Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

THE CHURCH IN FLUX

Chapter 18
Ponderings on a Parable.

This same theme also finds its way in one of the parables Jesus spoke: I am referring to the Parable of the Five Wise and Five Foolish Bridesmaids, found in Matthew 25, where it is told in the first 13 verses.

Somehow this episode reminds me of an encounter I had years ago with two dedicated environmentalists, when I spent a weekend Cross Country skiing in the Algonquin Park, Ontario’s largest provincial park.

In the lodge there I met a professor of Environmental Studies at an Ontario University who did not possess a car and biked to work. After talking together for quite a while, I asked him pointblank, “Given the present condition of the environment and the nature of humanity, not really willing or even able to sacrifice anything substantial for the plight of the earth, and seeing how our economic and political system usually chooses jobs and profit over ecological considerations, what are our chances to clean up worldwide pollution?”
His one word reply was, “none.”
“What about us, humans?” I then asked.
Answered his lawyer friend from another university town, and who did have a car, “That is not important. Humans have been on the scene for perhaps 20,000 years and the world can quite well function without them.” Said the professor, “as long as there is somewhere, say in Newfoundland a rock left with some lichen on it, a new start can be made and evolution can have a new beginning. Perhaps the second time around things will turn our better in, say, another 10 billion years.”
These two people, he a specialist in environmental matters, she a well educated woman, had no hope that the present brand of humanity would be able to rectify the mess we have made of God’s creation.

Almost every day we read about the grave dangers the cosmos faces, from Global Warming, to Fish stocks collapsing, to Greenland turning green again, to the ice in both the Arctic and the Antarctic melting so fast that the danger of flooding cities and entire countries becomes ever more real.
I think that these two professional people have a very valid point, a point I happen to agree with, a point that the Bible also makes, when it says that -Romans 6:23 – ‘ the wages of sin is death.’ When we sin against creation, death is certain to follow. The professor, certainly not a Christian in the church-going sense, nevertheless had a better grasp of the Christian duty to preserve creation than any person I know, and taught me that it takes extra-ordinary action, that it requires going against the stream, to do the right thing in God’s eyes.
This parable telling how 10 young women wait for the Bridegroom to appear has long puzzled and intrigued me. Off and one for decades I have tried to make sense of the Parable of the Ten Virgins. After reading about it, and doing a lot of meditating, I think I found the right solution.

First the occasion that prompted Jesus to tell this story. Jesus starts this curious tale with the words, “At that time.” That time refers to the previous chapter which deals with “the End of Days” in Matthew 24, the Day and Hour we don’t know, but whose approximate time we can somewhat establish. It is the time when the church has largely become irrelevant as a force for salvation, when “the Left Behind” heresy finds almost general acceptance, when many, if not most thinking people have lost a measure of hope. The “then” to which this bible passage refers, is “our day and age.”.
The parable speaks about Ten Bride’s maids, young girls, teenagers, I imagine, who are responsible for preparing the bride to meet the bridegroom.
If you were to film this scene you would see ten excited young women. They have been invited to an important wedding, and even better, have been asked to play a part in the proceedings. They are quite a relaxed bunch. The tension whether they would be invited or some other girls from among the bride’s circle of friends and relatives, is over. They made the cut and are happy.

When they gathered in the hall, they were no different from young women today: because there was no prescribed dress, each had done her best to look pretty, but, still a bit unsure how they would compare to the others, they entered the hall with some trepidation, and when they had seen how the others were attired, they felt better and actually quite pleased with themselves.
If we would have had an opportunity to watch these females, to us they all would look equally qualified. But somehow Jesus made a definite distinction in the group. Five he called foolish. Five he called wise. That’s one thing I found questionable. Why are the foolish called foolish? We know that the foolish are labeled that way because they had not taken extra oil along for their lamps.
Tell me: What would you have done had you been among the chosen Ten? Picture the scene; visualize it before your eyes: the wedding is in the afternoon, say three o’clock. They were all there at least an hour before that. The party is somewhat later, but certainly would be over well before midnight, because tomorrow is another busy day. The lights are needed for that short trip to the wedding hall, so, until that time the lamps are trimmed to a mere flicker. With a full tank there’s plenty of oil for the entire proceeding, with fuel to spare, plain common sense, and, because the Bridegroom was known to be a punctual man, why take along extra jars of that stinking and expensive kerosene? Suppose that the heavy crock pot would break and spill its contents all over the new dress. These containers weren’t like the metal or plastic ones we have:  no, they were frail, cumbersome and heavy. Mother was right: just to carry a lamp with a full tank would be enough. Also, with a heavy lamp to carry, how about the presents when one hand was needed to carry the lamp and another to carry extra oil? No, I agree with the so-called foolish maidens. Their action made perfect sense.
“But,” says Jesus, “the five young women who took the trouble of lugging these heavy jars with them, were wise.” Why would Jesus call them that? To me it makes little sense. How could they properly attend to their task preparing the bride, and also carry the extra wine and food? That smelly stuff could easily mix with the other provisions! Nothing could be more impractical. Those who Jesus called ‘wise’ do things totally beyond the call of duty, needlessly complicating their lives. To me the Foolish young women make much more sense. So why would Jesus call the practical teens foolish and the overcautious wise? Jesus must have a reason, so let me make a guess, and for this I will take a little detour.
Going to church or a Christian College is a bit like going to a wedding: we expect to meet the Bridegroom, and expect to hear about Jesus. The routine of Sunday, our hearing a sermon and attending a Christian Institution, can be compared to the normal supply of oil.
But we all know, there is more to meeting the Bridegroom than routine matters. That’s why the super cautious oil bottle bearing women are called wise. They are prepared for more, and they probably don’t even know what that more is. However, they find this out when the Bridegroom took long in coming.
We must see the context of this parable. It is set after Matthew 24, which has as its heading, “Sign of the End of Age” and “The Day and Hour of Jesus’ Return Unknown.” Jesus, after a long sermon on the final days of humanity, speaks this parable. He begins, “Then” or “At his particular moment, at the End of Days”. That could well mean ‘Now.’ Today too there are two kinds of people: foolish and wise.

I think that Jesus knew that at the End of Days Oil would again be a key element in the world. Jesus had a perfect overview of history from the embryo beginnings to the pollution- saturated end. It is a rather curious phenomenon that OIL has been the very cause of wars in the last decades. So, when the young girls, exhausted after extending their teenage chatter well beyond their usual bedtime – which was at sun down, as oil was too expensive to use for extended periods – the wedding feast turns into a slumber party. All ten are sacked out on couches and across the floor of the verandah where they were keeping a lookout.
Then, finally, at midnight, there was a cry, “There comes the Bridegroom. Wake up to meet him.”
The parable portrays the practical reality of life: the unexpected does happen. It happens all the time. Fish stocks collapse. Ozone layers disappear. Entire regions lose their pine trees to a tiny beetle. Arctic ice is melting at a record rate. Glaciers are disappearing.  Suddenly the doomsters have substantial evidence for their message. The unexpected does happen. Before you realize the Lord is there, still quite unexpected while we slumber the time away.
“Then all the maidens rose and trimmed their lamps.” They all straightened out their dresses, quickly combed their rumpled hair, turn to their lamps and five of them discover that they have practically run out of oil. They are not ready anymore to welcome the Bridegroom. All the wick-trimming in the world, all the shaking and trying is useless: their lights are dead. The unexpected did happen. The Oil is gone. The always reliable, punctual bridegroom was late for his own party.
So what must we think of all this? What does this all mean? I believe that the professor I mentioned in the beginning is right. God has taken so long to do anything that the world has dug its own grave. The lights are going out in this world. I also know that I am not the only one with this opinion: in the depth of their hearts many knowledgeable people realize this. The lights are going out for this world.

I was at a conference on Peak Oil in Boston a few months ago. The theme was: “Peak Oil has arrived: it’s all down hill from here.” The prudent ones, those with the common sense amount of oil, are sunk. We, in North America have built our entire society on the premise of cheap and unlimited oil. Unless there is something other than the wisdom of the world to help it, there is no way that the world can straighten out the mess, politically, ecologically and economically.
So, what do we do? Ignore the signs and go on as if nothing is the matter? What else must we do as Christians? That is the real question we face.
Well, listen to the rest of the parable.
“And the foolish said to the wise, “Give as some of your oil, for our lights are going out.” But the wise replied, “Perhaps there will not be enough for both us and you. Go to the fuel dealer and buy some.”
How is that for a Christian answer? Aren’t we supposed to share things with others? Try to buy some fuel at midnight!
That was another mystery for me. For a long time I really did not know what to think of that rather snotty reply of the Five Wise Women. Now it seems to me that this answer suggests that there comes a time, and perhaps has come, that we have to shrug our shoulders and go our own way. Time does run out as it always does in real life. “There is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die,” says Ecclesiastes 3, “a time to share and a time to refrain from sharing.” The parable suggests to me that a day will come when it will be too late to reform society.

Could it be that we have reached a point in world development where it is too late to turn to ecological balance in the world, too late to reform the ecclesiastical situation, too late to revamp the economic structures, too late to change the political system? I have no unrealistic notions that this writing will make an iota of difference to the church. IT will continue to go on as if nothing has changed, as if the Lord never will return. It seems to me that matters everywhere have their own inevitable momentum, leading either to total chaos and anarchy or to complete redemption.
It’s on that note that the parable ends. “While they went to buy, the Bridegroom came, and those who were ready, those who had the extra oil, went with him into the marriage feast and the door was shut. Afterwards the others came, knocked and said, ‘Lord, open up.’ But he said, ‘Sorry, I don’t know you’.”
Isn’t that a strange reply? The Lord doesn’t say, “I have never called you”, or “I have never loved you.” No, he says, “Listen, you have never bothered to get to know me. You never really took the time to seriously find out what I really stand for and what my creation is all about. You spent your time getting ahead in the world – nothing wrong with that. You developed good social skills. Good. You even dabbled a bit in theology. I’ll forgive you. But what about striving for a real close relationship with me? What about living your life in such a way that the entry into the Kingdom, the renewed creation, is not a shock, but makes it the next logical step in your life? Since you did not understand that to be my follower is to love creation for whose redemption I died, that’s why I now reject you. You were so caught up in the system and assumed that the commonly accepted, pragmatic solution was the norm, that common sense would triumph, that it was business as usual, that’s why I now don’t know you.”
It’s difficult to learn about God’s Kingdom/Creation. In this age of instant solutions, instant heating and cooling, we expect instant salvation and an instant Jesus. I don’t believe that life works that way: a marriage, a faith, a friendship, one’s life in Christ takes a long time maturing. That’s why Jesus has given us lots of time. He has come late to give us more opportunity to discover what is good and what is bad in this world, so that we can avoid errors later.

In this late hour of our present civilization, the remaining time is of the utmost essence. How do we utilize this last hour before entering the wedding hall?
I try not to waste my time on unproductive dialogue, whether with government, business or within ecclesiastical structures, fully expecting that this venture is nothing more than a cry in the wilderness, a howl against the wind. It seems to me that it is too late in history to effect structural changes in society. Still I try to live a creational responsible life, in preparation for the New Earth to come, because I see this life as an experimental station for eternity.
I emphasize again that curious word in the last verse of Matthew 5. The Greek word there is teleioos, which is translated as ‘perfect: “Be perfect as my Father is perfect.” Of course, we can’t be perfect. But we can be ‘teleioos’, of which a better translation is ‘all inclusive’, ‘holistic’, having the ‘telos’ the End of matters in mind. In everything we do we must contemplate its final destination: will it pollute and so help Satan who wants to destroy creation, or will it help the coming of the Kingdom, the New Creation.’ Make ‘teleioos’ your life motto.
There is hope for this world. That hope is more than a piece of lichen on a rock somewhere in Newfoundland: it is the New Creation, a renewed Earth under a heaven cleaned of all the space junk. I believe that now, as never before, is the appropriate time to share with others, people of all walks of life and from all denominations and no church affiliation that Jesus is All and in All things. Colossians 1:15-20.  We must, with others, explore ways to understand the creation-killing life style we are engaged in – and which leads to death for all – and try alternatives, so that we can prepare ourselves for Life Eternal.
Perhaps thinking about it, talking about it, trying to comprehend what we are doing and have done to God’s earth, and ask for forgiveness, is all we can do.

We, as children of love, must show that we love God and thus his creation, and love neighbors as we ought to love ourselves. Those are the great commandments. The rest all rest on that given. Only when we show our love, will we know Jesus and will Jesus acknowledge us. That requires unconventional actions, such as taking along extra oil, be prepared for all eventualities, going against all accepted wisdom.

In practical terms that may mean to limit traveling by car or plane, or more positively, grow your own food, build an energy-efficient house or install solar panels. It does imply that we must consciously prepare ourselves for a life of eternal permanence, to live as if we already are in the renewed creation.

THE CHURCH IN FLUX

Chapter 17

More on Job.

Earlier we saw how Job underwent a drastic conversion. The word conversion in the New Testament is metanoia, which really means that he had a change of mind, had a new paradigm to work with, a new model for life, a totally different view on God and his creation. Conversion is much more than claiming to be born again. Yes, it means that too, but then in a literal sense of not only thinking differently, but also living differently and acting differently. Suddenly a ‘born again’ Christian also become a Greenpeace supporter, and an environmentalist, and very concerned about poverty and discrimination.

That’s what happened to Job.  Basically he had changed from an ego-centered man to an eco-oriented creature. The word ‘eco’ also is a Greek word, indicating ‘oikos’ the world we live in, the ‘house’ of creation, God’s Kingdom. What Job really discovered was that to have the sole emphasis on ‘personal’ salvation was not enough: his life, our lives, have to have as focus the “Coming of the Kingdom.” That’s why Jesus told us something we seldom hear in church: “Seek first, foremost, before anything else, the welfare, the betterment of Creation, in line with John 3:16, which commands us to love the Cosmos as God loved the Cosmos.” That’s the sort of conversion Job underwent. That’s the sort of conversion we have to undergo, and the church as well.

Today the North American Church resembles Job’s three so-called friends, later joined by a fourth. They fanatically believe in the North American dogma that being rich, enjoying prosperity is a sign of God’s favor, and that all we have to do is abide by the books of Moses, and all will be well: obedience to the Law will get us there. Their reasoning was that, when we don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t sleep with another woman than your wife, then they will prosper, and poverty and sickness will be avoided, which, when they do occur, are a punishment for sin.  Throughout the book of Job these orthodox friends stubbornly stick to this party line, and are later soundly chastised for this line of thinking.

Before his suffering Job too had adhered to this conventional teaching which he too had held as the gospel truth. However, after his bout with unexpected mishaps, Job changed his mind: “No”, he defiantly tells God, “No, I have not sinned. No, God, you are making a grave mistake.”

In this way the book of Job eases us into the revolutionary prospect that we can argue with God against God, that this is our god-given duty. The book does this in both a beautifully written but also in a somewhat mysterious manner.
Not convinced? Suppose this book – and here I come to my second option – is interpreted allegorically, as a sort of parable? It is quite well possible, almost certain, that Job never lived, so why is this book in the Bible?
As I have argued in the previous chapter, the reason is that Job represents not only the people of Israel, but the entire world. There is no real Jewish connection evident in the book of Job at all. In other words, God is saying that Israel, as a nation, is no longer an exclusive people, but that everybody in the world is included in his plan for salvation.
That would be a drastic change. Thus the writer of the book of Job points to a new relationship between humans and God, one based not simply on obeying God’s laws as outlined in the books of Moses, the Torah, but much more on a living, all-inclusive lifestyle, expressing a deep appreciation for creation, and thus acting in such a manner that the care for creation is constantly considered.
Thus God wants all people, not only Jews, to be saved, a thought that met with a lot of denial and resistance in the pre-Christian church, so much so that 700 years later, when Jesus appeared on the scene, his disciples still had not fully absorbed these new emphases and still thought that he would make Israel a world power again.
I have already dealt with that Satan figure, how, in the New Testament Satan showed Jesus all the glories of the world, the Greek Parthenon, the splendor of Rome, the Inca institutions, the marvelous temples in Indonesia and Asia, and offered the entire world and its glories to Jesus, on the condition that Jesus bow down and worship the Satan, how this foreshadows the power of Satan today, as evident in the Holocaust, Rwanda, AIDS, and Global warming, just to name a few Satanic acts. That Satan is in charge today also explains why this book is not popular with the theologians: it is simply too controversial. Increasingly organized religion is in trouble. Where it still flourishes, it has become stagnant, judgmental and uncaring, condemning rather than exploring and adverse to any innovation.
When finally God speaks to Job, he opens Job’s mind to some radical new thinking. The book tells us that we are never able to rest on past achievements, that there simply is no retirement for us ever.
Already the word “the land of Uz” gives an indication of this new meaning. Dr David Wolfers, the author of Deep Things out of Darkness, a 550 page book dealing exclusively with Job, translates the word “Uz”, (the physical location where Job supposedly lived) as “the Land of Council.” He thinks that the book asks us to look at the Bible with a critical eye, to weigh its ideas carefully and consider them to see whether it expresses the right view. In other words, he recommends that churches, mosques and synagogues everywhere, meet to discuss, probe, investigate and discover what the gospel means for us in this millennium. No longer are matters clear-cut: we have changed, circumstances have changed, the world has changed.
And then there are the four friends. Dr Wolfers, himself a Jew who devoted 20 years of his life to the study of Job, thinks that they may stand for three or four ethnic minorities within the Jewish nation, with their different types of worship, all centering on a faulty view of God. Transposing the scene to the religious world-wide spectrum today I believe it could well be that the first three friends, in our time, represent the three major orthodox religions: Judaism, based on the Old Testament only, hierarchical Roman Catholicism- insisting on papal infallibility and male dominance- and Islam, later joined by the fourth in the form of conservative orthodox Protestantism, the so-called Christian Right, all based on the false doctrine of either good works or a stagnant view of God.
Although Job replies to the first three speakers, he wisely does not enter into dialogue with the orthodox Christian Right, which, he thinks correctly, is a waste of breath.

The most liberating element about the entire book of Job is that here is a human being who is not a good and patient and pious God-fearer, but a person who fights God with all the passion he can muster. The New Testament speaks of such a person as one who is blessed because he or she hungers and thirsts for righteousness and is willing to die for that ideal.
Job is suffering because God wants to teach Job something. God wants to teach Job that he must let go of some of the ideas he has about God, taught by previous generations, true for them in their time, perhaps, but not true for Job now.
Only when God had personally spoken to Job, only then did he understand for the first time in his life- and his suffering was the turning point- that God was different than he first had imagined. He expressed this when he said: “I have heard of you with my ears, but now my eyes have seen you.” Job’s idea of God was based on the oral traditions: what his ancestors had told him. But now something different is forming in his mind, some new thoughts and some new ideas. The eye of his mind is seeing a new God and also, looking inward, is seeing a new Job.
And what is it that Job starts to see?
Well here we come to the central point of the book, which makes it one of the most profound sources of contemporary spirituality. The accusing Angel believed that Job was only obedient to God because God had made him rich and prosperous, and so the Satan thinks that Job will curse God if his blessings are taken away. However, there the Satan miscalculated. True, Job was initially very much concerned about himself and his family. He figured that, because he was so rich and so blessed with possessions, he was the centre of the universe.
Job’s sin, the sin of Israel and our sin, is Anthropocentrism, the arrogant and deluded belief that the earth and the universe were designed for our benefit and control.

When God talks to Job He says: “Job, I’ve got a few questions for you. Where were you when I planned the earth? Tell me if you are so wise. Were you there when I stopped the waters as they issued gushing from the womb?”
For verse after verse the voice in the whirlwind rages on, outlining all the interdependent elements of creation- the winds, clouds, thunderstorms, the lightning, lions, antelopes, oxen, ostriches, horses, hawks, vultures, bulls, serpents. The voice lashes out at Job’s and our narrow self-centeredness, admonishing that he can never understand the complexity and the functioning of the planet and cosmos. “Have you been to the edge of the universe? Speak up, if you have such knowledge.” Such scolding is very applicable today when the Hubble spacecraft probes ever deeper into the universe and the pictures become ever more baffling, or when Mars is being explored and the questions multiply.
What we see here is the very opposite of a universe built for us to manipulate as we will. Instead of being given dominion over plants and animals, or a license to subdue creation, Job is told- and we with him- to bow down and be humble. He and we are required to understand absolute humility before the face of God and thus Job says in the end: “I have heard of you with my ears (heard the Torah, heard hundreds of sermons) but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I will be quiet, comforted that I am dust.”
The Hebrew word for ‘dust’ here is exactly the same word used in Genesis 2, out of which God fashioned Adam, whose name actually means ‘dust’. So the rebirth of Job is akin to becoming Adam. He is the prototype of the New Humanity. As a parable Job represents the New Adam, the New Humanity, fully at ease being human, being of the earth. Dust we are; ‘Adam’ we are and to dust, to ‘Adam’, the New Adam we shall return.
His ultimate surrender is not the sort of mindless obedience often required by orthodox religion. It is the kind of surrender that is “the whole-hearted giving of oneself,” a surrender to God’s creation, His Universe, arising from a humility that leads to wisdom instead of self-centered pride. Job is born again, converted from an ego-centered person to an eco-centered consciousness based on awe for God and His great creation. That is the basic message of the book of Job. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German Theologian killed by the Hitler crowd in April 1945, just before the end of World War II, says in Schoepfung und Fall (Creation and Fall): “God, brother and sister, and the earth belong together.” That is the real Trinity. We are not here to maximize personal consumption and to glorify individual greed, the basic message of the gods of our age. As citizens of the world we must, following Job’s message, progress from being ego-centered to becoming eco-centered.
We know what happened to Job. The story is well-known how he received double his capital as well as his family back.
Consider, especially the following – and I address this to all denominations, especially the Roman Catholic Church: the most curious detail in the epilogue is the mention of Job’s daughters. In his new world in which Job now lives and which is humanity’s future, these fair women are not inferior to the brothers and do not have to go to their brothers’ houses for the annual celebration. Indeed, they are given the same honor by receiving a share of Job’s wealth as their inheritance. Each is named, while the seven sons of Job remain anonymous. The names themselves- Dove, Cinnamon and Eye-shadow- symbolize peace, abundance and a specifically female kind of grace. The story’s centre of gravity has shifted from righteousness to beauty and the focus is now the manifestation of inner peace. Virgina, you with your mental problems, would have liked that! And something else:
“And in all the world there were no women as beautiful as Job’s daughters.” There is something enormously satisfying about the prominence of women at the end of Job. Here they are especially included. The lesson here is that Job, and in Job, all people, have learned to surrender not only their erroneous ideas about God but also their male compulsion to control. The daughters have almost the last word. I think that even though now women are still secondary in many cultures, especially in religious institutions, in the new world they will be more than equal. And in the entire world there were no women as beautiful as Job’s daughters. What this parable also tells us is that in the world to come there will be great appreciation for beauty, including female beauty.

The real message for the church here is that organized Religion has lost the Gospel of the Earth. No wonder it is stagnating and losing its youth. Those who want to find this ‘gospel of the earth’ need look no further than the Book of Job.

THE CHURCH IN FLUX

Chapter 16

We live in New Times, that’s why everything will change.

That’s a bold statement, isn’t it! We live in new times, the Last Days as I have indicated earlier. Therefore everything will change. And if we resist, then circumstances will force us, because, as 2 Peter 3:10 indicates: in the End “Everything will be laid bare,” which basically means that all the good things we did will be revealed – a rather tiny list I imagine – and all the booboos we committed – quite a long series I am sure – will also be made public, for all to see. No wonder the Bible Book Apocalypse translates as Revelation.

Something is already happening out there. The fact that I tackle the issues of the church and lay bare the unmistakable givens that the church, as an institute, must be drastically reformed to conform to the New Testament idea of church, and prepare itself for the Kingdom to come, is, in itself, an indication that we live in the Last days.

Of course, as had become plain in an earlier chapter, there are many signs to that effect, such as Global Warming, the desperate attempts to avert an Economic Crisis, and the undisputed power of The Evil One. The Lord has promised that before the End would come the Tidings of Great Joy will be made known everywhere in the world. That too is now happening, thanks to the World Wide Web, where every thinking person in the world can access everything else, including this writing, so that even these whispers will wind their way everywhere.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to tear down and a time to build” a quote from the well-known words in Ecclesiastes 3. Today we live in a  world where we must tear down everything that carbon-based living has made possible, because it has become the curse of everything, including the edifices, both in mega-churches and in commerce our predecessors have erected in the way of super-structures.

Actually there is one Bible book that contains, in essence, most of what I have written so far. No, it is not the last Bible book, that mysterious book of Revelation. It is found smack in the centre: the book of Job.

Here’s, in brief, how I view that book. I see Job representing the church in general, a pious man, god-fearing, devout. His possessions, his immense flocks, his many servants embody the world. Job was rich and prospered, as did the church today and its people: they thrived in the 20^th Century as never before, and multiplied as never before: more than tripling during that century.

Just as evil ruled during the last 100 years -disastrous wars, the Holocaust, Rwanda and Cambodia, with much more to come when Peak Oil bites, because Satan had free reign -so too did evil happen during the life and times of Job. When God shows Job the real picture – something we too are slow to grasp – then Job is converted from being ego-centered – personal salvation -to being eco-minded – seek first the Kingdom. The book concludes with the coming of the New Creation, when Job’s fortunes are restored. That’s the story in a nutshell. Here’s more detail.

For some reason Job is a favorite with poets and philosophers but not with preachers. Although I am neither, it’s also my bible book of choice. I don’t understand why so many people get turned off by God in this book. Perhaps it had something to do with his encounter with that mysterious figure called the Satan, who, out of the blue, appears in heaven and when God asks him, “what are you doing here?” says, “Oh, I was going out for a stroll, saw the door open and decided to say hello.” And then curiously, as if it were a common-day matter, the Lord says, somewhat flippantly may be, to the Satan, “Say, you get around. In your wanderings have you noticed Job out there in the land of Uz? I tell you, no better person anywhere in the whole world.”
“No wonder,” replies the Satan: “look, you have given him special protection and have favored him above everyone else. I bet you that if somebody were to ruin him financially and kill off his immediate family, he’ll curse you to the face.”
The Lord says, “Alright. It’s a deal. He is in your power. Don’t touch his body, though.”
And so it happens. Job loses everything and has no clue about the wager God made with the Accuser. Now, what is at play here?
I’ll offer two complementary options. Let me begin with the more literally explanation, the more conventional, and a look at Job’s religious background, the ruling philosophy of his day.
Job believed, with all people then and many today, that being rich in possessions was a sign of piety. And evidently the Satan is of that same opinion because he figures that, as soon as Job would lose his personal and material treasures, he would deny God.
However, even though Job is reduced to utter poverty, his faith remains steadfast, evident from his famous words: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Quite the statement, that. Just imagine that we, you, I, in one day, see our immediate family killed in a car accident, a drunken driver being the cause; then lightning strikes, our house burns up and we have forgotten to renew the insurance; next, due to a market crash, our portfolio is wiped out, our job disappears, and all we have left are the clothes on our body. What would our reaction be? Like Job? Not likely.
And that is only the beginning. Again a mysterious Satan visit. Again God gives him permission, this time to affect his health. So Job becomes an AIDS sufferer, quarantined, placed in isolation, somewhere in nowhere. There his wife approaches him and angrily shouts, “Do you still cling to your pious ways? They are no use to you now. Curse God, if he exists and then die like a man!” But Job remains unperturbed: “Shall we accept the good from associating with the God, and the evil not accept?” Job manly refutes her words, but the real agony starts when his close friends arrive.
Of course the big news about Job’s misfortune had spread rapidly through the land (imagine Bill Gates gone broke!), and three friends from far away heard it too and made ready to pay him a visit. Weeks must have passed for this to happen. They often had been Job’s guests at his lavish banquets where they had enjoyed vigorous but agreeable discussions ranging far a-field. When they see Job in the distance, sitting on a small hill, they stop, sit down and look at him for 7 days and 7 nights, without saying a single word.
Job too remains quiet, even though his mind is in overdrive. Somehow their body language reveals to him their thinking before they even utter one word. And as they sit there and he sits there, he gets madder and madder, because he is utterly at a loss. Job tries to fathom why he is suffering so much. Somehow he could bear it as long as nobody sees him. But now he has become a public spectacle. Continuously his mind revolves around the basic question: “God is doing this to me. No, God can’t do this to me. Yes, it is God. No, it isn’t.” He is going crazy. His mind, already weakened by his sickness, cannot think straight anymore.
Of one thing he is sure: he already knows what these three are going to tell him. A long time ago – at least it seemed a long time ago – when they talked, often till deep in the night, they agreed, God’s favor is reflected in a multitude of offspring and material blessings. And, of course, the opposite is true as well: personal calamity spells sin: the greater the punishment, the more serious the crime against God.
Then he had thought like them. Not anymore. What is happening to him has not happened because he has sinned. No. No. With all his power in his weakened body he now denies this theory. And yet, he still does not know the alternative, he just can’t grasp why God is treating him this way.
As his friends sit there for what seemed like an eternity, silently and disapprovingly staring at him, it dawns on Job that they are his friends no longer, because people who do not understand your deep-seated anguish, are friends no more.
Suddenly his mind snaps, his patience gone. Who ever said that Job was long-suffering, had it all wrong. He burst out in a fit of total anger: anger at himself, anger at his own uncertainty, anger at his friends for their cold orthodoxy, their Calvinistic certainty, anger at God for whatever. And he burst out: “God curse the day I was born and the night that forced me from the womb”
The entire third chapter is one long condemnation. Job: “Why couldn’t I have died as they pulled me out of the dark. Now I would be at rest, I would be sound asleep.”
His outburst opens a flood of words. First Eliphaz. Not a word of pity. Only more hammer blows: “These words will perhaps upset you” so he starts optimistically. “Once you brought relief to the comfortless, but now, when disaster comes to you, you rebel. Tell me, whoever perished, being innocent?”
That’s how the first friend starts: pious words; cruel words; conventional words. This fellow knows exactly what God thinks or does.
But Job does not buy his line. No longer. In Chapter 7 he challenges God and demands an impartial judgment. Job knows that in his particular case, even though God has caused him all this misery, only God can be the true judge. So it is no wonder that Job screams at God, “Why have you made me your target? How come that I am in this miserable condition?” Here Job plays an dangerous game. He thinks, correctly in my opinion, that he can honor God only through fighting with God. That’s a new angle: Praise God through battling with him. Arguing with God about what has happened to us. Not just meekly say: “OK God, I take what you give me.” No, Job is different.
And then comes the next speaker: Bildad: Of the same stripe as Eliphaz, only more so, and even less honorable. He makes a snotty remark how Job’s kids were spoiled brats. Says he “Your children must have been evil: he punished them for their crimes.” In his further remarks he shows that he actually is afraid that whatever happened to Job might happen to him as well. His insecurity is best portrayed by his vision of God. He tells Job: “listen, this is what God wants, because God never betrays the innocent.” To Bildad too God is an open book: for him no reserve, no real fear of the hidden God.

To Job God is a mystery. God is THE mystery. That is His essence. After all, a god we can understand is no god. A crucial point of the book of Job is the relationship between God’s revelation on the one hand and God’s hidden-ness on the other. The paradox both Christians and agnostics face, is how God can reveal Himself when He is hidden, when He is the Totally Incomprehensible One, Mystery Incorporated. Job, before his ordeal, had a clear picture of God: if he behaved properly, God would bless him. It was just that simple. An article in TIME on the Mormons said unashamedly that “material achievement in the USA remains the earthly manifestation of virtue.” That’s why we will have a depression, probably worse than The Great Depression.

To Job that idea of prosperity being a sign of God’s blessing, has been shattered. His earlier notions about God have been found wanting. With Bildad and his companions, their concepts about God have become their god. For them there are no divine secrets and no sudden surprises, no mysteries. They know exactly what God has in mind for Job and so their awe for God has disappeared and their so-called piety has become a form of godlessness.
We see this phenomenon a lot in orthodox religion, where the law is more important than love. The friends are the typical, judgmental orthodox believers, be they Christians, Muslims or Jews who sense exactly why Job is in this state: it is God’s punishment. Period. True, when Job was rich and healthy, his friends valued his opinion, but not anymore. Now something has changed and it is not they. It’s Job. His suffering has made him a different person. Now the God Job relies on is a totally different God. Who is right? Job honoring a mysterious, unknowable God or his companions who revere a God about whom they know everything?

Eliphaz bluntly tells Job in Chapter 15: “Job, you are undermining religion and crippling faith in God.” Buddy Bildad dooms him to hell in Chapter 18: “Brimstone will be strewn on your household.” But Job stubbornly clings to his faith when he says in Chapter 19:25: “I know that my Redeemer is alive and that in the end He will stand upon the earth. He will plead for me in God’s court; he would stand up and vindicate my name.”
Those are truly amazing words. Unbelievable what suffering can do to people: it can totally change them. The Satan had not counted on this sort of conversion, a conversion brought about by the suffering God inflicted upon Job. He had figured that Job’s theology would be stagnant, a theology teaching that religion never is for nothing.

I once heard a radio preacher say that the road to prosperity is simple: “start everyday with prayer, go to church, tithe, of course give to his radio or television program and read the bible.”
The Satan wanted to score a fast one with God, and prove once and for all that Job would deny God as soon as he had become a welfare bum. But he failed in Job, because this sort of tit for tat is the theology of the devil.
Job’s story tells us that there are no immediate rewards to religion and by this I don’t mean that being religious does not benefit people now. It does. Religion, any living and evolving religion, gives people in general, a moral focus, stability, security and a purpose in life.
Suffering teaches us wisdom. Faith finds expression in wisdom and in Chapter 28 we see the continuation of Job’s conversion, because conversion is always a slow process, just as acquiring wisdom is. Here Job confesses his basic ignorance. He, who once was a very rich man, now confesses that being well-off can hinder the development of wisdom, something we, prosperous Westerners, forget at our peril. In his suffering Job’s conclusion is wonderful: “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to shun evil, that is understanding!”
After all these torrents of words, silence. “What next?” these former friends wonder.
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of a whirlwind. God Himself answers Job personally. The Hidden One remains hidden, but not completely. God addresses Himself to the one person who has asked constantly “Why”. The other four men knew the answers, gave the pious platitudes, were comfortable, and avoided the touchy issues. Job, who had suffered, and wondered why, to him God directed himself.
The curious thing about the Lord’s sayings is that they all come as questions. “Where were you when I founded the earth? Who determined its measurements – if you know? Do you know the seasons of the mountain-goats? Have you marked the calving of the deer? “Do you give the horse its strength” Do you cloth his neck with thunder? Do you understand the sea and can you grasp from where all these waters come and what purpose they serve? Have the portals of Death been rolled back for you?” No wonder John 3:16 is the key passage in the Bible, showing God’s love for his creation, his Kingdom.
Now it dawns on Job that his suffering, which he had made the central point of the universe, is nothing compared to God’s greatness, to his over-arching wisdom. While God hurls these questions at Job, a strange peace descends on him. He starts to realize that part of the secret of salvation is that God does things just for the sake of doing things. He now starts to see that all of life is a miracle which needs neither a reason nor a cause but no other ground than God’s creative act, no other purpose than His own glorification, in which salvation is included.
His suffering has sharpened his thinking and he discovers to his amazement that in and above all other useful, moral, beautiful goals, rises the one great given that God be known, be lived, be confessed, and believed as the only Godly being. His Essence is nothing else but to live and to give life.
God’s aim for humans is to have all people participate in His fullness. We, humans, are not the only focal point. We are not the totality of creation, although we often think so. John 3:16 explicitly says: God so loved the world, the cosmos that He sent His son. In the world we ask for reasons, but when ask for a reason for the world there is only one answer: the answer is that the pivot of life is God and God alone, and the Kingdom He has created, whose welfare must be the goal of all Christians. We may think that we are powerful with our tools and brains. We are not. Writes one of the greatest brains in science, John Wheeler of Princeton in The End of Science, “As the tiny island of our knowledge grows, so does the great shore of our ignorance.” We, at the height of our scientific powers, are discovering that the more we know, the more we discover we don’t know. The real Answer, the key to the Universe is now as elusive as ever and more and more scientists are admitting that. What God wants Job to understand is that God is infinite in His creative powers, infinite in the beauty of creation, infinite in the design of His work of Art. God wants Job to marvel at His ingenuity. He wants Job to be astounded by the revival of nature in the spring, by the multitude of flowers which adorn the landscape, by the erratic flight of the swallows, the steaming heat of the summer, the almost plaintive sounds of autumn, the stark dignity of the winter landscape. He wants Job to affirm that his first duty in life is the enjoy God forever, and this pleasant duty starts with marveling at his creation.
When God is finished, all Job can do is to exclaim in utter surrender in Chapter 40: “How can I reply to you? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I cannot answer; even twice, but I can no more.” His conversion is affirmed when he confesses in chapter 42:
“I know you can do all things and nothing you wish is impossible.
Who is this whose ignorant words cover my designs with darkness?
I have spoken of the unspeakable and tried to grasp the infinite.
Listen and I will speak. I will question you: please, instruct me.
I heard of you with my ears; but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I will be quiet, comforted that I am dust.”
Job did not find a solution for his questions, but he did find deliverance from his questions. Job never saw God but his new-found comfort was that God saw him, because Job came to Him with questions: “Why did you do this, Lord? Why did that happen to me, Lord?”
The meaning of the book of Job is not that Job could solve the problem of his suffering in his life or that we can solve the pain and injustice in our lives. One of the basic truths of the book of Job – and also the thrust of this book – is that we must not take generally accepted truths for granted but that the most commonly accepted ideas about God and creation have to be probed and questioned without ceasing.

We never arrive; we never can say: we know enough. As long as we live we have to keep up our search for Truth, and we joyfully must accept this: semper reformanda, always keep on reforming! Especially now as we live in new times: that’s why everything must change. More about that in the next chapter, which continues the Job saga.

THE CHURCH IN FLUX

Chapter 15

How about these offices, are they scriptural?

Question: the office of a minister of the church, the man or woman who brings the sermon each Sunday, and the office of the elder, does the New Testament sees these as two distinct offices, or are they identical?

Answer: the New Testament sees them as one and the same.

Here’s why: it’s well-known that the New Testament uses two different words to indicate the office of elder: episcopos (bishop, supervisor) and presbyteros (elder). The different names have even given birth to two distinctly different denominations: the Episcopalian Church in the USA and the Presbyterian Church allover the English speaking world. Nevertheless both episcopos and presbyteros indicate the same office: in the New Testament there is no difference between the two, they mean exactly the same thing.

So why then are there two classes of officials in the church: (1) ministers of the gospel, people who themselves have chosen this route, and are licensed to speak – ordained it is called – and may do all sorts of things, and (2) elected elders who are not allowed to do much?  

Blame it on human ambition. Somewhere, many centuries ago, there was an aspiring elder, probably a man with great oratorical gifts, who called himself – only men in those days – an ‘episcopos’ as if that were a more privileged designation, while his colleagues were stuck with the ‘presbyteros’ designation, which suddenly became a rank of less value.

In time the episcopos person became the headmaster, the leader, the man who spoke on behalf of the local group, and was given the tasks to baptize, to administer communion, to speak at important occasions, and, when churches were established elsewhere, he was chosen to be in charge of other congregations as well, and so the office of ‘bishop’ was born, and soon afterward a man was elevated to be ‘papa’ or later ‘Holy Father’ – just imagine! – indicating the head of the human institution.

We also know that, once a situation in the church is established, it soon becomes ‘tradition’ and it takes an act of God – or whatever – to change this. So far this has not happened.

Hans Kueng in his 650 page book on The Church writes that presbyters or elders are men who have to safeguard apostolic tradition against false doctrine and to lead the communities. Hans Kueng is highly regarded for his theological knowledge and insights not only among Catholics but by theologians of all religious persuasions. Born in 1928 in Switzerland, he studied in Rome, and at the Sorbonne. He has a Doctorate in the theology and has been professor of Dogmatic and Ecumenical Theology at the University of Tuebingen, Germany until the Pope said: “Enough criticism from this professor”, and suspended his license to teach.

When we compare the New Testament references to preachers and elders then the conclusion is inevitable that frequently the same words are used to indicate both categories.

In my Greek New Testament there are a lot of instances where the word ‘elder’ is used. 1 Peter 5 starts with this verse: “The Presbyters who are among you, I as a fellow presbyter, exhort you…” Here the Apostle Peter calls himself an ‘elder’ and uses the same annotation for his fellow elders. How the Roman Catholic church managed to make this ‘elder’ the head of the church, is, of course, based on Jesus’ saying when he said that “On this rock ( Peter means rock) I will build my church.”

Paul, addressing the flock in Ephesus, when he is about to leave for the last time, calls the elders there ‘overseers’ or ‘episkopoi’, a designation Paul also uses in Titus 1:7. The apostle John always uses presbyter to refer to himself, as is evident in 2 John 1 and 3 John 1. When comparing such passages as 2 Timothy 4:2 and Titus 2:7 with such texts as Acts 20:28, 1 Peter 5: 2 and 1 Timothy 3:2, then both presbyter and episkopos are used to describe the same situation, which leads me to conclude that the job description of elders and preachers run parallel and that their duties are identical.

In other words, the New Testament sees no difference between the office of preacher and that of elder. For example in 1 Timothy 5:17 – “The elders who direct the affairs of the church, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching”, the word ‘presbyter’ is used. The curious part is that the office of presbyter does not indicate an independent office, but, as in most of life, is dependent on the person’s talents. Paul often mentions this when he points out that, just as there is a variety of gifts, so is their a wide range of elders: the one elder has greater ability for a certain aspect of his or her task than another, and it makes eminent sense, also biblical sense, to take these into account. On this matter Dr Kueng remarks that ‘preaching was largely determined by the charismatic structure of the church’. In other words, those who had the gifts used them. He also writes that “the idea of ordination was presumably taken over from Judaism at more or less the same time as the idea of elders.” So again, as on so many occasions, the church simply took over Old Testament customs, so unlike Jesus and Paul who completely broke with these ingrained Jewish traditions.

It makes good sense – and good sense is often equated with wisdom – to use the talents present in a certain community. When a certain person, whether elder or not,  has the time and the gift to preach, then he or she should be used in that way. This already was the case in the synagogues which Paul and Barnabas often attended as a start on their mission work in a certain locality. There all those who could offer a word of encouragement, were allowed to speak. Both women and children were allowed to read the laws and the prophets there. Acts 13:15 makes clear that Jews who came from abroad, were given the opportunity to address the assembly. That same was true, as related in 1 Corinthians 14:26, where it clearly says that “when you come together everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction.”

It is also striking that the New Testament baptism and Communion services are not at all connected to a defined category of official functions, not even to office bearers in particular. We know that in the Old Testament a head of household circumcised his own sons and personally killed the Easter-lamb and always presided ever the Easter-meal, so it is not surprising that this practice continued in the New Testament. Actually what is surprising is that the continuation of these religious acts, now in the form of baptism and communion, remain the exclusive domain of ordained ministers, which basically means that un-scriptural clericalism is to blame.     

I can also point out that the New Testament knows no such matters as presbyteries – a gathering of regional ministers and elders – or classes in the Christian Reformed Church, a meeting of the same nature. Especially such matters as Synods or General Assemblies are totally foreign to the first church.  The real disadvantage of these large gatherings, with official minutes published in large volumes, is, that if new initiatives are introduced, not exactly in accordance with certain previously taken decisions, then these efforts usually have not much chance to succeed or even to come to the floor: there always are ‘experts in church law’ present at these ecclesiastical forums who know the precedence which often means the death for new ventures.

The curious thing about the church in general is that officials often lack the conviction that Christ will look after his own. People, also the clergy, crave for rules so that they can control the situation. The result has been that the church has erected a superstructure that exceeds all outlines the New Testament provides; there always seems to be the fear that congregations cannot manage on their own and will be overwhelmed by the events of the time unless they were assisted by an ecclesiastical edifice of human origin. All these anxieties essentially display a lack of faith in Christ and His Word, as if He would leave the church in the lurch and will not provide sufficient guarantees to safeguard his people.

In The Spontaneous expansion of the church and the causes which hinder it, R. Allen, the author, in essence writes that, if the continuity of the work in the church depends on organization, then it is plain that it is somehow different than bringing the message of Life. Human organization is necessary to make human endeavor possible. But Christ is concerned with Life itself. If the work of the church is to bring the message of Life, if it consists of bringing to people the knowledge of Christ who is Life and who gives Life, then this work cannot depend on a source that is devoid of Life. This just won’t work, because they promote a form of organization, either be design or by accident which implies that belief in human structures can take the place of Christ.

Of course, I am not against organization. In order to get matters done, some sort of coordination is needed, because, without some sort of plan in place, nothing much gets accomplished. However, in the church these actions must be either ad hoc, for the moment only, or so flexible that freedom remains assured to prevent that inflexible structures, empowered with ecclesiastical authority, obtain their own independence apart from the Word of God.

In short: churches must not be subjected to organizational systems that exceed New Testament outlines, because, once on place, they tend to stay in place for centuries.

How then shall we live to prepare ourselves for the Kingdom to Come, which is THE central question the church faces today?

In the next series of chapters I will elaborate on this in more detail, by using examples from both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

THE CHURCH IN FLUX

Chapter 14

How biblical is the church as an institution today?

In this chapter I am continuing my analysis of today’s church organization, and will cite references to both the Old Testament and New Testament.

While I was writing this my mind went to Moses and how he, upon advice of Jethro, his father-in-law, who saw how stressed out his son-in-law was, put a decentralized governing structure in place, as recorded in Exodus 18, basically following the army model with officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. However that situation, involving millions of people traveling in desert conditions, exposed to all sorts of pressures, cannot be compared to the church today, which is localized, and more a neighborly matter than a complete nation on the march. We may sing that “Like a mighty army moves the church of God… we are not divided, all one body we…with the cross of Jesus going on before”, but that, in this day and age does not describe the church.

Jesus never liked mass meetings, avoided the cities, and preferred the country-side, even though, at times, he addressed some large gatherings.

Jesus knew that there’s no salvation in numbers. The opposite may be true. Jesus once wondered whether he, upon his return, would find faith on earth. He also said that ‘many are called, but few are chosen,’ again pointing to the relative small group of elect. I know that sounds rather elitist, so, perhaps, I am incorrect here. Nevertheless, it’s easy to hide in a large church, where spiritual immaturity may remain undetected.

So how biblical is the church as an institute today? Is it true that only the clergy may administer the sacraments?

1 Peter 2:9 is the well-known text which gives ‘power to the people.’ There is says that they are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that they may proclaim the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his wonderful light.” That really means that all believers are priests, all those who follow Christ are office-bearers. Martin Luther, the leader of the Reformation, comments on this text when he writes that “all those who know themselves to be Christian, maybe assured that they are priests,” which means that they have the authority to administer the Word and the sacraments. He also writes that “Freedom is essential for the Christian character of the church.” He continues, “At the same time (in the Roman Catholic Church) all perspective in Christian grace, in its freedom, in the faith and in everything we possess in Christ, has disappeared, and instead we have acquired human institutions and human endeavors, and so we have become subservient to the most incapable people on earth.”

As you can see Luther was not a man known for understating his case. It should be remembered that this was right after his renunciation of the Roman Catholic Church and at the very infancy of the Protestant Reformation. In a sermon shortly after that he said “Most Esteemed Pope, I hereby declare that whoever has faith is a spiritual being and judges all things and is not judged by anyone else. And if there were a simple miller’s daughter, even a child of 9 years old that has faith and acted according to the Good News, then the Pope is bound to listen to her and submit himself to her if he were a true Christian. And all universities and scholars are bound to do the same.”

It is well for us to take these words to heart, because, slowly but surely, we have reached the same state of affairs against which Luther agitated so fiercely. Does that mean that a new Reformation is needed? Of course, for the simple reason that the church must always be reforming – semper reformanda – and has failed to do so.

For one thing, the present structure has impeded the formation of Christians coming to spiritual maturity, has prevented persons to acquire a well-thought-out vision on matters spiritual, and consequently have failed to foster a distinctive Christian life style. The author of the letter to the Hebrews (6:12-13) already complained then that, “In fact though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food. Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching of righteousness”. More about what ‘righteousness’ really means for today, in the concluding chapter. Paul makes the same point in 1 Corinthians 3:2.

Nothing really has changed in those 2000 years. Then it could be blamed on illiteracy and limited access to the Scriptures. Today I put the blame directly on the professional word proclaimers, who are failing to act as coaches, failed to make them selves superfluous. The actual fault lies squarely with the ecclesiastical structures that force officials to be compromisers, hemmed in as they are by organizational boundaries and out-dated confessions.

The simple reason for the baby-state of churchgoers is that church officers are ignoring the fact that all believers are members of a Royal Priesthood, a Holy nation, a chosen people, a people belonging to God. The result is that the term ‘frozen chosen’ applies especially to the Christian Reformed and Presbyterian Churches.

Another German theologian, P.Beyerhaus, in his German book – and I translate the title – “The independence of the young churches as a problem for missionaries,” writes that ‘In the book of Acts it is clearly shown that in the early Christian church baptisms were administered and local churches were established without the help of the apostles.” This sort of scriptural maturity, however, has been suppressed in the later churches of the Reformation thank to a rising clericalism. It is not a coincidence that the word ‘lay’ as an indication of a church member without an office, is so often used, in contrast with the clergy who have their own exclusive prerogatives.

What I intend to show is that the contemporary church development has been stymied by this development and has made the church often a sterile and life-less institution.

As stated earlier, Christ did not see it as important to leave behind an organizational model for the church. The result was that the churches of the New Testament were exposed to all sorts of influences, which the leaders conceived as a danger, forgetting the fact that Jesus is the head of the church, which means that He will always provide the necessary protection. Samuel comes to mind. When the people of Israel clamored for a king, God told him – 1 Samuel 8 – “it is not you they have rejected but me as their king.” I see a similar situation here: by instituting popes and archbishops and church officials who alone may explain the Bible, they, in essence, have committed the same sin as the people of Israel who, like their neighbors, wanted a king to rule over them, shifting the responsibility from their own shoulders to a higher authority.

So, in violence of the spirit of scripture, the church fathers created a formal organization, which basically remains unchanged until this day. There the professional preachers call the tune, and the flock, the sheep of their pasture, is as mute as those wooly creatures, giving a bleat occasionally, but never rising to greater influence.

Both in the Christian Reformed Church and the Presbyterian Church we have elders. In the Presbyterian Church ministers are called preaching elders, while elected (for life) lay-elders are called ruling elders, with little or no power to rule, as ministers are not members of the congregation they serve and cannot be called to account, nor are elders allowed to chair the meetings of the church councils.

Basically the same system is in force in the Christian Reformed Church. This division of labor may be in agreement with the church order, but the New Testament doesn’t recognize this distinction. In  these two denominations both are called ‘elders’, but in reality it is the minister – often called ‘pastor’ or ‘shepherd’, perhaps to emphasize the sheepish character of their charge – who is the man or woman with the clout. Only he, or now more frequently she, may administer baptism and communion and have the license to marry.

You can read more about the New Testament understanding of ‘elder’ in the next chapter.

THE CHURCH IN FLUX

Chapter 13

Today’s Church and the New Testament.

I once went, on a Saturday of course, to a service at the Messianic Synagogue in Beverly Hills, a few doors away from the hotel where we were staying.  Even though the sermon was from the New Testament, all the trappings were based on traditional Jewish practices, such as wearing a yarmulke, the carrying of the Torah throughout the premises, as well as the presence of a cantor, who sang both in Hebrew and English; all in all an impressive ceremony.

Just as in Jewish traditions the books of Moses occupy a prominent place, so in the Christian church the entire Bible – both the Old and the New Testament – is central to its teaching. This means that, while Judaic worship is founded on the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the organization and offices of the Christian church are, supposedly, all based on the New Testament. However, there is a big difference: where, in the Mosaic laws, we can find precise descriptions on how to celebrate the Jewish religious feasts, including the Sabbath, the New Testament features very little about the church’s organizational structure. What is remarkable is that, in the church whose start was recorded in Acts 2, and which grew quite rapidly, thanks to the Apostle Paul, a radical break was made with all former religious customs, although not without considerable friction. They were so drastic that even the day of worship was changed from Saturday, the Sabbath, to Sunday, the first day of the week, celebrating Christ’s resurrection. Another fundamental changes were baptism rather than circumcision and the added new feature of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, with the specific stipulation to celebrate this as a reminder of Jesus’ death and his coming again.

The tearing of the curtain in the Jerusalem temple when Jesus died on the cross was also symbolic of the change in emphasis from temple worship to freedom of location, already foretold by Jesus when he, in his unorthodox conversation with a Samaritan woman, as recorded in John 4, told her that true worship was to take place in spirit and truth, and was not bound to a specific place or building. Jesus here already hinted at the ‘truth’ being that God’s love is evident everywhere in His world and His spirit pervades all things.

Jesus himself had no use for the regulations the church leaders at his time had instigated. In the eyes of the ecclesiastical establishment he was a great sinner because he did not keep the rules they had made about the Sabbath celebration and daily life. His flouting of the temple statutes was one factor in him being condemned to death.

The apostle Paul was the most radical of all apostles in abolishing Old Testament directives, emphasizing that ‘love’ was the only condition. In Romans 13 he writes that “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for they who love their fellow creatures have fulfilled the law.”

When I read these words, then my attention is always drawn to environmental issues: how can we love our neighbors when we pollute the air and the water on which their health depend? One of the laws of ecology is that “everything is connected to everything else,” and that includes the love we have for each other and for ourselves. Another ecological law is that “there is no free lunch.” If we neglect to love our neighbor, if we neglect to love God’s creation, the bill for our misconduct is in the mail, and we will experience the consequences in our own life and in that of our children.

Just as we take for granted that the way we live today is ‘normal’, is in accordance to God’s will – and I believe that nothing is further from the Truth – so we assume that the specific church structures and organizations we have are God-given or prescribed in the New Testament. Here too nothing is further from the Truth. No wonder that, as we saw in the previous chapter, there are some grave misgivings about the church which we must take seriously.

We seldom question these regulations – mostly man-made I should add. My experience in the church is that, although very liberal opinions are never questioned and the word  ‘heresy’ is no longer heard in the church, when the rules of the Church Order are challenged, all hell breaks loose.

One of the cardinal commandments of Christian conduct is to follow Jesus. I believe we have to also follow him in organizational life. Jesus, for some reason, did not think it wise to create an organized church structure, nor are there any written statements from him. The only record we have that he could write is, when confronted with the question whether he should condemn a woman caught in the act of adultery, he wrote something in the sand. What that was is not recorded.

Although thousands followed him to see him cure diseases, only 120 were present at his Ascension. Yet churches are impressed with numbers: mega churches where ten of thousands attend are all the rage now, even though Jesus de-emphasized numbers, saying that ‘where two or three are gathered in My name, there I will be also’. Yet, at Pentecost, as related in Acts 2, thousands were attracted to the New Way, with the result that, when the New Testament churches grew, they lacked a roof to stay under.

Being constantly open to the heavens was seen as impractical, so the pragmatic leaders of the ancient church shaped a dome over its walls, a dome of which the Saint Peter’s church in Rome is an excellent example. In reality the dome replaced the Dome of Heaven, with frescoes showing supposedly celestial scenes. Once such a structure or similar coverings were in place, the church basically retained its walled-in format.

The early church was instituted during the time of the Roman Empire. Christian people then, as they are now, were born organizers, necessary, of course, when something was growing rapidly. All around them these early Christ- followers witnessed how well run the Roman Empire was and so, guess what? They used that example to fashion the church organization, built it on the same principles: the emperor become the pope, the senators became the archbishops, the bishops took the place of generals, and the priests became the officer class. And, logically, once a hierarchy was in place, the striving for power and authority influenced the development of the Christian church as well.

There are more similarities. The Pope, when speaking Ex Cathedra, became infallible in his pronouncements, just as the Roman Emperor had divine attributes. To give the church a high degree of holiness, the church itself was equated with the Kingdom of God.

After the Reformation both the Anglican and the Lutheran churches retained a power structure in which the king or the hereditary ruler was the titular head, which, in reality, meant that these national denominations not only occupied a monopoly at the expense of other religious organizations, but also robbed them of their freedom, because the secular heads the church could manipulate them for his own political aspirations.

In the Netherlands and Scotland the ecclesiastical organizations were not nearly as closely tied to the state as was the case in Lutheran countries such as Germany and Sweden, yet in the 17^th Century the State nevertheless had an enormous influence there as well. In a sense Christ’s words that in the world his followers would be persecuted, were replaced by something rather opposite: in the world you will have a monopoly, of which Russia also is a good example. Also the structure of the Reformed churches resembled the way the state itself was organized, be it not nearly as strict as the Roman Catholic Church. It’s not surprising that, where the State structure changed with the times, the way the church was fashioned remained constant.

What is equally striking is that especially the Roman Catholic and the Anglican churches resembled more and more the Old Testament structure which had a High Priest – Pope or Archbishop – and a large priestly class with elaborate robes and other religious paraphernalia so reminiscent of Old Testament prescriptions. None of these regulations have any basis in the New Testament. Actually Christ always emphasized the ‘freedom’ aspect which he so liberally showed in his own life.

So how biblical is the current church structure? Are the offices to which we attach so much importance really in accordance with New Testament writings?

More about that in the next chapter.