Towards Better Things
Saturday, January 10 2015, The Australian ran this line:
“The Weekend Australian today published a
cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed arguing with Jesus... The ... newspaper published the cartoon by
Bill Leak entitled "Let us pray" in which Jesus is holding up the
Koran and telling Mohammed: ‘I've told you this needs a sequel’, an indirect
reference to the Bible which has an Old and New Testament. To which Mohammed, brandishing a newspaper
with the headline "World at War", replies he can't return to human
form right now because he would be "crucified".
That last line, of course,
is a reference to what happened to Jesus when he produced a “sequel”. Though he didn’t write it – he lived it.
I’m not interested in the
religion or the politics of the issue; but I am fascinated by the fact that
cartoonist Bill Leak (who passed away in 2017) understood that there was and is
an ‘old covenant’ and a ‘new covenant’.
[Covenant, like Will, is another word for Testament.] That’s an understanding I find in short
supply among millions who call themselves Christians across the globe today.
Typically, christians act
and talk as if nothing much happened in the hundred years from the announcement
of the birth of Jesus; like Jesus – despite all he set out to achieve – was a
momentary aberration in the course of Jewish and world history. Jesus, to many, was and is a ‘great moral
teacher’; but aside from that, for many, nothing much happened in the cosmos or in the
supernatural world – even if you are one of a minority that believes there is
such a thing.
Many so-called Christians
name themselves such simply to distinguish themselves from followers of Islam,
Judaism, Shintoism, Buddhism, etc. and couldn’t tell you much about
distinctions between named sub-sets of ‘christian’. And many reference their ‘christianity’ back
to the characters, the laws and the teachings and ethics of ancient Israel. Some do both.
Any number of histories will
tell you that the ‘christianity’ of the first hundred years from the
announcement of the birth of Jesus was a ‘Jewish sect’ and/or a ‘new
religion’. And histories that take a dim
view of the first century character Saul (later Paul) – whom they view as a
renegade and a break-away – struggle to make sense of (or find a place for) a
distinction between an ‘old covenant’ and a ‘new covenant’ or a transition from
one to the other.
This is not altogether
surprising given that Saul/Paul was a stand-out in understanding and
articulating that distinction and the need for a transition. Remove Paul’s writings from the equation (and
of course Luke’s history of Paul’s exploits in the book of Acts) and you are
left with an eerie sense that those histories might actually be on the right
track.
So at the outset, I am
stressing that I am NOT one who devalues or dismisses Paul. And my reading of Jesus is that he had no
intention whatsoever of forming a new sect within Judaism or of starting a new
religion. Furthermore, it is my view
that it is Paul’s exploits and writings that gave the will and intentions of
Jesus the impetus they needed to blast through the inertia of the religion of
the day to usher in the dawn of a whole new administration of God’s will “on
earth as it is in heaven”, as Jesus put it.
There was no one better placed than Paul to do that.
And “administration” it
is. The English translations of Paul in
his letter to the Ephesians use that word specifically. The Greek original of the word is οἰκονομία, which is variously translated
administration, stewardship, household.
Believe it or not, this is the original Greek work from which modern
English derives the term economics: economics is about much more than money and
book-keeping; it’s about a household, stewardship of what we have to hand, and
the sound administration of our corporate responsibilities.
Paul picks this up as no other new testament writer does – unless, of
course, you see the letter to the Hebrews as not written by Paul but by another
(unknown) author. Indeed, it is
inextricably linked to Paul insofar as it is actually part of his character and
his perception of his purpose and mission and calling in life. Paul saw the revelation of this
administration – this stewardship; this economics – as coming directly from
God. And I for one don’t doubt it. After Paul was flipped over and spun about by
God – in the person of the resurrected Jesus – he soon thereafter spent around
three years in the ‘wilderness’ basically alone with God. He needed to hear first-hand (not via his
usual school of Rabbinic thought) just what the tumult in his life was all
about. You’ll see this in part of his
letter to the Ephesian disciples.
In short, Prior to Jesus’ resurrection (see Romans 1 especially verse 4),
the old administration was in force. For
the Jews, it meant pretty much the continuation of the administration we see as
the context for the old testament writings.
For non-Jews, it meant whatever was their particular administration of
the cosmos relative to their culture and history.
The resurrection changed everything.
Romans 1:1-6 puts the story in a nutshell. The old Jewish prophets recorded God’s
promise that a descendant of David would receive the imprimatur as “son of God
with power.” Through him, a new
administration would begin in which “all nations” (the proper meaning of the
Greek word translated ‘Gentiles’) are now included – not least the Roman
disciples to whom Paul addressed his letter.
To many Jews it was then and is now an utter scandal. As Luke’s record in Acts shows us, the Jewish
leaders have continuously and assiduously maintained the view than any Gentile
seeking fellowship with them must keep the “law of Moses”. And this – as those same scriptures show us –
meant that anyone wishing to join the new “Jesus movement” (“The Way” as it was
often called) must also keep the “law of Moses’. Paul fought this notion to his death –
precisely why many view Paul as ‘the false apostle’.
The new testament scriptures record various first-person and
second-person accounts of Paul’s understanding and articulation of what this
means and implies. Much of Romans and
Hebrews is precisely about his, as are parts of his various letters to the
local gatherings of Jesus People he worked with.
And Luke’s record in Acts contains multiple references to events (e.g.
Acts 9 and 15) that shed light on the reality of a new administration and of
the necessity of a transitioning from old to new.
And for me, this issue is not just a “theology” or a doctrine that only
has significance within the perimeters of religion, church or christianity; it
is central to our humanity. Many works
that make no profession of being about theology, religion, church or
christianity talk at length about both the existence of ‘old’ and ‘new’, of a
transition from ‘old’ to ‘new’, and of a considerable need to make that
transition. Two come immediately to
mind: New Power by Jeremy Heimans and
Henry Timms; The Great Turning: from
Empire to Earth Community by David C. Korten.
As far as I am concerned, a true authentic and satiated humanity flows
not from the ‘old’ (Empire; domination; winners and losers) but from the ‘new’
(Earth Community; partnership; cooperation).
And on both counts, we have ample evidence from thousands of years of
recorded history of both approaches; notwithstanding the fact that Empire tends
to get the lion’s share of the oxygen, attention and Press coverage and Earth
Community tends to be just ‘white noise’ in the background of life.
Blogger Bill Britton (promiseed.com) calls the new testament letter to the
Hebrews “The Book of Better Things” as this is the chief argument of the
letter. In summary, the ‘new’ is better
than the ‘old’, as witnessed in these ways:
·
Sonship
is better than the angels
·
A
better gospel spells better dominion
·
A
better house with a better builder
·
A
better Sabbath (day of rest)
·
A
better high priest in a better priesthood
·
A
better tabernacle (tent/meeting place)
·
A
better covenant
·
A
better blood from a better sacrifice
·
A
better holy place
·
A
better day
·
A
better way through a better veil
·
A
better faith with a better promise
·
A
better relationship (sonship)
·
A
better kingdom with a better city
·
A
better altar with a better sacrifice
From promiseed.com by Bill Britton:
Thirty years
after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus we still find the Jewish
Christians following the law of Moses and the ceremonial ritualism of temple
worship. Thirty years after the Holy Spirit fell on the day
of Pentecost, thousands of Spirit-filled priests and Jewish Christians were
still engaged in the offering up of the Passover lamb and other blood
sacrifices. The writer of Hebrews is trying to show them the glory of the
reality in Christ Jesus, and the "better things". (emphasis added)
It remains a puzzling question why
people still cling to the old, the less satisfactory, the less effective ideas,
ways and practices in the manifest presence and availability of a far superior
way. Why do we do that? David Korten has excellent insight here.
۞
Next I want to set up a parable story
– a metaphor; an allegory – to illustrate what I’m talking about. Following that, I want to add in some tables
of comparison and contrast.
Included somewhere in there will be
an examination of the “old covenant” nature of the things included in what we
call church today, as well as touching on the brilliant work of Gregory Boyd in
his two books: The Myth of a Christian
Nation and The Myth of a Christian
Religion. And as sure as the
sunrise, they are both myths.
And the pièce de résistance: a short tour of Matthew 5, 6 and 7 focusing
particularly on those occasions when Jesus is reported to have said “You have
heard that it was said... But I say...”
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