Ethan R. Longhenry's Blog, page 7

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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Taberah, Kibroth-hattaavah, and Hazeroth

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. The climax of this rebellion would come in Numbers 13:1-14:45 with the spies, their report, and Israel’s response; nevertheless, as the events described in Numbers 10:11-12:16 will make manifest, not all was well in Israel beforehand.

Israel set off from Horeb/Sinai toward the Wilderness of Paran, following the cloud of the Presence and in appropriate formation (Numbers 10:12-28). Curiously, Moses then asked Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite, his father-in-law, to come with him and the Israelites; when Hobab protested, Moses insisted, wanting to make sure he and Israel had access to his understanding of the wilderness and places to camp (Numbers 10:29-32). Details about Hobab prove challenging: as Reuel’s son, Hobab would be Moses’ brother-in-law, ostensibly brother of Zipporah, and a Midianite; in Judges 1:16, 4:11, Hobab was identified as Moses’ father-in-law and as a Kenite. In Exodus 18:1-27, Moses’ father-in-law was identified as Jethro, and as departing for his home after speaking with Moses. While Moses’ father-in-law was also named Jethro in Exodus 3:1, he was named as Reuel in Exodus 2:15-22. Beyond all this, soon after Aaron and Miriam will speak against Moses on account of the Kushite woman he had married in Numbers 12:1, leading us to wonder what has happened to Zipporah. We can make some sense of all of this by suggesting Jethro and Reuel are alternative names for the same person, Hobab was his son and we have a form of textual corruption in Judges 1:16, and Kenites might be a subset of Midianites; perhaps Moses has taken a second Kushite wife, or perhaps Zipporah passed away previously.

We can make decent sense of the text in context as a way of communicating how Moses welcomed some non-Israelites into the Israelite coalition; as Judges 1:6, 4:11 attest, some of the Kenites at least took up Moses’ offer and shared in the blessings of the land of Israel. Nevertheless, Moses’ specific reason for wanting Hobab around betrays, at some level, some lack of complete confidence in YHWH: was not YHWH directing Israel where to go and where to camp, as demonstrated in Numbers 9:15-23? Our most charitable understanding of Moses would suggest he was not yet fully aware of how YHWH would lead them further into the wilderness, and thus it made sense in his mind to want Hobab around to be a guide. Yet we may not be wise in thus giving Moses the benefit of the doubt in light of all which will soon happen. In this way even Moses himself was most likely not displaying complete confidence in YHWH regarding all which Israel was about to experience.

We are not told whether Hobab took up Moses’ offer; perhaps the Judges testimony should suggest at least some members of his family went with Israel. The narrative would continue: YHWH led Israel out three days into the wilderness, and Moses related what he would say when the Ark of the Covenant would begin traveling, and what he would say when it came to rest (Numbers 10:33-36). This place would be known as Taberah, burning, because fire came out from YHWH and burned parts of the camp because the people had begun complaining (Numbers 11:1-3).

For at least the period described in Numbers 1:1-10:11, Israel had proven fully faithful to YHWH; almost as soon as they depart from Horeb/Sinai, their rebellious tendencies again become manifest. At this location or somewhere nearby, the people of Israel complain about the food: they craved meat above and beyond the daily manna which had been sustaining them for some time (Numbers 11:4, 6-9). They spoke of all the bounty of Egypt; while all the foods they mention were plentiful in Egypt, we cannot imagine they would have been welcomed to share in it as slaves (Numbers 11:5).

Upon hearing these complaints, YHWH’s anger was kindled, but so also was Moses’ (Numbers 11:10). Moses no longer advocated for the people; instead, Moses unloaded on YHWH: he had not created this people; he had no idea how he could provide meat for all the people; he would rather die than to keep leading Israel in this condition (Numbers 11:11-15).

YHWH would take care of Moses and Israel in that order. He first commanded Moses to collect seventy of the elders of Israel to place part of His Spirit on them to help him bear the burden of the people, very much reminiscent of and duplicating Jethro’s advice in Exodus 18:1-27 (Numbers 11:16-17). Israel was to prepare itself to get stuffed with meat to the point of being sick of it on account of their grumbling (Numbers 11:18-20). Moses cast doubt on YHWH’s plan: how could YHWH provide meat for so many hundreds of thousands of people (Numbers 11:21-22)? YHWH slapped back: was His hand shortened (Numbers 11:23)?

Moses did what was commanded: he brought seventy elders to himself and prepared the people (Numbers 11:24). The Spirit of YHWH came upon the elders, and they prophesied once (Numbers 11:25). Yet two men who remained in the camp, Eldad and Medad, also had the Spirit of YHWH come upon them, and they prophesied in the camp (Numbers 11:26). Moses was told of it; we are introduced to Joshua ben Nun, Moses’ servant, who told Moses to stop Eldad and Medad (Numbers 11:27). Moses asked if Joshua were jealous for him; Moses would rather YHWH’s Spirit come upon all Israelites, so all might prophesy (Numbers 11:29-30). Much speculation attends to the significance and substance of Eldad and Medad: they prophesied within the camp, thus among the people; many rabbinic sources suggested Eldad and Medad were prophesying about how Moses would not lead Israel into Canaan, which would go a long way to explain why Joshua felt they should be stopped. But we cannot know for certain what Eldad and Medad were prophesying, or even whether the substance of their prophecy was related to Moses and Joshua. But we can see how Moses’ aspirations would be fulfilled in what God would accomplish in Christ through the gift of the Holy Spirit given to all who believe and obey (Acts 2:38-39, 5:32).

That night a wind came up and brought innumerable quail from the sea, likely from the Gulf of Aqaba, and with easy access for the Israelites; they each gathered no less than two thousand liters’ worth of quail (Numbers 11:31-32). A lot of birds migrate through that particular corridor, and it would not be unimaginable for a huge flock to get caught up in a wind storm and compelled to land in the wilderness. Nevertheless, while the flesh of the quail was in their mouths, YHWH sent a plague through Israel, killing many; the place would be named Kibroth-hattaavah, graves of those who craved, since they buried there so many who craved meat (Numbers 11:33-34).

The people then traveled to Hazeroth (Numbers 11:35). There Aaron and Miriam, Moses’ siblings, complained against him on account of his Kushite wife (Numbers 12:1). While many have tried to associate “Kushite” with somewhere in the desert areas to associate her with Zipporah, the natural understanding is for a Kushite to be a woman from Nubia, modern-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan. As indicated, we do not know what has happened with Zipporah. Clearly something about Moses’ marriage to the Kushite woman, whether in the marriage itself or in the conduct of Moses’ wife, led Aaron and Miriam to feel slighted or made insecure about their position. Their presumption was laid out in Numbers 12:2: had YHWH not spoken and worked through them as well?

YHWH would not countenance this: Moses was the most meek and humble of men, somewhat well exemplified in his response to Eldad and Medad and their prophesying (Numbers 12:3). YHWH called Moses, Aaron, and Miriam together at the tent of meeting (Numbers 12:4). YHWH called Aaron and Miriam to Him, and laid it out: YHWH would speak through prophets, but Moses was different, faithful in YHWH’s house, with whom YHWH spoke face to face and clearly, not in riddles (Numbers 12:5-7).

It was not wise or smart for Aaron and Miriam to speak against Moses, and the anger of YHWH burned against them: after He departed, Miriam displayed a skin condition which led to her having skin “like snow,” perhaps white or wet or both, and unclean (Numbers 12:8-10). Aaron begged Moses to not hold their sin against them and have Miriam be like a stillbirth displaying abnormalities, which would attest to a fairly significant case of skin disease; Moses cried to YHWH for her healing (Numbers 12:11-13). YHWH responded by suggesting she would have suffered disgrace for seven days if her father had spat in her face, and so she should be shut out of the camp for seven days and could then be brought back (Numbers 12:14). Thus Miriam was shut out for seven days, and Israel remained at Hazeroth throughout that time; ostensibly she was healed and brought back in, and Israel would set out again for the Wilderness of Paran (Numbers 12:15).

Some have wondered if the fact Miriam was afflicted with the skin disease meant it was mostly Miriam who was casting aspersions about Moses, with Aaron acting only as an accessory. Such is possible, but it would have been beyond scandalous for the High Priest to experience a skin condition, so perhaps YHWH was unwilling to punish Aaron similarly even though he was equally worthy of it. Miriam being attacked with a skin disease to make her skin white might be imagined in contrast with the blackness of Moses’ Kushite wife, especially if Miriam’s hostility was somehow related to ethnic difference; yet all such thoughts remain speculative.

Thus Moses had doubts about what God might do and proved exasperated with the people; thus the people rebelled against God; thus Aaron and Miriam proved presumptuous. The presentation of the narratives in Numbers 10:11-11:35, at least, seem to reverse mirror the narratives of Exodus 16:1-18:27: the people cry out for food; Moses spoke with his father-in-law; and Moses is overwhelmed and needs assistance by means of officials. But Israel is not the same after Sinai as they were before it. Before Sinai they were a motley crew, a mixed multitude; their basic needs were imperiled, and Moses was inexperienced. Since Sinai YHWH has organized them; Moses has gained in experience and understanding. The people are no longer begging for any kind of food; now they take the manna for granted, and despise it in their lust for meat. Moses should know better, but was still overwhelmed and needed assistance. Moses once stood between God and the people to defend the people; now he wants God to kill him because of how exasperated he is by the people.

In this way the events to be narrated in Numbers 13:1-14:45 should prove less surprising, even if no less distressing. The Israelites did not fully trust in God; they would all pursue their craving to some degree or another, and fall prey to presumption in their own ways. Yet Moses remained faithful in God’s house; yet he and all Israel would look forward to the day in which the Son would arrive and fulfill all God had promised and hoped for in Israel (cf. Hebrews 3:1-6). May we faithfully serve God in Christ through the Spirit and find life in Him!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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Service and Betrayal

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).

In John 13:1-3, John the Evangelist heightened the drama as he began to describe Jesus’ final supper with His disciples and His final exhortations to them. The evening meal before the Passover was ongoing; Jesus knew how all things were in motion which would lead to His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension: He had loved His disciples to the end, exemplified in all which had been narrated in John 1:1-12:50; He knew He would soon be departing to be with His Father; Satan had already put into Judas Iscariot’s heart to betray Jesus. Everything which has taken place so far was leading to this moment. We do well to understand this intense framing in terms of all which will transpire between John 13:4-17:26: at this pivotal moment, just before everything goes down, Jesus would provide His final instruction to His disciples before His departure. We can tell how much of an impact it made on John the Evangelist, since His narration of these events represents a significant portion of his Gospel.

Yet we can also profitably understand the intense framing of John 13:1-3 as appropriately emphasizing and intensifying what Jesus was about to do for His disciples: as everything was in motion, and it was all going down, Jesus got up in the middle of the dinner, prepared Himself appropriately, and then began washing the feet of His disciples (John 13:4-5).

John the Evangelist focused on Simon Peter’s reaction in John 13:6-10: Peter asked Jesus if He would wash his feet; Jesus explained Peter would not understand now, but would later; Peter protested and refused; Jesus told him he had no share in Jesus if Jesus did not wash his feet; Peter then wanted Jesus to wash his whole body. It has been common to interpret Peter’s behavior at this moment in terms of his propensity toward impetuousness: first Peter did not want Jesus to wash his feet at all, and then, all of a sudden, Peter wants a full bath!

But we perhaps do better to understand Peter’s reactions as perhaps more outward and forceful than the other disciples, but no less in the minds of those other disciples, and as well representing the social implications within the context. In the ancient world it was a custom to have one’s feet washed as part of being welcomed into a home. Ancient people wore sandals or went barefoot; to this day feet can get very dirty if we walk around in sandals all day, and it would have been all the worse in the ancient world when most people would throw out their effluent onto the streets. Foot washing was not a glamorous work: it would normally be reserved for those with the least social status, a slave whenever possible, and even then, the slave with the least standing in the household.

To this end, Jesus’ behavior would have been very troubling and uncomfortable for the disciples. Jesus had gotten up in the middle of the dinner to wash feet; this itself was unexpected, since normally feet would have been washed when the guests would have arrived for dinner. We would not be wrong in assuming they had already had their feet washed earlier; that Jesus would do it again would indicate some kind of deliberate ritual or didactic purpose. Peter may be impetuous, but if nothing else, Peter was always quite aware of the difference in standing between himself and Jesus; Peter knew very well how it was Peter who should be washing Jesus’ feet, not vice versa, and such is why he strongly protested against Jesus washing his feet (cf. Luke 5:1-10). We can easily imagine Peter only reluctantly allowing Jesus to wash his feet after Jesus had thrown down the gauntlet, no doubt feeling very uncomfortable at this violation of every norm and status surrounding foot washing. To this end perhaps Peter wanted Jesus to wash his head and his hands as a way of blunting the shame; perhaps, in his mind, it would have been less shameful for Jesus to wash him thoroughly than just having his feet washed. Or perhaps Peter reconciled himself to the action by thinking Jesus was providing a purifying cleansing, and thus wanted to be more fully cleansed. Either way, John the Evangelist has significantly slowed down the timing and pacing of the narrative so his audience might “sit” in the same awkwardness and discomfort in which the disciples sat.

Jesus would not wash Peter fully, because just like a person whose feet only were dirty and thus only washes their feet, they were clean, but not all of them; John the Evangelist then added the comment of how Jesus thus spoke regarding the one who was about to betray Him (John 13:10-11). We would be unwise to read too much into Jesus’ statement of how the disciples were “clean”: He was speaking about their relationships with Him. It is worth pointing out here how in John’s narration, Judas remained at the dinner at this time, and would only leave after a few moments (cf. John 13:26-30). Thus John strongly implied Jesus washed Judas Iscariot’s feet. Jesus washed Judas Iscariot’s feet while each of them knew what was about to take place: Judas at least already had the idea of betraying Jesus, if not having already made provisional contact and plans to do so; Jesus knew what Judas was going to do (cf. Luke 22:3-6, John 13:2, 11). And Jesus washed Judas’ feet anyway. There is no more compelling example of Jesus’ love, humility, and faithful service than such an act. It also helps to explain how bitterly the betrayal must have felt not only to Jesus but to Judas’ fellow disciples.

Jesus afterward dressed Himself again and returned to the table and explained what had just happened: they called Him Teacher and Lord, and did so correctly, and He just washed their feet; if He, their Teacher and Lord, washed their feet, then they should wash one another’s feet and follow the example Jesus gave them, and they would be blessed if they did so (John 13:12-17). Ever since many have aspired to follow Jesus’ example literally, and some may find some benefit in going about literally washing the feet of others. Yet just as Jesus’ act of foot washing in the middle of the meal was most likely more performative than functional, as a didactic ritual experience, so this kind of foot washing in an assembly context would prove a bit more performative than functional. Paul speaking of worthy widows as having “washed the feet of the saints” in 1 Timothy 5:10 would further reinforce the premise: perhaps those widows actually did wash the feet of fellow Christians, but such would not be the only way they would serve their fellow Christians, and what proved virtuous about the washing of feet was not in the washing of the feet but in its act of service. Jesus’ point, which John the Evangelist made incredibly explicit and thus worthy of our emphasis, was for Christians to serve fellow Christians and others. Not only should Christians serve fellow Christians and others, but they should be willing to do the kinds of acts of service which are generally associated with those of lower social standing without grumbling. There is no job or task which is “beneath” the Christian; if our Lord and Savior washed feet, we have no right presuming we are “too good” for or “above” any given act of service.

John the Evangelist thus presented part of the story of Jesus’ final dinner with His disciples in John 13:1-17 to powerfully and viscerally emphasize the importance of Christian love and humility exemplified in acts of service. Jesus washed feet; go and serve others: it would be hard to make the point as powerfully and succinctly as this. If Christians find anything about the practice of this example challenging and difficult, such is their own problem rooted in an unwise and ungodly sense of arrogance and pride.

Yet Jesus’ instruction was not for all of them. Quoting Psalm 41:9, and distressed in spirit, Jesus confessed how one of the disciples would betray Him in John 13:18-21. The hearer or reader has been well prepared for this moment since John the Evangelist has taken every opportunity to remind the hearer or reader how Judas Iscariot would betray Jesus. But the disciples themselves were not as prepared for this moment. Jesus said these things in advance so the disciples would understand how it had all been foretold and they would believe He was and is the Christ. Judas’ betrayal did not mean God in Christ had to readjust and go with Plan B or Plan C; Judas’ betrayal, and all it would unleash, was in fact Plan A and had always been Plan A (John 13:19; cf. Acts 2:23). Those who accept those Jesus sends accepts Jesus and the Father who sent Jesus; such is why we accept the apostolic witness regarding Jesus and should continue to put confidence in the message of what God accomplished in Christ as faithfully proclaimed through what has been made known by the Spirit in the witness of Scripture (John 13:20).

The hearer or reader of John’s Gospel is neither shocked nor surprised by Jesus’ confession of His imminent betrayal; John the Evangelist has taken every possible opportunity to remind the hearer or reader of how Judas Iscariot would betray Jesus. Yet at this point in the narrative John implicitly confessed how none of this was immediately obvious at any time beforehand. After Jesus declared one of the disciples would betray Him, John did not say, “and everyone looked at Judas Iscariot.” Instead, John reported how the disciples looked at each other, unsure about who would do so. For the first time in the narrative, John spoke of himself as the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” as one reclining at the privileged position next to Jesus; this may well indicate John was the host, or family of the host, of the whole dinner (John 13:23). This detail was given to explain how and why Simon Peter gestured to John to be the one to ask Jesus of whom He spoke (John 13:24). That Peter would ask John to do it should be telling: was it not normally Peter who would be the one to say or ask what everyone else was thinking? Peter had no desire to be the one who asked lest suspicion fall upon him; perhaps this is why John described himself here as the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” as having a sufficiently close relationship to be more above and beyond suspicion.

John then asked Jesus, and Jesus identified the disciple by giving him a piece of bread dipped in the dish; He gave it to Judas Iscariot and told him to do quickly what he was about to do (John 13:25-27). John the Evangelist also provided further editorial commentary: at the time no one understood why Jesus spoke thus to Judas; the disciples thought He was telling Judas to go and buy what was needed for the feast or to give something to the poor since he was the treasurer (John 13:28-29). Judas went out immediately afterward; John indicated it happened at night (John 13:30).

Christians are understandably tempted to demonize Judas Iscariot, and we mean this in a very concrete way: we want to turn him into a kind of demon. We have continually noted how John the Evangelist displayed the sting of the betrayal with every editorial comment he made at every possible point at which the narrative provided him an opportunity to do so. Yet we must understand why the betrayal hurt so badly: Judas Iscariot was a full disciple of Jesus, as much a disciple of Jesus as Peter or John or Andrew or anyone else. For that matter, Judas would not be the only disciple betraying Jesus that night; Peter would deny Jesus three times, and the rest of the disciples would have likely done the same had they been in Peter’s predicament (cf. John 13:38, 18:15-18, 25-27). We all want to understand why, and we can all look at various possibilities and reasons for why Judas betrayed Jesus. But we do ourselves a disservice if we look for those reasons in order to try to tell ourselves how we would never do anything of the sort and we would never betray Jesus. We desperately want Judas Iscariot to be a terrible human being so we do not have to consider the prospect of how we might be the ones to betray Jesus in some way or another. But if Judas Iscariot was a full disciple, as he was, and it was not immediately obvious to the other eleven disciples that Judas would be the one to betray Jesus, as it turned out, and if Jesus did not treat Judas Iscariot any differently even knowing he would be the one to betray Him, as He did not, then the possibility remains that any disciple might betray Jesus, as is indeed the case. We are all more like Judas Iscariot than any of us would like to be. If it had always been obvious Judas Iscariot would betray Jesus, it might have been easier for John the Evangelist to countenance and stomach; its very unexpected nature goes a long way to explain the depth of the bitterness John the Evangelist felt about the whole matter.

We can only imagine what was going through the mind of Judas Iscariot. We can view this scene as a sort of “anti-communion.” Of the four Gospel accounts, only John the Evangelist passed over the establishment of the Lord’s Supper in silence; he likely knew how it was well attested in the other Gospels and wanted instead to focus on Jesus’ foot washing example which the other Evangelists had passed over. But Jesus giving the bread dipped in the dish to Judas Iscariot represented the closest thing to it in John’s account. In no way is Jesus giving Judas Iscariot the Eucharist/Communion/the Lord’s Supper; instead, after Jesus gave Judas Iscariot the bread dipped in the dish and Judas ate it, John related how Satan entered into Judas (John 13:27). Those who would suggest Satan took control of Judas at this point go well beyond what the textual evidence would allow; likewise those who would suggest a contradiction between John 13:27 and John 13:2, as if what John is narrating as a series of actions cannot involve dynamic movement from thought/preparation to action. Instead we suggest John the Evangelist characterized the moment as “anti-communion.” In the Lord’s Supper, Christians eat the bread and the fruit of the vine as the body and blood of Jesus to share in His life; when Judas Iscariot ate the bread dipped in the dish, he went out to betray the body and blood of Jesus to death. Christians call the Lord’s Supper “communion” because partaking of the body and blood of Jesus represents their shared participation in Jesus, as if Jesus is in them (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17); when Judas Iscariot ate the bread dipped in the dish, he alienated himself from Jesus, and instead was sharing in participation with Satan, who thus “entered” him. In the Lord’s Supper observed on Sundays, Christians celebrate the death of Christ on the day of His resurrection to honor eternal life; when Judas Iscariot ate the bread dipped in the dish, he committed himself, however unconsciously, to bring death to Jesus and ultimately himself. From this point on, Jesus would speak to the eleven in ways to bring them in to share in life (cf. John 13:31-17:26); by giving Judas Iscariot the bread dipped in the dish, Jesus in a real way cast Judas Iscariot out, and he was handed over to Satan to do his diabolical deed.

Thus John the Evangelist described Jesus’ act of service and announced His betrayal in dramatically powerful ways. As Christians we do well to imagine ourselves as participants in these moments, to consider how our Lord and Teacher has served us, and thus how we should serve one another, and how each and every one of us has it within ourselves to betray Jesus. We do well to thus consider ourselves so that we may commit more fully to Jesus, to share in communion with Him in the Lord’s Supper and through our thoughts, feelings, and actions on a daily basis, and to make sure we never are given the “bread dipped in the dish,” to share in an “anti-communion” which casts us out to the Evil One and to be alienated from life and light. May we faithfully serve God in Christ through the Spirit and share in eternal life in Him!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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False Dichotomy

If you love Jesus, then you will read this article. If you refuse to read this article, you do not love Jesus.

How do the statements above strike you? They prove full of rhetorical bombast; they might influence some people’s behavior.

But if you are left wondering if they do not capture all of the valid possibilities involved, and especially if the limitations imposed seem deliberate, you would be correct: the statements above represent the fallacy of the false dichotomy.

In a false dichotomy, a set of choices offered regarding an issue are sharply circumscribed when not logically or ontologically demanded. By strict definition, false dichotomies are false binaries, with only two options given; colloquially, however, we would also speak of a situation in which more than two options were given when yet even further would be theoretically possible as a false dichotomy. False dichotomies are also often called false dilemmas, although properly the false claim itself is the false dichotomy, and the overall argument itself would thus be made a false dilemma.

False dichotomies often seem legitimate because many people, by personality or training, prefer binary, “black and white” thinking. Likewise, human language and thinking also tend to prefer binary, either/or frameworks. Furthermore, there are certain domains in which a binary is not logically fallacious: an event either occurred or it did not; a thing exists or it does not exist; and such like. People tend to be quite familiar with the idea of contradictories, in which one proposition in an argument must be correct, and thus any other proposition(s) must be incorrect. And yet, in many aspects of life, our arguments will involve contraries: opposing propositions regarding which one perhaps represents the truth, but in fact all options might be false, or there may be aspects of truth found in many of the options. People thus prove tempted to suggest arguments as contradictories when they are really contraries, leading to the presentation of false dichotomies.

In this way false dichotomies end up saying much more about the people who express them than the subject matter at hand. Many people advance false dichotomies with earnestness, even if their argumentation remains logically fallacious. Perhaps the person has come from a more authoritarian heritage or perspective and attempts to reduce everything to a “black and white” binary; perhaps the person simply has experienced a failure of imagination about the possibilities inherent regarding the proposition or topic at hand. Maybe other reasons are involved which come from a place of sincerity. Unfortunately, however, many times people advance false dichotomies with deceptive and manipulative purposes. Such people remain aware of the existence of other possibilities, a spectrum of gray between the black and white of the binary. Yet they exercise motivated reasoning in advancing false dichotomies, attempting to force others to fit the binary to advance their economic, political, and sadly enough, even religious purposes.

We find plenty of examples of false dichotomies in the realms of politics and religion. Politicians and partisans invest a lot of resources into framing political discourse in terms of two options: choose party A and its candidate, who stands for all which is good, right, and holy, and oppose party B and its candidate, who hates the country and wants to completely destroy everything which is good, right, and holy. In this way both the choice itself and those involved are characterized in terms of false dichotomies. Note well how the existence of any other party or viewpoint are suppressed or dismissed. How many times have we heard some variation on the theme of “not voting for candidate/party A is a vote for candidate/party B”? Such a claim is fallacious: to not vote for a candidate or a party does not demand the endorsement of the other candidate or party; one may, in fact, support an entirely different candidate or party, or not support any of the parties or candidates. In a similar way, framing the party or candidate with which one has more agreement as more “righteous” or “good,” and framing the party or candidate with which one has more disagreement as “wicked” or “evil” almost invariably leads to justifying or rationalizing those ways in which one’s preferred party proves less than righteous or good, and likewise trying to dismiss, neglect, or suppress those ways in which the party or candidate with whom you disagree displays some form of righteousness or goodness. This is the fruit of the false dichotomy, for no political party or politician is either good or evil. Binary thinking has not elevated American political discourse.

The tendency toward false dichotomies in religion prove very strong, and for understandable reasons. Christians seek to affirm the truth of God in Christ through the Spirit, and have been encouraged to call out and resist every evil way (John 14:6, Ephesians 5:11-13). For generations many sincere, well-intending Christians have been profoundly shaped by authoritarian thought patterns and structures, and thus they tend to see everything in the world and in the faith in “black and white” terms. They look for something to either be right or wrong; they have been conditioned to believe looking at a situation in any other way leads to moral relativism.

Let none be deceived: it is possible to attempt to consider certain matters in terms of multiple options or a spectrum in ways which leads to excusing of false doctrines or sin. When God has condemned certain ways of thinking, feeling, and acting as sinful, we should affirm those ways of thinking, feeling, and acting as sinful, and should not attempt to justify or rationalize such behavior (1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:19-21, etc.) But not every matter of the faith can be so easily established in “black or white” terms; such is why those with such a “black or white” perspective find Romans 14:1-15:7 or 1 Corinthians 10:23-33 challenging, since the eating of meat or observing a day is not intrinsically either right or wrong, or it is not just about whether something is righteous or sinful, but also whether it is profitable or beneficial: you can eat meat in one context and be righteous before God, but if you eat meat in such a way as to cause a Christian to stumble, or to attempt to impose your confidence about meat eating on another who does not have that conviction, you have sinned and done wrong; something can be right to do but may not be the most profitable or wise decision in a given situation, and the Christian would, in that instance, do better by avoiding the practice.

Many times, false dichotomies in religious discourse are begotten on account of a failure of imagination. Few situations better exemplify this unfortunate trend than in how many brethren have considered the work and presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian. Many of the arguments advanced to support the “word only” position, expecting the only lasting influence of the Holy Spirit upon the believer to be mediated by Scripture, are often predicated on false dichotomies: either the Spirit works directly or through the word; if the Father and the Son do not indwell a person, neither can the Spirit, etc. The possibility of God in Christ dwelling representatively in the Christian by means of the Spirit according to Romans 9:8-11 was not countenanced or imagined by many of the disputants. Jesus’ being the embodied Word of God which we must consume to have life, as made known in John 1:1-18, 6:23-71, introduces another exegetical possibility which always must be kept in mind when the New Testament speaks about God’s “Word”; since Jesus was the embodiment of that which God communicated by means of the Spirit, when we see the “Word of God” discussed somewhere in the New Testament, we cannot so easily insist on it representing only the Scriptures. The category error of considering God’s “supernatural” work in terms of either “providence” or the “miraculous” easily leads to the false dichotomy which would consider the work of the Spirit as either providentially provided for in Scripture or miraculously given through God’s dispensation, without giving any space in the imagination for a continual work of God which does not sit comfortably in either the category of the miraculous or the providential.

The Spirit is active in the work of sanctification (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:13), and sanctification goes well beyond information acquisition and distribution; focusing on the work of the Spirit primarily in terms of information acquisition and distribution has thus led to false dichotomies and a host of other logical fallacies as well as the establishment of arguments and doctrines foreign to what God made known in Christ through the Spirit in the pages of Scripture. Christian faith has never been a matter of “mind or heart,” or “reason or experience”; God in Christ through the Spirit has always expected Christians to both know and love Him, and to both learn of and walk in His ways. One can actively search the Scriptures and seek to come to a better understanding of what God has thus made known in Christ through the Spirit and confess they have received the gift of the Holy Spirit at baptism and have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, just as the Apostles testified (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:14-16, 6:19-20, 2 Corinthians 5:5, Ephesians 1:13, 2:22). No false dichotomy is thus needed.

Christians are also tempted toward the false dichotomy of seeing people as either “good” or “bad.” The Bible has spoken clearly: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). None of us are truly “good people.” All of us have sinned and continue to have the propensity to sin. Unfortunately, even Christians striving toward faithfulness to God in many respects also often fall prey to sin in other respects. Sometimes the pervasiveness of their sin gives reason to question if their faith was truly sincere or if it were simply a façade overlaying a worldly, greedy, lustful heart. Sometimes even the best of people fall prey to evil desires and temptations or are led astray by deceptive actors. At the same time, save perhaps for a few truly diabolically psychopathic people, almost everyone has some capacity for good: people tend to love those who love them and do good for them, if nothing else (cf. Matthew 5:45-47). Therefore, to suggest or to look at the world in terms of the “good people” and the “bad people” proves not only fundamentally fallacious but contrary to what God has made known in Christ. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was not wrong when he said, “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.” Christians do well to recalibrate how they look at the world and themselves, to cease being surprised at the sins which become manifest from “righteous Christians” and to confess and lament them, and be willing to recognize that which is good and righteous in those with whom they disagree and would generally characterize as living in iniquity and wickedness.

False dichotomies will always represent a tempting fallacy for us. It is always easier to see things in binary, “black and white” terms, and to resist understanding aspects in terms of a spectrum, admit multiple possibilities, and above all, to maintain humility in remembering how limited our perspective is and how there might well be other possibilities we have not imagined. Furthermore, deceptive and manipulative actors will continue to assert frameworks and arguments saturated with false dichotomies or binaries in order to advance their economic, political, or perhaps even religious advantage. We must confess there will be times when a dichotomy is not false; in humility, however, we must also confess there will be many more times when any attempt to force a given argument or situation to fit into a binary proves problematic and fallacious. May we resist the tendency to frame things in terms of false dichotomies while seeking to do all things to the glory and honor of God in Christ through the Spirit!

Ethan R. Longhenry

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