Year: 2016

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Bible is one of the world’s most accessible books, having been translated into most of the world’s major languages [1], and in many of those languages, made available in multiple versions. People with computers, tablets, or smartphones are able to download the Bible for free, and even hear it read aloud. Yet, with this accessibility, many people do not read the Bible. Thankfully, most Christians do, but do they understand what they are reading?

Few of the early Christians had access to Scripture, and even when they did, most were unable to read. As a result, learning in the early church came mostly through oral teaching, which often included the reading of letters from the apostles that were circulated among the churches. A few churches had scrolls of the Old Testament translated into Greek, but again, most early Christians could not read.

Some house churches had cabinets (similar to those used in Jewish synagogues) in which they stored letters from the apostles and others. Which letters each congregation possessed varied. Most probably had copies of some or all of the Gospels, a few of Paul’s letters, a letter or two from John and other apostles, and perhaps a copy of the Acts of the Apostles. Many had a copy of a story from someone called The Shepherd, along with letters from a Roman pastor named Clement. Most would not have had copies of some of the letters we now find in the New Testament—Hebrews and 2 Peter, for example. When gathering for worship, many early Christians made use of what we call the Apostles’ Creed (they called it the Rule of Faith), which summarized the apostles’ teaching concerning God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Despite this diversity in teaching resources, the New Testament churches experienced great unity, due largely to the oral teaching based on stories of Jesus and letters from the apostles, understood in light of the rule of faith. This teaching gave them the common, grand understanding that Scripture holds out for us today, namely that all Scripture is about Jesus. Jesus was what the early Christians taught, and what they shared with others. Jesus was (and still is) the gospel.

One thing is sure—when early Christians gathered, they were not arguing over the correct days for ancient Israel’s festivals, the meaning of Hebrew words, or the necessity of learning Hebrew to know God’s love and plan for them. Even the apostles, who as good Jews had observed the festivals, understood that the festivals were part of the old covenant of promise, which pointed to the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant in Jesus (through his life, death, resurrection and ascension). They never taught that Israel’s holy days revealed anything but Jesus.

It is disappointing that among those who read and even regularly study the Bible, interpretations have developed ranging from slight variations in understanding, to totally missing the point. This happens for a number of reasons, but I want to point out one that plagues Sabbatarians in particular. Reading that God rested on the seventh day, then gave Israel the command to rest on the seventh day, Sabbatarians use the Sabbath as the “lens” through which they read and interpret all Scripture. In doing so they completely miss that the Sabbath command was about a covenant grounded in a particular place and time, having largely to do with promises concerning the Promised Land. But before we judge the flaw in their thinking, we must admit that many of us have had the experience of hardening our mental defenses against those who tell us that seventh-day Sabbath observance is not part of an obedient Christian’s life.

Sabbatarians are mistaken in using a lens other than Jesus to interpret Scripture. Jesus warned of this error when he said this to the experts in the Law of Moses (the Torah):

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39-40)

Jesus was not saying there is something wrong with the Torah—he was criticizing their use of it as their lens to interpret Scripture. Jesus is to be that lens, and that is why he proclaimed himself Lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:5). Jesus called upon the experts in the Law (and all people) to interpret the Sabbath in terms of who he is, not in terms of any preunderstanding they might have concerning the Sabbath.

The apostle John had this truth concerning Jesus’ primacy emphasized to him by an angel:

The angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers and sisters who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For it is the Spirit of prophecy who bears testimony to Jesus.” (Revelation 19:9-10)

Scripture and prophecy are not unlocked and understood by anything other than the One to whom they point—Jesus Christ. He (and he alone) is the focus of all Scripture—not geo-political alliances, not British-Israelism, and not Israel’s seven festivals. God has given us the New Testament, which, through the lens of Jesus, interprets the Old Testament. When we use the Old Testament to interpret the New Testament, we make the mistake of doing it “bass-ackwards,” as the old spoonerism goes. An insistence on keeping the Sabbath on a particular day in order to be righteous before God is a prime example of this mistake. Beware of anyone telling you differently!

The Sabbath was given to point us to Jesus, not the other way around. The Old Testament Sabbath is a sign, which like all signs is given to point to its fulfillment—its reality. The commandment to “keep the Sabbath holy” is magnified under the New Covenant. Under the old covenant, the tabernacle and later the temple were holy because God made them his place of dwelling among his people. This was a temporary arrangement designed to point to Jesus coming and making his dwelling among us. Once Jesus fulfilled his atoning work on the cross, leading to his resurrection and ascension, he moved from dwelling among us (John 1:14) to living in us through the Spirit (Ephesians 3:16-17). God, through Jesus, by the Spirit, now dwells in us, making us and all our time holy. Under the old covenant, God’s people sought a holy closeness to God once a week; under the new covenant, we are given a new life with Jesus living in us and transforming us from the inside out. It is no longer a once-a-week time with God, it is now a new life in him and he in us. Jesus, and not any day, is our Sabbath rest, and so we celebrate him when we gather as his people.

When we read the Bible, we do so to help us see Jesus—to help us learn from and about him. We read the Bible to help us understand that, by the Spirit, Christ lives in us as we respond to him in faith, hope and love. We read Holy Scripture to help us see God’s faithfulness for his beloved throughout all history—working all things in preparation for the turning point of history—the Incarnation, which was God’s plan from before the foundation of the world. We read the Bible to remind us that we are God’s chosen ones—made holy and righteous through Jesus. We read the Bible to see how God has invited us to join him in his continuing work of revealing himself to others so they too can know the true lens of life, Jesus Christ. We read the Bible because it is the written word of God designed to always point us to the living Word, Jesus, our Lord.

Reading the Bible with joy, through the lens of Jesus,
Joseph Tkach

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[1] As noted by Wycliffe Global Alliance, though there has been much progress in recent years, much more needs to be done to get the Bible into the hands of all people groups on earth. There currently are about 7000 languages in active use in the world, and at least one book of Scripture exists in over 2,900 of these languages. However, of the (approximately) 7.2 billion people on earth, about 1.5 billion of them do not have the full Bible available in their first language, though over 663 million of these have the New Testament. For more information on this topic, click here.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Shakespeare’s line from Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” often is quoted to describe someone who seeks to convince others of something that is not true. The line comes to mind when I hear atheists protesting claims that atheism is a religion. In support of their protests, some atheists offer these syllogistic comparisons:

• If atheism is a religion then bald is a hair color. While this may sound almost borderline profound, all it does is compare a false statement with a category error. Baldness has nothing to do with hair color. Certainly bald is not a color, but since atheism exists in some sense, it may very well have a color like other religions even if it has a unique color, as does Christianity. Moreover, I’ve never met a bald person who doesn’t have a hair color. An absence of hair on the head does not equate with the absence of a hair color.

• If atheism is a religion then health is a disease. Once again, this may at first glance sound like a valid syllogism but it is nothing more than doubletalk that once again compares a falsity with a category error, a logical error. I should also note that studies have shown that belief in God correlates not only to reports of improved mental health among the faithful, but also better physical health compared to nonbelievers. In fact, nearly 350 studies of physical health and 850 studies of mental health that have used religious and spiritual variables have found that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes. [1]

• If atheism is a religion, then abstinence is a sexual position. Once again juxtaposing two thoughts doesn’t mean that they are real proof of something. One can go on and on composing such nonsensical statements. Pointing out logical errors does not tell us what is true in fact.

The US Supreme Court has ruled on more than one occasion that atheism is to be treated as equivalent to a religion under the law (i.e. it is a protected belief system at the same level as any religion). Atheists believe, of course, that there are no gods. As such, atheism is a belief about gods and thus qualifies as a religion, much in the same way Buddhism is described as a religion.

Religious views about God fall into three categories: monotheistic (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), polytheistic (Hinduism, Mormonism), and nontheistic (Buddhism, atheism). One might place atheism in a fourth category by saying that it’s antitheistic. In Atheism as a Religion: An Introduction to the World’s Least Understood Faith, Mike Dobbins highlights ways that atheism mirrors religion; here is an excerpt (from The Christian Post):

One sacred symbol to atheists is the ‘A’ that symbolizes atheism. Three ‘A’ symbols are prominent in atheism. One ‘A’ symbol was created in 2007 by Atheist Alliance International and has a circle around it. The circle is meant to symbolize the unity of all atheists and the inclusion of all other atheist symbols. As you can tell, not only are these symbols for atheism, there is atheist religious symbolism within them that only atheists or those who study atheism know….

Many atheists demonstrated just how sacred the symbol ‘A’ is to them in the Christmas of 2013. Since my hometown city of Chicago allows a Hanukkah Menorah and Nativity scene to display on government property during the holiday season, the atheists asked to display their own religious symbol so the government wouldn’t give the appearance to be endorsing one religion or the other. The monument the Freedom From Religion Foundation chose was a giant… letter ‘A’ which stood 8 feet tall and lit up red at night for all to see. Countless atheists showed respect for the ‘A’ by making a pilgrimage to the site where the ‘A’ was displayed and having their picture taken with the ‘A’ which I’m sure will be kept as a cherished keep sake for many. Still, the giant red A was not enough. They also advocated for their atheist faith by erecting a sign that read, “There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

The Debunking Atheists blog has a helpful list of atheism’s key views that clearly are religious in nature. Here is an edited version of that list:

• Atheists have their own worldview. Materialism (the view that the material world is all there is) is the lens through which atheists view the world. Far from being the open-minded, follow-the-evidence-wherever thinkers they claim to be, they interpret all data ONLY within the very narrow worldview of materialism. They are like a guy wearing dark sunglasses who chides all others for thinking the sun is out.

• Atheists have their own orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is a set of normative beliefs acceptable to a faith community. Just as there are orthodox Christian beliefs, there is an atheist orthodoxy as well. In brief, it is that EVERYTHING can be explained as the product of unintentional, undirected, purposeless evolution. No truth claim is acceptable if it cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny and empirical confirmation.

• Atheists have their own brand of apostasy. Apostasy is to abandon one’s former religious faith. Antony Flew was for many years one of the world’s most prominent atheists. And then he did the unthinkable: he changed his mind. You can imagine the response of the “open-minded, tolerant” New Atheist movement. Flew was vilified. Richard Dawkins accused Flew of “tergiversation.” It’s a fancy word for apostasy. By their own admission, then, Flew abandoned their “faith” [and became a kind of Deist].

• Atheists have their own prophets: Nietzsche, Russell, Feuerbach, Lenin and Marx.

• Atheists have their own messiah: Charles Darwin, who in their view drove the definitive stake through the heart of theism by providing a comprehensive explanation of life that never needs God as a cause or explanation. Daniel Dennett has even written a book seeking to define religious faith itself as merely an evolutionary development.

• Atheists have their own preachers and evangelists: Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens.

• Atheists have faith. Though their writings ridicule faith (Harris’s book is called The End of Faith), atheism is a faith-based enterprise. Because the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven, denying it takes faith in their own scientific powers of observation and rationality. Atheistic evolution has no explanation for why our universe is orderly, predictable, measurable. It has no rational explanation for why there is such a thing as rational explanation. There is no accounting for the things they hope you won’t ask: Why do we have self-awareness? What makes us conscious? From what source is there a universal sense of right and wrong? How do we know that there is no life after death? How do we know that nothing more than material things exist? How do we know that the only things that exist are (conveniently) those things that can be known by our current scientific-empirical methods? Atheists take such unexplained things by faith—they assume things without having a sound rational or empirical basis.

Contrary to the protestations of atheists, the reality is that their belief system is a faith-based enterprise with practices and beliefs just like other religions. How ironic that atheists, insisting that atheism is not a religion, rail against other religions, even setting up competing displays next to displays from other religions.

I hasten to add, though, that some Christians make essentially the same mistake when they rail against other religions (even other forms of Christianity). We Christians should keep in mind that our faith is not a mere religion that needs to be asserted or defended. Instead, Christianity, at its core, is a living relationship with the Triune God: Father, Son and Spirit. Our calling as Christians is not to push another belief system on the world, but to participate with God, as his ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:18-21), in his ongoing ministry of reconciliation—letting others know the good news (gospel) that they are forgiven, redeemed, and loved by a God who desires a relationship of trust (faith), hope and love with all people.

Loving that authentic Christianity is not a religion but a relationship,
Joseph Tkach

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[1] “Religious involvement, spirituality, and medicine: implications for clinical practice,” Mayo Clinic Proceedings vol. 76:12, pp. 1225-1235. Retrieved from Mayo Clinic Proceedings website on July 20, 2014.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Perhaps, like me, you find the current U.S. presidential election cycle to be as dismaying as any in our lifetime. Nearly everyone I converse with about it opines that we should have better choices. I agree.

I’m often asked: “Are you a Democrat or a Republican?” My reply is always the same: “Neither one.” When asked who I’m voting for, I say that it’s a private matter. Occasionally I add that I don’t agree with all the positions of all the candidates (the same goes for the party platforms). Sometimes I note that I’m for all people in all parties because they are all God’s children, or I say that I’m on God’s side—since he always is with us and for us (that last comment often gets some strange looks!).

On occasion, I share a quote from P.J. O’Rourke, a political satirist who strikes me as a modern-day version of Mark Twain. He said this:

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.

O’Rourke also made this remark: “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free!” Another (anonymous) source concurs: “Talk is cheap… except when government does it!”

Mark Twain was well-known for his quips about the U.S. federal government. He joked, “The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.” In today’s entertainment-crazed media environment with its lack of integrity and truth when it comes to reporting the “news,” I’ve come to see one of Mark Twain’s quotations as prophetic: “If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.” I believe most of us would agree that, in our day, we’d need to add television and internet news to his quote.

Political humor, especially when it involves comments from famous historical personalities, can help keep us from getting overly depressed about politics. For example, Winston Churchill, in a quip about the economy, said this: “I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity, is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” A related quip came from French economist Frederic Bastiat, who said this: “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else.” And who can forget President John F. Kennedy’s great quote in his inaugural address: “My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

Here’s one more quote—this time from President Ronald Reagan: “The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.” As the election draws near, I am reminded of Reagan’s campaign slogan: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” While I’m registered as a no-party person, I can honestly say that President Reagan struck me as one of the most honest politicians in my lifetime. Perhaps his question can help bring clarity when you go about choosing a candidate to support with your vote.

A new president means another transition for our country. The new president will usher in another new beginning. Voters might disagree as to which party and candidate is most likely to bring that new beginning, but there is wide agreement on what they’d like to see happen. We all want security, which includes physical safety and financial prosperity, as well as the freedom to pursue fulfillment and personal well-being.

Though I won’t tell you how to vote, I do want to remind you that our hope, and thus the confidence we have for the future, transcends this or any election. Our hope is in Jesus, who has promised us life everlasting in the joy of the household of God. Let us all remember the apostle Paul’s instructions to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:1-3—here’s how it’s rendered in the Message Bible:

Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.

In the U.S., citizens have the personal and civic right to choose local and national leaders without fearing for themselves or their families. I encourage Christians to prayerfully exercise this right in ways that (as much as possible) protect our freedom to worship and spread the gospel. Of course, not voting is a right in the U.S., but I believe we should not abandon our privilege to vote. Sadly, surveys show that about two out of five self-professed Christians do not vote. About one in five eligible Christians are not even registered to vote.

Regarding our decision as to who to vote for, I want to address a fallacy we’re hearing increasingly this election cycle, namely that failing to vote for one candidate is the equivalent of voting for their opponent. This year it is being said that not voting for Donald Trump is a vote for Hillary Clinton, or that failing to vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for Donald Trump. But this assertion is a mathematical absurdity. Simply put, if you do not vote, then no one gets your vote.

Whomever we decide to vote for in the coming election, our decision, as Christians, should be based on prayer and the study of God’s word, along with weighing the best information available about the realities of the choices offered. With this approach, we will make our decision knowing that our Father in heaven, with his Son and the Holy Spirit, already voted for us (and all people) long before we were born. And that’s an election that will stand forever in Jesus Christ, who is our representative and our substitute. We belong to the God who loves us, and there are no term limits on our place in his family.

Joyful that in Christ we are all elected,
Joseph Tkach