08/30/22

Doers of the Word

Knesset Menorah with Hillel; licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

It has been said that the great Jewish rabbi Hillel was asked if he could explain the Torah (the Pentateuch; the first five books of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures) while standing on one foot. He accepted the challenge and said: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is explanation.” This is the negative or prohibitive form of what has become widely known as the Golden Rule: “treat others as you would like others to treat you.” In one form or other the Golden Rule is found in many religions and embodies the ethic of relationships within Alcoholics Anonymous and self help groups based upon its Twelve Steps.

Christianity gives Jesus credit for stating the positive sense in Matthew 7:12 of the Sermon on the Mount: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Jesus in effect was saying the golden rule was a summary of the entire Old Testament. Leon Morris said in his commentary on Matthew: “The person who consistently lives according to the golden rule is keeping all the regulations in Scripture directing one’s conduct toward other people.” There is no getting around it: if you are a follower of Jesus, you are to be actively doing good to others.

Jesus states both the Golden Rule and the two greatest commandments can be seen as summaries of the Hebrew Scriptures—the Law and the Prophets. In Matthew 22:34-40 Jesus was challenged by a Pharisee to give the great commandment of the Law—to summarize the law in one commandment. His response was to say there were two great commandments. The first one was: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And the second one was: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He then declared: “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said he came to fulfill, not abolish the Law and the Prophets. He repeatedly sharpened and clarified for his listeners various teachings in the Old Testament and he did so again here in Matthew 7:12. Other references to the Golden Rule in Jewish literature are primarily in the prohibitive or negative form. Here for the first time Jesus stated it positively—do to others what you would have them do to you. Timothy Jacobs observed Jesus’ formulation here was “a stronger interpretation of the command to love one’s neighbor.”

According to Timothy Jacobs in the Lexham Bible Dictionary, referring to this phrase as the “Golden Rule” can be attributed to the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus (225-235 AD) who had it inscribed in gold on the wall of his chamber. The earliest reference to a variation of it seems to be from Egypt’s “Elegant Peasant” story, dating to around 1800 BC, but the translation there is uncertain. Various forms of the Golden Rule may be found in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, Scientology, Wicca, and others. “In philosophical traditions it has a presence in Existentialism, Humanism, Platonism, modern psychology, and countless others.”

Criticisms of the Golden Rule center on its lack of nuance, as it implies we should always do to others what we would want them to do to us. These critics have suggested a change known as the “Platinum rule.” George Bernard Shaw said one should not do others as they would want done to themselves because “their tastes may not be the same.” Karl Popper wrote in The Open Society and Its Enemies: “The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever reasonable, as they want to be done by.” A response to these critiques is “the Golden Rule implies a consideration of how the other person wants to be treated.” This so-called Platinum rule and the negative or prohibitive form of the Golden Rule may at first seem to be merely saying the same thing in a different way; not so. According to Leon Morris:

It is often urged that it matters little whether the golden rule be cited in its positive or negative forms, but this is not so. If we did nothing at all, we would satisfy the negative form! In the great judgment scene in chapter 25 [of Matthew] those who are condemned might well claim that they had fulfilled the golden rule in its negative form. Their condemnation lay in the fact that they had failed to do good, not in any evil action that they had carried through.

In his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, D.A. Carson said the difference between the positive and negative forms of the Golden Rule are profound. The negative form teaches that if you don’t like being cursed at, don’t curse. If you don’t like being robbed, don’t rob others. Yet the positive form extends beyond the mere avoidance of wrongdoing. It says: if you enjoy being loved, love others. If you like receiving things, give to others. If you like being appreciated, appreciate others.

The positive form is thus far more searching than its negative counterpart. Here there is no permission to withdraw into a world where I offend no one, but accomplish no positive good, either. What would you like done to you? What would you really like? Then, do that to others. Duplicate both the quality of these things, and their quantity—“in everything.”Why are we to act in this way? Jesus does not say that we are to do to others what we would like them to do to us in order that they will do it to us. At stake is no such utilitarian value as “honesty pays” or the like. Rather, the reason we are to do to others what we would like others to do to us is that such behavior sums up the Law and the Prophets. In other words, such behavior conforms to the requirements of the kingdom of God, the kingdom which is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. It constitutes a quick test of the perfection demanded in 5:48; of the love described in 5:43ff.; of the truth portrayed in 5:33ff.; and so forth.

In chapter 11 of the A.A. Big Book, “A Vision for You,” Bill W. described the fellowship and friendship formed in A.A. He said you would make lifelong friends and be bound to them by escaping disaster together. Then, he said, you will know what it meant: “to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life.”

You will learn the full meaning of “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Although the Golden Rule itself cannot be found in the Big Book, or the Twelve Steps, it lies at the heart of carrying the message of sobriety in the Twelfth Step. In the November 1970 issue of the AA Grapevine, F.F. pointed out that although the Twelve Steps do not include the words of the Golden Rule, “it does advise members to help other alcoholics.” You become a member of A.A. because “some other member was implementing the Golden Rule.” In response to the question “What Do I Get Out of AA?” in the January 1952 issue, Robbie said he got fellowship with folks he could respect and trust, “folks who believe in and practice the Golden Rule of life.” In the January 1948 issue, P.O.L. said among other things, sobriety was “honesty, tolerance, humility and the Golden Rule.” There are dozens of other references to it in the AA Grapevine.

It is likely that many within A.A. think of the Golden Rule in the broader sense of a moral or ethical principle of reciprocity and not because such behavior sums up the requirements of the kingdom of God. D.A. Carson observed that as the overwhelming demands of “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” drives home our spiritual bankruptcy, God gives us “a burning desire to turn to him with humble, persistent asking, seeking, knocking. Out of this we shall become ‘doers’ of the Word, and not just ‘hearers.’”

This is part of a series of reflections dedicated to the memory of Audrey Conn, whose questions reminded me of my intention to look at the various ways the Sermon on the Mount applies to Alcoholics Anonymous and recovery. If you’re interested in more, look under the category link “Sermon on the Mount.”

Originally posted on August 28, 2018.

02/11/20

Founded On the Rock

© Vasilis Ververidis | 123rf.com; The Holy Monastery of Rousanou/St. Barbara, in Greece.

Jesus reached the conclusion of his Sermon on the Mount. He had systematically dismantled the common religious understanding of God’s Word— “You have heard that it was said … but I say to you …” —throughout the Sermon. And in Matthew 7:21-23, he just told his hearers that not everyone who acknowledged his Lordship and performed deeds in his name will enter the kingdom of heaven! Surely Jesus did not mean that there were even some people who cast out demons, performed miracles and even prophesied in his name, but were ultimately opponents to the Law and the Prophets? Surely what he said in 7:21-23 was a rhetorical figure aimed to get our attention and not to be taken literally? All eyes were on Jesus as he told a final parable that communicated to his audience that he meant what he had just said.

I don’t imagine there were any side conversations either. They all wanted to hear what Jesus was going to say next. So, he told another little parable, that began with: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). When the rain, flood and winds come, it will withstand the storm and not fall. “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand” (Matthew 7:25). When the rain, flood and winds come, it will fall.

The contrasts are between wisdom and foolishness, the rock and sand, and ultimately between hearing and doing his words, versus hearing and not doing. In effect, Jesus is saying: “Yes, you heard me right. I am saying you have to live out what you hear me saying here today. And if you don’t, when trials come, whatever you have built up will collapse.” In his book, The Sermon on the Mount, Sinclair Ferguson said Jesus is telling us there are two ways we can respond. We can either put his sermon into practice through obedience, or we can ignore it. The wise man puts into practice what he hears. As a result, he’ll withstand the trials when they come. Leon Morris said:

The little parable … emphasizes the importance of acting in accordance with Jesus’ teaching^. It is one thing to hear what he said and even approve of it; it is quite another to obey. But it is only obedience that results in solid achievement.

Following the path Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount is like building your house on a rock. You build on a firm foundation; you can trust his words to protect you in the worst storms. Ferguson said this meant more than simply hearing God’s word taught, becoming familiar with it or even agreeing with it. You have to put what you heard into practice. “The difference between the false and the true Christian is that the true Christian puts into practice what he has heard from the Master in this sermon.”

When he finished, the crowds were astonished at how authoritatively Jesus taught. This was not what they were used to from their scribes, who appealed to authority, but did not habitually teach with authority. “It was the scribal habit to appeal to authority, for it was an age in which originality was not highly prized. It was widely accepted that there had been a golden age early in the history of the race and since then history had been all downhill.” While it was customary for the scribes to cite an authority from the golden age, Jesus ignored this method of teaching. He simply said, “I say to you.” There was a context behind the imagery of the parables Jesus taught that gave them significance, as there is here. In his commentary on Matthew, Craig Blomberg said:

The wise person living in the Palestinian desert would erect a dwelling on a secure rock to protect the house from the flash floods that sudden storms created. The foolish person would build directly on the sand and would have no protection against the devastation of the elements. So too Judgment Day will come like a flood to disclose which spiritual structures will endure. Preliminary crises may also reveal authentic and inauthentic spirituality. In fact, often only in times of crisis can one’s faith be truly proven. This parable concludes Jesus’ “two ways” discussion and forms a fitting conclusion to the sermon as a whole by making plain that there is no valid reason for refusing Christ’s appeal. As R. T. France states succinctly, “The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not meant to be admired but to be obeyed.”

Within recovery, there is a similar appeal, and we could paraphrase this last quote as “The path to recovery in A.A. is not meant to be admired but followed.” Some individuals familiar with A.A. may want to nuance this paraphrase as suggestive rather than stating a “must.” Pointing to the Big Book itself, they can quote from the chapter “How It Works,” where it says: “Here are the Steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery.” And towards the end of the chapter “A Vision for You,” it says: “Our book is meant to be suggestive only.” But it would be a mistake to conclude it means you can take what you like from the Big Book, and leave the rest. A.A. does not present a Burger King mentality for it path to recovery, saying you can “have it your way.” There are also some “musts.”

A number of years ago Stewart C. wrote a concordance, A Reference Guide to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is currently out of print, but there are still some copies available through Amazon. In his exhaustive coverage of the first 162 pages of the Big Book, he cited 82 examples of the word “must.” The following are quotes from first, “The Doctor’s Opinion,” and second “We Agnostics.”

The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves, if they are to re-create their lives. . . . But after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life—or else.

So, the path of the Big Book and its Steps are suggestive, but if you choose to follow it, you must find a higher power, and you must walk the path thoroughly. In the “How It Works” chapter of the Big Book, it says: “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.” The text acknowledged there will be some who balk at remaining completely on the path described, but begged its readers “to be fearless and thorough” from the beginning. “Half measures availed us nothing.” This was said to be a turning point. The suggestion was to surrender to God—ask for “His protection and care with complete abandon.”

Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

So the rock upon which the individual builds their new life without alcohol must include a surrender to God. Their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves. They must find a spiritual basis to life and thoroughly follow that path. When the storms of life come, they will be able to withstand the gales, because their foundation was on this rock.

The association of the Sermon on the Mount and Twelve Step-based recovery was there from the beginning. It was an important meditative guide to Dr. Bob S., one of the cofounders of A.A. He said before there was a Big Book, the Bible was their Big Book; and the Sermon on the Mount was one of their key passages. In Writing the Big Book, William Schaberg said Dr. Bob claimed in 1945 that he tried to spend an hour each day reading on some religious subject. But he always returned “to the simple teachings in The Sermon on the Mount, the Book of James, and the 13^th Chapter of Corinthians.” In Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers Dr. Bob said he thought the Sermon on the Mount contained “the underlying spiritual philosophy of A.A.”

I hope these reflections on the association of the Sermon on the Mount and the program of recovery in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous will help you in your own journey along that path. If so, please pass it on to others.

01/7/20

On the Road of Happy Destiny

Continuing with his imagery of the Two Ways tradition (See, “Do They Walk Their Talk?”), Jesus contrasts the difference between real and merely nominal discipleship here in Matthew 7:21-23. Just as there are only two ways in life, the way to life and the way to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14), in the end there are only two destinations—eternal life or eternal punishment (Matthew 25: 31-46). In Matthew 7:21 Jesus says when the kingdom of heaven (or kingdom of God) is realized, it will not be a person’s acknowledgement of Christ’s Lordship that counts, but whether their profession is shown in the way they live. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Simply saying, “Lord, Lord,” is not enough.

²¹“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²²On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

The word Lord (kyrios) had various meanings. It could mean the owner of something, as in Matthew 20:8; or even a conventional form of polite address, much like how we use “Sir” (Matthew 21:30). The Romans used it in reference of their emperor (Acts 25:26), and even when speaking of the gods people worshiped (1 Corinthians 8:5). When the Old Testament was translated into Greek, Lord was used consistently as the translation for the divine name Yahweh. Here, given the reference of what will happen on Judgement Day, it likely has overtones of divinity. In his commentary on Matthew, Leon Morris said:

On Judgment Day Jesus will be seen for what he really is, and the greeting here implies that the people in question will be claiming to belong to him. But their claim will be of no avail, Jesus says, unless their lives back it up. It is doing the will of the Father that matters, not the words we profess.

Morris went on to say this was not salvation by works, but the contrast between profession and way of life. If someone really trusted Christ for salvation, their lives would no longer be self-centered. “Jesus is not saying that those saved will have earned their salvation, but that the reality of their faith will be made clear by their fruitful lives.” Many on Judgement Day will try to affirm Jesus is their Lord by referencing the things they did. “To be active in religious affairs is no substitute for obeying God.” You can be active in doing the things for God, without being in submission to him as Lord. “It is easy for anyone to profess loyalty, but to practice it is quite another thing.”

Another point to notice in 7:21 is the reference of the Father by Jesus as “my Father who is in heaven.” It was said for the first time in the gospel of Matthew. God had already been referred to several times in Matthew, but always as your Father or our Father (in the Lord’s Prayer). From this point forward, excluding two exceptions, Jesus will always say ‘my Father who is in heaven.’ In his commentary on Matthew, John Nolland said this phrase brought into focus Jesus’ capacity to mediate a link with the heavenly Father. In the Sermon on the Mount, it pointed to Jesus’ role in making clear the Father’s will. In 7:28 it is stated the crowds were astonished at his teaching, “for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” The phrase is also suggestive of his identification as son of God (Matthew 3:17; 4:3, 6).

But on that day (Judgment Day), there will be many who claimed to have done things as evidence that Christ was truly their Lord—they prophesied in the name of Jesus, they cast out demons, and did many other works (miracles). Yet Jesus said he never knew them. He had no connection to them and calls them “workers of lawlessness.” You may profess loudly with your lips your faith in God, and even invoke Jesus as Lord, yet deny him by thoughts, words and acts. Such a person is a nominal disciple.

Returning to the opening remark about how Matthew 7:21-23 contrasts the difference between real and nominal discipleship, let’s consider what significance this passage may have for A.A. and recovery. In the ancient world, a disciple actively imitated the life and the teaching of a great teacher or master. In the New Testament, the term disciple functioned as a technical term for followers of Jesus. The Lexham Bible Dictionary said Jesus’ disciples were not to choose another master or become a master themselves. Rather, they were to go and make disciples of the nations (Matthew 28:19-20)— “to teach them what Jesus had taught them.” Similar to this this sense of a disciple, there isn’t a central master or teacher in A.A.; but there is a Fellowship.

Written in 1939, Alcoholics Anonymous hoped that someday every alcoholic would find an A.A. Fellowship at his destination. The intent was to replicate these Fellowships. By 1983 there were almost 48,000 A.A. groups, in 110 countries. Today, there are more than 118,000 A.A. groups around the world, in about 180 countries, whose primary purpose is to carry the message of A.A. Tradition Five of A.A. says: “Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers.” You could say this primary purpose is to make ‘disciples’ of A.A. recovery.

You won’t find the words disciple or discipleship in the A.A. Big Book. But you will find chapters on “How It Works,” “Into Action,” and “Working with Others.” In other words, you will find a way to imitate and then replicate the way of life described in the Big Book—to learn and teach others what you have learned, bringing them into the Fellowship. And as you travel along this Road of Happy Destiny, it can lead you to a further abandonment to God the Father. The closing paragraph of the chapter, “A Vision for You” reads:

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny. May God bless you and keep you until then.

When you abandon yourself to God, you may find that you are also compelled to surrender to the will of the Father. When that happens, the Road of Happy Destiny will lead you to the kingdom of heaven. May God bless and keep you until then.

10/29/19

Do They Walk Their Talk?

Matthew 7:15 cautions us to “Beware of false prophets.” By their external appearance, they look authentic and may even do or say some of the right things. Like wolves in sheep’s clothing, they appear to be the real deal on a superficial level, but inwardly they are vicious and destructive. So how can you tell a true prophet from a false one? The answer is, do they bear good fruit—do they walk their talk?

The concluding section of the Sermon on the Mount makes use of the “Two Ways” tradition of early Christianity and Judaism. In three illustrations, Jesus plainly showed there are only two categories of people in the world—those who enter by the narrow gate rather than the wide gate (vv. 13-14), those who bear good fruit rather than bad (vv. 15-20), and those who build their homes on solid rock rather than shifting sand (vv. 24-27). In his commentary Leon Morris commented, “In each case the first category refers to those who hear, obey, and are saved; the second, to those who only hear and so are destroyed.” In other words, not everyone who says they are a Christian, is a Christian. They have to show it.

¹⁵“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-20)

The contrast of the two ways is not found in the other gospels, but it does appear in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 30:19; Psalm 1:6, Jeremiah 21:8); in Jewish writings (2 Esdras 7:6-13); and in early Christian literature, like Didache 1:1: “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways.” Some may verbally affirm that Jesus is Lord, and even preach the gospel, but inwardly are insatiably after their own interests. They are like ravenous wolves. So how can you tell who is a wolf in sheep’s clothing? By their fruits: “Their fruits will in the end betray them.”

Jesus used an illustration from the everyday life of his audience to demonstrate this. Everyone knew that the buckthorn had small black berries that could be mistaken for grapes. And there was a thistle whose flower could be mistaken for a fig, from a distance. However, as D.A. Carson said, “But no one would confuse the buckthorn and the grape once he started to use the fruit to make some wine. No one would be taken in by thistle flowers when it came to eating figs for supper.” The same principle is true of trees—a good tree bears good fruit; a diseased tree bears bad fruit.

Here the thought is that it is not the outward appearance that is important (wolves may be dressed up to look like sheep), but the things the false prophets do, the produce of their manner of thought and life. If the disciples take note of what these false prophets do and refuse to be charmed by their false words, they will recognize them for what they are.

If a tree is healthy, it cannot bear bad fruit. Conversely, a diseased tree cannot bear good fruit. The repetition emphasizes the point. Then Jesus moved to the fate of every diseased trees: “No bad tree is allowed to continue producing its bad fruit.” The consequence is universal; it is cut down and burned.

The burning of a worthless tree removes the possibility that it will infect other trees. But fire is often used of the fire of hell, and this meaning may be not far away. Jesus is making it clear that discipleship means a great deal more than religious activity.

So then, the logical conclusion of Jesus’ teaching here is a repetition of verse 16. “You will recognize them by their fruits.” The good fruit of a person’s life is the evidence of their claim to be a prophet. And since good fruit cannot grow on a diseased tree, you can discern a false prophet by their fruit as well. False prophets, like diseased trees, should be cut down and thrown into the fire.

The Old and New Testaments contain multiple warnings against false prophets. They commit adultery, walk in lies and strengthen the hands of evil doers (Jeremiah 23:14); they are treacherous and do violence to the law (Zephaniah 3:4); they prophesy lies in the name of God, the deceit of their own minds (Jeremiah 14:14). The Bible suggests these false declarations come from their own hearts (Ezekiel 13:2, 4; Jeremiah 23:16, 26). We can suggest that at least one of the ways to uncover a false prophet is to watch and see if they demonstrate their love for God by walking their talk. But what if the false prophet is a wolf in sheep’s clothing—what if they appear good on the outside?

There is a root and fruit connection to our actions (fruit) and our heart (root). A “healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.” The parallel to our Matthew passage in Luke 6:43-45 declared the good person produces good treasure from his heart and the evil person produces evil treasure from his heart, “for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” In Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands, Paul Tripp illustrated this process in his discussion of fruit stapling, where efforts to change behavior ignore the heart behind the actions.

Drawing on the fruit tree metaphor in the Luke passage, he asks us to imagine that he has an apple tree in his backyard. Year after year the apples are dry, wrinkled, brown and pulpy. His wife says it doesn’t make any sense to have an apple tree that doesn’t produce good fruit and suggests that Paul cut down the tree and burn it. Instead, he buys branch cutters, an industrial grade staple gun, a ladder and two bushels of apples. He climbs the ladder, cuts off all the pulpy apples, and staples shiny red apples on every branch of the tree. “From a distance our tree looks like it is full of a beautiful harvest.”

If a tree produces bad apples year after year, there is something drastically wrong with its system, down to its very roots. I won’t solve the problem by stapling new apples on the branches. They also will rot because they are not attached to a life-giving root system. And next spring, I will have the same problem again. I will not see a new crop of healthy apples because my solution had not gone to the heart of the problem. If the tree’s roots remain unchanged, it will never produce good apples.If my heart is the source of my sin problem, then lasting change must always travel through the pathway of my heart. It is not enough to alter my behavior or to change my circumstances. Christ transforms people by radically changing their hearts. If the heart doesn’t change, the person’s words and behavior may change temporarily because of an external pressure or incentive. But when the pressure or incentive is removed, the changes will disappear.

Sooner or later they will show the wolf; a diseased tree always bears bad fruit. They cannot consistently walk the talk because the seemingly “good fruit” does not come from a changed heart.

The root-and-fruit principle applies readily to 12 Step recovery. Several of the sayings used in recovery, such as walking your talk, he’s on a dry drunk, you can’t be clean while living dirty, are illustrations of it. It even applies to judging your spiritual experiences and whether or not you can ever ‘get’ clean.

Bill W. wrote an article originally published in the Grapevine in July of 1962, “Spiritual Experiences.” It was later added to a collection of his Grapevine writings, The Language of the Heart. He said he was the recipient of a tremendous mystic experience in 1934 that was “accompanied by a sense of intense white light, by a sudden gift of faith in the goodness of God, and by a profound conviction of his presence.” He said in retrospect, the only special feature was its electric suddenness and the overwhelming and immediate conviction that it carried to him. “In all other respects, however, I am sure that my own experience was not in the least different from that received by every AA member who has strenuously practiced our recovery program.”

He said when a person approached him to find out how to have a sudden spiritual experience, he tells them that in all probability they have had one just as good, except it was strung out over a longer period of time. If a spiritual transformation over six months had been condensed into six minutes, “well they then might have seen the stars, too!” He failed to see any great difference between the sudden and more gradual experiences; they were certainly all of the same piece. The one sure test of any spiritual experience was, “By their fruits, ye shall know them.”

As Bill Sees It is a collection of selected writings by Bill W. In there was an excerpt from a 1958 letter Bill wrote to a person discouraged over repeated “slips,” lapses back into active drinking. The discouraged individual was thinking of not returning to A.A. because of his lapses. Bill advised him against staying away from A.A. because of feeling of discouraged or shameful of his lapses. “It’s just the place you should be.”

For some reason, Bill said, the Lord seemed to have him on a tougher path. But God was not asking for him to be successfully abstinent, “He is only asking us to try to be.” Here was the key feature in achieving lasting abstinence—a transformed heart; a surrender of your will and life to God after recognizing your powerlessness to do so in your own strength. And whether this spiritual experience was sudden or gradual, the sure test of whether it was real was by its fruit. If there was a true surrender, he would get the program. “It is not always the quantity of good things that you do, it is also the quality that counts.”

04/2/19

The Narrow Gate

Bill W., the cofounder of Alcoholic Anonymous, heralded the compromise of ‘God as we understood Him’ as “The great contribution of our atheists and agnostics. They had widened our gateway so that all who suffer might pass through, regardless of their belief or lack of belief.” Yet he also personally met weekly with Monsignor Fulton Sheen for the better part of a year and took his instruction seriously. Ultimately he did not convert to Catholicism, irked by how all organized religions “claim how confoundedly right all of them are.”

Every time this dubious principle of religious rightness takes a firm grip on men’s minds, there is hell to pay, literally. In a sense, it’s worse than nationalistic rightness or economic rightness, those scourges of the moment. The ungodly might not be expected to know any better. But men of religion should. Yet history shows that they just don’t. It seems to me that the great religions survive because of their spirituality and in spite of their infallibility.

He was also hesitant to convert because he was seen as a symbol of A.A. “And A.A. as a whole does not make any endorsements or commitments. There is the rub.” He lamented churches didn’t have a fellow-traveler department: “Oh, if the church only had a fellow-traveler department, a cozy spot where one could warm his hands at the fire and bite off only as much as he could swallow. Maybe I’m just one more shopper looking for a bargain on that virtue—obedience!”

Ultimately, it seems Bill hesitated because Christianity requires a complete commitment to Christ; there is no fellow-traveler department: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). In New Wine: The Spiritual Roots of the Twelve Step Miracle, Mel B. said that Bill took the broad view that there were many paths to spiritual experience and growth; and he did not think adherence to Christian religion was a prerequisite. In a personal communication to Mel, Bill said while Christ was the leading figure to him:

Yet I have never been able to receive complete assurance that He was one hundred percent God. I seem to be just as comfortable with the figure of ninety-nine percent. I know that from a conservative Christian point of view, this is a terrific heresy.

This cozy spot by the fire, where someone could warm his hands and only take as much as he could swallow, is known as nominal discipleship—something not possible for a follower of Christ. In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus said: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Note the formal structure of the verses, beginning with the command to enter by the narrow gate:

Enter by the narrow gate.

For the gate is wide and the way is easy

that leads to destruction,

and those who enter by it are many.

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard

that leads to life,

and those who find it are few.

This passage begins the concluding section of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus clearly says there are only two ways of life. The three illustrations that follow contrast those who select the narrow rather than the wide gate (13-14), those who bear good fruit rather than bad (15-23) and those who build their homes on solid rock rather than sinking sand (24-27). The contrast of this “two-ways” genre is found in other Jewish literature (2 Esdras 7:1-16), the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 30:19; Jeremiah 21:8), and early Christian literature (Didache 1:1; Epistle of Barnabas 18:1). Craig Blomberg in his commentary on Matthew said: “By these three illustrations, Jesus makes plain that there are ultimately only two categories of people in the world, despite the endless gradations we might otherwise perceive.” In his commentary on Matthew, John Nolland said:

Matthew has probably chosen the imagery of narrowness to suggest the constriction of one’s choices involved in taking the challenge of Jesus’ teaching: there is a very sharply defined mode of entry. The narrow gate throws up images of the need to make a choice which is not obvious (this is not where the crowd is going to go), to be attentive to where the gate is located, perhaps to experience the discomfort of squeezing through a narrow space, and possibly to wait patiently while others are going through the gate.The alternative to the narrow gate is a wide gate: the unstated assumptions are that everyone must go through a gate and end up somewhere and that only two gates exist. The default choice is clearly seen to be the wide gate: a wide gate beckons in a way that a narrow gate does not; a wide gate suggests an important destination; a wide gate (such as the main gate of a city) is set up to deal with the movement of large numbers of people.

But Bill W. and A.A. were not trying to promote a broader, easier way to Christ. They sought to “widened our gateway so that all who suffer might pass through, regardless of their belief or lack of belief.” They sought to follow the distinction made by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience between personal and institutional religion. He defined personal religion/spirituality for his purposes as “the feelings, acts, and experiences of [the] individual . . . in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.” In the broadest sense possible, this religion or spirituality consisted of the belief that there was an unseen order to existence and supreme good lay in harmoniously adjusting to that order.

Worship, sacrifice, ritual, theology, ceremony, and ecclesiastical organization were the essentials of institutional religion. Limited to such a view, religion could be viewed as an external art of winning the favor of the gods. Within the personal dimension of religion, the inner dispositions of human conscience, helplessness, and incompleteness were of central importance. Here the external structures for winning divine favor took a secondary place to a heart-to-heart encounter between the individual and his or her maker.

Bill’s view of religion fits within this Jamesean distinction between personal and institutional religion—a distinction we see today as spiritual and religious. The widened gateway for the Twelve Steps of ‘God as we understood Him’ is consistent with the wide gate Jesus described in Matthew 7:13. It is not the way to life. However, it does provide a way to abstinence—a way out from the powerlessness of alcohol and drugs. It will crisscross the narrow way at many points, but needs to be seen as a distinct path. See “A Common Spiritual Path” and the other reflections under the category link “Romans Road to Recovery” for more on this issue.

There is a way and a gate that leads to life and a way and a gate that leads to destruction. The wide gate and way is easy, leading to destruction, while the narrow way and gate is hard, leading to life. Many find the wide gate, but few find the narrow one.

02/5/19

Another Bozo on the Bus

“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22-23a). The main thing alcoholics have in common is they all drink to get drunk. Just as there is nothing to serve as a possible ground for someone being a ‘lesser’ or ‘worse’ sinner before God, in Twelve Step recovery there are no differences among alcoholics or addicts, since all are powerless over alcohol. In “Just Another Bozo on the Bus,” an anonymous AA said in his Grapevine article that the story of his sobriety was one of a growing realization of all the ways he was exactly like others in Alcoholics Anonymous. “That experience of being ‘the same as,’ of being ‘one among many,’ of being ‘just another bozo on the bus’ is critical to the maintenance of my spiritual condition.”

This sense of ‘no distinction’ lies at the heart of Twelve Step recovery: “We are either all alcoholics with no distinction (and therein lies our power) or we might as well shut up shop.” It is truly is a matter of life and death: “There are no distinctions made for color, race, economic status, or education. We are all equal and have to reach out to one another in order to survive.” Felicia G. recalled how two women first talked to her about what she would find in AA: “It is a pattern and you are not alone. You are not the only woman who has been like this. Thousands and thousands of men and women have been like this. And now they are sober.” An anonymous twenty-year old AA put it this way:

To me, God is an artist and he sculpts people into what they really are. He accomplishes this through the Twelve Steps. I can see he has done this, and is still doing this, with my friends and me. Although we are all sculpted differently, there is a certain fact that holds us all together. That fact is alcoholism. I have heard it referred to as the “great equalizer.” Now AA is the great equalizer in my life because no matter what people have done, thought, or felt, if they are alcoholics, we have a common bond.

The self-same sense of oneness exists within Narcotics Anonymous (NA). Like “a lifeboat in a sea of isolation,” NA is: “a fellowship of people with a common bond of recovery.” They all have one thing in common: “All of us, from the junkie snatching purses to the sweet old lady hitting two or three doctors for legal prescriptions, have one thing in common: we seek our destruction a bag at a time, a few pills at a time, or a bottle at a time until we die.” The common problem was addiction and no one was greater (or less) than any one else: “No member is greater or lesser than any other member.” Herein lies its power: “We found that no matter what our past thoughts or actions were, others had felt and done the same. Surrounded by fellow addicts, we realized that we were not alone anymore.”

This common bond—whether it is sin or addiction/alcoholism—this great equalizer cuts across all peoples. We do not understand our actions. We do the very thing we hate. We have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Romans 7:15-20). We are powerless; we are sinful.

There are no social or cultural distinctions made by God with regards to the universal sinfulness of all people; regardless of their particular sin, they all fall short. “There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek” (Romans 2:9). Here, and other places in Scripture ‘Greek’ can be an equivalent for those who are non-Jews or ‘Gentiles.’ Everyone who sins, Jew or non-Jew (Greek or Gentile), faces tribulation and distress.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addressed the human tendency to deny or minimize personal sinfulness when He said that whoever relaxed one of the least of the commandments and taught others to do so, would be least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:19). Anger has the same liability for judgment before God as murder; a man who looks lustfully at a woman has already committed adultery in his heart (Matthew 5:21-30). Paul clearly had this sense in mind when he said that the “dividing wall of hostility” has been broken down in Christ (Ephesians 2:14). But we need some context to fully understand the significance of Paul’s statement here.

Paul traveled to Jerusalem and was counseled by James and others to demonstrate his obedience to Jewish religious law by purifying himself in the temple. Jews from the province of Asia had spread the rumor that Paul taught Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses by not circumcising their children; to stop keeping Jewish religious customs (Acts 21:21). The Christian leaders wanted Paul to demonstrate this was not true; that he even continued to follow Jewish religious law himself. Some Ephesian Jews saw Paul in the temple as he completed this rite of purification and assumed he had dared to bring an Ephesian Gentile named Trophimus into the temple with him. They raised an alarm, seized Paul and beat him (Acts 21:27–32).

The inner court area of the temple in Jerusalem was raised slightly above the outer court of the Gentiles and surrounded by a barrier. Notices in Greek and Latin warned that no responsibility would be taken for the probable death of any Gentile who ventured within. According to The IVP Background Commentary: New Testament, taking a Gentile beyond the dividing wall of the outer court in the temple was considered to be such a serious breach of Jewish law that the Romans permitted Jewish leaders to execute those who violated this law. The Ephesian Jews accused Paul of violating this law.

Paul was imprisoned and later transferred to Caesarea when a plot to assassinate him was discovered. He remained in prison there for two years. Eventually he appeared before the newly appointed governor, Festus. Another plot to ambush and kill Paul during his transport back to Jerusalem to stand trial before Festus was thwarted by Paul’s appeal to Caesar.

Paul said he had done nothing wrong against the law of the Jews, the temple, or against Caesar. He was willing to die if found guilty of anything deserving death but rejected Festus’s request to return to Jerusalem for trial. Since the charges against him were not true (the Jews could not prove any of their charges), Paul said no one had the right to hand him over to the Jews, so he appealed his case to Caesar (Acts 23:20-33; 25:1-12). Paul was transferred to Rome, where he wrote the epistle to the Ephesians from prison. This set of circumstances has a somewhat poetic circle to it: the riot in Ephesus; the Ephesian Jews accusing him in Jerusalem; Paul’s appeal to Caesar; and then his writing the epistle to the Ephesians from Rome.

The believers in Ephesus would have been aware of the circumstances of Paul’s arrest and imprisonment. So his statement in Ephesians 2:14 about Christ breaking down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles had a special meaning to them, since a dispute over Paul violating the dividing wall in the temple was what had precipitated his arrest. Originally separated from Christ and strangers to the covenant of promise, Gentile believers have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Breaking down the dividing wall of hostility in his flesh, Christ has created in himself one new man, reconciling both Jew and Gentile in one body through the cross (Ephesians 2:11-16). So the divisions between Jew and Gentile, the circumcision and uncircumcision are no longer valid in the body of Christ. The dividing wall of hostility has been destroyed.

If somewhere within human diversity, there is a people group whose sinfulness is less than (or more than) others, there cannot be a universal need for salvation in Christ. Charles Hodge said that the universal nature of sin is “one of the most undeniable doctrines of Scripture, and one of the most certain facts of experience.” Until this fact is admitted, there is no place or need for the Gospel. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord, whether they are Jews or Greeks (non-Jews), will be saved (Romans 10:12-13). “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave free; but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11). “For God shows no partiality” (Romans 2:11). And I am just another bozo on the bus.

If you’re interested, more articles from this series can be found under the link for “The Romans Road of Recovery.” “A Common Spiritual Path” (01) and “The Romans Road of Recovery” (02) will introduce this series of articles. If you began by reading one that came from the middle or the end of the series, try reading them before reading others. Follow the numerical listing of the articles (i.e., 01, 02, etc.), if you want to read them in the order they were originally intended. This article is the 8th in the series. Enjoy.

08/17/18

Ask, Seek, Knock

Mount of Beatitudes and the Sea of Galilee; credit: BiblePlaces.com

When you pray, what should you pray for? Should you pray specifically and persistently for what you need? In his essay on Step Eleven in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill W. said this type of prayer could be done, “but it has hazards.” The problem is the thoughts that seem to come from God may not really be His answers. They may be “well-intentioned unconscious rationalizations.” Bill warned the person who tried to run their life by this kind of prayer could create havoc without meaning to.

He may have forgotten the possibility that his own wishful thinking and the human tendency to rationalize have distorted his so-called guidance. With the best of intentions, he tends to force his own will into all sorts of situations and problems with the comfortable assurance that he is acting under God’s specific direction. Under such an illusion, he can of course create great havoc without in the least intending it. . . .Our immediate temptation will be to ask for specific solutions to specific problems, and for the ability to help other people as we have already thought they should be helped. In that case, we are asking God to do it our way. . . . As the day goes on, we can pause where situations must be met and decisions made, and renew the simple request: “Thy will, not mine be done.”

If you want biblical guidance on how to pray, you could turn to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:7-11), where Jesus said we should ask, seek and knock. If human fathers know how to give good gifts to their children, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

⁷“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ⁹Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? ¹¹If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11)

Leon Morris said in his commentary on Matthew the central point of these verses is that prayer to a loving Father is effective. “The point is not that human persistence wins out in the end, but that the heavenly Father who loves his children will certainly answer their prayer.” So when we ask, seek and knock we can confidently believe God will answer our prayer, because Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8).

Craig Blomberg, in his commentary on Matthew, said Jesus presupposed his listeners would remember his teaching on the Lord’s Prayer when he told them to ask, seek and knock. Jesus said we should pray for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (6:7-13). The asking, seeking, knocking in 7:7-11 highlight the effectiveness of prayer and not some name-it-and-claim-it mantra that compels God to gave us what we want when we want it. Blomberg added:

Those who today claim that in certain contexts it is unscriptural to pray “if it is the Lord’s will” are both heretical and dangerous. Often our prayers are not answered as originally desired because we do not share God’s perspective in knowing what is ultimately a good gift for us.

James confirmed this when he said: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3). Sometimes our own wishful thinking will lead us to ask wrongly. Bill W. agreed: “We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our terms.”

In Matthew 6:9-10 Jesus makes the same point—that God will certainly answer our prayer because He is a Father who loves His children—by approaching it in a different way. Here he uses the analogy of a human father and son and asks his audience if they would give their own son a stone if he asked for bread or a serpent if he asked for a fish. The rhetorical questions imply a negative answer: of course they wouldn’t! No human parent would treat a son this way. Reasoning from the lesser human father to God as the greater Heavenly Father, Jesus said if an “evil” (morally bankrupt or degenerate) human father would not think of treating his son in this way, certainly God would not so mistreat His children.

Returning now to Bill W. and his essay on Step Eleven, he said those in A.A. who have come to make regular use of prayer “would no more do without it than [they] would refuse air, food, or sunshine.” Just as the body would fail if it did not receive nourishment, so will the soul. “Pray and meditation are our principle means of conscious contact with God.”

In A.A. we have found that the actual good results of prayer are beyond question. They are matters of knowledge and experience. All those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their own. They have found wisdom beyond their usual capability. And they have increasingly found a peace of mind, which can stand firm in the face of difficult circumstances.

Those who were reluctant to pray because they did not see any evidence of “a God who knew and cared about human beings” were likened to a scientist who refused to perform a certain experiment “lest it prove his pet theory wrong.” When they finally tried the experiment of prayer, they felt and knew differently. “It has been well said that ‘almost the only scoffers at prayer are those who never tried it enough.’”

In the A.A. Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W. wrote about putting prayer into action with Step Eleven. He suggested you begin each day by considering your plans for the day. First, you should ask God to direct your thinking, “especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.” Be careful to never pray for your own selfish ends. Your thought life will be placed on a higher plane when it is cleared of wrong motives.

As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day, “Thy will be done.”

So ask, seek, and knock. Everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds. God knows what you need even before you ask. And if you ask wrongly, seeking what you want and not what He knows you need, He won’t give you a stone or a snake. Rather, He will give you the bread and fish you need because he is the Father who gives good gifts. “Thy will, not mine be done.”

07/25/17

Keep on Knocking

The first sentence for the Step Eleven essay in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions succinctly says: “Prayer and meditation are our principle means of conscious contact with God.” Bill W. went on to say there were some who recoiled from meditation and prayer “as obstinately as the scientist who refused to perform a certain experiment lest it prove his pet theory wrong.” Yet for those who made regular use of prayer come to see it as necessary for their survival as air, food or sunshine: “We all need the light of God’s reality, the nourishment of His strength, and the atmosphere of His grace.”

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11)

In verse 7, there are a series of commands: ask, seek and knock. All three are in the present tense, which suggests we are to persist when we come to God in prayer. We should petition God “with an expectant attitude,” according to Craig Blomberg. In verse eight, we have a repetition of what to expect when we pray: all who ask receive; everyone who seeks something will find it; when someone knocks on a closed door, it will be opened. But it would be a mistake to use this as a kind of incantation with which we can petition and receive from God whatever we desire.

Bill W. astutely noted that when we ask for specific solutions to specific problems, and for the ability to help other people as we think they need to be helped, “We are asking God to do it our way.” We should consider each request carefully to see its real merit. His advice when making specific requests was to add a qualification: “ . . . if it be Thy will.”

We discover that we do receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our terms.

Not too long before this passage in Matthew was Jesus’ counsel to not pray like the hypocrites or use empty phrases (Matthew 6:5-15). Instead, we should pray humbly to our Father in Heaven, asking for His will to be done; for our daily bread (needs); for our debts to be forgiven; and to keep us from temptation. This passage, of course, was on the Lord’s Prayer. So when we self consciously acknowledge God as our Father in heaven, and seek for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we can trust that He will provide for our needs. So we can confidently, ask, seek and knock. And when we ask according to His will we will receive; we will find what we seek; we will open what was closed to us when we knock.

The rhetorical questions in Matthew 6:9-10 imply a negative answer: of course a human father would not be so obtuse when responding to the requests of his son. He would not give a stone when asked for bread or a serpent when asked for a fish. Bread and fish would have been common foods for the people listening to Jesus give the Sermon on the Mount, again pointing back to relying upon God for our daily needs.

There is also a possible allusion to a sense of trickery—bread can be shaped to look like a stone; snakes can be mistaken for a certain eel-like fish catfish in the Sea of Galilee. If a human father can be trusted to give good things to his son, can’t we place even greater trust in God the Father? Jesus is reasoning from the lesser to the greater here. If such trickery or obtuseness would be unthinkable in a human father, “how much more” can our heavenly Father be trusted?

So the lesson of the passage is that we can trust God to answer our prayers. When we ask according to His will, we will receive. When we seek our daily needs, we will find them. And when a door appears closed to what we ask or seek, if we knock it will be opened for us. Here the call is for hope and perseverance. We are to continue asking, seeking and knocking until the seemingly closed door to us is opened, because we can trust God to meet our needs.

This call for persistence in prayer also applies to those who have tried to give up drugs and alcohol but failed repeatedly. There is a sense of dread that overcomes the person who has made repeated attempts to stay abstinent and failed. They begin to think there is no hope for them; that they are “constitutionally incapable of recovery.” This is a mistaken belief about recovery and relapse. In his booklet Mistaken Beliefs About Relapse, Terence Gorski said: “A mistaken belief is something that you believe is true and act as if it were true when, in fact, it is false.”

Continue trying to establish and maintain abstinence. Ask for guidance; seek help; keep on knocking (persist in asking and seeking) until you obtain it. Because you won’t be tricked or be given something that won’t meet you needs (a stone or snake).

04/11/17

Love Your Enemies

Some people mistakenly think that the proverbial saying, “God helps those who help themselves” is some where in the Bible. Well it’s not. Actually, it came from one of Aesop’s fables, Hercules and the Waggoneer. A waggoneer driving a heavily loaded wagon became stuck in a muddy road. The more the horses pulled, the deeper the wheels sank in the mud. So he prayed to Hercules for help, who then replied that the wagoneer should get up off his knees and put his shoulder to the wheel. The moral of the fable was: “The gods help them that help themselves.”

In a similar way, Jesus corrected in Matthew 5:43-48 what had become a misapplication of the commandment to love your neighbor in Leviticus 19:18. In preceding passages of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus introduced teachings from Scripture with the phrase that begins 5:43: “You have heard it said” (Matthew 5:21, 5:27, 5:33, 5:38). But here “what was said” was not from Scripture. Instead of the command to Love your neighbor as yourself,” it seems that what was being taught was “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” Nowhere in the Old Testament does it say, “Hate your enemy.”

There were passages that called for the destruction of Israel’s enemies (Deuteronomy 7:2) or counseled to keep your distance from non-Israelites (Exodus 34:12). Yet you were to feed your enemy (Proverbs 25:21-22) and help them when they were in need (Exodus 23:4-5). The Old Testament teaching on how you were to treat your enemies was complex, according to Leon Morris. In his commentary on Matthew, he said:

All this means that those who summed up Old Testament teaching as calling for love for neighbors and hatred for enemies were oversimplifying. The call for hatred is certainly the kind of addition to the command that many have put into practice.

Again, instead of lowering the bar to the common social standard he quoted in 5:43, Jesus said his followers were to love their enemies and pray for them!

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)

Jesus named two groups who were widely seen as enemies by the ordinary Jew—tax collectors and Gentiles (non-Jews). Don’t they take care of their own; don’t they love one another? So if you love only those who love you; if you only greet others like you (your brothers), how are you different from the tax collectors and the Gentiles?

While tax collectors are never popular in any culture (think of the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S.), in first-century Palestine they were particularly unpopular. Not only would they collect taxes for the Romans, they would also be sure to get some extra for themselves. Leon Morris commented, “In the eyes of Jesus’ audience there were no more wicked people than tax collectors as a class.” That’s the point of the encounter Jesus had with Zacchaeus, who was a tax collector (Luke 19:1-10). They were the last ones you would expect to show love to others. The implied question is shouldn’t your love for others be greater?

The verse about greeting your brother is deeper in meaning than most people realize. When first-century Jews greeted one another, they would say “Peace,” which was in fact like saying a prayer; something like this: “May the peace of the Lord be upon you.” In our culture we say “good-bye” without remembering we are actually saying a shortened form of: “God by with you.” So making a sincere greeting meant you expressed goodwill and welcome to your brother. Shouldn’t your wishes and greetings to others be more sincere than the Gentiles?

The final command in verse 48, “to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” seems to set an unreachable standard—be as perfect as God the Father. But that’s not what it means. The sense of the Greek word for “perfect” here pertains to you being fully developed in a moral sense. Look, your Father in heaven lets the sun rise and the rain fall upon both the evil and the good; the just and the unjust. Shouldn’t you do the same? The command to love your neighbor as yourself includes loving your enemies. Isn’t that the same message as in the parable of the Good Samaritan?

There is an interesting grammatical structure in verse 5:45b called a chiasm, named after the Greek letter chi, which looks like an “X.” The verse reads: “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” The crossing/chiasm is between the “evil” and “unjust” as well as the “good” and the “just.” The crossing pattern is accomplished by taking the first pair of contrasting words, evil and good, and then reversing the position in the second pair of contrasting words: just and unjust. So the chiasm looks like this:

The chiastic structure helps to reinforce the point of the passage. It gives a visual warning to the followers of Jesus: they are not to follow the contrasting advice of loving their neighbor and hating their enemy. Rather, just as their heavenly Father sends sun upon the evil and the good, and rain upon both the just and the unjust, they are to love and not hate their enemies. This action of God’s is known as the principle of common grace, where the good things of the world like sun and rain fall equally upon the evil and the good; the just and the unjust. God does not withhold the gifts of rain and sunshine from people who are evil or unjust. So followers of Christ should NOT withhold love from their enemies.

In an active addiction, addicts and alcoholics make a lot of enemies. The hostility in these relationships can be either a one-way or a two-way street. You resent one another in mutual hostility. But you resent what someone did—or they resent what you did—in one-way hostility. The remedy for this in recovery is stated in Matthew 5:44: love and pray for your enemies. In order to do so, you have to let go of your resentment.

When discussing the Fourth Step in the “How It Works” chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W. said: “Resentment is the ‘number one’ offender It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.” It leads to various forms of spiritual disease—“a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness.” If the alcoholic is to live, they have to be free of anger. Realize that the people who wronged you were perhaps spiritually sick as well. “We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend.”

03/10/17

Let Your Yes Be Yes

While some oath-breaking leads to serious consequences, oaths just don’t seem to have the same significance in the modern person’s life as they did in biblical times. Most people know oaths occur in legal proceedings, where witnesses swear to tell the truth before giving testimony. Willfully give false testimony in this context is considered to be the crime of perjury. But outside of this sphere, taking an oath in modern times is largely reserved for times of ritual or ceremony.

In American culture, we see a newly appointed or elected government official swear an oath before taking office. Immigrants take an oath of citizenship when they become naturalized citizens of a country. When reciting the American Pledge of Allegiance, citizens pledge or swear loyalty to their country. Doctors and medical personnel take the Hippocratic oath, swearing to practice medicine honestly. So how are we to apply what Jesus says about oaths in the Sermon on the Mount?

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.”But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.Let what you say be simply “Yes” or “No”; anything more than this comes from evil. (Matthew 5:33-37)

In his commentary on the gospel of Matthew, Leon Morris noted this passage was peculiar to Matthew, who returned to the theme when He confronted the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:16-22. “Clearly he [Jesus] was interested in the fact that people seemed very ready to swear oaths.” Oaths played a significant role in the life and culture of the Jews. The Mishnah, the first written record of the oral law, contains a complete treatise on oaths. In biblical and ancient times, oaths bound the person to his or her word.

According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary, oaths imposed a great sense of obligation on the individual; and breaking an oath was unthinkable. They were used to confirm the truthfulness of a person’s word, bind individuals in a contract, or confirm God’s intent to act according to His word. “Even rash oaths were binding and required confession of sin and sacrificial compensation if broken” (Leviticus 5:4-6). Yahweh served as the guarantor of a person’s oath, and here it had its greatest power. Breaking an oath was tantamount to breaking faith with Yahweh. Doing so took His name in vain (Exodus 20:7; Leviticus 19:12).

In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was addressing how a series of quotations from Scripture should be understood. In Matthew 5:33, the Old Testament command to not break an oath (Leviticus 19:12; Numbers 30:2, etc) was paraphrased by Jesus. Then He said his followers should not swear an oath at all! However, sometimes it was necessary—Jesus himself responded when the high priest put him on oath (Matthew 26:63-64). So Jesus is not forbidding Christians from taking an oath, as some individuals apply the restriction today.

Rather, he is saying in the strongest terms possible that his followers must speak the truth. They should never adopt the sense that only when an oath is sworn do they need to be truthful.

The Jews held that unless the name of God was specifically mentioned the oath was not binding; there were lengthy discussions about when an oath is or is not binding, and people would sometimes swear by heaven or earth or a similar oath and later claim that they were not bound by that oath because God was not mentioned. Jesus rejects such casuistry.

This was why Jesus mentioned the forms of oaths used to sidestep telling the truth in Matthew 5:33-37. Remember the Mishnah had an entire treatise on oaths. Heaven, earth, Jerusalem, your head, were all somehow linked to God. You cannot escape the requirement to tell the truth by using these hair-splitting differences. Keep your pledges without insisting that a certain form of words was necessary to make it binding. Essentially Jesus is saying: “No oath is necessary for a truthful person.”

The conclusion of the matter is that it is never necessary for Christ’s people to swear an oath before they utter the truth. Their word should always be so reliable that nothing more than a statement is needed from them. God is in all of life, and every statement is made before him.

The importance of honesty in 12 Step Recovery is well known. Self-honesty begins with recognizing whether or not you are an alcoholic. In chapter 3, “More About Alcoholism,” it says A.A. doesn’t like to pronounce anyone as alcoholic. The suggestion is to try some controlled drinking—more than once. “It will not take long for you to decide, if you are honest with yourself about it.”

The manner of life demanded of the person who admits being an alcoholic is even qualified further as rigorous honesty. In discussing what to do after making a personal inventory (the Fourth Step) in chapter 6, “Into Action,” of the Big Book it says: “We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long and happily in this world.”

As Bill Sees It, a collection of thoughts by Bill W. on the A.A. way of life, cites a 1966 letter he wrote. Bill said that only God can fully know what absolute honesty is. The best we can do is to strive for a better quality of honesty. Sometimes we have to place love ahead of indiscriminate ‘factual honesty.’ In the name of ‘perfect honesty’ we can cruelly and unnecessarily hurt others. “Always one must ask, ‘What is the best and most loving thing I can do?’”

In an August 1961 article for the AA Grapevine, “This Matter of Honesty,” Bill W. observed how the problem of honesty touched nearly every aspect of our lives. While his intended audience was other A.A. members, I think what he said applies to everyone. After commenting on the extremes of self-deception and reckless truth-telling, he noted there were countless situations in life where nothing less than utter honest will do, “no matter how sorely we may be tempted by the fear and pride that would reduce us to half-truths or inexcusable denials.” He concluded the article with:

How truth makes us free is something that we AAs can well understand. It cut the shackles that once bound us to alcohol. It continues to release us from conflicts and miseries beyond reckoning; it banishes fear and isolation. The unity of our Fellowship, the love we cherish for each other, the esteem in which the world holds us–all of these are products of such integrity, as under God, we have been privileged to achieve. May we therefore quicken our search for still more genuine honor, and deepen its practice in all our affairs.

Faith Seeking Understanding

Charles Sigler, D.Phil.

Tag: Sermon on the Mount