gospels attempt to make much of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus: it is harder to see their humility, poverty, and relative anonymity in these infancy gospels. If anything, these infancy gospels better display the power of the original Gospel accounts in contrast. May we affirm and uphold the story of Jesus’ birth and parentage as testified by Matthew and Luke, and find eternal life in God in Christ!

Ethan R. Longhenry

Works Consulted

Infancy Gospels (accessed 2024/12/23).

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Reassurance and Warning by Commandment

The Book of Numbers is better understood in terms of its name in Hebrew: Bemidbar, “in the wilderness,” for it described Israel’s preparations to depart from Mount Horeb/Sinai and their wanderings in the wilderness afterward. The events described therein would have taken place sometime around either 1450-1410 or 1250 BCE, depending on one’s view of the Exodus; Moses would have written the original text while in the land of Moab across the Jordan River from Jericho.

The Book of Numbers began with great hope for the imminent fulfillment of the rest of what YHWH had promised to the fathers. The people were faithfully counted and organized, and the Tabernacle and its service fully consecrated and dedicated, in Numbers 1:1-10:10.

Yet Israel turned in fear and rebelled against YHWH and His purposes. The people murmured and complained again, and even Aaron and Miriam questioned Moses in Numbers 10:11-12:16. Yet the ultimate rebellion, and its devastating consequences, came about on account of the spies and their bad report of the land of Canaan in Numbers 13:1-14:45. All the Israelites over twenty years old would die in the wilderness save Caleb and Joshua. The people acutely felt the judgment and condemnation of God.

In the immediate wake of these devastating and transformative events YHWH issued more commands to Israel through Moses in Numbers 15:1-41.

In Numbers 15:1-21, YHWH gave commandments to Moses for Israel about the sacrifices the Israelites should offer before YHWH when they live in the land of Israel. The legislation seems to parallel previous similar legislation in Leviticus 7:1-34 and related passages. Some detail changes can be perceived in Numbers 15:1-16, perhaps on account of modifications in the situation of Israel and expectations moving forward. Of significance is YHWH’s affirmation of the incorporation of the resident alien: the same laws about sacrifices exist for resident aliens as well as native born Israelites, and resident aliens who might want to enthusiastically offer sacrifices before YHWH should not be hindered from doing so (Numbers 15:13-16).

YHWH reiterated commandments and protocols related to sacrifices for unintentional sins by individuals in Numbers 15:22-29. Similar legislation was given in Leviticus 4:1-35. Much of the focus in Leviticus 4:1-35, however, was on unintentional sin by the community, while the focus in Numbers 15:22-31 involved the unintentional sin of individual(s) and how they might affect the standing of the community. YHWH again reiterated how the same law would be for the resident alien as well as the native-born Israelite (Numbers 15:29).

While sacrifice was possible for unintentional sin, YHWH wanted to make it clear to Moses and the Israelites no such forgiveness was possible for sins done “with a high hand” in Numbers 15:30-31: for such flagrant rebellion, such a one must be cut off from among the people of God. Some might want to extend this kind of transgression to involve any and all kinds of “intentional” sins, but we do well to understand the parallel use of the phrase “with a high hand” in Exodus 14:8 and Numbers 33:3. In those two passages Israel was said to have departed “with a high hand” away from Egypt and Pharaoh: they did so with complete disregard for the “power” of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Therefore, to sin “with a high hand” would involve complete disregard of YHWH and His power: we would not be wrong to see Jesus’ warnings about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit in Matthew 12:22-32 as an appropriate parallel.

Numbers 15:32-36 related an experience of Israel in the wilderness: a man was gathering sticks on the Sabbath. He was brought before Aaron and Moses, who then inquired of YHWH regarding what to do about the situation, because it was felt insufficient revelation had been given to make a confident determination. YHWH told them to put him to death by stoning outside the camp. Israel then did so as God had commanded.

While we could reasonably understand Numbers 15:1-21, 22-29, 37-41 as a series of commandments given by YHWH to Moses in the immediate wake of Israel’s rebellion in Numbers 13:1-14:45, it would seem Numbers 15:32-36 was introduced into this context. It is possible the event took place around the same time, but how the story was framed would make it seem it either happened at some point earlier, or perhaps even far later. We do best to understand its placement as a demonstration of what sinning “with a high hand” might look like from Numbers 15:30-31.

Why did Aaron and Moses feel they did not have sufficient revelation to determine the matter themselves? The man had clearly transgressed by doing the work of gathering sticks on the Sabbath. It becomes a more “high handed” sin, according to most interpreters, on account of the presumption the man was doing so in order to build a fire. In so doing he did not truly revere YHWH or trust in Him, but showed contempt toward YHWH and His commandments. We also do well to note how Israel here faithfully maintained the command to stone the man, a noticeable break from the patterns of persistent rebellion found in Numbers 10:11-14:45, hearkening back instead to the faithfulness found in Numbers 1:1-10:10.

In Numbers 15:37-41 YHWH gave commandment to Israel through Moses regarding tassels on garments: the Israelites should make tassels of blue thread on the fringes of their garments. These tassels were designed to be a continual reminder of the commandments of YHWH so the Israelites would not follow after their own heart and eyes and prove unfaithful. Such was expected to be a perpetual statute in Israel; and so it is modern Jewish people often have tassels on their garments.

We have found examples of tassels on garments in the ancient Near Eastern world; the idea of tassels on garments, therefore, was not a uniquely Israelite convention. But the color and the purpose of the tassel was to be paramount for Israel, and we can gain much from this instruction. We all know we should continually remember God, His faithfulness, and His commandments, and to always seek to obey Him. Nevertheless, we are often tempted in the business of our lives and passions of life to not maintain direct consciousness of God and His purposes. A continual visual reminder of God and His purposes would easily help a believer bring God back to his or her conscious memory. Christians have not been commanded to maintain tassels or anything of that sort; nevertheless, we do well to consider how we can best keep God in our conscious memory so we might always remain faithful to Him.

We might wonder why these commandments were placed at this point in time in Numbers 15:1-41. In light of the spies and the rebellion in Numbers 13:1-14:45, and the imminent rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram and its effects in Numbers 16:1-17:13, the presence of commands in Numbers 15:1-41 seems jarring and a bit anticlimactic. But when we consider the substance of the commands, we can perceive God’s wisdom in providing them at this moment.

YHWH has sharply judged and condemned the Israelites in the wilderness, and for good and understandable reasons. But we could understand why the Israelites would thus fall into despair. Was YHWH abandoning them fully?

And so right after issuing the condemnation, YHWH gave commandments about what ostensibly younger generations of Israelites should offer to YHWH when they live in the land of Canaan in Numbers 15:1-21. In this way YHWH assured Israel: there would be Israelites who would inhabit Canaan. The promises would be fulfilled, even if not for the present generation.

In a similar way we can understand a lot of the legislation in terms of what Israel has most recently experienced. The emphasis on the inclusion of the resident alien in Numbers 15:13-15, 29, might well be in response to the “mixed multitude” who craved the meat at Kibroth-hattaavah in Numbers 11:4-35: that terminology presumes the foreigners who had come out of Egypt with the Israelites were the primary complainants, and we could easily imagine how some Israelites by ancestry might have grown resentful of them because of its consequences. Thus YHWH would remind Israel to treat resident aliens like native sons and not make such distinctions. Comparison and contrast between “unintentional” sins, and how they can be forgiven, versus sins “with a high hand” and how impossible they are to forgive might be an object lesson for Israel considering all they had just experienced, and presages what would happen to Dathan and his ilk. Finally, what Israel had just experienced reinforced the need for the tassels: Israel needed some kind of physical, immediate reminder of YHWH and His commands lest they again and again turn aside from His commandments and incur His disfavor.

In this way, therefore, God provided Israel both reassurance and warning through the commandments given in Numbers 15:1-41. The people of Israel would suffer the due penalty for their transgressions, but God was not entirely cutting them off. His promises would be fulfilled; Israelites would take over the land of Canaan in the next generation. Yet within these commands were potent warnings: do not sin with a high hand against God, or there will be no hope for you. Always remember who God is and what He has commanded lest you again fall short as before with the spies.

The narrative after Numbers 15:41 would bear all of these things out. Israel would indeed conquer the land in the next generation, and offerings would be made before YHWH according to His commandment. Unfortunately, Israel would continue to rebel against YHWH, both in the wilderness and after they entered the land of Canaan, and they would continually experience the judgments of God. We do well to learn from their examples and faithfully serve God in Christ so we might share in life in Him and avoid condemnation!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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The Way to the Father’s House

The “disciple whom Jesus loved,” known as John, either John ben Zebedee (the Apostle), or John the Elder, wrote his recollections of his experiences with Jesus so that those who hear or read would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and would find eternal life in His name (cf. John 20:31).

The moment at which the Son of Man would be glorified, and God in Him, had arrived (John 13:31-32): Judas had just departed to betray Jesus; soon Jesus would be arrested, tried, abused, executed, but raised from the dead on the third day. Jesus well understood these things, but His disciples did not. Everything Jesus would say and do in John 13:1-17:26 was designed to prepare His disciples for these events and what would come afterward.

To this end, in John 13:1-17, Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, and explained to them how they should follow His example and humbly serve one another. Jesus spoke of His imminent betrayal and sent Judas Iscariot out in John 13:18-30. Jesus, focusing on the eleven remaining disciples, would then begin a discourse in John 13:31 which would conclude with His “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17:1-26. He began this discourse by emphasizing how God would be glorified in the Son of Man, and it was for them to love one another as He had loved them (John 13:31-35).

Jesus had also told His disciples they could not go where He was going just yet, and such caused consternation among them (John 13:33, 36-38). In John 14:1-31, Jesus would try to provide comfort and assurance to His disciples regarding His departure and its implications.

Jesus’ discourse in John 14:1-31 has often been distorted and misconstrued on account of decontextualized applications and an unhealthy focus on the imagery to the neglect of its meaning. Jesus will speak of going away, coming back, being the Way, etc., and many have understood these statements in spatial ways. While Jesus would indeed physically depart from the earth and ascend to the Father in heaven, we seriously misunderstand Jesus’ meaning and intention if we understand Him as speaking about bridging spatial distance. Throughout John 14:1-31 Jesus’ focus was much more on relational distance. At this point in John’s Gospel, Jesus has not yet died or been raised from the dead; the work of reconciliation which Jesus would accomplish in His death and resurrection remain in the future. While Jesus was also preparing His disciples for the period after His death and resurrection, He remained primarily focused on reassuring them in the face of what He was about to experience. We may brusquely dismiss concern about what the disciples might do between His arrest and His resurrection by wondering what really could happen over that roughly forty-eight-hour period. But you can get yourself in a lot of trouble in forty-eight hours, and so assuredly could the disciples. Jesus’ concerns remained well placed.

There is no contextual transition or shift from John 13:36-38 to John 14:1-31. Jesus could tell His disciples were troubled by His imminent departure. So He spoke to encourage them: believe in the Father and Jesus; there are many dwelling places in the Father’s house, and Jesus was going to prepare a place for the disciples, so they could be where He was, and they would know the way to get there (John 14:1-4).

When we read John 14:1-4 we can understand why many would understand Jesus’ words according to spatial distance. So much has been made of what the King James Version translated as “mansions” in John 14:2: the Greek word monai is well translated as “rooms” or “dwelling places,” and ironically such is what “mansions” originally meant in English (derived from Latin manere, “to remain”). Christians read about “mansions” in John 14:2 and began imagining them as fancy houses in heaven; they then began describing fancy houses on earth as “mansions,” and so people today now associate “mansions” with fancy houses, and read that back into what Jesus said in John 14:2.

Yet, as Jesus will continually demonstrate as the discourse continues, the distance bridged is not spatial as much as relational. To this day we associate “household” both with a dwelling place and as joint participation within a family structure, and such is what Jesus intended for us to understand here. Yes, Jesus would physically suffer, die, be raised from the dead, and would ascend to the Father; in so doing, He would allow us to be reconciled to God so we might be able to be adopted as sons and daughters of God (cf. Romans 8:1-17). Therefore, in this way, Jesus spoke of what He was about to do and explained what it meant in terms of the relationship the disciples could have with God.

Jesus affirmed the disciples knew the way He was going in John 14:4, but Thomas was not nearly as sure: they did not know where He was going, so how could they know the way to where He was going (John 14:5)? Jesus’ response has become infamous: He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; there is no other way to the Father than through Jesus (John 14:6). To know and see Jesus is to know and have seen the Father (John 14:7).

While Thomas, no doubt, continued to think spatially, Jesus redirected them to think relationally. We should not underemphasize how Jesus is the Truth and the Life; nevertheless, in context, the emphasis is rightly placed on how Jesus is the Way. The faith in Christ would even be known as The Way according to Acts 24:14, and for good reason: the faith was embodied in Jesus, and if we would glorify and honor God in Christ, we must follow Him in His ways. Then as now we closely associate living with a journey, and so we frequently use journeying metaphors to understand how we live. The Hebrews author would speak of Jesus as the pioneer of the faith, blazing the trail all of us should follow after Him (cf. Hebrews 2:10). If we want to find room in the Father’s house, we can only get there by following the Way; thus, if we want to share in the life of God, we can only do so through submitting to and following Jesus in all He has told us to think, feel, say, and do.

The claim Jesus is the only way to God the Father has struck many in the world as arrogant and presumptuous. If it were said by anyone else, such a response would be understandable and appropriate. But if Jesus is who He says He is, the statement is inescapably true. Jesus has claimed to be God in the flesh; if we have seen Jesus, we have come to understand the essential characteristics and attributes of God. Any other characteristics and attributes would not truly be of God or Jesus, and therefore could not lead you to God. Thus, where other forms of philosophical, religious, or spiritual forms of instruction or understanding remain consistent with what God has made known in Christ, we can find something praiseworthy in them. Yet wherever any other philosophical, religious, or spiritual forms of instruction or understanding are inconsistent with what God has made known in Christ, such cannot well and accurately represent reality or a means of understanding God in truth.

Philip did not quite understand: he asked Jesus to show them the Father, and they would be content (John 14:8). Jesus responded, perhaps with some frustration (and understandably so), wondering if he had been with Jesus for so long without really understanding Him: how could he ask to see the Father when those who have seen Jesus have seen the Father (John 14:9)? Did he not believe the Father was in Jesus as Jesus was in the Father, and He was doing the Father’s works (John 14:10)? Even if he did not believe that, Philip should at least believe in the works Jesus had done (John 14:11).

Jesus then took the opportunity to continue reassuring and encouraging His disciples: if they believed, they would do even greater miraculous things than what Jesus had done, since He was going to the Father (John 14:12). He assured them He would do whatever they asked the Father in His name (John 14:13-14). If they loved Jesus, they would do His commandments, and Jesus would ask the Father to send them the Parakletos, the “Paraclete,” the Advocate or Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who would reside with the disciples (John 14:15-17). In this way Jesus would not abandon His disciples as orphans: He would come to them, and they would then know Jesus was in the Father, and they were in Jesus and Jesus was in them (John 14:18-20). Jesus re-affirmed and re-emphasized how those who have and obey His commandments loves Jesus, and Jesus and the Father will love them, and Jesus will come to them (John 14:21).

Jesus thus promised the coming of the Holy Spirit to His disciples as a form of comfort, assurance, and as an advocate. Even though Jesus would physically remain in heaven after His ascension, the Spirit would come and dwell within and among the disciples, and by means of the Spirit God in Christ would abide and remain with the disciples if they persevered in His commandments.

Judas – not Iscariot, the other Judas – then asked Jesus an understandable follow-up question: how would Jesus reveal Himself to the disciples but not the world (John 14:22)? Jesus did not seem flustered by this question, but His response may not have been what anyone was expecting: He reaffirmed how those who love Jesus will obey His word, the Father will love them, and the Father and Son will “take up residence” with them, but those who do not love Jesus will not obey His words, which really belong to the Father (John 14:23-24).

The word for “residence” in John 14:23 is Greek mone, the same word as used for “dwelling places” in John 14:2, and the only times the word is used in the Greek New Testament. This association confirms how Jesus has not been speaking of spatial matters, but relational. Jesus suffered and died so we might be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God. Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended to the Father to be glorified and honored with all authority and power in His Kingdom. God would then send the promised Holy Spirit to dwell in and among the disciples and all those who would believe in Jesus and obey Him through their proclamation. By means of the Spirit, God would dwell in and among His people in Christ.

The Greeks had a word to describe mutual interpenetration without loss of distinctive identity: perichoresis. God maintains perichoretic relational unity within Himself: such is how He can be the One in Three, and Three in One, so perfectly One we speak of God as a singularity, yet manifest in three Persons (cf. John 17:20-23, etc.). Thus Jesus has spoken of how the Father is “in” Him and He is “in” the Father in John 14:20; and through what He has accomplished and by means of His Spirit, God in Christ would maintain perichoretic relational unity with us as believers in Him.

Such is why Jesus again re-assured the disciples: He had taught them all of these things while with them, but the Advocate would come and teach them all things and remind them of all the things Jesus had taught them (John 14:25-26). He would leave them with a peace which was unlike peace in the world, and so they should not lose heart (John 14:27). They really should be glad Jesus was going to be with the Father, for the Father was greater than He (John 14:28). Jesus had thus spoken in advance so they might believe when it would take place (John 14:29). Before long the “ruler of this world,” most likely Satan, would be coming; he really had no power over Jesus, since Jesus was doing what the Father had commanded Him (John 14:30-31).

While much of what Jesus said to the eleven disciples that night would have direct applications to believers afterward, John 14:26 was a promise more specifically to the eleven from which we benefit as a result. None of us were alive to see and hear Jesus; therefore, the Spirit cannot bring to our remembrance what Jesus taught us as He could, and did, for the eleven disciples. Yet the promise can assure us what we hear from the apostolic testimony remains accurate and faithful: on their own, people are liable to forget a lot of what they have been taught, but we can be assured the Spirit brought to the remembrance of the Apostles what Jesus had taught them, and therefore their testimony which we have received in Scripture remains faithful.

Jesus told His disciples to get up and go from where they were in John 14:31. In John 18:1, John the Evangelist suggested Jesus went out across the Kidron after He had spoken all of those things. Perhaps Jesus continued speaking while they made preparation to walk; perhaps the discourse continued while they walked until they reached the Kidron. Regardless, John 14:31 represents only a mild disruption, for Jesus would continue according to the same themes in John 15:1 and following.

Jesus intended to comfort and re-assure His eleven disciples in John 14:1-31, and as those who believe in their witness, we can draw great comfort and assurance from His message as well. Jesus suffered, died, was raised again in power, ascended to the Father, was made Lord and Christ and given an eternal Kingdom, and now reigns from heaven. Yet Jesus has not abandoned us as orphans: He has reconciled us to God so we might share in His life and truth forever. He has given us of His Spirit so we might share in relational unity with God as God shares in relational unity within Himself. Yet we can only share in such hope and promise if we abide in Jesus as the Way and love Him and do His commandments. May we find eternal life in the house of God by means of Jesus, take comfort in the Advocate, and share in God’s relational unity now and forevermore in Christ through the Spirit!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Love One Another As I Have Loved You

The “disciple whom Jesus loved,” known as John, either John ben Zebedee (the Apostle), or John the Elder, wrote his recollections of his experiences with Jesus so that those who hear or read would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and would find eternal life in His name (cf. John 20:31).

The moment at which the Son of Man would be glorified, and God in Him, had arrived (John 13:31-32): Judas had just departed to betray Jesus; soon Jesus would be arrested, tried, abused, executed, but raised from the dead on the third day. Jesus well understood these things, but His disciples did not. Everything Jesus would say and do in John 13:1-17:26 was designed to prepare His disciples for these events and what would come afterward.

To this end, in John 13:1-17, Jesus washed the feet of His disciples, and explained to them how they should follow His example and humbly serve one another. Jesus spoke of His imminent betrayal and sent Judas Iscariot out in John 13:18-30.

Jesus would then focus His attention on His eleven remaining disciples (and perhaps a few others present). John 13:31 begins a continual discourse which will close with the “High Priestly Prayer” of John 17:1-26, with only a mild interruption of sorts in John 14:31.

Jesus immediately set the tone for this pronounced discourse: the time had come for God to be glorified in the Son of Man and to glorify Him (John 13:31-32). As Jesus had previously said to the Jewish religious leaders in John 7:33-34, so now His disciples: where Jesus was going, they could not come (John 13:33). In all of these ways Jesus forecast His imminent suffering, death, and resurrection, and ultimately His ascension and lordship; He then wanted to set forth the core lesson which He wanted His disciples to understand: He gave them a new commandment to love one another as He had loved them, and all would know they are His disciples if they have love for one another (John 13:34-35).

John the Evangelist was profoundly struck by this instruction from Jesus; it echoed again in 1 John 2:7-11. There John well played with the “new old” commandment, for the exhortation to love one another can be found in Leviticus 19:18. The “new” part of the commandment can be found in the qualification: “as I have loved you.” Jesus’ sacrificial love for His people represents the new standard for the love Christians must embody for one another. John’s exquisite discourses on love in 1 John 3:11-18, 4:7-21 were designed to exhort Christians to love one another.

John was right to be profoundly affected by this instruction from Jesus. We all likewise should be moved by it. Far too often Christians speak and act as if they should be known as Christians by what they profess, by the sign outside the building in which they assemble, by their socio-political stances, by the jewelry they wear, or by many other things. Instead, Jesus expected Christians to be known as such, as Jesus’ followers, if they have love for one another. As the Apostle Paul would later attest, all the “righteousness” and benevolence in the world, or all exercise of spiritual power, are for naught if they are not motivated by and grounded in love (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). The most polished marketing and promotions with the greatest aesthetic and vibe along with the ability to set the right mood and with polished music and speaking produce nothing if those involved do not love one another as Jesus has loved them. Many delude themselves into thinking most find Christianity unattractive because of secular entanglements and enticements; unfortunately, most find Christianity unattractive because far too many who profess Christ do not love one another, let alone anyone else, as He commanded them. Jesus of Nazareth remains a compelling figure in the early twenty-first century; our challenges often come from our own deficiencies in well embodying Him and everything He is about.

While John the Evangelist was profoundly affected by Jesus’ instruction in John 13:34-35, we are immediately given reason to wonder how much of an effect it had on others. Simon Peter asked a question which seems to indicate he was preoccupied with what Jesus had said before in John 13:33: he wanted to know where Jesus was going (John 13:36). Jesus told Peter he could not follow Him now but would follow Him later (John 13:36). Peter protested, wondering why he could not follow now, and asserted he would even lay his life down for Jesus (John 13:37). Jesus responded, perhaps with not a little incredulity, asking if Peter would really lay down his life for Jesus, and prophesied how Peter would deny Jesus three times on that very night (John 13:38; cf. John 18:15-18, 25-27).

We all go through a phase during which we often castigate the disciples for their failings and weaknesses; we can easily see Peter here at his most impetuous, making grandiose proclamations while shrinking away at the first hint of difficulty. Yet as we continue to walk in and with the Lord Jesus, life and experience humbles us and we are better able to see ourselves in the disciples. We should remember how Simon Peter often proved representative of the whole; he would be the one to say what the rest of the disciples were thinking. Peter’s faith here would normally be commendable: he wanted to be wherever Jesus was, and he did not want to be without Jesus. We can, and will, have reason to cast some aspersions on the full integrity of Peter’s commitment to Jesus when he will deny Him three times, but we also have to give some consideration for the work of God’s providence in these matters. If Peter had boldly affirmed his association with Jesus, there would have been another cross for him as well; same with the rest of the male disciples.

The real lesson we should take away from Jesus’ and Peter’s interaction in John 13:36-38 centers on trust and timing. Imagine if Peter did not try to stay close to Jesus during His arrest and trial: he would not have been put in the position of denying Jesus. If Peter had only really internalized what Jesus had told him in John 13:33-36: if Peter was really listening to Jesus and truly following His instruction, he would not have tried to physically follow Jesus in His trial, for Peter could not yet go where Jesus was going. Sometimes the hardest lesson we must learn as Christians is “not yet.” God works powerfully according to His purposes in His good time; sometimes we can get in God’s way when we think we need to get involved and act when it is not really our time and place to act. For Peter and the other disciples to truly follow Jesus, they would have to accept they could not actually follow Him just yet. The time would come when Peter would go where Jesus was going: tradition would speak of Peter dying in Rome by upside down crucifixion in the 60s. Peter and the disciples had zeal and enthusiasm, but they desperately needed to trust in Jesus’ experience and wisdom. We could learn much from them.

Thus Jesus began His great concluding discourse with His disciples, emphasizing the importance of loving one another as Jesus had loved them. They would follow Jesus to where He was going, but not just yet. May we love one another as Jesus has loved us, faithfully serving Jesus as we wait upon Him, and share in eternal life through Him!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Hope

For in hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it (Romans 8:24-25).

We all know how life can get ugly. People hurt each other. People even hurt themselves. People get sick. Natural disasters happen. As much as we try to forget it, we all know we and everyone we love will die.

What would we do if we focused on all the negativity in life? How motivated would we be to do much of anything? Since life is filled with these nasty and cruel realities, why do we bother trudging through it?

Focusing on the horrors, evil, and tragedies of life is depressing. But hope makes life worth living.

If we stop and think about it for a moment, we can see how hope is the great motivator of our existence. We grow up in hope of a good, successful life. We go to school in hope of getting and maintaining a good job. We try to find that special someone, hoping to obtain a life-long partner and companion. We have children in hope of providing for them, doing what we can so that they can enjoy a better life than we do. When we are in the midst of trial or suffering, we hope for the day when we will overcome and feel good again. In bad times, we hope for good times; in good times, we hope it continues.

Hope is a powerful source of encouragement. It is easy to try to “sell” people on hope and get them to believe that some person, product, or idea will provide a better quality of life. But can those people, products, or ideas really satisfy as advertised? Politicians promise hope and do not provide much in return. Youthful hopes for a good life and a good world are often quickly dashed by the cold hand of reality with its suffering and pain. Ultimately, and sadly, all hope in this world is extinguished on the day of death. The world continues in its futility and decay.

If our hope is entirely based in this world, our hope will be frustrated. If there is nothing to life beyond this earthly existence, we are in for great disappointment. Our lives will never satisfy our hopes for them. No matter how good we have it, we will suffer the effects of pain, misery, sin, and death, and we will stare into the darkness. What can sustain us on that day? If we hope in this life alone, we will be struck by the meaninglessness of it all, and risk permanent disenchantment with life. As a wise man put it long ago, all is absurd; in this world, life is like a mist that vanishes quickly.

But what if there is more to living than this existence? What if we receive a glimpse into another world in which there is no pain and suffering, and we can live the way we were always intended to live? What if there is another life beyond what we experience now?

This is the hope Jesus extends to mankind. Jesus of Nazareth lived as a man on the earth around two thousand years ago, taught and did a lot of good things, but was executed as a common criminal on a Roman cross unjustly (cf. Acts 10:38-39). A lot of people placed their hope in Him; when He died, their hopes seemed frustrated (Luke 24:19-21). If this were the end of the story, there would be no need to tell it: the world is filled with stories of hopes dashed and expectations crushed by the cruel hand of death.

But Jesus’ story does not end there, for on the third day after His death, He did what no man had ever done or has done since: He was raised from the dead with power, never to die again (1 Corinthians 15:4-11). He is still alive and ruling from Heaven (Matthew 28:18).

Jesus’ resurrection changes everything! If Jesus could die physically and then be raised from the dead, this means there is a life to come after this life. If Jesus was raised from the dead, we also can look forward to a day when we will rise from the dead (Romans 8:22-23). This is the hope Jesus provides for the world: a day is coming when we will no longer be subject to death and decay. A day is coming when we will be able to be victorious over pain, suffering, misery, and death through Jesus (Romans 8:18-25, 1 Corinthians 15:12-58)!

This hope does not mean we give up on this life; far from it! Jesus’ first followers showed how His resurrection is the guarantee of a day of Judgment: we will all stand before Jesus and have to give an account for our lives on earth (Acts 17:30-31, Romans 2:5-11). Jesus does not expect us to wait for the new life to follow His ways; He expects all of us to believe in Him and follow His ways now, becoming like Him now, living as new creatures now: in short, we must build a relationship with God through Jesus now to experience it fully in the next life (Romans 8:29, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21).

Hoping in this world only will never satisfy; we will always be let down, frustrated, and in despair. Yet, through Jesus’ resurrection, we can nurture the hope of a world without pain, without misery, without suffering, with joy and glory beyond understanding. We can live the way we were always meant to live. You probably already know how it feels when hope is crushed; if you haven’t yet, that day will come soon. But here is a hope which can sustain us through the pain, misery, frustration, and futility of this life, since it extends out the promise of the life to come. Let us share in this hope together until we arrive at the day when we will no longer need to hope, in the presence of God forever in the resurrection of life!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Victory and Judgment

John has seen the presentation and condemnation of the whore Babylon, an image of Rome, in Revelation 17:1-19:10. Great joy has accompanied her downfall, yet the dragon, beast, and false prophet, the main antagonists portrayed in Revelation 12:1-16:21, remain. John will now be shown two more scenes of victory, first over the beast and false prophet (Revelation 19:11-21), and then over the dragon (Revelation 20:1-10). Judgment can then take place (Revelation 20:11-15).

The Revelation heads toward its climactic end with three scenes of victory: the first came over Babylon (Revelation 19:1-10), and the second in Revelation 19:11-21 over the beast and the false prophet of Revelation 13:1-18: the image of the power of the Roman Empire enshrined in its Emperor and its religion. Revelation 19:11-21 seems to be an expansion of what was seen in the sixth bowl in Revelation 16:12-16: the gathering of the beast, the false prophet, and the kings of the earth at Har-Magedon for the great day of God the Almighty [the (in)famous Armageddon]. The nature and result of this battle is made explicit in Revelation 19:11-21: Jesus gains the victory over all of these forces arrayed against Him. He is portrayed in the same images as seen in Revelation 1:1-3:21, the true Ruler, with many signs of authority in contrast to the Satanically empowered authority of the beast, and He casts the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire while slaughtering the rest of His foes with the sword which came forth from His mouth. In contrast to the glorious marriage supper of the Lamb promised in Revelation 19:7-9, fulfilled in Revelation 21:1-22:6, the birds of the air are summoned for the great supper of God, to consume the flesh of all the dead of that battle left in the field, reminiscent of God’s judgment on Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 39:4, 17-20. While the heavenly armies are present with Jesus, they are not said to have done anything: Jesus conquers through the power of His sword, the Word of God and His judgments (John 12:48, Ephesians 6:17, Hebrews 4:12). In this way John is shown the ultimate victory of Jesus over the Roman Empire, its power and paganism, and represents a reminder that worldly powers come and go but the word of YHWH remains forever (Isaiah 40:6-8).

Babylon, the beast, and the false prophet have been eliminated, but the dragon who empowered them remains. John is shown the victory over Satan the dragon in Revelation 20:1-10: Satan is bound in the Pit for a thousand years while Christ and His saints reign in the first resurrection; after the thousand years Satan is released to deceive the nations for a short time; he gathers Gog and Magog (in Ezekiel 38:1-39:20, Gog is ruler of Magog; here Gog and Magog now stand for the threatening “heathen” worldly powers) against the camp of the saints and the beloved city; yet Gog and Magog are destroyed by fire and Satan cast into the lake of fire along with the beast and false prophet where they are tormented day and night.

Perhaps no section of the Bible has led to as much speculation and the construction of whole theological systems than Revelation 20:1-10 and its “millennium,” or one thousand year period. For our purposes we do well to see that the thousand years is not the primary force or purpose in the passage: God in Christ is showing John the ultimate end of Satan after the end of the beast and false prophet. We have no reason to abandon our previous endeavors and adhere to a completely different system at this point; we must understand Revelation 20:1-10 in terms of the rest of Revelation and the New Testament, and not the other way around. Throughout Scripture, a “thousand” never means an actual, literal one thousand, but refers to an indeterminate multitude of things or length of time (Deuteronomy 7:9, Joshua 23:10, 1 Chronicles 16:15, Job 9:3, 33:23, Psalms 50:10, 90:4, 105:8, Ecclesiastes 6:6, 7:28, 2 Peter 3:8). Furthermore, this scene of Satan’s binding comes immediately after judgment on the beast and the false prophet, identified contextually as the Roman empire and religion, and after Satan’s condemnation we have the final judgment scene (Revelation 20:11-15). Therefore, the best contextual understanding of the “millennium” is that it represents the time between the defeat of Roman power and particularly pagan religion, ca. 325 CE, until when Satan is again fully loosed, which could be happening now or could happen some time in the future. Such a view of Satan presently bound is consistent with Matthew 12:29, and Luke 8:31, 11:22 and does not mean that Satan is entirely inactive; it just means that he is restrained in ways he was not in the days of the Roman Empire. We are not to look to the future in order to find the millennium; we presently are in the millennium of Christ’s reign, part of His present Kingdom (Colossians 1:13), or we are witnessing those final days when Satan is fully loosed, people are fully led away from the truth of God in Christ, and we are about to see the ultimate fulfillment of all that is seen in Revelation 20:7-22:6.

After Satan is taken out of the way, John is shown the final judgment scene, expanding upon the picture glimpsed with the seventh trumpet of Revelation 11:15-19 and the harvesting of Revelation 14:14-20: a great white throne with all the dead before God in Christ, the opening of books, judgment on the basis of what they had done, redemption for those whose names were in the book of life, condemnation for those whose names were not found there in the second death, the lake of fire, or hell, and Death and Hades cast into that lake of fire as well (Revelation 20:11-15). The picture John sees is entirely consistent with the expectation of judgment on the final day, the day of resurrection, as envisioned in Daniel 12:1-2, Matthew 16:27, 25:31-46, John 5:28-29, Acts 17:30-31, Romans 2:5-10, 1 Corinthians 15:20-57, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, and 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10.

The message of Revelation 19:1-20:10 ought to encourage faithful Christians of all generations: God will gain the victory. First century Christians suffering under the persecutions of the Roman power were given reason for confidence that God would overcome that beast and false prophet, and it was a most extraordinary thing when a form of Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, signaling the downfall of paganism in a world it had dominated for thousands of years. For 1700 years paganism has been relegated to the periphery, and most in Western culture have given at least lip service to God and Jesus as the Christ since. We see that changing to an extraordinary degree in our own day, perhaps heralding the loosening of Satan; yet even then we may know that such means his time is even shorter, and the day of judgment will come soon. Let us praise God for His victory in Christ, serve Jesus as Lord, and wait fervently for the day of judgment which comes quickly!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Fallacies

In an ideal world, all thoughts, arguments, and discussions would prove reasonable and would well reflect all available evidence. All participants in dialogue would maintain integrity and would pursue truth wherever it might lead.

We do not live in an ideal world.

On account of our frailty, limitation, and corruption, we are all liable to commit fallacies in how we think, reason, argue, and discuss. Fallacies involve invalid or faulty reasoning in our thought and communication process.

Fallacies in logic and argument abound. Fallacies tend to be categorized in two main ways: as formal or informal. Arguments in which some aspect of its form prove deficient are formal fallacies. All formal fallacies fall under the non sequitur domain, since the flaws in the argument’s form expose the conclusion as not able to follow from the premises. Formal fallacies include an appeal to probability, an existential fallacy, or even the fallacy of fallacies: presuming an argument’s conclusion must be false if premises in the argument prove fallacious. Yes, one can even prove fallacious when arguing about fallacies!

The most prevalent form of fallacies remains informal fallacies. Informal fallacies are not found in the form of the argumentation, but in their substance: the logic of the argument proves unsound because of faulty or poorly justified premises. Of informal fallacies there seems to be no end. They include all forms of circular reasoning, appeals to or arguments from ignorance, moderation, the majority, and/or silence, begging the question, cherry-picking/survivor bias, fallacies involving line drawing or etymology, false attribution, false dilemma, moving the goalposts, no true Scotsman, various forms of questionable cause and the slippery slope. Red herring arguments, including ad hominem, appeal to authority, the bandwagon, or emotion, guilt by association, strawman, tu quoque (better known as “whataboutism”), and the like, are also informal fallacies. And these are only a few of the many and diverse types of informally fallacious arguments which abound in modern discourse.

Sometimes we commit fallacies on account of a lack of knowledge or training, thus acting out of ignorance. Unfortunately, a good number of fallacies are committed with more corrupt motivations. Many times, fallacies are set forth in order to try to cover up and hide major deficiencies in evidence and support: when evidence will sufficiently persuade about a given issue, the evidence will be used; in situations where the evidence does not advance a given argument well, it proves easier to resort to some kind of fallacy or another. Many will turn to fallacies and fallacious reasoning in an attempt to manipulate or even gaslight their audience, consciously and deliberately appealing to emotions and primal impulses, especially fear and tribalism, to persuade.

Fallacies take place across the spectrum of disciplines and fields, but fallacies seem especially pervasive in the domains of politics and religion. Therefore, as Christians, how should we approach and consider logical and argumentative fallacies?

We do well to confess how participation in a logical or argumentative fallacy is not inherently a matter of sin and unrighteousness. One will search the Scriptures in vain for the commandment, “thou shalt never commit a logical fallacy in argument or discussion.” An argument does not prove more moral or Biblical because it is well and appropriately reasoned and argued; as indicated above, believing an argument’s conclusion must be false because a fallacy was committed within the argument is itself fallacious, an argument from fallacy. If a person makes a fallacious argument out of ignorance or without impure or improper motives, the fallacy remains a fallacy, and the argument made therefore might be called into question; but we would not be wise to think the one making the argument has committed some kind of moral transgression. But if a person makes fallacious arguments with an intent to deceive or manipulate, then we can have confidence God in Christ will hold them accountable one day for their treachery against truth and integrity. In such a circumstance, however, the fallacy itself is not the transgression: the base, immoral motivations behind committing the fallacy represent the sin (cf. Colossians 3:5-10, etc.)

Christians always do well to remember how judgment belongs to God in Christ; it is for us to encourage and love one another, not presume to be judges (cf. James 4:11-12). To this end we should be wary of judging others if and when they commit fallacies in reasoning and argument. They may not even be aware they are speaking fallaciously; even if they have some inkling of the nature of their arguments, they may not be consciously aware of the extent of what they are doing. Furthermore, who among us can honestly say they have not themselves used, however intentionally, logical fallacies in their thinking, reasoning, and arguments? Just as we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (cf. Romans 3:23), so we all have also, at some point or another, used some kind or another of the logical fallacies listed above in the way we have thought and spoken with others.

If we have all committed logical fallacies in how we have thought, reasoned, and argued, and judgment regarding the immorality of it all belongs to the Lord, why should we even show concern about logical fallacies? It is not for us to judge people, but it is for us to consider reasoning and arguments so we might come to a better knowledge of the truth of God in Christ and in the world, and resist all forms of error and distortion (cf. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, 2 Peter 3:18). The use of logical fallacies does not automatically invalidate the truth of the conclusion, but it certainly calls it into question. Those who have high quality evidence with which to support their propositions make much of that evidence; it is when the evidence is less strong and highly questionable when people start looking for various ways to try to justify their position, and logical fallacies often follow.

Thus, all Christians should have some familiarity with at least the basic and most prevalent forms of logical fallacies so they are better able to recognize when they are being committed. When the Christian can better recognize the presence of a logical fallacy, they find themselves in a much better position to ask themselves, or perhaps even the person making the argument, why the fallacy has been committed: not in an attempt to judge the person who committed the fallacy, but to discern what might be lacking in the argumentation which led to the fallacy. Perhaps the conclusion or proposition remains sound or at least somewhat tenable, but better argued with better forms of evidence in another context. Or perhaps the fallacy or fallacies expose great weaknesses in the attempted arguments which would justify rejecting the conclusion or proposition altogether. But if Christians prove less aware of logical fallacies, they may not notice them in various arguments, and fall prey to distortions of the truth and affirm error.

Christians active in personal work and preaching and teaching should give extra special care and consideration to the way they think, reason, and speak so they might avoid committing logical fallacies in their communication of the Gospel (cf. James 3:1-12). Paul warned Timothy about how many Christians would want preachers who would tell them the kind of things they wanted to hear and to thus wander off into myths, and charged Timothy to instead preach the Gospel “in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:1-5). Note the contrast Paul made: to preach the Gospel or preach what people would want to hear. Perhaps the most common temptation to commit logical fallacies involves a desire to win and maintain an audience over and above a commitment to reasoning in the truth soundly. And it “works”: you can preach and make rhetorical appeals to other authorities and/or attempt to relativize the standards within what God has made known in Christ through the Spirit in Scripture, and many will accept it; you can go beyond what is written in “concern” about a given topic, and make appeal to the “slippery slope,” and many will go along with it; you can cast aspersions on a given subject matter and call anything outside of your comfort zone “denominational” or label it with the name of a given denomination, thus suggesting guilt by association, and at least some will endorse it. As these examples suggest, temptations toward logical fallacies cross all confessional and partisan lines: those proclaiming the Gospel are just as easily tempted to commit logical fallacies, in order to keep people “in line” according to a given belief system as they are to try to convince them to accept some kind of change.

Yet such appeals do not “work” because they appeal to the truth of God in Christ with sober reasoning; they “work ” according to the demonic wisdom of the world, and relying upon the demonic wisdom of this world will ultimately backfire for those whose trust should be in the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. James 3:13-18). Those of us active in personal work, preaching, and teaching should avoid committing logical fallacies because they might well call into question the integrity of our witness for the truth. The truth of God in Christ remains whether we have spoken of it in logically fallacious terms or not. The work of God through the Gospel of Christ is never entirely frustrated on account of the limitations of those proclaiming the message (cf. Philippians 1:12-20), but we should never want to put any kind of hindrance or stumbling block between anyone and the Lord Jesus. We should be able to proclaim the truth of God’s work in the life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ and all its implications with sound reasoning and coherent, consistent arguments (cf. 1 Peter 3:15). If we cannot proclaim a given matter the way we believe it should be proclaimed without resorting to some kind of logical fallacy or another, perhaps we should entirely re-think what it is we are preaching, and how.

Logical fallacies abound in our fallen world. We will continue to hear all kinds of fallacies in arguments. At times we ourselves will advance fallacies in our conversations and arguments. But we do well to aspire to think and speak in better ways. We do well to be aware of the various kinds of logical fallacies which abound, seek to avoid them ourselves, and become more conscious of how others use them and what their use might say about the arguments they advance. Above all, may we do better at avoiding logical fallacies when presenting the truth of God in Christ through the Spirit lest our witness be hampered and compromised. May we uphold the truth of God in Christ through the Spirit in our lives, and share in the resurrection of life!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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The Spies

The Book of Numbers is better understood in terms of its name in Hebrew: Bemidbar, “in the wilderness,” for it described Israel’s preparations to depart from Mount Horeb/Sinai and their wanderings in the wilderness afterward. The events described therein would have taken place sometime around either 1450-1410 or 1250 BCE, depending on one’s view of the Exodus; Moses would have written the original text while in the land of Moab across the Jordan River from Jericho.

In Numbers 1:1-10:10, the Israelites faithfully followed all YHWH commanded in organizing the people and consecrating the Tabernacle and the Levites. Everything was thus prepared for YHWH to lead Israel directly into Canaan and fulfill all He had promised to their fathers.

Ultimately, Israel would enter Canaan, and YHWH would fulfill all He had promised to their fathers. Yet, as the narrative would unfold in Numbers 10:11-25:18, it would not happen for the generation which had seen the mighty works of YHWH in Egypt and the wilderness. All but Caleb and Joshua would fall dead in the wilderness because of their persistent rebellion. Signs of rebellion and discontent were present in Numbers 11:10-12:16, but the climax of this rebellion would come in Numbers 13:1-14:45 with the spies, their report, and Israel’s response.

While Israel remained at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran, YHWH called upon Moses to send out twelve men, one from each of the tribes, to investigate the land of Canaan which God was giving to them (Numbers 13:1-2). The men selected were not the same as those who had led the previous census; perhaps they represent a new generation of leaders (Numbers 13:3-16). Hoshea ben Nun was re-named Joshua by Moses (Numbers 13:16).

We are used to speaking of these men as spies, but they do not seem to act as surreptitiously as the spies of Joshua 2:1-24 did. They seem to be serving as pioneer explorers, providing reconnaissance regarding the condition and quality of the land and its people (Numbers 13:17-20). They did what they were asked to do: they explored the land from south to north and back again over forty days; they passed through Hebron, in which the sons of Anak, associated with the Nephilim, lived (cf. Genesis 6:1-4); they brought back a fresh cluster of grapes from the “Valley of Eschol,” named for how the staff holding those grapes bent on account of their weight, along with other fruits; and they returned to the people of Israel (Numbers 13:21-25).

All of the spies testified to Israel regarding the fecundity and quality of the land: it flowed with milk and honey, and they displayed its amazing fruit (Numbers 13:26-27). The majority of the spies decided to over-emphasize the difficulties which the inhabitants of the land would provide: its cities were large and fortified, its inhabitants were very tall, featuring some of the Anakim, and the spies were as grasshoppers in comparison, and so the land was one which would devour its inhabitants (Numbers 13:28-29, 31-33). Only Caleb ben Jephunneh of Judah provided encouragement the Israelites could overtake the land (Numbers 13:30).

The discouraging report had its intended effect on the Israelites, and perhaps then some. The Israelites lamented, mourned, and wept that night, asking why they had even left Egypt (Numbers 14:1-2). And then the people committed the ultimate act of unthinking, misguided nostalgia: they thought it better to select a leader and return to Egypt (Numbers 14:3-4).

At this Moses and Aaron fell prostrate before the Israelites (Numbers 14:5). Caleb and Joshua tore their garments in mourning and pleaded with the Israelites to cease their rebellion, encouraging confidence YHWH would give them the land if they remained faithful to Him (Numbers 14:6-9). The people threatened to stone them (Numbers 14:10).

Then the glory of YHWH appeared at the Tent of Meeting, and YHWH despaired to Moses regarding the people, and spoke of striking them all dead and making a great nation out of Moses (Numbers 14:10-12). Moses again interceded on behalf of the people, reminding YHWH of what the Egyptians and others would say as well as reminding YHWH regarding what He said about His loyal love and covenant faithfulness (Numbers 14:13-19).

YHWH forgave the people as Moses had asked, but the people had gone too far this time: YHWH’s name would be glorified, and this people who had seen His glory but rebelled against Him would die in the wilderness (Numbers 14:20-23). Caleb ben Jephunneh would enter the land and possess the areas he saw (Numbers 14:24). YHWH then commanded Moses to turn Israel back toward the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, for they would not be entering the land to conquer it immediately as had been planned (Numbers 14:25).

YHWH would again speak to Moses and Aaron in greater specificity: those twenty and older who murmured against Him would die in the wilderness (Numbers 14:26-29). Caleb and Joshua would enter the land with those under twenty, all of those whom the people were convinced would become victims of war and a prey for the Canaanites, and they would wander in the wilderness for forty years, a year for each day the spies had scouted out the land (Numbers 14:30-35).

The ten spies who had returned with a discouraging report would die by plague before YHWH; Caleb and Joshua would live (Numbers 14:36-38).

The Israelites recognized their sin and its severity (Numbers 14:39). They then attempted their own misguided form of “repentance,” marshaling themselves for battle against the Canaanites (Numbers 14:40). Moses warned them how their “repentance” was its own form of disobedience, since it did not take YHWH’s condemnation seriously; nevertheless, they went up into the land, and were decisively beaten back (Numbers 14:41-45).

Everything recorded in Numbers 1:1-12:16 has led up to this point. It was supposed to be the beginning of the great act of conquest for Israel by God. If the spies had come back with an encouraging message, perhaps honestly reckoning with the danger but with confidence YHWH would give them victory like Caleb did, all Israel could have then entered the land and enjoyed its fruit.

But the ten spies instead encouraged Israel in its discouragement and rebellion, making far more of the dangers before them with little regard to what God had already done for them and would, no doubt, continue to do for them. The depth of the Israelites’ misguided despair can be seen in their desire to return to Egypt. What did they really think the Egyptians would do if they all returned? How could that have possibly gone well for them in any way, shape, or form?

Israel did not think well at this moment, and their utter faithlessness was made apparent. They had entirely forgotten how YHWH had delivered them out of Egypt and rescued them from the hands of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, military power of the age. They did not give appropriate thought as to how Egypt claimed Canaan as part of its empire, and thus reason how if YHWH could defeat the Egyptian armies which had defeated the Canaanites, He could defeat the Canaanites as well. Of course Israel, on its own, was nothing before the Canaanites, and would have been easily defeated and a prey for them: Israel’s strength was not in itself but in YHWH who was delivering them and fulfilling the promises He had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Those promises would find their fulfillment, but not for that faithless generation. Their condemnation remains ironically appropriate: those who wondered if it would be better to perish in the wilderness would indeed perish in the wilderness. Those who were feared to become victims and prey would become the triumphant conquerors. YHWH, in His judgment, ended up giving the people the very thing for which they asked, while yet remaining faithful to His covenant promises.

Numbers 15:1-36:13 will all flow from the events of Numbers 13:1-14:45. The people would wander in the wilderness; almost all of them, including Miriam, Aaron, and even eventually Moses, would die before entering the land of Canaan. Israel would conquer the land of Canaan as God had promised, but not yet. Much more would have to take place before then.

It has been tempting for every generation afterward to excoriate the generation of Israelites who left Egypt and died in the wilderness. How could they have proven so blind? Why did they never really trust in God? We do better, however, to ask ourselves how we might be much more like that generation than we would care to admit. How many times has God proven faithful, and yet we fall into despair the moment any adversity comes into view? How often have we obtained from God that for which we asked, even though it was absolutely not at all what we really wanted? How many times have we “repented” in misguided ways, not taking the judgments of God sufficiently seriously, and found ourselves embarrassed and ashamed? The Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians of this very generation for this very reason in 1 Corinthians 10:1-10, and has provided for us an important exhortation in 1 Corinthians 10:11-12:

These things happened to them as examples and were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So let the one who thinks he is standing be careful that he does not fall.

May we follow God in Christ through the Spirit, ever on guard lest we presume to be greater than we are and stumble as did Israel in the wilderness, and instead always maintain confidence in God and His covenant loyalty, firm to the end!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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People Are Saying

Humans have a significant tendency toward joining the bandwagon: we are social beings, and we want to fit into our preferred group of people. We will more likely than not adapt our clothing preferences, linguistic idiom, and thoughts and feelings about the world in order to share in a group identity. The bandwagon effect, as it is known, represents a powerful force and influence in people’s behavior.

A similar tendency can be found at work in the way people think, reason, argue, and discuss various topics and ideas. It is the informal logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum, Latin for “appeal to the people”: believing or claiming a given idea, matter, or proposition is true because it is popular and accepted by many people. It goes by many names: bandwagon or common belief fallacy, appeal to the consensus, majority, people, or popularity, mob appeal, or the authority of the many. We can call it the “people are saying” fallacy, because such is often how the fallacy gets defended or justified: well, people are saying this or that, so therefore it must be true and you must take it seriously.

Argumentum ad populum is related to argument from authority, in which a given truth claim is justified because a person with authority or prominence accepts it as true; when the source of authority and popularity are people from the past, it becomes argument from tradition. Arguments from authority are akin to peer pressure from famous or powerful people, and arguments from tradition are peer pressure from dead people.

Most people like to think of themselves as free and rational thinkers, accepting things as true or rejecting things as false based on reasoned consideration of all available evidence. In truth, however, we tend to follow gut instincts about whether we accept or reject a given premise as truth and then use our faculties of reason to justify and rationalize our decisions. Since we are social creatures, and almost every truth claim we encounter is communicated in some kind of social and cultural environment, we should not be surprised to discover how much of our thinking and belief system may be formed and shaped by what is acceptable and popular in our preferred social context. Ironically, this trend might be best exemplified by those who claim to resist it: many will make much of their rejection of what seems most popular in general social and cultural norms, but in so doing will, as a group, tend to affirm very similar “alternative” viewpoints and ideologies. In this way people either seek to conform to the in-group or what seems to be a favored out-group; underneath it all, however, remains that tendency towards conformity.

We can see the argumentum ad populum at work in all sorts of disciplines and aspects of life. Consider science: even in what most people see as the most logical and rational of the disciplines, stories abound of scientific breakthroughs which took many years to be accepted because they defied what had been commonly accepted by authority, tradition, and popularity. This is as true for plate tectonics in the twentieth century as it was for the Copernican revolution in the seventeenth. The bandwagon effect and argumentum ad populum have become the basis of modern advertising and marketing: all kinds of psychological and rhetorical tricks are used to get you to think you must use a given product or use certain services because everyone else is doing so. The effectiveness of such advertising and marketing has not been lost on the political realm: far too often, politicians will attempt to defend whatever exaggeration or distortion of the truth they have declared by asserting it is based on what “people are saying.”

Bandwagons and argumentum ad populum prove quite pervasive in religion. Many religious people today have seen the advertising and marketing success of appealing to authority: they try to get celebrities to get associated with a given religious organization, and many people become more interested in a set of religious beliefs on account of the people who are following it. Argument from tradition has proven even more prominent: it is explicitly the dogma of many religious organizations, and plenty of people accept and follow a given religious path almost entirely because such is what their ancestors practiced. Every elder and preacher has been approached by a Christian with some sort of “concern,” and that concern is almost invariably phrased as, “people are saying,” even though, quite often, the only “people” so saying are the person with the concern and anyone else s/he has been able to influence.

We can see the power of the argumentum ad populum at work in the resistance to the prophetic exhortations of Jesus and the prophets as manifest in the Scriptures. Many sincere Christians wonder how the Israelites could have possibly denied or rejected the messages of the prophets. Israelites did listen to prophets: the false prophets who seemed to abound in greater numbers than prophets faithfully warning the people.

Consider how the prophet Micah lamented how a man who would come and prophesy of beer and wine would be a prophet accepted and approved by the people in Micah 2:11; they would not hear a message of humiliation and destruction, remaining overly confident God would never allow such a thing to happen to them (Micah 2:6-7).

Consider Hananiah’s message of YHWH defeating Babylon and restoring all those exiled in 597 BCE back to the land versus Jeremiah’s message of YHWH expecting everyone to submit to Nebuchadnezzar and death and devastation for those who resisted him in Jeremiah 27:1-28:17: which message would have proven more popular for Judahites in their national pride and confident theology?

Consider how the religious authorities appeal to the officers who heard and were mesmerized by Jesus in John 7:45-52. How could those officers be mesmerized by Jesus? After all, none of the Sanhedrin members or the Pharisees believed in Him (although that was not as true as they imagined it was; John 7:48). Instead, the “accursed rabble” believed in Him, and they did not know any better (John 7:49). Thus the religious authorities displayed the obvious and the pernicious forms of argumentum ad populum: they appealed to the authorities not believing in Him, as if their views represented the sum of all truth, and also condemned the viewpoint of the majority simply for being the viewpoint of the majority, as if because so many people accepted it, it must therefore not be true.

There is one time in which argumentum ad populum is valid, and it is in lexicography: since language is designed to functionally convey ideas and concepts, dictionaries and lexicons ultimately reflect the most popular ways in which words are used. For example, in English, “church” primarily means “a building in which Christians gather for worship.” We might protest how the Greek word ekklesia, which translates “church,” means people and never a building; even so, in English, when most English speakers hear or think of “church,” they think of a church building, and so such is the primary meaning, even if it is not entirely consistent with the intention of ekklesia in Greek.

Otherwise, we must be on guard about argumentum ad populum, because “people are saying” is not the basis upon which something is true, or, for that matter, false. Sometimes most people reject a given truth and cling to some kind of delusion; sometimes the majority recognize a given thing as true and it is a deluded minority who insist it must be false because the majority thinks it is true. Many times, truth proves unpopular, especially when truth becomes uncomfortable and would require significant change and repentance. Nevertheless, just because a given idea or statement proves uncomfortable does not automatically make it true and valid. Unfortunately, a lot of forces will often conspire to attempt to leverage all kinds of influences and resources to get people to accept something which is false and/or damaging as true and/or beneficial; on the other hand, sometimes people passionately dedicate themselves and all their resources to affirm and promote the truth.

As Christians we do well to recognize the powerful influences which social acceptance and belonging can have in our quest to ascertain and uphold what is true, right, and good in God in Christ through the Spirit. Strong temptations will often exist to affirm and uphold what “people are saying”; equally strong temptations will often exist to deny and reject what other “people are saying.” We do best to critically examine any and all truth claims in terms of what God has made known in Christ and through the Spirit as revealed in Scripture: all truth is rooted and grounded in Him despite the winds of popularity and unpopularity (cf. Colossians 2:1-10). When confronted with what “people are saying,” we should try to figure out who is saying it, and to what end, and most importantly, with what evidence behind it. May we always seek to uphold the truth of God in Christ, no matter how popular or unpopular with others, and never allow our loyalty to being part of any given group come between us and maintaining the truth of what God has accomplished in Jesus. May we entrust ourselves fully to Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and to share in the resurrection in Him!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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The Assembly: A Balancing Act

The assembly and its place in the Christian life represents an often contentious matter. Many times, people seem to talk over each other in these discussions. This is in large part because the assembly poses a balancing act for us, and it’s easy to overemphasize one aspect over the other. Let us consider the two sides and how to balance them.

The Assembly is Critical.

And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works; not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh (Hebrews 10:24-25).

I believe that Jesus knew what He was doing when He described His body with the word ekklesia, properly defined “assembly.” It is a collective. But it can only really be a collective when it comes together. After all, what is an assembly that does not assemble?

This is seen clearly in the earliest church:

And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common (Acts 2:42-44).

They were together. They devoted themselves, together, to the Apostles’ teaching, to joint participation with each other, to the Lord’s Supper and to prayers.

“Joint participation” defines the same Greek word as “fellowship” and “association,” koinoinia. The word is based off the root for that which is “common,” and implies a form of communality. There’s no joint participation where people are not together.

Again, we have the organic concept of the church as body, aptly described in 1 Corinthians 12:12-28. I want to focus on a small part of that passage.

Nay, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary: and those parts of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness; whereas our comely parts have no need: but God tempered the body together, giving more abundant honor to that part which lacked; that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffereth, all the members suffer with it; or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof (1 Corinthians 12:22-27).

The members should have the same care for one another, lest there be a schism, or division, within the body (1 Corinthians 12:25)! But division can also come when one part decides that it does not need to act in concert with the other parts, and that can take many forms, one of which is not being present with the brethren.

All of these passages and concepts point to one central reality: Christians need to be together. We Americans are so individually minded that this point needs constant emphasis. “Maverick” Christians are not healthy Christians; yes, there is much that we do as individuals in the faith, but we need each other to function properly. We never act alone without any repercussions: just like in our own bodies, when a given part functions in its unique way yet still works as part of something greater than itself, so it is with us and the body of Christ.

And in what way are all these concepts actualized in practice? Within the local church of God’s people. What is the most visible form of the local church? The assemblies.

Should we be together more than just in the assemblies? Absolutely, but in no other context do we have the completely spiritual focus that the assembly requires. There is no other place that we can commune with each other and God in the Lord’s Supper. Few are the opportunities to get together with all the brethren for spiritual purposes like the assembly.

God designed the assembly for our benefit; it gives us a time to encourage each other on a constant basis.

Therefore, if we are mature Christians, we will understand the power of the assembly is in the encouragement of the saints in fully spiritual ways, recharging spiritual batteries often depleted by the temptations and struggles we experience in the world. We ought to look to the assembly as refreshment and comfort, not drudgery and formalism. When the assembly becomes to us what God intended it to be, we recognize that it is for our benefit; and why would we want to miss anything that is for our benefit?

Just as we wouldn’t want to miss meals or precious sleep, so we shouldn’t want to miss the assembly. Nor should we be so flippant about it.

Man and the Assembly

On the other hand, the assembly can miss its focus and can become something that God did not intend. In that way, it is much like the Sabbath in Israel.

God did not design the Sabbath to be drudgery for Israel, but to be a time for rest and reflection. Yet Israel took the life out of it. Jesus sought to right that wrong.

Consider the following:

And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath day. And behold, a woman that had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years; and she was bowed together, and could in no wise lift herself up.
And when Jesus saw her, he called her, and said to her, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.”
And he laid his hands upon her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.
And the ruler of the synagogue, being moved with indignation because Jesus had healed on the sabbath, answered and said to the multitude, “There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the day of the sabbath.”
But the Lord answered him, and said, “Ye hypocrites, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound, lo, these eighteen years, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the sabbath?”
And as he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame: and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him (Luke 13:10-17).

Think of the ridiculousness of this ruler of the synagogue, attempting to ban healing on the Sabbath because it was to be a day of rest! He was so focused on the externals and the idea of “work” that he missed the other aspect of the Sabbath– rest from one’s burdens.

Beyond that, the Jews elevated the Sabbath into something it was not, which led to Jesus’ apt statement:

And he said unto them, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: so that the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28).

What Jesus says about the Sabbath is true for the assembly: the assembly was made for man, not man for the assembly.

The assembly is not the sum of Christianity. The assembly is not the focus of Christianity, and neither should it be the focus of our existence. Just as the Sabbath was a time for refreshment and encouragement for Israel, and then they got busy the next day, we can see the assembly in similar terms: it is our time for refreshment and encouragement, and then we go and get back to work. The main focus in our lives should be the 165 hours we spend outside the assembly and how we’re functioning as living and holy sacrifices, the light of the world, as Jesus would have us live (Matthew 5:13-16, Romans 12:1, 1 John 2:6).

Therefore, making every assembly is no guarantee of great righteousness and strong faith, and those who miss some assemblies may have great and powerful faith. One’s assembly attendance does not dictate one’s spiritual strength.

The Balancing Act

So what do we do with these two aspects? It is critical, but it is not everything.

That is why I say it is the least of what we do. It’s the least because it’s the easiest and most personally beneficial for us, but it cannot be the focus of our lives.

That is not intended to demean the assembly, rather, to put it in its proper place.

But putting it in its proper place is not to demote it, or to somehow make it less than important.

Part of our problem involves our focus on the symptoms rather than the problem. Rare, if ever, is the case that someone’s lack of attendance in the assembly is the problem. It is usually a symptom of a greater problem!

A lack of assembling is comparable to a fever. It tells you that the body is under attack for some reason, and now you have to figure out what that is. Dousing the body in cold water is not going to fix the problem, even if it alleviates the symptom. You need to fix the problem.

Lecturing people about assembling is not going to solve whatever spiritual problem is underneath the lack of assembling. Perhaps it is a lack of commitment. Perhaps it is not understanding that Jesus and His priorities must come first in life. Perhaps the person is struggling with sin and is ashamed of themselves. Maybe it’s as innocent as someone who got out of a habit and needs to be encouraged to get back into it.

But in all these circumstances, the problem is elsewhere: once you fix the problem, the symptom goes away. If the problem won’t be fixed, then neither will the symptom, and appropriate actions can be taken on a more substantive basis.

Conclusion

What shall we say to these things?

While the assembly isn’t everything, it shouldn’t be minimized to irrelevancy. It’s too important for Christian living.

We need to properly understand the assembly and the place in the life of a Christian. When we understand it properly, we allow the assembly to be what God intends it to be, and we can be strengthened and encouraged in our faith. We can celebrate the togetherness of the Christian faith which is constantly under assault in our individualized, go-it-alone maverick society.

On the other hand, there’s a lot more to Christianity than the assembly, and I don’t know of any situation where “forsaking the assembly” is a suitable enough charge for disassociation. Disassociation for that purpose tends to mean “the person doesn’t show up anymore, we don’t know why, and for whatever reason we haven’t put enough effort into encouragement at many critical points to alleviate the situation.” Where there is forsaking the assembly, there’s something else going on, and we need to work on the real problem, not the symptom. Fix it and win people back, or put forth the real problem as the source of difficulty and move on.

Let us strive to recognize the value of the assembly while incorporating it into our greater life of service to God!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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