Pretty clear, right? Well, no. There’s much more that we weren’t told.

We read in the text that God has some serious issues with these two cities. In Genesis 18:20, we’re told that a great outcry has reached God from these cities, and that God decides to investigate. What, exactly, is Sodom’s and Gomorrah’s “grave sin?” God sends some angels in the form of men to visit the city to “test the waters” if you will. Lot, Abraham’s nephew, invites the visiting angels into his home and entertains them. Later, the men of the city demand that Lot give up the visitors so that these men can brutalize and rape them. And the rest is history.

Simple, right? Well, not really. There are much deeper layers to this little story that need to be uncovered before we can begin to understand the exact nature of Sodom’s and Gomorrah’s sin, and many of these details can be uncovered when we consider how the Jewish mind understood Sodom and Gomorrah. To do that, we need to check out some other mentions of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical literature.

First, consider Ezekiel 16:49: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” What? No mention of homosexuality? That’s a little strange, considering how we understand “sodomy.” It seems the real problems have to do with excess wealth and an ungenerous attitude toward the poor.

Consider, also, Josephus’ explanation of Sodom and Gomorrah. To Josephus, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah “pride themselves on their power and wealth, they brutalize outside people, and are ungodly.”* Hmm… Again, nothing about homosexuality. The focus seems to be on the cities’ excess wealth and treatment of outsiders and visitors.

Philo had a similar concept of Sodom and Gomorrah. He painted the city as rich and materialistic to the point that the inhabitants became greedy and violent.*

In Targum Psuedo-Jonathan, a story is told of a young girl named Peletit who took bread to a poor starving man. When the people of Sodom and Gomorrah realized what she had done, they seized her, covered her with honey, and hung her on the wall of the city to be devoured by bees. Some consider the cries of Peletit while she hung on the wall to be the very cries that rose to God inciting God to act against Sodom and Gomorrah*

These accounts of Sodom and Gomorrah are important to note. First, there is very little to no evidence outside of the Hebrew Bible or Hebrew literature of the existence of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. So what we know about Sodom and Gomorrah, we have to find from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical literature from the Hebrew tradition. We have to learn what these writers thought of Sodom and Gomorrah before we can understand the nature of their sin. Second, Sodom and Gomorrah are used regularly throughout both the Hebrew Bible and the NT as an example of an adulterous city that turned from God. Often, the comparison is made between something that Israel has done with the ways of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Israel doesn’t come out looking very pretty. Finally, we cannot properly understand the importance of hospitality and inclusion of visitors/aliens to the ancient Hebrew mind. It’s not part of our culture, so it’s very hard for us to think such a thing would be so grievous. But this is no reason to discredit an interpretation of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah that focuses on the cities’ inhospitality and treatment of visitors. If we do decide to discredit such and interpretation, we are illegitimately imposing our own cultural understandings on a text instead of letting the text’s own culture and setting dictate translation. This is nothing short of twisting scripture to fit our own cultural mind. It shouldn’t be done.

And this is exactly where we’ve gone wrong in the past. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is not homosexual orientation. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is their complete lack of pity for the poor, the sick, the visitor, or those whom society deems unworthy. Beyond this, their sin was not just a sin of omission (not caring for the poor); their sin went much further. They tortured the poor and persecuted anyone who tried to be hospitable. Lot shows hospitality to visitors, and the men of the city are enraged! Their desire to rape these men is not because of sexual orientation or lust. Their desire is to show their dominance over these visitors and to shame Lot. Rape is often understood not as an act of sexuality but as an act of power and domination. Yes, it is connected to sex in some way, but rape is primarily a way to express power and dominance. Consider what brutal armies would do to their conquered foe – they would rape and kill them. It was a way to humiliate their enemies and show their superiority. It wasn’t because they were horny.

Think about what these messengers from God came to do: They wanted to spend the night in the city square, and they fought Lot when he showed the hospitality. God wanted to see what would happen to the messengers. Just exactly how bad would they be treated? If they entered the city as visitors and made their status clear by spending the night in the square, what would happen to them? This was God’s test – would the people of Sodom and Gomorrah show love and compassion and care for the visitors, or would they brutalize them and treat them as if they were worthless?

So what is the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? They were rich, content, and selfish. They abused the poor and mistreated the alien. They refused to include those who were outside of their cultural circle. To express their dominance over visitors, they raped and killed them.

So, then, what is sodomy? In my opinion, sodomy is not male homosexual sex, but the refusal to include others and show love to the less fortunate among us. How ironic that many of us practice this kind of sodomy on a regular basis. Some of us even pride ourselves on how exclusive and uncaring we can be toward those we deem “sinful.” It’s sad, really.

My main point here is this: Genesis 19 and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is not God’s vengeance on homosexuality. It’s God’s vengeance on people who refuse to show love and compassion. God is not punishing men who love other men or women who love other women. God is punishing those who love no one but themselves.

Next, we’ll talk about Leviticus.

I realize my position is not popular, and that, for a couple hundred years, Christians have assumed that the Bible speaks strongly against the homosexual lifestyle. And this assumption has been sold well by the Church. Find anyone you know and ask him or her what the Bible says about homosexuality. The almost unanimous answer you will get is that the Bible is against it. Most people can’t tell you where it’s written in the Bible, but they know it’s in there somewhere. This is probably one of the Church’s best marketed talking points: The Bible says homosexuality is wrong.

But when you take a minute to consider where this idea comes from, you learn that there are about 6 verses in the Bible that mention something close to what we would consider homosexuality. In the spirit of full disclosure, let me say this: I believe the Bible really has very little to say about what we understand as homosexuality in today’s culture, and that the more recent interpretation of scripture that labels homosexuality as a sin does not stand up to proper biblical exegesis. Bottom line – we got it wrong. We misinterpreted scripture, and many people have had to suffer as a result of our irresponsible interpretive practices.

I’d like to take a few blogs to talk about each one, and with the next blog in particular, I’ll address the first: Genesis 19 and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. My goal with this is to show you that the Bible really doesn’t have very clear teaching against homosexuality. If anything, I want you to walk away from this with an understanding of how complex this issue really is, and that simply saying “The Bible says homosexuality is wrong,” is just not quite fair.

Let’s get going!

Let me back up a little by giving you a quick (and probably lacking) overview of Bell’s approach to the Beatitudes. In short, the Beatitudes aren’t instructions on how to receive the blessing of God as much as they are proclamations of who God sees as blessed. For instance, when Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he is not saying, “In order for God to bless you, you have to find some way to become poor in spirit.” Jesus’ point is that God is with the least of these. God is with those who are not spiritually rich. God is not with those who “deserve it,” whatever that may mean. So Jesus is attempting to help his listeners understand this deep truth: God blesses the people whom you don’t expect to be blessed.

Again, Bell is emphasizing that these sayings by Jesus should NOT be used as formulas to earn God’s blessing. To do this, we fall into the trap of a works based theology.

With Matthew 5:6 in particular, Bell explains how he understand Jesus’ words: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” For Bell, Jesus is talking to those who have a deep and unquenchable longing to see justice in a broken world. So often, these are people who experience oppressions, injustice, and, well, wrongness. Because of this, they hunger and thirst for rightness, or righteousness to prevail over injustice.

We all have a little of this in our lives. We see oppression, hunger, poverty, and pain in the world, and we want it to be made right. Sometimes we misdirect this desire to situations that don’t deserve such attention.

I have been most guilty of this recently with the whole NBC debacle and their dealings with Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno. I saw what happened to Conan O’Brien as an injustice, and my hunger and thirst for righteousness was temporarily misdirected to that cause. But in reality, Conan is a multi-millionaire. He’ll be fine. He doesn’t need my help. My hunger and thirst was wrongly directed for a time.

But many times, our hunger and thirst to see justice is properly directed. We begin to side with people who experience real and damaging trauma, most often inflicted by those in power, and we ache for them. Sometimes we find ourselves in need of justice, and our hunger and thirst for righteousness drives us to cry out to God for his grace and blessing. In this, we find the words of Jesus comforting. God is with those who hunger and thirst to see God’s justice in a real way.

Now, all of us have different areas where we direct our “hungering and thirsting.” A friend of mine at work has a heart for racial reconciliation, and her desire for justice is most directed there. Another friend sees the poverty and oppression in Latin America and puts his energy and resources to work to see justice there.

We all have our areas where we hunger and thirst.

For me, there are a few areas, but none so great as my desire to see my gay brothers and sisters in Christ accepted into the community of God where they belong. Yes, I know. Not a popular thing to say in some Christian circles. Gladly, I’m not alone, even though it may feel this way sometimes.

In short, I feel the Church has done a serious disservice to a large number of gay Christians who find their identity in Christ and have come to terms with their sexuality. The Church has wrongly interpreted a few vague passages in the Bible in order to condemn what they do not understand, and quite honestly, I can no long stand idly by.

This injustice has to stop, and the wheels are finally in motion. Many devout Christian men and women are beginning to see that, for the last 150 years or so, the Church has gotten it wrong. The Bible does not, in fact, condemn homosexual orientation, and, in reality, the writers of the Bible know nothing of homosexual orientation.

What I would like to do over the next few blogs is to tackle a couple of the more recent “anti-homosexual” misinterpretations of scripture in hopes that I can show where we as a Christian community have erred. I’d like to start with one of the most commonly misunderstood biblical narratives, the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Hopefully you will hear my heart through all of this. I have a deep hunger and thirst to see God’s justice in this world. I have an unquenchable desire to see wrongs righted. And above all, I approach this topic out of love – love for God, the Bible, and my gay brothers and sisters in Christ.

Also, please remember that this is me writing – Jon. Your son, brother, uncle, and friend. I am not being deceived by Satan. I am not trying to justify sin. I am not trying to send the Bible down some slippery slope. I have enormous respect for scripture, so much so that I refuse to allow it to be read at face value. I also have a deep love for God, and I want more than anything else to see God’s will done on earth. And for me, God’s will is that we no longer oppress people because of their sexuality.

I pray that you would come along with me on this little journey. I also understand that you will disagree with me, and that’s fine. But please, hear me out.

I’ve been slacking a little with my blog; I realize that. My slacking has little to do with laziness or lack of content. In reality, I have a lot of content bouncing around in my head that I am just dying to put into text. The problem is that this content is very sensitive and polarizing, and when I do finally put it to text, I want to do it right.

So when I’m ready, I’ll lay it on you. But until then, I just can’t bring myself to post anything else, be it deep and thoughtful or cheap and shallow.

Stay tuned! The next several blogs should be interesting…

Last night (this time, a Tuesday night), me and some friends went to hear John Mayer perform a mini outdoor concert during Jimmy Kimmel Live. As is the case with most show tapings, the tickets were free, and all we had to do was wait in a medium sized line for a couple hours. So for only $3 (for parking), we were treated to a 6 song mini concert by John Mayer and his band. And it was a great show!

The setlist:

1. Heartbreak Warfare
2. Crossroads
3. Who Says
4. Half of my Heart
5. Vultures
6. Waiting on the World to Change

To top it all off, Steve Jordan, not J.J. Johnson, was the drummer. Jordan co-produced Mayer’s last two records and played drums and percussion for both. He has played on and produced more albums than you would believe, and it was more than amazing to see him live. It seems Jordan might actually travel with Mayer for this tour. If that’s true, it will be quite the tour! If Pino Palladino was there, I would have lost my mind.

The band was so tight, and Mayer’s tone was perfect. He also added a few new elements to his touring band like two backing vocalists, Julie Delgado and Melanie Taylor, and a new dude on keys named Charlie Wilson. He also swapped long time bass player David LaBruyere for a new guy named Sean Hurley.

Bottom line: we got to see a 6 song mini concert by a pretty huge artist (and my personal favorite artist) for little more than a slightly uncomfortable wait in line and couple bucks for parking. You can’t beat that!

Oh, and if you haven’t bought a copy of Battle Studies, you should pick one up. It’s one of Mayer’s best.

Dr. Martinez’s point was to critique the common idea that liberation theology is contextualized while “Western” or “Classic” theology is not. Just because a specific brand of theology connects well to people in a certain context does not mean it should be considered “less than” in any way. The reality is that all theology is contextualized, whether that theology finds its roots in Latin America, Africa, Germany, or the US. The context always influences the theological discussion in profound ways.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Paul was a master at contextualizing the gospel. In Acts 17, we see two sermons or “techniques” of Paul as he preaches the gospel. The first is found in the beginning of Acts 17:

“After Paul and Silas had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. ²And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, ³explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.’”

Paul is in a Jewish context (a synagogue), and his approach is simple – he reasons with the Jews from scripture (OT) to prove that Jesus was indeed the long awaited Messiah. For a Jewish audience, this message is powerful, convincing, and even polarizing. It is the message they need to hear, and it lands so well for Paul because it is highly contextualized.

Consider Paul’s sermon just a few verses later. Paul and Silas move from a Jewish context to the city of Athens where they soon find themselves in the Areopagus (Mars Hill) surrounded by a mixed audience of Jews and Greeks. Here is his sermon:

“Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.” Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’”

Here Paul doesn’t reference scripture or mention anything about a “Messiah.” Both would be meaningless to the Greeks in the audience. He doesn’t argue or try to “prove” anything. He takes it back to the beginning and shows his audience that there is one God who created all that they experience. He mentions Jesus at the end of his speech, but not as the long awaited “Messiah” but as the one appointed by God to bring about judgment and, ultimately, restoration.

So Paul is a master of communicating contextually. He knows what message will be most effective with his immediate audience, and he presents in that way. He knows that a Greek audience could not care less about the scriptures and this idea of a “Messiah.” He also knows that his Jewish audience doesn’t need to be told that one God created the world. They already know that.

So with that in mind, here’s an interesting thought: Why do we take Paul’s letters in the New Testament to be so universal and in some way above their context? If Paul has proved himself to be a master of contextualizing a message, why do we think he wrote his letters in a very broad and timeless manner? How many of Paul’s words do we take at face value with out a second thought to how his audience would be hearing those words? And do we really think Paul wrote his letters with the knowledge that people thousands of years later would be reading them without the privilege of hearing the voices of his audience?

My point is that we should think a little harder when we read the words of Paul. Knowing that he is a master at adapting his message to fit the people to whom he preaches or writes, we should take pause before swallowing his theology whole. I know, I know. You’re probably uncomfortable with that statement. I guess I am a little too. But I think it’s important that we see Paul’s theology as being deeply and critically important to his audience, and in the same thought, we need to remind ourselves that we are not his audience.

You should know something – I don’t often complain about things like food, stores, or hotels… at least not to the servers, associates, or front desk people. I generally just deal with whatever it is that I’m given, whether or not it’s perfect. Don’t get my wrong. I complain a whole heck of a lot – just ask Nikki or any of my close friends. It’s a problem I have, and I admit it. But for the most part, I don’t complain when there’s something wrong with a good or service that I am purchasing.

But this trip was different. I checked into the first hotel (yes, I said “first”) and made my way up to the room. As is my custom, I check the place out, feel the bed, see if there’s an iron and ironing board, a hair dryer, enough hangers, etc, and I always check the water pressure and what kind of shower head is installed. I also see if the room is well lit, comfortable, and if the TV is nice.

Upon inspection of the room (#1), I first notice that all of the lights have those wonderful florescent energy saving bulbs in them. Now, I’m all for saving the environment, but these bulbs are pretty much unbearable for me. They’re pure white light makes the room feel much like a hospital waiting room or a senior center – not exactly conducive for the amount of in-room work I have to do on a trip like this.

Next, I notice there are no large towels. None. I scour the place wondering if perhaps they keep them in the closet or in one of the drawers. There are none. This is troubling, but it’s not a big deal. I make my way over to the phone to call the front desk, and I find that the phone is dead. Very strange. I look under the desk and see that it’s not plugged into the wall… OK, no big deal, but when I plug it in, it’s still dead. I head over to the phone by the bed, and it’s the same story – phone is unplugged and when I plug it in, it’s  still dead.

So I walk down to the front desk, explain the problem, and they set me up in another room (#2). I head up to this new room and realize much is the same as the other room, but this one has towels and the phones work.

So I decide to sit down and check my email/facebook/massive amounts of visits to my blog/etc. I sign on to the wireless network, and it prompts me for my username and password (provided by the front desk). I punch the appropriate info into the fields, and I’m told that I can now use the internet… but there’s a little clock running… 2 seconds, 3 seconds, 4 seconds… OK, this is strange. I call the front desk and ask if I’m limited in terms of how long I can access the internet. The answer is “no,” but that I will be logged off automatically after a certain number of minutes, and I will have to re-log in.

OK… that’s not going to work. You have to understand – I access my work computer in Pasadena using gotomypc.com, and this is already a bit of a hassle by itself. Add to that the fact that I will now be logged off every chunk of undisclosed time, and that the wireless is painfully slow, and I’m starting to see that my work week will be very unproductive.

I decide to give up and go to bed. In the quiet of my room, I realize something that should have registered when I first checked in to the hotel, but is only now beginning to become a reality – the place if FULL of young children. They are running up and down the halls, screaming and carrying on. Not good. I get up, call priceline, and demand a refund. I’m leaving this hotel and finding another one.

After about 3 to 4 years on hold with the efficient machine that is priceline, they tell me that I have to stay in the room that night, and they will work out the details with the hotel manager. Whatever. It’s 1:30AM, and I just don’t care anymore. I finally get to sleep, anticipating a fun filled day on the phone with priceline tomorrow.

I wake up, get ready for church (I visited Mars Hill Bible Church… another blog topic there), pack up all my stuff, and head out. I was expecting a call around 9AM from priceline, but no luck. After church, and after realizing that I still hadn’t heard from priceline, I give them a call. 1 hour later and after talking to at least 5 or 6 people from priceline, they issue me a refund, and I’m left to find a new place to stay for the night.

I call my personal assistant (don’t tell Nikki I called her that), and she helps me book a new hotel through priceline (I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess), and I’m set to go. Mind you, this new hotel is supposed to be a 3 star, when the first was only a 2.5 star. Why risk it, right? Best to go with a nicer hotel in hopes that I can avoid the above problems again.

I check into the new hotel room (#3), and after inspection, I find that it is significantly smaller (you can’t use the bathroom with the door open – not enough room) and not nearly as nice as rooms #1 and #2. But, the wireless is fast, and there are no hoops to log on, so that’s good. After being in the room for about 30 minutes, noticing that the bed almost doesn’t fit in the room, my frustration builds. This was supposed to be a 3 star hotel! There is only one 4 star hotel in Grand Rapids, so this is supposed to be among the hotels that are second best! In my opinion, it’s about 1.5 to 2 stars at best.

After firing off a nasty email to priceline, I call the front desk and ask if there are any bigger rooms. There are, and they are the junior suites, but they are more expensive. UGH! I finally decide at least to go “look” at one just to humor myself. They are, in fact, much bigger than the normal rooms, but they are only about as big as you would expect a hotel room to be. But there is a couch, so I guess that’s why it’s called a junior suite. I head back to the front desk, and talk them way down on the price of the room to the point that I’m just a few dollars different from the junior mint box of a room I had at first. Whew!

Finally. A comfortable room (#4) for me to spend this wonderful work week. I enjoy my evening, relax a little, do some work on the significantly faster internet, and hit the sack. I sleep relatively well, even though the jet engine heater keeps turning off and on through the night. I wake up nice and early to get ready for my 2 hour drive to a college, turn on the water for a nice warm shower, and am greeted with a nice little trickle out of the shower head. “You have got to be kidding me.” I try all the normal tricks one tries when working a new shower, and none of them are working. I do my best to shower off, but the water pressure is not quite enough to get all the shampoo out of my hair, and the temperature is just barely over 98.6 degrees. Not a great experience.

I finish getting ready, head down to the front desk, and ask them if the low pressure is normal. They assure me it’s not and a maintenance person accompanies me to my room to check it out. After treating me like an idiot who doesn’t know how to work a shower, he realizes that, in fact, I’m right. The pressure is terrible, and the temperature is tepid. He tells me they will probably have to move me to another room when I get back from my long day, and they will leave a note to let me know what to do.

After a fantastic day of convincing young men and women that Fuller is the right fit for them, I arrive at my room (#4) to find no note, and no fixed water. OK, no big deal. I head to the front desk, and she says, “Oh yes, sorry. I have to move you.” #5.

While packing up my stuff from #4 (I fully unpack my suitcase when I stay more than a few days at a hotel), I notice that my body puff is gone from the shower, and the little brush I use to clean out my electric razor is in the trash… weird, but I just don’t care anymore. I pack up and head to #5, which is full of those dang florescent bulbs! Screw it. I’m swapping them with the normal ones from #4. I also notice that there is no desk lamp in #5, so I have to ask the front desk to find me one. Thankfully, they do, and quick.

So here I am, typing this blog in #5, hoping #6 is not in Grand Rapids, but is waiting for some other trip.

Most people speak of a kind of forgiveness that doesn’t involve retribution, vengeance, or even an acknowledgment of wrong doing by the offending party. We are supposed to forgive whether or not the person “deserves” forgiveness and whether or not he or she is sorry. This, as most Christians would agree, is the way God forgives.

But for the first time, when I heard this message, I thought about the complexities involved with this approach. The question i my mind becomes: Does standard Christians theology really say that God forgives whether or not we deserve it and whether or not we are sorry? As far as I can recall, our theology says that anyone coming to God must acknowledge wrong doing (sin) before receiving forgiveness. It would seem that God requires confession and remorse over our sin before God will forgive. At least that’s what our theology states.

So how then do we understand this concept of forgiving as God forgives? I see two ways of looking at it, both of which are problematic to some degree (at least in the realm of orthodox Christian theology).

1. Since God requires the offending party to display some kind of knowledge of wrong doing accompanied by remorse before forgiveness is given, we too should require the same thing. If we are offended, we should withhold forgiveness until the wrong is made right or the guilty party shows remorse.

As soon as I begin to type it out, I see the problems with that line of reasoning. We’re human. We don’t get to deal out justice. That is for God. I get that. But how then are we showing forgiveness like God shows forgiveness? This leads to options 2:

2. God has forgiven all humanity of sin whether they deserve forgiveness or not, and whether they acknowledge wrong doing or not. This is the kind of forgiveness that God has modeled – an unconditional forgiveness – and, in the same way, we are to model this type of forgiveness. When we are hurt, we forgive, whether the offending person cares or not.

Options 2 seems to make a lot more sense in terms of the biblical narrative, our understanding of human nature, and the revelation of God through Jesus, among other things. But there are some problems. Are we OK with saying that all people are forgiven? Doesn’t that sound a little too Universalistic? Is that really a bad thing?

So which is it? 1 or 2? Or could it be both? How about neither?

John seems to think God forgives us when we confess our sins (1 John 1:9), and so does Peter (Acts 2:38). But at the same time, the writer of Hebrews seems to think there is nothing more needed for forgiveness other than the sacrifice of Jesus (Hebrews 10:18).

It’s a little tricky to use God’s model of forgiveness to guide our own. It either means the way we forgive must change, or it means the way we understand God’s forgiveness must change. Or maybe it means both. Or neither. Or maybe I’m just missing something here.

Take, for example, the Creation account of Genesis 1 and 2. Most scholars, both Christian and otherwise, see the Creation poems in the beginning of Genesis as the beautiful expression of a pre-scientific people as they try to explain what they see in the world as it relates to what they know of God. They perfectly and poetically describe the human condition – our tendency toward what is wrong or evil – and they show a benevolent and personal God. This is all compelling and radical stuff! If you take a glance at some other Ancient Near Eastern creation accounts (which pre-date the Genesis account), you’ll find much of the same material as the Genesis account, with a few important exceptions: chief of which is the existence of a good and personal God. The Creations narratives in Genesis 1 and 2 are understood as mythology* – as stories that express deep and real truth.

But many Christians see the Creation narratives in Genesis 1 and 2 as a type of ancient police report. They see a real Adam and Eve, a talking snake, and a literal six day creation. What was meant to be a profound expression of who God is becomes a cheap and shallow historical account of creation (just the facts, ma’am). The beauty is gone, and all that is left are the so-called “facts” to argue. Some people even devote their lives to forcing the poems of a pre-scientific people into objective history. How sad! And, in my opinion, how cheap and shallow!

I know, that sounds harsh. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to say these people are cheap and shallow. What I’m trying to do is stick up for the Bible and for what it was created to be and defend it when people try to make it something it’s not – especially when that something is so small. I’m saying the view these people support is a cheap and shallow view. They see the Bible as a report of historical fact.

Think about that. When a police officer writes a report of an incident, no one cares how poetic he or she is. No one is in awe at how completely he or she grasps the human condition. No one is stunned by this person’s knowledge of and connection to the people involved in the incident. All they need to see are the raw facts.

But this is not the purpose of Genesis 1 and 2. What we need to see when we read these words is the power of God through people who interacted regularly with this God. We need to see how well these people understood the human condition and how serious they portrayed humanity’s need for God. They did not set out to record the raw facts of the Creation of the world. They wanted to show a God who cares and who created out of love, and they wanted to show a human race that leans toward the wrong thing.

With that in mind, Genesis 1 and 2 take on a beauty and reality that is unmatched by historical fact. The stories of Genesis 1 and 2 become, as Rob Bell puts it, our own stories. We have the tendency to lean toward evil. We need a good and gracious God. How cheap and shallow to turn these stories into mere historical facts on a page.

*I understand Christians’ animosity toward the notion of myth, especially as it relates to the Bible. But I think myth is something we need to get comfortable with again. Myth is not bad. Myth does not equal false or lie. Myth, in this sense, is a fictional story that explains a very real truth. I will write more on myth later.

Because of this, we seem to want to project their characteristics on some group of people in the Christian world today. When we come across some strict group of Christians or some other group that uses heavy liturgy, we’re ready with the name tag “Pharisee!”

I also loved participating in Pharisee bashing whenever I had the chance, and would not pass up an opportunity to label someone (and therefore write them off) as being “Pharisaical.” Lately, I’ve been more hesitant about that. This is mostly due to the fact that often when I was so eager to label someone a Pharisee, I was most focused on a characteristic of my own in that other person, and it was this characteristic that I saw as being Pharisaical, if that makes sense. Another way to say it is that I would never consider myself a Pharisee; only others, even if the very “sins” I wanted to label in another person were second nature to me.

I think what might be better is for us to consider how we make the mistakes that some Pharisees made in the NT.* A big mistake we often make is assuming that God is done working and speaking. So often, we assume that Revelation is the end of God’s word – God does not speak anything more. Now, I know most people would not go so far as to actually say this, but I believe most people live this way. Nothing new can be said beyond what the Bible addresses. This is seen in the way so many people hold the Bible above all else – including the Holy Spirit inspired community of believers. It’s as if we think God does not want to continually be revealed in our presence. God was revealed in the Bible, and that is enough.

This is one of the more grievous mistakes the Pharisees made. They could not see that God was doing a new thing. They held tight to their tradition and practices and would not recognize God’s active hand in the world. In fact, they felt so strongly that God could not be working through Jesus and the disciples that they had them killed. Their inability to see God’s continued revelation beyond their own scriptures and traditions led to very serious consequences for those who promoted the new move of God.

How do we make this mistake? Are we ever approached with an idea that challenges us and makes us uncomfortable, and we choose to “put it to death” because it is against our tradition? Do we revere the Bible more than the living word of God and the active Holy Spirit? Have we become so good at “living” and “perfecting” our religious motions that we can’t see God’s revelation anymore? I hope not.

So who are the modern-day Pharisees? They are you and me; or, rather, their stories could be ours if we don’t guard ourselves from making their mistakes.

*I say “some Pharisees” because there are several Pharisees in the NT narratives that were quite noble in their response to Jesus and the early Christian movement. For example, consider Nicodemus and Gamaliel.