"The lawless and disobedient"

THE CARE AND FEEDING OF THE CONSCIENCE: 1 Timothy 1:9-10 (part 2)

The Apostle writes to his protege that the design of the law, and therefore we infer God's intention for the law, did not have its first or main reference to those who do right and live according to God's revealed will, i.e., the "just". For whom is it, then?

The Lawless. These are those persons who recognize no authority beyond themselves, a malady of soul which manifests itself with many symptoms. For some, it is the continual questioning of the authenticity, relevance, or applicability of the law as revealed in the word of God. Questions are good, and skepticism to what one is told or taught is a useful tool. But beyond a certain point, honest seeking becomes dishonest obstructionism, an unwillingness to bow the will. A seemingly relatively inert comment such as, "I have my own religion" or the so-common-as-to-be-almost-trite "It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere" may be symptoms of this disease.

Great evils, like great achievements, start from tiny seeds which take root in the soul. When someone asks, "How can there be such great wrong in God's world?" it is unnecessary to look any farther than the unwillingness to honor God as God by recognizing and submitting to God's will. "The fool says in his heart, there is no God." A Biblical exemplar of lawlessness is Pharaoh, whose "foxhole faith" under fire from the ten plagues is the contrast note to a background of practical atheism where the God of Israel is concerned. The first result is lawlessness. The second result is death for the Egyptians, but freedom for God's chosen people Israel.

The Disobedient. These are those who know perfectly well that God is real and just and that the law of God is valid, but do what they want to do, anyway.

The offense may appear small. While acknowledging it is wrong to steal, someone pads his expense report, fails to disclose a bit of income on her tax return, trims the time on the clock at work, pirates the occasional movie or software. Recognizing that there should be no other "gods" in our hearts ahead of the one true Lord God, one fails to spend time acknowledging that God in prayer and praise and Bible study, neglects worship, and allows the Name or the sabbath to be violated without concern or comment. ("After all, God will always be there. This opportunity won't be ....") The commandments, a framework for our lives, number ten. The ways in which we violate them are nearly endless. Perhaps all the while, professing faith in and love of God.

Every human being falls into one of these categories at times, perhaps often. Rare is the disciple who readily and determinedly faces her or his own transgression honestly, and doggedly seeks to root it out, with the help of the Holy Spirit. Instead, self-justification flows from a happening to a habit, to a hobby, to a habitual way of life. The Biblical definition of a saint is one who, conscious of this trend and the gravitational force of wickedness, overcomes shame and sloth to stand desperately bare in the blinding light of God's holiness, to be embraced in the warmth of God's gracious love, no matter what the cost.


"King of sinners though I be, Jesus shed His blood for me." Lord, the lawless man and the disobedient child both reside in my spirit. Often, they are me and I am they. Forgive me, O God. Teach me to invite you into the remotest parts of my life, and the secret places of my soul. Prompted by your Holy Spirit, let me not stand for any rebellion against you in my life. And let me be alert to -- lovingly -- help to alert for and remove it in others, as you direct. Amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)

"Understanding this ..."

THE LAW IS NOT FOR THE JUST: 1 Timothy 1:9-10

... understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murders, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine ...

Now Paul is coming to the heart of his understanding of the law; and we see here what will become Martin Luther's first purpose of the law, viz., to restrain evildoers. But on a deeper level, we understand that all of us transgress the law at one point or another, in one particular or another. We understand also that, even if we are able to keep up an external appearance of righteousness, we all transgress inwardly in our desires, intentions, and thoughts. By ourselves and under our own power we are all, as Jesus accused the Pharisees of being, "whitewashed tombs". Only God is truly just.

The old theological category of "concupiscence" -- a term not much heard anymore, at least not in the circles I worship in -- is helpful here. Concupiscence is that "tinder of sin" which, like the tinder one gathers to start a campfire and becomes a roaring blaze -- or which can become a massive forest fire from one carelessly tossed match -- still resides even in the redeemed while we are in the flesh. So we, too, even filled by the Holy Spirit, need the guidance of God's law to tame our unruliness and as a check to bring us under submission to the Father, that God may be "all in all".

As the lines from Charles Wesley's hymn have it:

Take away our bent to sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
end of faith, as its beginning,
set our hearts at liberty.


Lord Jesus, set my heart at liberty this day. Put your law within my heart once more and in a fresh way, so that I can be free to serve you fully and truly. My flesh continues to put itself first. Tame my unruliness but make me wild for Your holiness. Lord, I ask this for Your dear Name's sake. Amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)

"If one uses it lawfully ..."

WHEN LAW GOES WRONG: 1 Timothy 1:8 (part 2)

In the last post, I lifted up the uses of the law, implying also its purpose: a sign of God's holiness to His people, and thus a guide to their own -- and therefore also part of God's providential care for the world.

But what can Paul mean by "if one uses it lawfully" ? How can someone use the law "unlawfully"?

There are at least three ways in which this can happen.

1. The law can be used as a pretext for what is really lawless behavior, as a cover for attitudes, words and actions which are contrary to the intention of God's commands to us.

We see this in the Scripture: the priests and temple officials use the code on perfect sacrifices as a way of extorting money from the people and turning God's house into a "den of thieves"; Herod uses the law on marriage as a cover for his illicit relationship with Herodias and then compounds the error by using the law on hospitality as a pretext for killing John the Baptist; James excoriates a community for using the laws and customs on respect as a pretext for showing partiality and oppressing the needy (Jas 2); Christ rebukes the Church at Thyatira for allowing its fellowship to overwhelm its sense of God's justice (Rv 2). When the law becomes a cover or excuse for sin, we use the law unlawfully.

2. As I wrote in the last post, the purpose of the law is to be a guide for us -- not meaning "suggestions" or "not binding", anymore than the laws of physics and principles of engineering are "not binding" when building a skyscraper or a bridge so that it won't fall down. One expression of God's judgment upon the world's sin is when actions contrary to God's will follow to their natural consequences.

But when we rely on the external code rather than on the grace of God, transforming us from within, we are using the law unlawfully. One of the problems the Church in America faces in the twenty-first century is that it is widely perceived as being harsh and judgmental, at the same time that it is dangerously unserious about many areas of sin which Scripture addresses directly but which are difficult or unfashionable to talk about. The sin of the Pharisees was that of binding heavy burdens for others, while blocking their way to the true riches of the Kingdom. This sin is very much in evidence in the modern Church.

We are not saved by the law; we are saved by grace. And while our holiness will, if we follow Christ aright, take on the shape of the moral law, a people of grace are called to rely humbly on grace, and to be gracious in our dealings with others.

3. The law can also be used as a license for lording it over other people. It is always amazing to me that the Scripture describes Moses, who was God's instrument for bringing the Divine Code to Israel, as the humblest man there ever was. This is a call to us. The conundrum for leaders (especially) in the Church is that there is a certain kind of people who want to tell others what to do -- as Oswald Chambers puts it, who want to "make converts to their opinions"; conversely, there are those who want others to tell them what to do, so that they are spared the difficult work of creative thinking and application and responsible moral agency in the world. A certain codependency then begins to work, which can create a tidy fellowship but does not work God's redemptive work in the world.

The Greek for "lawfully" is nomimos -- its sense is nicely expressed in the Latin Vulgate with the expression legitime utatur. The law is a good gift from God; our call is to use it "legitimately", according to its true purpose, as an aid to the worship of God with full hearts and lives and to holy, life-affirming interactions with one another.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)

"Now we know that the law is good"

THE LAW IS A GOOD GIFT OF GOD: 1 Timothy 1:8

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully....

"But aren't we supposed to be under grace, and not under the law?"

I hear this question on occasion. Many Christians have the attitude that the law is "Old Testament" (meaning passe') and grace is "New Testament" (meaning for now), the law being a heavy burden which no one could bear and that has been superceded by the Gospel.

So in particular St. Paul is frequently misread.

It's important to remember always that Paul was a Jew -- even as a believer in Jesus (I might say, especially as a believer) he held his Jewish roots in high esteem. And if you ask any observant Jew, s/he will tell you that the Law of God is a privilege, not a burden, a gift to be embraced with awe.

So the Law is good. In fact, without it, we really cannot understand our need for grace or its effectiveness at all.

Then why do we not continue to offer blood sacrifices at church on Sundays, and avoid cheeseburgers, shrimp cocktail and blended fabrics?

John Calvin, the great French reformer and commentator on Scripture, offered a guide which can help here. He writes that there are three uses of the Law in Scripture. The first of these is the "civil law", which contained those guidelines for Israel as a nation and people at a historical time and place. This contains information like where the cities of refuge were to be, how much a man had to pay to replace his neighbor's sheep that he lost, and so forth. These laws, though part of God's divine guidance for Israel and (later) Judah, are no longer binding on us today.

The second kind or use of the law is the moral law, which has to do with avoiding evil such as dishonoring God, stealing, adultery, murder, etc., and pursuing those goods which are enjoined on us, such as honoring our parents and elders, and engaging in honest business practices. The moral law is binding for all time; however, by grace we have been set free from seeking to earn God's favor through rigid adherence to an external code.

Thus Calvin offers a third classification: the usus in renatus, or "use of the law among the regenerate", those made new in Christ by grace. For the believer, the law is a guideline, not in the sense of nice but elective rules to be adhered to at one's option, but in the sense that our holiness in Christ, when filled with the Spirit, will naturally assume the form of the moral law. The moral law is the shape of a believer's walk.

To make what may be an imprecise illustration: a person I know grew up wearing a body-brace all the time, very rigid and very painful, because of a condition with her spine that she was born with. After many years of enduring the brace and all its physical (and social) limitations, her body had adjusted and grown to the place where she could maintain a correct and healthy posture without the brace. She had to remember to do so, and could not become complacent -- but she no longer required the brace to do it. For humankind, the law is a kind of brace, enabling us though seriously compromised by sin to adapt to the shape of life and holiness that God desires for us. Still, it's an incomplete an difficult process. In Christ by the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to assume the correct "posture" toward God and our fellow human beings so that the brace is merely a reminder, not required. We cannot become complacent, and good posture is still needed. But the guidance brought by the brace, so to speak, has moved from being external to being part of our makeup.

But how does one use the law "lawfully"? That's the next look ....

Lord, I give you thanks for your Law, which is holy, good, and true. Forgive me for denigrating it in my mind, and let my holiness in Christ, enabled by your Spirit, assume the shape of that which you require. As Augustine prayed, "Command what you will, but give what you command." For the Lord Jesus' sake. Amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)

"Certain persons"

BLIND GUIDES: 1 Timothy 1:6-7

Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

The Apostle has just stipulated the three "legs" on which the "stool" of the charge of love rests: a "pure heart", a "good conscience", and "sincere faith". Now he addresses the problem of those who have abandoned these legs, seeking to rest the basis of ministry (the "stool") on other things, namely discussion and opinion.

Dialogue is good, and in the Wesleyan tradition we regard Christian conferencing as a "means of grace". But unless grounded in the word of God and the life of the Spirit, discussion and debate, even with the best of intentions, drifts into mere sentimentality or worse, rationalization in which we reinforce one another's errors.

James warns us that we need to be careful about being teachers, because we will be judged with greater severity. This passage goes a step farther, and warns not only about the behavior of teachers, but the content of their teaching as well.

Humility is in order here. So is continuing grounding in the word in Scripture, and attention to one's faith and life. Quality, sound teaching relies on all of the above.


Lord, safeguard my life and my teaching. Let me not run ahead of where You lead and guide, nor make things up where You have not given light. If you would have me be a teacher and guide of others, let me be a sound one, filled with faith, keeping good conscience, single in heart, and above all aglow with Your love, reflecting it to others. Amen.


Fulton, Maryland

"The aim of our charge"

LOVE'S THREE SUPPORTS: 1 Timothy 1:5

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

"The ends justify the means." Though most folks would probably deny, when put so baldly, that this is their life's operative philosophy, it certainly appears to be an underlying principle for much of our culture. What Paul tells us is that ends and means are tied together, that one proceeds from the other and cannot be separated so cleanly as the world tells us.

Love is the end, the aim, the goal: love of God, both expressed and experienced, lived out in sacrificial service at the same time it is received as a free gift. Love of neighbor, both in word and in deed -- in the specifics of day-to-day life as we live it in the microcosm each of us calls "my life", and in the great questions of the day and their reach all around the world, addressing the great issues of justice (e.g., human need such as adequate food and water) and stewardship (e.g., the environment) and mercy (e.g., care for the unborn and elderly).

The aim of the Gospel is love.

This love rests on three great supports, like the porch of a temple on three great columns:

A pure heart. The heart that is single in its devotion to God, tolerating nothing that gets in the way: "Nothing between myself and my Savior". A life devoted to the Great Commandment of love of God with the whole being and neighbor as self.

A good conscience. A life which keeps short accounts. None of us is flawless, and none of us is sinless. But the Bible says that we can be blameless, washed in the blood of the Lamb of God received through repentance and confession and faith (trust) in His word and work. The "good conscience" lives out of that repentance with integrity (a life in which conviction and action align) and when it fails or falls short, trusts, repents, and acts again to realign it.

A sincere faith. How can faith be "insincere"? By playacting, the root meaning of "hypocrisy". It has been said that hypocrisy used to be the compliment that vice paid to virtue, but these days it's the charge which vice hurls at virtue. But whether it's an act or an accusation, this "external" view of hypocrisy misses an important point: that "internally" it's an illness, an ailment, which needs to be diagnosed by the laser-like light of the Holy Spirit, and healed by Christ our Great Physician. Left untreated, it is like a spiritual cancer which breeds and spreads and consumes all of life, leaving fruitlessness and cynicism and confusion and dispiritedness in its wake. It needs to be excised and replaced by sincere faith, which by definition relies not on the self ("my" holiness) but on Christ (grace).

Lord, let love -- love of you, and of neighbor, pure and true and unfeigned -- be the great aim of my life. Purify my heart; strengthen my conscience; actualize my faith ... and these not for my ends, but that I might better love and serve You and reflect Your great love in the lives of others. For Christ's own dear sake, amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland

Aux armes, citoyens!

BOOK REVIEW: Simon Schama, Citizens

The French Revolution possesses a certain mystique -- positive or negative -- in the American historical consciousness. Thomas Jefferson famously saluted it and saw it as an extension of the American Revolution, overlooking even its most violent excesses as part of the price of liberty. Far more cautiously, John Adams was repelled by its hostility to Christianity, law and order (except as defined by the National Assembly), and the bloody vengeance of the "national razor" (guillotine). Most average Americans seemed to have harbored strong francophile sympathies -- a carryover from the role of Louis XVI's government in support of the nascent United States during the War for Independence -- until the extremes of the Terror and the perfidy of the Directory (crystallized in the "XYZ Affair" and the Quasi-War during the administration of the elder Adams) soured them on the French.

Even today, confusion tends to reign in American memories and perceptions of the French Revolution. I can remember being taught about the excesses of the late Bourbon monarchy, the massive exemption from taxes enjoyed by the nobility, and the "let-them-eat-cake" attitude of an out-of-touch court. (There is no evidence that Marie-Antoinette ever said that, by the way.) "It's no wonder they had a revolution," seems to have been the attitude of my teachers. Yet without the French monarchy -- and the military leadership and connections of men like Rochambeau, de Grasse, D'Estaing, and (let us not forget) Lafayette, there would have been no victory over the British, no Yorktown. The same schizoid attitude prevails for later periods, as well: Wellington's victory over Napoleon at Waterloo is remembered as a great moment, yet that same British Army not a year before had been gloriously repulsed at Baltimore Harbor in a shelling that is immortalized in "The Star Spangled Banner". If we are conflicted and confused on our attitude toward Great Britain during this period, how much more about France, veering as it did from friend and ally to false friend to near-foe, as its political gyrations lurched from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, to republic to dictatorship, to monarchy again, to empire, and back to monarchy before settling on a second republic?

Enter Simon Schama for a note of reason. His Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution is a thorough but highly accessible and generally very readable assessment of the confusing period from the reign of Louis XVI through the Terror. In so doing, he covers a great deal of material with depth and color, from the pornographic politics that swirled around Marie-Antoinette to the various permutations of how the ci-devants (former nobles) adapted to the new revolutionary realities (or didn't), to the campaign of hostility against Christianity, to the great struggle between the Girondins and the Jacobins.

For me, there were several striking take-aways from the book. One was that the general bankruptcy, which was the true proximate cause of the fall of the absolute monarchy, came about not as a result of taxation policy per se, but as the result of the adventure of a foreign war in America. We got a republic; Louis got the guillotine. Some of the myths around the royal family's flight to Varennes were nicely exploded, as well.

Throughout, Schama makes a convincing case (though he has been roundly criticized for this) that violence was not merely incidental to the French Revolution or an unfortunate byproduct of excessive energy; rather, it was the engine of revolution. He also goes into detail concerning matters which we tend to hear too little about in America: the September massacres, the revolt in the Vendee (which left perhaps 250,000 dead), and not only the Terror but the Counter-Terror. True followers of Jefferson, Americans tend to be naive and assume an exculpatory stance toward the ghastly excesses perpetrated by the French one upon another. Schama's contribution is to show how this violence and death was, from the first days of the liberation of the Bastille in July of 1789, endemic to the Revolution. I also very much appreciated the ambiguity and texture that the book brings to its portrayal of figures such as Talleyrand, Robespierre, Malherbes, and even the King and his brothers the dukes.

Citizen is a true tour de force (in every sense of that term!), and a worthy addition to the reading list of every American who is interested in France, the Revolution and the period leading up to the Directory, and an understanding of how political movements -- even those, like the French Revolution, which are rooted in the reforming aristocracy as much as the masses -- can become daemonic with a life of their own.

A really good and informative read.

[Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronology of the French Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. Pp. xx + 948.]


Prince Frederick, Maryland

"Myths and Endless Genealogies"

SPECULATION, DEBATE, AND DISTRACTION: 1 Timothy 1:3-4 (part 4)

At first glance, this warning would seem to be as far away from our experience as the world of late classical Asia Minor, where Timothy lived and served Christ, is from modern America.

But that would be a way too facile conclusion!

We may not labor under the polytheistic tales (that we call "myths") of the ancients -- which many of them didn't believe, either, for various reasons, one of which is that they were often offensive to reason. (This was important to folks even before the Enlightenment, though we often forget it!) Or the myths of the Jewish people about various kinds of odd creatures and spiritual forces that would also seem alien to us. We also don't find it imperative to trace our ancestry back to remote times in order to establish our links with Abraham or other "greats" of old. (DAR/CAR members and others with similar noteworthy ancestry may be an exception here, too.)

Still, we have our own chimeras which distract us from the faith. The myth that God really doesn't care very much about my petty and fully understandable lapses, but is very concerned about my neighbor's. The myth that it doesn't really matter what I believe, as long as I'm sincere (or what I do, so long as I mean well and my intention is "pure" -- which turns out to be a pretty fluid category). The myth that all roads lead equally to God. Then there are the genealogies. In this election season, one of the most persistent and annoying ones is that "real" Christians must think and vote a certain way ... their political pedigree must be pure to be spiritually authentic. And speculation follows: what happens if the other guy wins? if the ideology I'm so passionate about (economic, political, social) doesn't carry the day?

The Apostle reminds Timothy to sweep aside, or rather to eschew in the first place, these tugs which tend to pull us off the road of discipleship and into the thicket of fruitless wanderings, arguings, and imaginings. They also tend to produce controversy which we don't need. He calls us instead to stick to the "stewardship" (or "good order") -- the right way of organizing our minds and actions which come to us from God by faith in Jesus Christ. To focus radically on what God has revealed and requires of us, rather than what we tend to substitute for it.

Lord, how easy it is for me to get sidetracked by the bright and shiny lures of pet ideas, partisan alliances, and idle speculations that glitter before me every day. Keep me single in my focus on you, and let me be an encourager of others for the same, to the end of good stewardship of your message of salvation. Amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)

"Not to Teach Any Different Doctrine"

TEACHING MATTERS: 1 Timothy 1:3-4 (part 3)

There is a bias today among some Christians, particularly it seems in America, and including (lamentably) some pastors, toward the notion that doctrine doesn't matter ... or at least, doesn't matter a lot. In my tradition, Wesleyan Christianity, there is a built-in bias toward actions that holds too-fine distinctions in teaching suspect. There are reasons for this, both historical and practical, but it is, to be candid, a weakness. Doctrine without praxis drifts into a kind of quasi-gnostic detachment from the brass tacks of where God is at work in the world; but praxis that is not rooted in sound doctrine is just busy-ness that too easily become completely detached from Christ. (It reminds me of the riddle, "What do you get if you cross an agnostic with a Jehovah's Witness? Answer: Someone who rings your doorbell for no particular reason.")

A recent series of articles in the Lutheran Witness magazine made this point clearly, detailing the testimony of church leaders before Congress regarding the impact of some public policy proposals on the conscience of believers. The testimony is deeply rooted precisely in the teachings of the Gospel. Apart from them, we are simply adrift, with nothing more than that shadow of Christianity which Kenda Creasy Dean has tagged "therapeutic moralistic deism".

Paul knew the importance of doctrine. The apostle who has given us the clearest references to grace in all the Scripture was clearly willing to go to the mat for it, if necessary. There is always the temptation to trim, to equivocate, to cut the Gospel message to fit the pattern imposed by the world around, compromised by sin and alienated from God. This way lies bondage and death, the death of the spirit. Paul, who would ultimately face martyrdom, reminds his protege that above all, even in the gravest circumstances, we must remain true to the teaching of and about Jesus Christ.

Lord, the temptations to compromise are strong. The world's temptations glitter and threaten to draw my eyes from you. The pressures of society, of friends, even of family are strong. Even the Church is not immune from attack from within. Keep me true, and resolutely oriented to You. And grant me, gentle Lord, the added grace to be gracious about it. Amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)

"As I Urged You ... Remain"

THE MIRAGE OF SAMENESS: 1 Timothy 1:3-4 (part 2)

It's easy to pass over, but Paul tells Timothy to stay in Ephesus, while he goes on to visit Macedonia. Can't we charge Paul with a simple case of: "Do as I say, but not as I do"?

The Miasma of "Fairness". As the father of two sons with six years' difference in age, I have long been very familiar with the question, "How come he gets to do that and I can't?!" -- usually (though not always) raised in complaint by the younger about the older. Yet not only in age and understanding but in temperament, talents, and needs, the two, now young men, are very different. To treat them identically would have been a dangerous mistake.

We live in a society burdened by -- sometimes, seemingly paralyzed by -- ideas of fairness that can approach the ridiculous in application. Paper cups are stamped, "Warning! Contents may be hot!" when they are designed and used exclusively for steaming beverages, as a bowing to fairness (I presume) toward the clumsy or not very bright. A parent objects to a costume party in a classroom, so an entire school district bans such celebrations for all students, all the time. In seminary, a bulletin board in one classroom had a round of pocket bread attached followed by the formula "divided equally = justice". Catchy and facile, but not usually true because people's needs are rarely identical.

A growth point in discipleship is recognizing that God's call in my life may be quite different from that of someone else. This is part of what Jesus is getting at with Peter at the end of John 21. As Oswald Chambers points out in My Utmost for His Highest, this can also mean that some activities and influences, while not sinful in themselves and okay for someone else, may be wrong or dangerous for me.

None of us is "special" in the Kingdom of God in the sense of being preferred over others or being exempt from the demands of discipleship; yet each of us has been made unique by the Creator. Timothy's path of service paralleled Paul's for a time, then they diverged. Paul's call was one thing; Timothy's, another. The same is true for each of us.


Lord, thank you for your call in my life. Forgive me when I look with envy on your calling in other lives, or receive with distrust what you say to me. Let me neither react with resentment, not lord it over others in pride, when the differences in calling become apparent. Help me to remember, as Jesus said, that I am "an unworthy servant" -- but even an unworthy servant is still blessed to be Your servant. Amen.


Prince Frederick, Maryland (Providence)