“The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegrooms voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.” (John 3:29-30)

John, at this point of his life, noted that his joy was fulfilled in being where God wanted him to be doing what God wanted him to do. The focus of his words is not on being the bride of the groom, but being the friend of the groom. He was the greatest of the prophets; his joy was full at that endeavor because it was his God-given position and he was operating in it.

And his joy was fullfilled in hearing the groom enjoying the party with the bride. I’m sure The Baptist knew about the bride metaphor in Scripture (God and Israel Hos 2:19–20) but he didn’t know how Paul (who is Paul anyway?) would later use it (Christ and the Church Eph 5:32). He was the best man.

What of us?

Christ says that the least in his kingdom would be greater than John the Baptist. Every single Kingdom Dweller had the distinct opportunity of pointing to Christ—just like the Old Testament prophets—but with clarity: something they didn’t have. We’re not Best Men. We’re Bride. We’re family. We have an explicitly clear message.

The Christ, the Incarnate Yahweh God, is the Man Jesus Christ: Jesus is both Lord and King. Jesus, born of Mary, died in Jerusalem according to the plan of God and by the sinful hands of men: both Gentile and Jew. Jesus, the same Jesus that died, rose on the third day, vindicated by God and with power. Jesus was seen by the five hundred. Jesus was taken up into heaven. The way Jesus was taken up is the way Jesus will return. We are awaiting for Jesus.

No prophet could be as explicit as us. Not one. Because where we’re living is the age that has dawned: not the age of John which has diminished.

Imagine what this age entails. If John was calling for repentance in preparation for what was coming, how much more dire are the words for us who live on this side of the cross. We’ve seen the cost of sin: The God Man pinned to a tree. We’ve seen the cost. We’ve seen the payment. We’ve seen the victory.

John and his age did have to diminish so that Christ and his era would increase. Unceasingly increase. And it is in this God-given vocation, this work that is granted by God himself by finding us where we are in time, do we find our greatest joy and fulfillment.

Yes we will struggle. Yes we will groan in ourselves. Yes we will speak words that are ignored.

But that is exactly what Christ went through and we’re following in his footsteps—something the prophets didn’t even explicitly know (Luke 9:23 cf. John 15:18-25).

We ourselves do not diminish. Our goal isn’t the mini-highs that we get from the small victories in our lives. Our goal isn’t merely the applause at finding victory over sin for a season.

In a conversation in John 10, Christ points out that he has come giving life (yes) but to also give life more abundantly (John 10:10). Our Joy is tied up in our mission of pointing to Christ as a community whose distinctions are emphasized as they function as a whole forever: even after sin and death and the need to give out tracts has been squashed.

No, our goal is not to become Nothing as part of Something Else. Our humanity isn’t subsumed into some ephemeral non-personal force.  There was so much wrong with what the holy man was saying but this idea of destroying our humanity to be swallowed up, no matter what we believed or professed was more the attributes of a monster than of a good, personal, God.

Our position is God-given; we’re to function as God has granted us ability to function which is pointing to the living Jesus Christ in our lives, in our actions, in our words with wisdom and our own distinct sensibilities for now and forever; and it’s in Jesus Christ and His work where we’ll find our greatest joy and satisfaction.

Technorati Tags: church, dispensation, vocation

In that clause, the Constitution states that the President—indeed, also the Vice President—must be thirty five years old but then it has these two other qualifications: they must have been a natural born citizen and have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years.

The clause is not historically uncommon. Nations throughout history have always wanted a leader who belonged to the country. It’s understandable. When a foreign nation comes in, attacking another country and sits on the throne, the new country is merely real estate with revenue funneling back into the mother country. The ruler doesn’t represent the people of the conquered country at all. Be it Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Mother Russia, England, or the United States the leader represents the needs of his own people.

It was the people’s fear of having a foreign national with us. He’s not really of us—but he’s over us.

So the Constitution drafters insert that clause ensuring that some foreign national doesn’t come along, somehow orchestrate events to become leader of the United States, and then spends the bulk of his time supporting the desires of his real country.

Which brings us to the problem of Hebrews 2.

God Amongst or With Us
The author has established that The Son is the perfect representative of God, acknowledged as such by God, and functions in His Position as God. He does what God does (for example, creating and upholding the world by his word of power) because he has that right, God stands behind Him, and He is, in fact, God. If the Son speaks, God speaks; if the Son works, he completes that work; the very angels of God bow down to him in worship as He sits down at the position of power of the Majesty on High.

This Son is with God, on behalf of God, and Is God.

And yet, that comes with some dire ramifications for us poor humans. Warns the writer “we must pay much closer attention to what we heard, so that we do not drift away from it.” It’s one thing to deny an angel-mediated Law, quite another to deny the very message spoken by the incarnate God, the Lord and subsequently confirmed by those he has placed in power and attested to with miracles and signs by the Holy Spirit.

God is altogether involved in this message and we humans invariably fall short.

But doesn’t this in effect become bad news? This isn’t only some foreign national that’s in control; it’s one with complete power, absolute authority, and the bright white holiness that could incinerate a sinner like paper in a fireplace.

God With Them
Let’s go back to our first parents who found themselves in this sort of relationship of being with God (Gen 1:26-27; (Gen 2: 16-17)

Recently created, blinking in the new light of day, they walked around Dad’s house here on Earth with some familial prerogatives and one dire command: these other things you do, that’s just living—but if you do this one thing, ignore that I have commanded you not to eat of this tree, take it upon yourself to act on your own initiative and your own understanding you will die.

And what does man in this relationship do? He sits on the side, setting aside his authority, watching his wife take the fruit, eat and accepts the thing when offered (as if under her authority) and the immediate response was expulsion and death in later years. Indeed, death in the very home as son rises up against son and proves the catastrophe of man looking no higher for a master than his own wants.

But here, we find that the author to the Hebrews thinking coincides with our own. We’re at the very beginning of creation and seeing the position of man and the position of God. Man is told to reign, to control, to manage, to cultivate but man falls short and God punishes him. As he stands before the Lord, his sin exposed, he hears the mandate that creation will revolt beneath him. He was a cultivator of a garden before, now he’s a tackling thorns and thistles. He was living life to the fullest before now, he’s sweating into the very food he’s taken all this time to make.

David, recalling the wonder of this creation looks back and thinks about the wonder of God’s creation and how he’s established man over this creation, a little lower than God (or the angels as the LXX says), and yet man is crowned with glory and majesty.

Well, not that much glory and majesty because of that Fall. There they fell, deceived by the first murderer, His Satanic Majesty and rendered the world under His power—the prince of power of Darkness. So you arrive at the book of Daniel and hear tell of demonic powers, like the Prince of Persia, holding say over regions (Daniel 9), or you have Paul much later saying that we don’t battle against flesh and blood but against powers, against principalities in heavenly places (Eph 6).

Immanuel
But hear the words of Isaiah as he prophesies of a son being born to a young virgin. This son will show up and his name will be Wonderful, Counselor, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Government shall rest upon his shoulders. What’s his name? Oh, Immanuel: God with us.

God With Us, being born amongst us and receiving titles that belong to God alone.

Time passes and a birth is announced: the child that will be born will be called Immanuel (Matt 1:24).  And as the baby is lain in a manger, shepherds watching their flocks receive news that they will find the Savior, Christ the Lord, wrapped in clothes lying in a manger and the angels can’t help it as they cry out in exultation “Glory to God in the Highest, peace on earth and goodwill towards men!” (Luke 2:7). This one grows up (Luke 2:40) and we see him growing tired (John 4:6) and thirsty (John 4:7) and weeping (Luke 19:41-44) and sweating in Gethsemene (Luke 2:41-46). God With Us, doing all these things, and yet being ministered by angels when hungry (Matt 4:11), providing food for thousands without breaking a sweat (John 6) and demanding that a fig tree withers (Matthew 21:18-22), being asked permission to enter pigs by demons (Matthew 8:30) and telling the very waters and wind “Be quiet—stop throwing a fit!” (Mark 4:39)

This is God, surely, but he’s Man. not merely a foreign national walking in our midst—like Superman, among us but not one of us—he is really a Man and God and he acts with the full prerogatives as an obedient master over creation: just as Adam was supposed to.

So when we read Psalm 8, we find that it not only speaks about the first Adam for those few moments where creation actually listened to him before he fell but it hearkens to the second and greater Adam who stands as master over creation.

But not everything is under Christ’s feet just yet, just as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. We see Jesus, the man, for a little while made lower than the angels but then we see him crowned with glory and honor but not merely on account of being placed over creation but because he suffered, tasting death for everyone.

Man stands beneath God the Father, and the Son humbled Himself and stands beneath the Father as a real representative for God but an equally real representative for Man. And just as he cried out on the cross “Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachtini” from Psalm 22 he stands with Humans before God and says “these are my brethren”. Recall the words of Jesus to Mary “Go to my” not disciples but rather “brothers and say to them: I’m going to My Father and your Father, my God and your God”

Earth-shattering. Ground-swelling. Immanuel. God With Us not merely as God in our Midst but God Stands  With Us As A Man. He trusted God, and he stands with his family showing them to God.

And in so doing he reverses the power grab of the devil and his minions. Man is placed back in charge and the demons are robbed of power since death is robbed of power. And those that are plagued by the power of the devil are able to find real, honest to goodness mercy because he is actually one of us, born of our country, not a foreign national, and has our interests in mind.

Help has never been offered to angels. It has never been theirs to reach. But it was offered to Christ, the seed of Abraham. And Paul, looking at the seed of Abraham of Promise says that we are, on account of Christ, Abraham’s seed.

He’s God’s perfect representative. He speaks, God speaks. He is God with God standing behind him. And yet, he is fully man: one of us crowned with glory because he suffered and died.

Technorati Tags: hebrews, immanuel, incarnation

Anyway, I wanted to post about something that came up in Summer Camp last year which doesn’t only apply to Summer Camp.

First some context: this is a camp that has children from eight to fifteen (?) as campers and Junior Counselors In Training (JCITS) starting at around seventeen (sixteen?). So it’s a pretty broad range of kids–all boys. In an effort at hitting all the kids with some straight up Biblical teaching, the directors have decided to have several teaching sessions that are comprised of the entire group. So you’ll have a teaching session in the morning, one in the evening, and some days another in the afternoon focused on how to study or something like that.

BUT. Even with this context, this is not the first time I’ve witnessed the following problem.

The Problem:
After reading the context, at least some of the problems might be obvious to the reader but I want to make it clear what each individual teacher is concerned about: that the older saved Christian boys live moral lives and that those who aren’t believers are saved. So each teacher is concerned enough to make sure the Gospel is in each lesson coupled with a call for moral living. It’s a proper concern.

The first problem, the one I think most would pick up on, is that understanding range is too broad. You can’t possibly warn the fifteen year olds with their moral activity without exposing the young with unnecessary information; and it is exceedingly difficult to speak to the young in such a way that the teens will tune in, sift the points, and apply to themselves.

The second problem is that most of the teachers were not ready. There were maybe two (and not even the main speaker) who had a history of dealing with a broad age range.

The third problem is the teachers’ understanding of what the Gospel is accomplishing. People usually have a habit of divide these two teaching targets (pre-Gospel and post-Gospel) because they rightly know that there is a difference but incorrectly assume the difference is one between Salvation and Sanctification that must be dealt with differently. These teachers generally did the same.

Let me give you an example to make it clear. At one of the sessions, one of the preachers was speaking about the necessity of believing Christ and what He did and confessing Him as savior and being at peac with God. Further down the talk, the teacher quoted 1 Corinthians 15:33 about the necessity of having the right friends. Then he did something horrifying: he pointed out what happens if we have the wrong friends that we turn to God and are rejecting him and his ways we have no more peace.

Now mind you, in the speaker’s mind he had clearly delineated salvation (believing the Gospel) and sanctification (the daily walk) and he was no longer talking about salvation (you must believe to get peace) but requesting believers to keep trusting Christ in their daily behavior else the relationship is strained (lacking peace). My problem is not so much with the theology (though, yes, I have a problem with it) but with the connection of thought that makes this lesson necessary and thus throws the non-Christianized else into a tailspin.

One of my campers wondered if being friends with people who aren’t Christians would make you not go to heaven.  Mind you, my campers were nine and ten so the question likely passed in and out of their mind even though I quickly addressed it to the entire cabin.

The Solution:
On the practical level to the first problem, I think that the age groups need to be divided. Maybe eight to eleven year olds go in one building and the rest go into the other. This way you can really speak at their level and not be worried about missing part of the target audience

As to the second problem, effectively speaking to a mixed crowd is something that takes many long hours of dealing with that problem under guidance and shouldn’t be relegated to a week (or two if you’re lucky) in a camp where kids might come through once. For young kids, get an older experienced guy to teach them. For the teens, the younger guys are fine. The exception is if these younger teachers have been working, under guidance, with kids. I frankly don’t understand why it’s all the rage to get hip-young teachers for little kids when what little kids need (and want, though they don’t say it) is an older, confident, knowledgeable adult.

And the solution to the third problem is this: Preach the Gospel! Stop trying to preach about getting the right friends or the importance of bible study or the need to fight the world. Look, those things are important but you have one week so why waste an hour on them when the Gospel is infinitely more important.

But furthermore, the Gospel is the solution. Clever solutions about “Life after we’re saved” are wrongheaded.  The Gospel is not something that we must get beyond to figure out what we must do now in this time After The Gospel. The Gospel is not merely the door to salvation, it is the fundamental aspect of our theology. Christ, demanding moral living, tells his disciples to crucify their own lives daily or to take up their cross and follow him to Calvary. Paul, speaking about the necessity to stop sin in our members reminds believers that they have died in Christ and have risen again to walk in newness of life. This is based on a Christian-life long theology that Paul (and anyone who believes) has been crucified in Christ and yet lives: therefore it is Christ living in me. When noting the moral problems in a Church at Corinth, Paul doesn’t help them out by offering moral platitudes: it is a constant call to return to the Gospel. Get the leaven out of your house because we’re living in a perpetual feast of Unleavened Bread! Don’t eat meats offered to idols because we are partakes of the Body of Christ! Don’t divorce because we’ve been called and saved where we are! Don’t’ divide because we have trusted God’s Gospel of Stupidity which empties our wisdom.

Indeed, that bit where Paul speaks about friends is a sidebar after he said something stupid: if Christ hasn’t been resurrected (which is fundamental to the Gospel) then we might as well eat and drink because tomorrow we die. Then he quickly jumps in: don’t listen to that stupidity–and quotes a platitude in passing to slap some sense into these silly ADULTS.

Children can get the Gospel. They get it by the droves. What they also need to get is what the Gospel means to them. That although they are kids, they are children of a new family that looks like Christ.

Teens can get the Gospel too. That although they are teens, they can actually look at God and say DAD! That although they struggle from day to day, the ruler of this world has been robbed of his power. That Christ reigns, right now, seated in heavenly places and they are seated with him–and therefore they must look like the young Kings they are.

And so on. The Gospel should not be taken lightly and we must always go back to it. So, Camp staff, if you want to teach kids remember: target your speaking to the age group, keep it simple by not conflating your message, and there’s no such thing as Beyond The Gospel by dealing with moral do’s and do-not’s. We won’t get beyond The Gospel in eternity, so why do it now?

Technorati Tags: children, gospel, teaching, teaching doctrine

The argument goes something like this:

Covenantal Theological Support

• Abraham was circumcised as a sign of his faith-before-circumcision: Romans 4:11
• The Church is the true Israel (Romans 9:6-8), the Israel from above (Gal. 4:26)
• The Church doesn’t replace Israel, it moves it forward (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25)
• The Church consists then of the true expected sons of Abraham (Rom 4:16; Gal. 3:7, 15-17)
• So the Church gets circumcised (Col. 2:11) in the sign of faith-before-works which is baptism (Colossians 2:11-12 )

Theological Ramifications Which Then Lead To Infant Baptism

• The Males of Abraham’s household were also circumcised: Gen 17:26-27
• Even though Circumcision was a sign for all the uncircumcised, God still mandated that all those in Abraham’s household—Israel—who didn’t have faith were to be circumcised: Genesis 17:10-12
• And like Israel of old, we also baptize all those in our house (Acts 16:15; Acts 16:30-33; 1 Corinthians 1:16)
• Indeed, it is in accordance with the Great Commission (Matthew 25:31-32) because Babies are sinners (Psalm 51:5) and need faith—being part of covenant community doesn’t save you in the future but it allows you to be saved by being taught of the faith (Mark 16:16, John 3:5), being washed (1 Peter 3:21; Mark 16:16) and being clothed in Christ (Galatians 3:27) knowing that they can believe (Luke 18:15-17) just as they believe their mother from the womb.
• Conclusion: Seeing all this, and noting the witness of the early church believing this, we are convinced that infants must be baptized because baptism is the sign of our covenant community, the true Israel of above in honest expectation that our Children will be raised in the faith and be saved.

This post deals with Colossians 2:10-12 to show the false-connection that has been made between baptism and circumcision.

The summarizing statement in Col 2:10 encompasses the completeness of the work of Christ. It is being used to underscore the strong point that culminated in Col 2:9 that the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in Him—He is Deity incarnate. Paul argues this way to encourage people to walk in Christ; not theosophies. So establishing rules, conscripting the body, following shadows are all stupid once you realize the work is finished. He can then enter Col 3 by having us focus upward where we are seated with Christ. The thought flow of the argument looks something like this:

Walk in the Received Christ (v6)

1-To Christ belongs the fullness (Up to v9)

2a-In Christ you are made complete (v 10)

AA-In Him you were circumcised without hands (v11)

AB-In His circumcision of the body of flesh

BA-In Him you were buried (v12)

BB-In Him you were baptized

CA-In Him through faith in the working of God (v12)

CB-In Him you were raised from the dead

2b-All of this happened while you were dead, uncircumcised, and unforgiven and you were made alive and forgiven (v13)

3: Therefore don’t let anyone rob you of this completeness by going back to elementary principles, empty shadows, and conscripting the flesh. (rest of chapter 2)

The context establishes that all these things are occurring toward-us without our doing anything. Trust isn’t doing, it’s just relying on God who is doing. So when we are raised in Christ (Col 2:12) it is because God decided to raise us in Christ—we can’t do that. Likewise when we are buried in Christ.

At this point, Paedo’s would be quick to answer the question “Are we circumcised in baptism” but it, quite honestly, shouldn’t be asked yet. The question that must first be raised is in regards to Col 2:11 “When was Christ’s body of the flesh circumcised?” Too often verse 12 is read back into verse 11 but Paul speaks about this bit to establish our circumcision without hands.

We know Christ was circumcised at 8-days old but it would be strange if that was Paul’s argument. Indeed, it wouldn’t give us any strong reason to walk in Christ at all beyond him being a good role model. Paul’s argument is that this Christ with the fullness of Deity has completed the work so that going back to the elementary principles and theosophies is worthless. At what other point was Christ circumcised?

Paul uses the term “in the removal of the body of flesh” to describe this circumcision. If we were to get explicit, the circumcision is literally the cutting off of the flesh of foreskin from the male member. What Paul is saying is that Christ’s body of flesh was cut-off. That only occurred one time (as the writer to the Hebrews argues) at the Cross.

So Paul is making this the first thing that God towards us which we cannot do of our own volition: become identified in Christ’s crucifixion. None of us can up and say one morning “I am now crucified in Christ—I am dead.” God is the one who identifies us in that person and situation. So Paul, elsewhere can say that he is crucified in Christ and yet he lives; not him, but Christ that lives in him so that the life he lives in his body is now lived by faith in Christ who died and gave himself for him (Gal 2:20).

Spoken like that, we therefore see that Christ’s cutting off occurred at the cross—not at the tomb. He was buried in the tomb but that occurred after he was cut-off on the Cross. Which is the connection that Paul proceeds to make: Christ was buried and our baptism is into that burial—not into Christ’s crucifixion. A picture Paul uses elsewhere where he says we have been buried with him in baptism to death. Of course, the burial is a picture of death and we know that Christ died on the cross, but the picture is illustrated by burial. It was when he was buried, and when we are buried, that death was (and is) altogether true.

Baptism, indeed, is being linked to faith instead of circumcision. Baptism is to burial as faith is to the resurrection from the dead. Identification in the filled and empty tomb occur on God’s power; not our own—just like identifying in Christ’s crucifixion.This point is illustrated further when Paul ties our dead as being “uncircumcised”. This isn’t a matter of being non-baptized but rather actually still separated from any God-ward identification.

We our baptized then after we confess and believe because it is only after we confess and believe that we know that we have been cut-off in Christ’s circumcision on the cross and progress to depict our burial and resurrection in baptism.

Of course, there is another argument that Paedobaptists can make with these verses unlinking circumcision and baptism. They can say that the chronology shows circumcision (Crucifixion), baptism (burial), faith, then resurrection which would establish that one could (or should) be baptized before faith. But at that point, they are no longer arguing on the grounds of covenantal signs but on chronology and my point in this article was to show that this passage is never equates baptism with circumcision.

Technorati Tags: baptism, circumcision, colossians

There is a group of people, known as The Strong With Knowledge, who are visiting the local temples and eating food which has been offered to idols. The Strong With Knowledge have no problem buying meat from the market when it is specifically noted as being offered by idols. The Strong With Knowledge have been doing this activity (of shopping and eating) in front of their Christian Brethren and in front of the common man.

The Strong With Knowledge, therefore, are being addressed. Their practice needs correction on several levels.

On the first level, the practice has nothing in it worth doing. There is no value added:

But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat.

People read this as if Paul is saying that food does nothing at all but Paul phrases it in such a way that the practice has no reason to be embraced. Eating the food isn’t something that God particularly applauds: it doesn’t commend one to God. Avoiding the food does nothing to lower the standing of the Strong—so if it is avoided, all is well. Embracing the meal doesn’t do anything to make one better—so eating the idol’s meal is, at best, an empty thing (Paul argues otherwise as he progresses his points) whereas avoiding it does nothing to worsen. In other words, there is nothing positively being added by the practice and nothing is negated by avoiding the practice.

On the second level, there are some things positively added by avoiding the practice. By not-partaking the Strong are adorning their knowledge with love; in so doing, the other believers are edified (1 Cor 8:1). So the real value is actually found in avoiding the practice.

On the third level, the practice has negative value—by embracing it problems arise:  (1) The fellow believers become “strengthened”—here Paul is playing with words because the heart of the people who have a real problem with the practice are now hardened to go do something which doesn’t add anything commend-worthy to them (1 Cor 8:10); (2) the practice applauds knowledge over love which only breeds arrogance (1 Cor 8:1); (3) it causes brothers to stumble (1 Cor 8:13); (4) it has the believer testing the Lord by partaking at the table of idols—this is what we’ll deal with in some detail below.

It is this third level the practice is tremendously dangerous. To show the problem, Paul recounts an Old Testament example of a special generation of people who:

1. Were all under the cloud of the Lord’s presence
2. All passed through the Red Sea unto Salvation
3. Were ell were baptized into Moses via the cloud and the sea
4. Were all eating the same heavenly food—the manna that came from above
5. Were all drinking the same spiritual drink—the water that came from the rock.

In spite of all that, the people still managed—in their knowledge and arrogance—to fall in the wilderness by seeking after what they craved (1 Cor 10:6). To the Corinthians the message is clear: just because they crave something, doesn’t mean that God applauds their embracing their cravings. Indeed, the generation in the wilderness repeatedly embraced their cravings and died—despite what they knew and experienced of God’s grace, mercy and condescension.

They acted idolatrously at the foot of Sinai by rising up to play in front of a lump of calf-looking gold while knowing that they were covenanting with God that had rescued them from idols (Exo 32:6); knowing they were in covenant with God they rose up and joined themselves to the Baal of Peor and the women of Midian and God killed many (Num 25:1-3); and at yet another point they hungered after different food—earthly food—over and against the food God had provided and God sent poisonous snakes (Num 21:4-8).

It is in this context that Paul’s famous words come into the text (1 Cor 10:13):

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

Note this bit about cravings (1 Cor 10:6) which gives us our context. And though sexual cravings may be part of it (which is what this text is often used to address) the practice is eating the food of the idols just like any of the people around are doing. Paul says that there is a way provided to escape this temptation. What is the answer?

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

The practice does not add anything but indeed, it is fundamentally rebellious to God—run away from it, says St. Paul. He does this by pointing out the table that Christians do partake of as part of their being believers: the table of the Lord (1 Cor 10:21). They break the bread, they take the cup of blessing, they sit at the Lord’s Table in fellowship with the Father over the Son (as John puts it).

And yet, this doesn’t only speak of a practice they partake of at 9:30 A.M on Sundays. This speaks of their unique experience as partakers of the Lord’s Table by His complete provision. Just like the Israelites partook of the Lord’s “Table” for 40 years, the believer is partaking of the Lord’s Table by being spiritually provided for unto the uttermost.

A believer who partakes of idolatry because they are Strong and standing in the freedom that their knowledge provides, are now pitting their Strength against the Lord’s Strength…a dangerous game. (1 Cor 10:22)

Recall the trial of Jealousy from Numbers 5.

A husband suspects his wife of adultery. He doesn’t know it, but he is suspicious. But the text doesn’t phrase it that way. It says that the man has a spirit of jealousy for his wife (Num 5:14). It is not a wrong jealousy for a man to be jealous for his wife: it is his wife after all.

The woman then is brought to the tabernacle and she’s given a drink of water and some harmless dust from the ground, she loosens her hair (thus removing the mark of headship of her husband over her, cf. 1 Cor 11) and stands before the Lord. She swears an oath for the Lord to examine her and to curse her if she is lying and the Lord responds by either letting her go unharmed or causing her womb to drop, her stomach swell (mimicking pregnancy) and producing nothing—no children, no life, just emptiness.

When the Children of Israel tested the Lord with Baal of Peor we see a similar situation. The people were his, they had covenanted with Him, the camp was organized according to his mandates but they joined themselves to another God anyway. Numbers 25:11, the Lord describes Phinehas action as the man being jealous with His own jealousy. And it was that jealousy that killed 24,000 in one shot.

Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? We are not stronger than He, are we?

Now, Paul’s point: the Strong in Knowledge of Believers’ Freedom, partaker of the Lord’s table and confessing as being part of this New Community, would be insane to think that his firm position on his freedom is Stronger than the Lord and his position in Holiness, Perfection, and commitment to his people. No amount of freedom would ever make idolatrous practices praiseworthy. No amount of conviction makes an idolatrous practice, no matter what cultural milieu, justified and commend-worthy before the Lord. Demons stand behind idolatrous practices, no matter how inane or culturally accepted, and the Lord stands against them.

Therefore, not only does the practice not add anything commend worthy (on the first level); not only are there real benefits in avoiding the practice altogether(on the second level); the practice is in itself exceedingly dangerous, no matter what we know or the freedoms on which we stand because (1) there really are demons (1 Cor 10:21)  that stand behind the practices and (2), more importantly, the Lord Himself (in His jealousy) stands against idolatrous practices—even if we know that an idol is nothing.

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