Early Church Biblical Ethics: Why they still matter (More than ever)
Category Archives: Christianity
Jesus’ Command to Christians: No Divorce
Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to separate from her husband. (But if indeed she is separated, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to the husband) And a husband is not to divorce his wife.” 1 Corinthians 7:10,11
In First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul confronts sins of the Christians, the saints, at Corinth.
He begins, “I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…”
The first sin he confronts is the division caused by a ‘spiritual’ party spirit. “I am of Paul”…”I am of Apollos”…”I am of Cephas”…”I am of Christ.”
The next sin confronted: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you…”
He notes that the Corinthians have become “puffed up” (4:6). That is addressed again in Chapter 13. (Link)
When he comes to marriage, the Apostle Paul clearly distinguishes between his mature advice for the unmarried, and the clear command of Christ Jesus to the married.
“Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to separate from her husband and a husband is not to divorce his wife.”
That is the whole of the Lord’s command, no more, no less. That is the word of the Lord Jesus.
The Corinthians did not know this teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul, here, reveals it to them. Today, everyone with a Bible knows this command.
Chapter Seven begins, “Now concerning the things you wrote to me…”
Paul is addressing the situation in Corinth, and thus, in the middle of the quote of our Lord’s explicit command he gives his own command regarding a Corinthian wife who had already left her husband—Greek aorist, i.e. past tense. The New International Greek Testament Commentary notes that “unless the middle clause is placed in parenthesis, the sense becomes confusing, and even risks misleading.”
Many of today’s Christians use that situation to detract from and condone or even to counsel disobedience to our Lord Jesus Christ’s clear command to the church and to the married.
Eric Metaxas interviewed Michael Youssef who confronts the evil gender ideology of our present day while speaking the truth in love. And Metaxas makes an astute observation on the state of our church in America, today:
“Actually, where this all started in the church, I would say, is with divorce….When the church allowed that, or looked the other way, you began to see the creep…the idea that people start saying, ‘you know what, it’s sort of true, you only go around once…let’s not worry too much about right and wrong’…how can you blame somebody with same sex attraction, saying, ‘hey, I don’t want to be celibate…I want to enjoy life’ because the heterosexuals have done precisely that, and that is the failure of the church…”
Metaxas goes on to note his shock at news of friends divorcing, and asks, “Where did you get the idea that this was permissible? What church do you go to? What kind of pastor do you have…?”
Michael Youssef responds to this present day scenario in the church as “exactly the secular thinking.”
JESUS:
Christians And the Moon Landings
On Social Media, a Number of Aberrant Christians Deny that Man Went to the Moon
They are the new Gnostics.
They Commit Two Major Sins.
–They Reject the Bible and the Standard it sets for Establishing the Truth of a Matter.
–They Slander Men of Faith and Courage.
Faithful Witnesses: The Resurrection, and The Moon Landings (Liink)
Hubris and Sloth are the underlying sins of those aberrant Christians who deny the Moon landings. Pray for their repentance.
“…Do Not Be Conformed to this World…”-Romans 12
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.–Romans 12
“… do not be conformed to this world…”
British professor of theology Michael Reeves points out that “when you are within your culture, you just cannot see outside, it just feels, ‘this is universal'”…thus you may become “…a prisoner of our cultural moment…a prisoner of the age…”
A stark example of this can be seen in the many Christians in the American Colonial era who were slave holders, including members of denominations such as the Quakers. Two startling examples among Christians who stand out as slave owners are Jonathan Edwards, America’s premier theologian, and George Whitefield, the key preacher during the Great Awakening.
In the face of the abolitionists of his day, Jonathan Edwards penned a defense of a pastor who, like himself, owned slaves. Church historian George Marsden quotes Edwards writing: “the Bible expressly allowed slavery and it would not contradict itself.”
Regarding George Whitefield, Prof. Thomas Kidd writes, “Whitefield became connected with slave masters who had converted under his ministry, and though he never publicly retracted his criticisms of the institution, he complied with his wealthy friends’ offers to give him slaves and a South Carolina plantation. More importantly, Whitefield became convinced that he needed slaves to work at a Georgia plantation to fund the operations of his Bethesda orphanage.”
More than that, George Whitefield stood against Georgia’s ban on slavery. Thus, “he became arguably the colony’s leading proponent of slavery’s legalization.”
In spite of these prominent evangelical leaders, every-day Christians did not remain silent.
John Woolman stands out as one superlative example. During this period of the Great Awakening, Woolman’s conscience was unsettled when his employer directed him to write a bill-of-sale for a Negro woman being sold to another Quaker. It was 1742 and John Woolman was twenty-two.
Four years later, in 1746, Woolman wrote an anti-slavery essay, “On Keeping Negroes.” Much of his life, thereafter, was spent traveling among the Quaker Meetings in the Colonies, exhorting them to end this sinful practice among Friends. The end result: By 1776 American Quaker Meetings banned the ownership of slaves among their members.
Still, here in America in 1860, slave owners burned Charles Spurgeon’s printed sermons in protest against his anit-slavery stand. “I do, from my inmost soul, detest slavery anywhere and everywhere, and although I commune at the Lord’s Table with men of all Creeds, yet with a slaveholder, I have no fellowship of any kind.”
Fast forward to Today, and to Michael Reeves’ comment (above) which was in response to my question at the Spurgeon Library Conference. “I find it fascinating as a Brit, hearing that question being put…”
I opined that we do not burn his sermons today, but asked what might be the parallels between those sermon-burning Civil War era Christians and the reaction of American Evangelicals, today, towards Spurgeon’s clear words on war and Christians.
Here is a good summation of Spurgeon’s stand:
The typical American Evangelical response might well be the same as that of Jonathan Edwards (above), paraphrased as, “ “the Bible expressly allowed war and it would not contradict itself.”
Yet, as in John Woolman’s day, there are every-day Christians who do not remain silent. I can tell you of another twenty-two year old who was pricked in conscience and four years later was writing against Christians going off to war.
Here is a summation of my question and the response at the Spurgeon Library Conference.
Romans 12-13 Background and Context
Spurgeon Memes on War and Christians
This is the video of Michael Reeve’s response.
I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.–Jesus
Matthew 10
21Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved….
32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
An outrageous example of the bane (the poison) of Memory-Verse-Theology derives from the saying of Jesus, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Ripped from its context, it gives to us Christians the warrant to march off to war and shed blood, a la these self-made, pseudo-theologians who put themselves forward as ‘teachers’ in the Church. [And these same wooden, illiterate literalists do the same with “Buy a sword…” Link ]
The parallel of this saying of Jesus in Luke 14:
25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Both these passages address “The Conditions of Discipleship,” or in the title of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s famous classic, “The Cost of Discipleship.”
Here in Luke (as in Matthew) we see the “hyperbolic form, which is an authentic part of Jesus’ teaching…Nowhere is the diverse character of the Kingdom’s advent seen more clearly than in the severance of family loyalties” a la I. Howard Marshall in the New International Greek Testament Commentary. Such is a noted feature in Jesus’ parables. For examples see “Shock and Awe.” (Link) Hyperbole serves to grab the attention of Jesus’ listeners.
As to this hyperbolic saying in Luke (and in Matthew) about family, surely, any true Christian knows we are to love all people, even our enemies. (Link)
The Rattled Thessalonians
In Second Thessalonians, Chapter 2 (the body and main focus of this letter), Paul addresses some sort of misunderstanding that has disturbed these new Christians. He does not know the source of that confusion, whether it be a prophetic or a written word (verse 2), but he comes right to the point to set them straight. “Do not let anyone deceive you in any way…”
“The epistle attacks those who claimed present experience of events which were in reality still future. This leads Paul to give a vehement warning of Satan and the parousia of the lawless one which will take place before the parousia of Christ.”
—The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Colin Brown, ed. (1976) s.v. “Present”
Their confusion is about the “when?” of the Parousia (verse 1). The prepositional phrase–”Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him”— is the subject of their befuddlement. This phrase is “a reference to the event described in 1 Thess 4:17, [also 2:19; 3:13] when the people of Christ (whether resurrected or surviving to the Parousia) will be transported to meet him and be eternally with him.”–F. F. Bruce, WBC.
That “coming” (parousia) and “gathering” (episynagoge) are one event as the single article (the) makes plain. “Indeed, they are the two parts of one great event.”–Leon Morris, New International Commentary on the New Testament.
“The noun episynagoge in 2 Thess. 2:1 refers to the ‘gathering together’ of believers to Christ at the Parousia.”–Dictionary of New Testament Theology
What has disturbed these Thessalonian Christians is the question of “when”–the question of timing.
The new “word” they had received from somebody (verse 2) confused some and led others astray–What? “ …the Day of the Lord has already come”??? Now? Later? Already?
Paul makes it crystal clear to them: Before the Parousia (verse 1), in the proper order of these things, FIRST (πρῶτον) must come the rebellion and the man of lawlessness (verse 3).
Justin Martyr clearly understood this in the early 2nd Century: “…the two advents of Christ have been announced, the first, in which he is shown as suffering, without glory, without honor, subject to crucifixion, and the second, in which he shall come from the heavens in glory, when the man of apostasy, who utters arrogant things against the Most High, will boldly attempt to perpetrate unlawful deeds against us Christians.“
Paul laid out that sequence of events. First—the apostasy and the man of lawlessness. Then—“the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him.”
“Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction” 1 Thess. 2:3
Matthew 24. Jesus: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. “
Addendum
The million dollar Left Behind Industry either ignores this text, or explains away this passage of Scripture by juggling the text out of context and imposing the traditions and imaginations of men upon the Sacred Text (eisegesis), but when we allow God’s word to speak in context (exegesis), this sequence of events is crystal clear here.
One of the historical consequences of false or confused teaching is the tragic effect on everyday believers. Corrie Ten Boom quoted a Chinese bishop on one such heart-rending consequence:
1st Thessalonians Laid out in Context, Here (link).… Give reading in context an HONEST try. Remember the Great Commandment, to love God with all your mind.
The Rapture’s Self-Contradiction
“God did not appoint us to wrath”–1 Thessalonians 5:9a.
“These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” –Rev. 7
Left Behind enthusiasts, when told that First Thessalonians does not teach their Left Behind scenario (but rather the parousia, the Second Advent) quickly respond with that half of a verse taken from its whole context, which they left behind. “God did not appoint us to wrath”
(Be a disciple of Jesus and read that Verse in CONTEXT, here- LINK)
Social media are replete with Christians crying for that day, while rejecting any thought that they might have to face the great tribulation. “God did not appoint us to wrath.”
Yet, many Left Behinders point to their preparations for those who will be left behind. Years ago, a lady in our church stated that she had videos on her desk for family that would explain why they were left behind when she was gone. R. C. Sproul recounted a tour given by Kathryn Kuhlman of her office. She had a large closet safe with her radio program recordings so that the Gospel would still be preached should the Rapture come in her lifetime. (Apparently, she did not expect all of her staff nor all the Christian radio personnel to be raptured.)
Kevin Sorbo in his movie, The Rise of the Antichrist (2023), is left behind and convinced of the Gospel by a video left behind by the pastor of his ‘raptured’ wife. (Details and review of that movie, here—LINK)
Typically, a Jack Graham Powerpoint sermon, The Blessed Hope, turns Titus’ expectation of the Second Coming into The Rapture. “When the salt and light is (sic) gone, that is, true believers, then decay and darkness sets in….Hell will be unleashed on earth….then, terrible retribution…you don’t want to be left behind for the great tribulation.”
BUT what about those videos and books and letters left behind for families and friends by these Left Behinders? You mean none of them will be saved? What about Kevin Sorbo? Oh, you say, ‘yes, some will be saved during the great tribulation.’
The end result of the Left Behinder’s escape hatch exit to miss the great tribulation is that there will be no salt nor light nor shepherds for those new Christians like the Kevin Sorbos who will be saved after the ‘Rapture’ but who are condemned to suffer God’s wrath a la the Left Behind scenario.
End Result a la Left Behinders: 1) Christians will not suffer God’s wrath (a la the purpose of “Beam me up!” theology)……………………………… 2) New Christians saved during the Great Tribulation will suffer God’s wrath.
From Corrie Ten Boom:
Ukraine War: Blessed are the peacemakers.
“I have said before that the Ukraine war was not even in the interests of the USA, which worked so hard for so long to bring it about. “*** –Peter Hitchens, UK Christian author, journalist
Ukraine War: Key Points
Remember, Cuban Missile Crisis: We prepared and took Military Action to have Russian Missiles removed. Blockaded Cuba. Resolved by Diplomatic initiative.
NATO Crisis in Ukraine: Russia prepared and took Military Action After All Its Diplomatic initiatives were rebuffed by USA. (Minsk agreement, etc.)
RememberIRAQ Crisis? That country with missiles and a hostile, neoNazi army shelling residents on our own American border that we, the USA, did invade? (Do I have to say, “sarcasm”?)
1990 Germany Re-united After USA Gave Its Word: No NATO Expansion. USA Broke Its word to Russia. 2008 NATO Declares Ukraine will join. Red line for Russia.
February 9, 1990: U.S. Secretary of State James Baker gives ““iron-
clad guarantees” –NATO would not expand: “not one inch
eastward”– to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Declassified
documents show security assurances against NATO expansion given
to Soviet leaders by Sec. Baker, Pres. Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, et al.
2014 USA Backed Coup of Democratically Elected Government in Kiev. ***Now Revealed: USAID pumped Five Billion Dollar$ Into Kiev from 1991 to 2014. 4 February Phone Call (LINK) between Obama representative Victoria Nuland and USA Ambassador; Picking out who they would install as new government after the Coup; 21 Feb. Coup. Protesters Take Control. 22 Feb. Ukraine Parliament installs USA picked Leaders.
Russian Population in Donbass Protests New Government. 20 October, 2014, New York Times Reports: Ukraine launches USA Cluster Bombs into heart of Donetsk, city of over 1 million people.
“February 24, 2022, [Russian Military operation begins] was the expansion of a war between the two countries that had begun in February 2014“–Encyclopedia Britannica. February 28, Peace Talks Begin. March–Peace Deal reached. USA kills it. President Biden announces purpose of the proxy war we provoked: “Regime change” in Russia.
NOW, Half a Million BODIES of UKRAINE Soldiers. “Fighting to the last Ukrainian” a la President Biden and Senator Linsey Graham.
Israeli Prime Minister Bennett, served as diplomatic intermediary for the March, 2022, peace deal:
The WAR In the DONBASS Video THIS is when the war began: Ukraine shelling its Russian citizens.
Ukraine Debacle Key Quotes, here.
Full TIMELINE from start of the war in 2014 https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/25/ukraine-timeline-tells-the-tale/
Zelenskyy elected President in 2019 as the “peace” candidate. He could not implement the MINSK accords which would have ended the fighting. since the Ukraine NeoNazis said they would hang him if he did so . https://zeitgeistcontext.wordpress.com/2023/02/25/ukraine-resource-photos-neonazis/
American Evangelicals either SILENT or WAR SUPPORTERS
Isaiah 14 is Not About Satan
The traditions of men of the last 2,000 years, using an old typology which many Christians still follow, wrongly claim that Isaiah 14 describes the fall of Satan.
CONTEXT. Remember that word.
Prof. Gentry, in this outstanding video, gives us rock solid exegesis of Isaiah 14. For an equally outstanding exposition of Isaiah 14, in print, see John Oswalt‘s magnum opus, Isaiah, in The New International Commentary on the Old Testament series (NICOT).
Franz Delitzsch, Isaiah (1890), quotes Luther on this tradition of Isaiah 14:12 referring to Satan, as “insignis error totius papatus” i.e. “a noteworthy error of the papacy” … Calvin’s commentary also repudiates this error as “arising from ignorance.”
What the expositors rejected during the Reformation, had a comeback with the publication of the Schofield Bible in 1908, which took up the old typology. The tradition of men lives on.
Strongs: “the morning star”
lucifer (note NOT capitalized in Strongs) is simply the Latin translation (Jerome, 4th Century A.D.)
From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (free online) They give just one sentence under the entry for lucifer: “lu’-si-fer, loo’-si-fer: The morning star, an epithet of the planet Venus.”
From the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Harris, Archer, Waltke (pub by Moody Press) “Our root represents the giving off of light by celestial bodies [i.e. planets, stars]”
“It is natural for a heathen king to boast that he would exalt himself above the gods or above the mountain where he believed the gods assembled.”
“sapon (Isa 14:13) is well known in Ugaritic as the mountain of the gods. The God of Israel is not enthroned on Saphon; he reigns from heaven itself (cf. hekal).”
The Latin, lucifer (morning star) is the translation (4th Century A.D. in [Latin] Vulgate) of the Greek heosphoros (Venus, ὁ ἑωσφόρος) used in the LXX –(the Greek translation of the Old Testament made by Jews in the 3rd Century B.C.)– to translate the Hebrew, heylel
Kevin Sorbo Movie, Rise of the Antichrist
“Beam me up, SCOTTY!”
That stands as an iconic line from a TV movie series that we all know.
“Before those empty clothes hit the ground”
That from a narrator, gives us a cringe line that stands out in one of the Left Behind movies, Rise of the Antichrist (2023) directed by and starring Kevin Sorbo.
At 30,000 feet, Captain Ray (Sorbo) turns to the co-pilot, only to see his crumpled uniform lying on the right seat. And half the passengers have disappeared.
Later in the movie, Ray’s daughter goes to the cemetery with a shovel and digs up her grandmother’s coffin. Looking for confirmation of her growing belief in the Rapture, she opens the coffin to find only a nice dress and a cross necklace.
A narrator opens the movie with these lines:
“With God, all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26…now, for the first time, I know it’s true. You see, , six months ago, something impossible happened down there. In one instant of time, millions of people just disappeared without a trace. POOF. Gone…
Sorbo’s movie gives us clean entertainment with a clear intent to evangelize non-believers. The movie ends with Captain Ray (Sorbo), his daughter, and a pastor barely escaping the antichrist thugs who are trying to kill them. As Sorbo circles his single engine plane over the city, they ‘bomb’ the streets with Christian tracts explaining the “Rapture.”
The movie tells us that “there were plenty of warnings [about the Rapture]…but there were plenty of closed minds, and we all know that a closed mind is not an easy thing to open…those people just vanish into thin air…most people still had no interest in the fact that all of it was written down thousands of years ago in that dusty old book…”
In a video left behind by his wife’s pastor, Captain Ray Steel (Kevin Sorbo) hears the message that “false teachers” did not believe. And Ray had also failed to believe. His wife, “Irene had told him what would happen, and it did.”
The movie focuses on the extra-biblical teaching of the “Rapture,” NOT on Christ’s death on the cross and the Resurrection and His Second Coming. The movie message “trust the Bible” leads to this question by Chloe, Ray’s daughter (whose mom and brother had disappeared): “What about all those people who claim the Rapture is not in the Bible?”
The movie gives us an immediate answer: “First Thessalonians Four.”
But as any honest New Testament scholar will tell us, 1st Thessalonians 4 gives its readers assurance about the parousia, the Second Coming of Christ. Verse 13 gives us the key context, the concern of some in Thessalonica that fellow Christians who had already died might be at some disadvantage when Christ returned. Verse 15 references the Parousia, the Second Coming.
As Prof. N. T. Wright wrote, “the rapture is an American obsession.” And the Left Behinders seem oblivious to the hard fact that the overwhelming majority of their fellow members of the Body of Christ, believe only the New Testament’s teaching about the Second Coming, not the extra-biblical Rapture teaching. That Rapture belief is confined mostly to a segment of American Evangelicals, and those to whom they sent missionaries with their Schofield Bibles [like those in the Corrie Ten Boom Quote Below] . But standard Evangelical reference works and commentaries do not teach that. See such noted New Testament scholars as F. F. Bruce, I. Howard Marshall, Leon Morris, etc.
The ‘Rapture’ business is a billion dollar industry which had sold over 60 million copies, by 2016, of just the Left Behind fiction series of books. And every popular Rapture teacher has his own books for sale. Think Hal Lindsey, back in the big beginning of this business. And then we see the list of many movies, including this one with Kevin Sorbo, and another with Nicholas Cage. The advertising budget is BIG. (Take that you New Testament scholars!).
The thrilling plot of “Rise of the Anitchrist” pushes the world towards “the great re-set,” a one world government, and a single electronic currency with all the trimmings. Terrified people and families watch murders and suicides all around them as they grapple with the disappearance of friends or loved ones in this world where the salt and light all went “poof” and vanished.
In the film we are told that the Rapture is “Jesus taking his church [true believers] to heaven to protect them.” [Never mind believers come lately like Kevin Sorbo and his daughter.]
This is a key point of the Left Behind teaching, [ “God did not appoint us to wrath”–1 Thessalonians 5:9a, ripped from CONTEXT] and its greatest irony. God will not leave those true, seasoned Christians here to go through the Great Tribulation, but He will leave these NEW Christians who are converted after the Rapture, during the tribulation, to do so, all by themselves!
Corrie Ten Boom noted: “There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this….
“In China, the Christians were told, ‘Don’t worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated — raptured.’ Then came a terrible persecution. Millions of Christians were tortured to death. Later I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly,
‘We have failed. We should have made the people strong for persecution rather than telling them Jesus would come first. Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution, how to stand when the tribulation comes — to stand and not faint.’”
Paul, the Parousia & his Epistles
READ the Exposition of the texts in the LINKS above. Put behind you the cardinal sins of sloth and hubris. BE a true disciple, a learner.(LINK) “diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
–-2 Timothy 2:15
TextsInContext 