Sunday Morning Greek Blog

June 24, 2012

Scandalous Living

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Christology,Grace,John Gospel of,Joy,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Mark Gospel of,Matthew Gospel of,New Testament,Soteriology,Thanksgiving — Scott Stocking @ 6:04 pm
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This past weekend, I finished leading our men’s group in a nine-week study through John Eldredge‘s Beautiful Outlaw. The subtitle of the book is “Experiencing the Playful, Disruptive, Extravagant Personality of Jesus,” which should clue you in as to the subject of the book. The basic premise of the book is this: because Jesus is the incarnation of God, every aspect of his personality has the divine imprint. If God the Father could be human, Jesus is the ultimate and unique example of how God the Father would live on this earth. Every aspect of Jesus’s personality is perfect in human form: his sense of humor, generosity, conversation, passions, playfulness, love, relationships, and so forth all emanate from his Father, God the Father (John 5:19).

Breaking Barriers

Jesus went places where good Jews of his day avoided. Jesus spoke to men and women of ethnic backgrounds the Jews despised. Jesus broke the barriers of cultural taboos by reaching out to and even touching the “untouchables.” Jesus challenged the religiosity of the status quo to shed a fresh new light on what it meant to be a God-follower. Unfortunately, too many Christians, both individually and collectively in various expressions of the church, have exalted Jesus to so heavenly a status that they have forgotten he had his human side. Lest I be misunderstood, Jesus’s human side was kept in check by his divine nature, something you and I don’t have. He had no sin. We can get away with saying, “I’m only human.” But Jesus can’t. Jesus was humanity at its best because he was divinely empowered to live the human life. So the church needs to take a closer look at not just the words he said, but the things he did and the way he lived here on terra firma.

The Samaritan Taboo

The story of Jesus’s encounter with the woman at the well in John 4 is a perfect example. In vs. 4, John says of Jesus, “It was necessary for him to travel through Samaria” (my translation). Similar constructions elsewhere in the New Testament are often translated “He must.” If Jews wanted to go north and south from Galilee to Jerusalem, the direct route was through Samaria. But since Jews hated Samaritans with such a passion, they would often cross over to the east side of the Jordan River and travel the longer route rather than set foot in Samaritan territory. Why was it necessary for him to go through Samaria? Because that’s what his Father wanted him to do!

Now when Jesus and the disciples arrive, Jesus breaks two taboos (at least). First, he talks to a Samaritan, the most despised class of people to the Jews. That’s bad enough in the eyes of the religious elite of the day. But this Samaritan is also a woman, and it was certainly not the norm for a Jewish male to talk to any woman alone in public (the disciples had gone off to buy food). I think it is important to note that in talking with this woman who in on her sixth “husband,” who has come out to the well at an unusual time of day, that Jesus never actually condemns the woman in any way or outright says that she’s living a sinful life, although the latter could be implied from his statement that her current “man” is not her husband. Historical and modern scholars have mostly inferred that the woman has a questionable character from the circumstantial evidence in the text. But just as he would later refuse to condemn the woman caught in adultery (variant reading in John 8), he does not speak words of condemnation here, only words of life.

A third taboo may be implied as well, although I find some mixed evidence in the Mishnah (the written interpretation of Jewish oral law generally accepted or debated at the time of Jesus). Drinking or eating from a Samaritan vessel may have been frowned upon as well. In some passages in the Mishnah, Samaritan offerings are acceptable, whereas some gentile offerings are specifically forbidden or given a lower status. However, Shebiith 8:10 says that Rabbi Eliezer considered eating Samaritan bread equivalent to eating the flesh of swine. If the disciples went off to a Samaritan town to get food, it’s most likely that R. Eliezer’s opinion was in the minority and not widely accepted.

The Sinful Anointer

This wasn’t Jesus’s only “scandalous” contact with a woman. In Matthew 26 and Mark 14, we have parallel accounts of a woman anointing Jesus’s head with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume, which Jesus says is part of his preparation for burial. In Luke 7, we have a similar story, except in Luke’s account, the woman pours the perfume on Jesus’s feet after washing them with her tears and her hair. Not only that, this woman kisses Jesus’s feet as well. Luke mentions that Simon considers the woman a sinner. In the Matthew and Mark accounts, the disciples and other dinner guests are indignant with the woman and treat her rudely. But Jesus hardly bats an eye at the event. He considers it a beautiful thing and even says that the woman’s actions would be immortalized in the Gospels.

Standing with the Leper

Jesus’s “scandals” were not limited to women, though. Many are familiar with the story of Jesus healing lepers. That’s something we would expect a compassionate healer like Jesus to do. But not only does he heal some of them merely by his words, he also reaches out and touches a leper. In the normal course of Jewish life, lepers had to walk around with their faces covered and shout “Unclean!” so that Jews would not be ceremonially defiled by them. But Jesus chooses to skirt the custom rather than the leper. When he touches the leper, the leper is healed. So is Jesus unclean or not? Or does Jesus even care if he’s unclean? Jesus chooses compassion over custom so that the world can know the deep, deep love that he and his Father have for creation.

Jesus, Lord of Life

I’ve blogged before about Jesus’s “I am” statements in the Gospel of John. Three of them are relevant here: “I am the Bread of Life,” “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” and “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Jesus came to bring life to a world that was looking for it in the wrong places. The religious leaders of the Jews thought it was found in absolute strict adherence to the law, so much so that they built a “hedge” around the law so that people might know when they were close to crossing the boundary (the word “Mishnah” means “hedge,” and the book is just as thick as a Bible with tinier print!). But Jesus blows that all to smithereens by simplifying it all for us: “Love God and love your neighbor.” If you do those two things, you don’t have to worry about the hedge.

Scandalous Living in the 21st Century Church

For many years, I pastored in small, rural congregations in Illinois. As you might expect in a small town, everyone knows your business whether you want them to or not. In some ways that’s good, but in other ways, that can be a great hindrance to ministry. Why? Because you can’t go to the places where those not religiously inclined hang out to share what’s important. I decided early in my Christian walk that it would be okay for me to hang out in bar with friends and acquaintances. I really don’t have a problem with Christians (or people of any other faith or nonfaith for that matter) drinking alcohol in moderation. Jesus, the true vine, did change water into premium alcoholic wine at the wedding in Cana. In my journey to be like Jesus, I want to be where the people are.

My half-siblings play in a trivia league in Omaha. Most of the trivia contests take place in bars. I love trivia, and I’m a pretty smart cookie, so I think I’d do pretty well in that setting. So last week, I joined the trivia league that meets at Maloney’s Irish Pub. It’s fun, and it’s great interaction with family and new friends and acquaintances. And it certainly beats staying home alone playing Words with Friends and Hidden Chronicles. I enjoy the company and the challenge. If Jesus can supply a couple hundred gallons of premium wine for a celebration, certainly I can enjoy a Sprite with friends!

Conclusion

Although I enjoyed my time as a pastor, I’m not sure I was really cut out for the rural scene. I am glad I’m not a pastor now, because I feel freer than ever to share the life of Jesus in places where my previous congregations would have surely fired me for going. I feel like I can truly have a ministry of the mundane (as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it) among friends, family, and coworkers while I live the scandalous life of Jesus.

Peace!

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

May 27, 2012

Some Thoughts on the Trial of Jesus (Luke 22:67–70 and parallels)

Filed under: "I Am" Statements,Luke Gospel of,Mark Gospel of,Matthew Gospel of,New Testament,Passion — Scott Stocking @ 7:21 am

Something interesting struck me as I read Jesus’s response to the illegal council called to accuse him of blasphemy and condemn him to be crucified. Jesus tends to be a little tight lipped in the Gospel accounts of his Passion, so the words the Gospel writers attribute to Jesus are important for understanding why he responded the way he did when he did. Let me cite the relevant passages in a vertical parallel, all from the NIV (with the exception of the plural “you” modified in Luke):

Parallel Accounts of the Trial Statement

Matthew 26:62–64

62Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 63But Jesus remained silent. The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” 64“You [singular] have said so” (Σὺ εἶπας), Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Mark 14:60–62

60Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, “Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” 61But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” 62“I am” (Ἐγώ εἰμι), said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Luke 22:67–70

67“If you are the Messiah,” they said, “tell us.” Jesus answered, “If I tell you, you will not believe me, 68and if I asked you, you would not answer. 69But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.” 70They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?” He replied, “Y’all say that I am” (Ὑμεῖς λέγετε ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι).

John’s account of this meeting (John 18:19–24) is so different that it won’t be a factor in my comparison here, but I will return to it in a later post. Let me illustrate the key differences in the three Synoptic passages in Table 1:

 

Table 1: Parallel accounts of the “Son of Man” statements in the Gospel trials

Matthew 26:63–64 “Tell us if you are the Messiah…” [follows] “You (sg) have said” [omits] “Son of Man sitting…” “coming in the clouds of heaven”
Mark 14:61–62 “Are you the Messiah…?” [follows] [omits] “I am” “Son of Man sitting…” “coming in the clouds of heaven”
Luke 22:69–70 “Are you the Son of God?” “Son of man will be seated…” “You (pl) say that… … I am” [precedes] [omits]

Explanation

Luke only has Jesus quoting Psalm 110:1 (109:1 LXX) about sitting at God’s right hand before saying “You say that I am.” Matthew and Mark both add Daniel 7:13, “coming in the clouds of heaven” (a clear reference to the Messianic portion of Daniel) after the Psalm 110:1 quotation, but they put those quotations after the “You say” (Matthew) or “I am” (Mark). The little bit about sitting at God’s right hand may seem perfectly innocuous to us, unless we, like the Jewish scribes, understand the full context of Psalm 110:1. The very next phrase after “Sit at my right hand” in that verse is “until I make your enemies your footstool.” Wow! Here we have the Pharisees accusing Jesus, and Jesus responding with a statement that essential signals his accusers are enemies of God! Not exactly a soft-spoken answer when you come to think about it. Add to that the quotation from Daniel, and Jesus is really putting the Sanhedrin in its place: By saying the Son of Man will come on the clouds, he is equating himself with the “Ancient of Days” in Daniel, leaving no doubt about his divine mandate and divine nature.

Add to that Mark and Luke’s account of Jesus using the phrase Ἐγώ εἰμι, which some in Jesus’s day (or even in the modern day) see as an intentional reference to God’s divine name in Exodus 3:14 (see discussion below), and we’ve got Jesus essentially giving the Sanhedrin the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Jesus proved it over and over again (in John’s account, Jesus chides the Sanhedrin for doing this in secret when he taught publicly everywhere he went), but the Pharisees have to say it as well, especially the high priest (see, for example, John 11:51).

One thing to keep in mind when examining the modern eclectic Greek New Testament: punctuation was added at a much later date. It didn’t exist in the autographs. Have you ever thought about why, after the Sanhedrin “asks” Jesus a question (in the NIV, anyway), Jesus treats the “question” like a regular statement? There is no “question” word that one might expect to find if the one asking the question expected a certain answer. Granted, not all questions need one of these special words to be understood as a question, but in the case of the Gospel writers, I would suggest that the phrase Σὺ εἶ ὁ Χριστὸς ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ εὐλογητοῦ be taken as a statement, not a question. This accomplishes two things in my mind if it is true:

  1. If John 11:51 has a broader application, then the high priest not only must prophesy about Jesus’s death, but he must also prophesy about his nature: The high priest prophesies that Jesus is the Son of Man; that means there is now another witness to Jesus’s true nature, but
  2. Without Jesus ever directly stating it in trial (with the possible exception of Mark, who may have a shortened version of Luke’s account), Jesus stealthily gets the Sanhedrin (or at least the high priest) to commit “blasphemy” by declaring Jesus to be the Son of Man. When Jesus says “You have said it,” he is in fact turning the tables on them and accusing them of very “blasphemy” they’re trying to pin on him! (I recognize there’s no real blasphemy here, because Jesus really is the Son of Man, but the Sanhedrin doesn’t want to see things that way.)

I think this latter point especially is fully in keeping with the nature of how Jesus responded to the religious rulers of his day. He always turned the tables on them to show them their erroneous thinking and oppressive religious “leadership,” if one can call it that. If Jesus had said outright the full phrase in their hearing, it would have been over and done, and the Sanhedrin would have been fully justified in their own minds in sentencing Jesus to death. Jesus was not wont to leave them with that kind of self-satisfaction. The reason the Sanhedrin gets so angry is precisely because Jesus has tricked them into committing the very “blasphemy” of which they are accusing him. Jesus had said that the demons believe he is the Son of Man, and they tremble. Here, the Sanhedrin apparently believes it as well, but instead of trembling in fear, they steel themselves against the possibility and (mis)use their authority to have Jesus arrested and eventually crucified.

Is Ἐγώ εἰμι a Direct Reference to Exodus 3:14?

As tempting as it is to always assume that when Jesus says Ἐγώ εἰμι, he is always referring to the divine name in Exodus 3:14, I have to reject that notion to be universally true in the Gospels. There are clearly times when Jesus uses the phrase simply to indicate his presence or his existence without the theological weight. Given the full statement in Luke that includes those words (and since I think Luke is on most things more thorough than Mark), I don’t think Jesus saying Ἐγώ εἰμι here has much theological weight. What seems to upset the Sanhedrin is Jesus’s quotation of Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13 more than anything else. Of course, Jesus could have said it in isolation (as Mark has it recorded) to get the Sanhedrin’s dander up, to make them think that’s what he meant even though he didn’t. It’s a word play that’s not intended to deceive, but to drive home the point.

Conclusion

These parallel accounts in the Synoptic Gospels raise some interesting issues in my mind. I think Jesus remains consistent with his approach to the religious elite of his day by not giving them the satisfaction of thinking they are right. A more detailed treatment of John’s version of these events goes beyond the scope of this blog post, but as I’m reading through John again now, I’m already finding things in the earlier part of his Gospel that tie into that account, so you can be sure I will have another post on these events from John’s perspective.

Peace!

Scott Stocking

May 14, 2012

“Other Duties as Assigned” (Luke 17:7–10)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Luke Gospel of,Work — Scott Stocking @ 6:14 am

Last month, I blogged briefly on what the Scriptures say about work. So I’ve been a little sensitive to that topic when it comes up in my daily reading. I was struck recently by Luke 17:7–10, where Jesus says, in so many words, “Don’t expect a huge fanfare of appreciation when all you’ve done is what is normally expected of you.” It didn’t take me too long to jump from that to my own job description as an Education and Curriculum Writer for my company. My main job is to take materials prepared by subject matter experts (SMEs) and develop Web-based training and other materials for our eventual approval as an organization that can offer continuing education credits. I have some advanced training in adult educational theory, so I’d like to think I’m ideally suited to the task.

Having spent several years working from home or working more-or-less independently as an adjunct professor, no one really had a claim on the rest of my time other than family. I was given a job to do, and I did it to the best of my ability. But now, after having been working for a company for the past 16 months, I think I have finally gotten adjusted to having a boss and understanding how I fit into the whole scheme of things as an employee. Lately, because we lost our data analyst at Christmas time and because I have a pretty strong math and Excel background, I got handed the task dealing with the data and putting it into the necessary templates in Word for our purposes. I was able to develop a couple VBA macros for Word and Excel that made the task almost embarrassingly easy, creating, on average, twenty-five six-page, personalized documents from the data in about ten minutes. And if something needed to be tweaked in all documents after they were created? Forget about it! I had learned how to do macros for that as well.

Now there’s a part of me that thinks I deserve a little extra commendation (read “pay raise”) for taking on this task that really was not in my field of expertise. But I was reminded of that humbling little phrase in my job description (and my coworkers’ job description and most likely your job description): “Other duties as assigned.” I had not written much of any computer code since my college days 30 years ago, long before Bill Gates became a household name. I had toyed with macros in some of my editing work, but not nearly to the extent that I have achieved in the past year. One of my coworkers loaned me her book on VBA for Microsoft applications, and that has been a life saver many times. But more than once, when I attempted to execute some piece of code, it just wouldn’t work like I thought it should. I think through this experience, more than any other, I have really come to appreciate the power of prayer.

Whenever I would get stuck on trying to get a piece of code to work, I would always lift it up to God. I would pray for understanding or to find the answer online or in the VBA reference book. Without fail, within an hour of reaching out to God for help, he directed me to answer or revealed to me the nature of the problem. Code is nothing but pure logic (in spite of the occasional Schroedinbugs), so to whom could I turn when I got stuck but the creator of logic himself?

This experience is just another in a long string of divine confirmations that God has me where he wants me. I just have to keep telling myself that that is a far greater benefit or reward than the praise of my bosses or coworkers or any pay raises or bonuses (I won’t turn any of that down, though!). Becoming the go-to guy for the data was nothing more than “other duties as assigned,” so “I am an unworthy servant; I have done what I ought to do.”

Peace,

Scott Stocking

April 22, 2012

Sing a New Song (Psalm 98; Ephesians 5:18–21)

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Ecclesiology,Ephesians,New Testament,Old Testament,Psalms — Scott Stocking @ 7:34 am

NOTE: The following is revised and expanded from an article I wrote that appeared in the February 4, 2001, edition of Christian Standard.

Sports fans are passionate people. They love their favorite teams and cheer them on with great enthusiasm. But sometimes their passion gets out of control, and violence erupts. We have seen this on a number of occasions, especially when a favorite team wins a big game or a national championship. Revelry and carousing take place in the streets, some even firing guns into the air, while others are hurt or injured from brawls that break out.

Don’t Get Drunk on Wine. . .

The country witnessed this behavior in 2000 when Los Angeles residents rioted after the Lakers won the NBA title. No doubt in many of these incidents of individuals or crowds getting out of hand, alcohol was a major contributing factor. Alcohol breaks down our inhibitions and our sense of self-control and leads to all kinds of misbehavior. Although Midwesterners are a little more subdued in their celebrations, I have no doubt that St. Louisans lined Busch Brewery’s pockets after Games 6 and 7 of the 2011 World Series.

Expressing passion for a sports team can be turned into a positive model of worship. After all, the word “fan” comes from the word “fanatic.” Do we love God and express our praise for him as much as we do our favorite teams? Hasn’t God done much more than win a World Series or an NBA title? Now granted, I don’t want us going out and getting drunk for Jesus. Eph 5:18 provides a good balance for us when celebrating what God has done in our lives: “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” Paul warns that controlled substances and uncontrolled behaviors are not the proper way to celebrate or to let off steam at the extremes of life. These only lead to trouble, hardship, and sin.

Instead, Be Filled with the Spirit

Instead, Paul exhorts his readers to “be filled with the Spirit.” The similarity here with the negative command against alcohol may escape some: with alcohol, we give up control of our faculties to a mindless substance, and our corrupt flesh nature rises to the surface. If you’ve ever had too much to drink, you know what I mean. You say things when you’re tipsy that you wouldn’t say when you’re sober. Your ability to drive and walk is impaired. Being filled with the Spirit, however, implies that we are giving up control to “the mind of Christ” and to the God who created us for his purposes—our “new man” shines forth.

Understanding this truth is one key to getting a handle on the “worship wars” that many congregations have experienced in the past twenty years. Many in the older generations (“the builders” and to a certain extent, the “boomers”) fuss at the younger generation because of the latter’s desire to have more contemporary choruses and the additional accompaniment of guitars, drums, and so on. At the same time the younger generations (“busters,” “X,” and “2K”) complain about the slow tempo of some traditional hymns and the unpopularity (from their perspective) of the piano or church organ, or both. (One is hard pressed to find a successful radio station today that plays only piano and organ music!) When I moved back to Nebraska in 2010, I got reconnected with the congregation that sent me off to seminary. The sermon series that first Sunday I was back was “I Love the 80s.” Each week, the worship team performed a different (secular) hit song from the 80s, and the pastor used Scripture to highlight the significant themes of the song.

The one who is critical of the worship style a congregation uses is equally as guilty as the one who condemns another for not jumping on board a congregation’s preferred worship style, or a congregation’s desire to establish a more culturally relevant style. Neither group is filled with the Spirit. Neither group is more holy or righteous than the other is simply because of what its preferred style of music is. If we are filled with the Spirit when we come to worship, we allow the Holy Spirit to break down our inhibitions about style, while he directs our attention to the substance of the hymn or chorus.

Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

When we get beyond our personal preferences about style, only then can we truly appreciate the command to “sing a new song” to our Lord. Paul goes on in Eph 5:19–20 to explain what he means by being filled with the Spirit. The first aspect is “speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your hearts to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything.” Paul here seems to bring the old (psalms, hymns) and the new (spiritual songs) together for the mutual edification of the body, and for the purpose of expressing thanks to our God. In fact, the five verbs that come after “be filled with the Spirit” are all subordinate to that command in some way, because they are all participles. Here is my outline for the organization of those verses:

Be filled (πληρόω) with the Spirit

    Speaking (λαλέω) to one another with psalms (ψαλμός), hymns (ὕμνος), and spiritual songs (ᾠδή)

        Singing (ᾄδω) and

        Making music (ψάλλω) in your hearts to the Lord,

        Always giving thanks (εὐχαριστέω) to God the Father…

    Submitting (ὑποτάσσω) to one another out of reverence for Christ.

The passion in that exhortation is self-evident. The musical expression of God’s Word was a vital part of the fellowship experience of first century Christians. This has been true throughout the centuries in the Christian faith, and still holds true today. Passionate worship is one of the signs of a living, growing, fruit-bearing congregation. Passionate worship shows the world that we really do love our Lord with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind.

The second aspect of being filled with the Spirit is that we “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21). Like the Fifth Commandment (Ex 20:12), this command serves as general statement of transition between our spiritual relationships (worship of God within the body) and our earthly relationships (family and work). In the context of the former (worship), submitting to one another implies that we show mutual respect for each other’s preferred styles. If the Spirit is present, style is at best a secondary concern. What matters is keeping the unity of the Spirit with the bond of peace (Eph 4:3).

The New Song

The most common hymnbook in the pews of the churches I served in the past twenty years was Favorite Hymns of Praise (Tabernacle Publishing, Wheaton, IL) copyrighted in 1967. One day while preparing a sermon on the topic of the “new song,” I thumbed through the hymns and browsed an Internet site with hymn histories. I discovered that most of the hymns were in the public domain or the copyright had expired. In other words, they were written before copyright laws went into effect in the early 1920s. Although many of these hymns contain important, timeless truths about God and our faith, they are nonetheless “old.” The fact that they are old does not detract from their value, but it may detract from their appeal to younger generations.

The command to “sing to the Lord a new song” (Psalm 98:1) is not one which was negated by the New Covenant. All nine occurrences of the phrase “new song” in the NIV are connected with the victory, salvation, and justice of God.

God is still winning victories today, every time someone professes faith in him and receives baptism by immersion. In Luke 15, we see that the angels throw a heavenly party over each sinner who repents. Each soul has a unique story of how he or she came to know Christ, and each story is worthy of a “new song.”

Psalm 98

Psalm 98 is by far the most vivid statement of the “new song” in Scripture. The psalm consists of three stanzas of three verses each. In each of the first three verses, God’s salvation is mentioned. Verses 2–3 are particularly prophetic: the word for “salvation” (יְשׁוּעָה) is related to the word translated elsewhere as “Joshua,” or to the Greeks, “Jesus.”

Verses 4–6 make it clear that enthusiasm and passion are important, if not necessary, elements of worship. This second stanza begins and ends with the command to “shout for joy” (רוע). Verse 4 in the NIV is rendered “burst into jubilant song with music,” but the KJV reveals that the phrase is actually made up of only three verbs. “Burst” (KJV has “make a loud noise”; פצח) has the image of flood waters built up behind a dam or levee that suddenly break through clearing out everything in its path. “Jubilant song” (KJV has “rejoice”; רנן) is used of the mountains in vs. 8. “Music” (KJV has “sing praise”; זמר) is actually the root word for “psalm” (see the Ephesians passage above), which is a song sung to musical accompaniment.

God as Audience

Verse 6 is the crux of the entire psalm. The word “before” can also be translated “in the presence of.” When we “shout for joy in the presence of the Lord, the King,” the obvious conclusion here is that God is the audience. Those of us who worship, then, are the performers. The condition in Psalm 33:3 makes a great deal of sense, then: “play skillfully.” God wants us to give our best. Our best may not win us any recording contracts, but he does want us to worship with all that we are.

God wants us to praise him even when we do not feel like praising him, or even when we do not think our talents are good enough to contribute to the body. Jehoshaphat placed the choir out in front of the troops, and ultimately they did not have to lift a finger in violence against their enemies. God won the victory. Praise has a power that goes far beyond our ability and our comprehension. The point is: “SING!”

The final three stanzas reveal that worship is for all of God’s creation, not just his chosen people. In part, it is evangelistic. 1 Corinthians 14 indicates that orderly, comprehensible worship is a powerful tool for reaching the unsaved. If our forms of worship are foreign to the culture around us, we will not have a significant impact on our culture.

A Bold Example

One congregation I served in had a “talent” night. Two high school freshmen boys “rapped” Will Smith’s song “Just the Two of Us.” The “rap” is about Will Smith’s desire to be a good father to his son, in spite of his divorce from the boy’s mother. Nothing in the song is offensive to the Christian values of parenthood. I know some of our elderly members were squirming, if not fuming, from allowing that song to be performed in the sanctuary. But neither of these two young men has significant contact with their biological fathers. I interpreted that song as a heartfelt prayer of those two young men for a relationship like the one Will Smith sang about.

Conclusion

In worship, we long to draw near to our heavenly Father, just as those two teenagers longed to have a close relationship with their earthly fathers. Singing a new song to the Lord is one way to praise God for his victories in our lives, both past and future. If we are not singing new songs to the Lord, the rocks themselves will cry out declaring the righteous rule of our Savior and Lord.

Peace!

Pastor Scott Stocking, M.Div.

NOTE: On 1/16/26, I posted a link to the archived copy of the Christian Standard issue in which this article appears, not realizing I already a version of it posted here.

Christian Standard | February 4, 2001 by Christian Standard Media – Issuu Pages 10–12

March 23, 2012

Helmet of Salvation (Isaiah 59:17, Ephesians 6:17)

Filed under: 1 Thessalonians,Biblical Studies,Courage,Ecclesiology,Ephesians,Faith, Faithfulness,Isaiah,Old Testament,Soteriology,Spiritual Warfare — Scott Stocking @ 7:37 am
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When my kids were learning how to ride their bicycles, I was a bit obsessive about them using a helmet. Now when I was a kid (many moons ago, now), neither my parents nor I ever gave a second thought to riding my bike without a helmet. Helmets were for football, not bike riding. Granted, the helmet cannot save you from any and all injuries, which is one of the common arguments used by motorcycle riders opposed to mandatory helmet laws. But it is a measure of protection that gave me an added sense of security as a parent as my kids were learning how to be more independent. Now that my son has his driver’s license and my daughter is only weeks away from getting her learner’s permit, I’m obsessing about safety all over again. I’m not making everyone wear helmets when he drives, obviously. But Solomon was right. “There is nothing new under the sun.”

In three passages of Scripture, God uses the “helmet” (Heb. כֹּובַע) image to describe the salvation he freely offers (Isaiah 59:17; Ephesians 6:17; and 1 Thessalonians 5:8). In Isaiah 59:17, the prophet says that God “put[s] on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on His head.” In the context of Isaiah 59, God is “displeased that there [is] no justice” (vs. 15b). God’s salvation and righteousness are necessary to turn the tide of injustice in Israel. This word for helmet is only used six times in the Old Testament, but the Isaiah passage is the only time where God is said to wear this piece of armor. If God is all powerful, he doesn’t need armor, so obviously this is figurative language here. But this also betrays another myth we have about spiritual armor. We think it is defensive. But in this passage, God is not on the defense. He is moving forward in an offensive against injustice. He’s getting ready to execute his vengeance!

As I have mentioned before in other contexts, God’s salvation here goes far beyond our own personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Yes, each of us individually can personally receive God’s salvation, but not solely for our own benefit. God’s salvation here has national (and international) implications. God wants the nation of Israel to be saved, as well as the individuals within the nation.

The apostle Paul has this multifaceted view of salvation-justice as well. In 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Paul urges everyone to pray for “kings and authorities” so we may lead “peaceful lives,” because God “wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” Isaiah’s image of the helmet fits well here. God wants you and I to serve as ambassadors who will proclaim his salvation not only to individuals, but his justice to our leaders as well (see also Eph 3:8–11, Romans 13:1–7). We do this by our behavior as well as by the words we speak. As Christians, we are not primarily on defense. We should be advancing in the power of the gospel, taking every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:3–6) and storming the gates of hell (Matthew 16:18).

For too long the more conservative, non-mainline denominations have put justice on the back burner, usually treating symptoms (soup kitchens, used clothing stores, etc.) while not addressing the causes (economic oppression, government policies, waste, etc.). Fortunately, more and more Christians are beginning to recognize that a witness of social justice is an important part of declaring God’s salvation to the lost, hopeless, and oppressed. And interestingly enough, the more it seems we concern ourselves with social justice, the more intense the persecution becomes against Christians. I’d say that means we must be doing something right to concern ourselves with God’s salvation-justice.

The bicycle helmet cannot protect us from skinned knees and elbows. We need kneepads, elbow pads and wrist braces if we are really serious about protecting ourselves as we ride the highways and byways of this nation. God’s helmet of salvation is only part of the “whole armor of God” that defends us against the onslaught of Satan and his forces. Not only is it defensive, but His armor terrifies our foes and causes them to retreat as they see us advancing against them in God’s might.

Peace!

Scott Stocking

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March 11, 2012

The Passion Week of Christ

Filed under: John Gospel of,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Mark Gospel of,Matthew Gospel of — Scott Stocking @ 2:11 pm

I have been swamped this past week or so with an albatross of an edit. I haven’t had time to put anything new together, but I thought with Resurrection Sunday coming up, I’d index the links to my blog posts on the final week of Christ’s earthly ministry. I’m guessing there might be a minister or two out there struggling for some sermon ideas.

“Why Have You Forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34, par. Psalm 22:1)

Thieves, Robbers, or Rebels?

“I Am the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25)

Judas’s Kiss (Matthew 26:48–49; Mark 14:45)

“If I’ve Told You Once, I’ve Told You a Thousand Times…”

εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν (eis aphesin hamartiōn, ‘for the forgiveness of sins’)

Let the Sleeping Saints Arise!

“Father, Forgive Them…” (Luke 23:34)

A Truly Open Communion?

Peace to all!

Scott Stocking

February 27, 2012

Deciphering the Mark 1:4 Variants

Filed under: Biblical Studies,Immersion/Baptism,Mark Gospel of,New Testament,Textual Criticism — Scott Stocking @ 7:03 am

Details matter. Acts 28:13 and 1 Corinthians 13:3 each have variant readings that differ by only one letter each. Those differences make a huge difference in how the respective passages should be translated. Mark 1:4 is a little more complicated than that. Two small words are part of the variant readings for this passage: the one-letter definite article and a three-letter conjunction. Such small words only seem small, however. In reality, there is a big difference in how the passage is translated. Do we call John “the Baptizer” or just John in this passage?

Illustrating the Issue

I have listed the variant readings in Table 1 (only up to the word after the variant), with literal translations below each word. I put it in table form so those of you not familiar with what “variants” are can visualize the issue. The lexical forms of the individual words are the column headings for the verse, and each is linked the Strong’s entry on www.blueletterbible.org.

Table 1: Three Best-Attested Variant Readings of Mark 1:4a (as ordered in the UBS 3 apparatus)

Eclectic Greek Text

Primary Ancient Witness

γίνομαι

Ἰωάννης

ὁ

βαπτίζω

ἐν

ὁ

ἔρημος

καὶ

κηρύσσω

UBS Text

א (Sinaiticus)

ἐγένετο

Ἰωάννης

ὁ*

βαπτίζων

ἐν

τῇ

ἐρήμῳ

καὶ

κηρύσσων

It was

John

the

one baptizing

in

the

wilderness

and

[the] one preaching

[none]

B (Vaticanus)

ἐγένετο

Ἰωάννης

ὁ

βαπτίζων

ἐν

τῇ

ἐρήμῳ

κηρύσσων

was

John

the

Baptizer

in

the

wilderness

preaching

Stephen’s Textus Receptus

A (Alexandrinus)

ἐγένετο

Ἰωάννης

βαπτίζων

ἐν

τῇ

ἐρήμῳ

καὶ

κηρύσσων

was

John

baptizing

in

the

wilderness

and

preaching

*This is in the ancient text (Sinaiticus), but the UBS 3rd/4th editions have it in brackets with a grade of C indicating uncertainty it was in the autograph.

At the end of this post, I have included sentence diagrams (Figure 1) illustrating these variant readings.

The two main issues are:

  1. Was the definite article (ὁ) originally in the text before the participle βαπτίζων?
  2. Was the conjunction καὶ originally in the text before the participle κηρύσσων?

Textus Receptus (A Alexandrinus)

I will start with the Textus Receptus reading, because that seems to be the easiest to explain to English readers. A participle in English is a verb that usually adds –ing for the present participle or –ed for the past participle. They are usually used with a helping verb in the perfect tense (I have waited; I have been waiting) or passive voice (I was waited on by the butler; I am being waited on by the butler). Essentially in this reading, Mark uses the long form of the perfect tense (called periphrastic) instead of using a perfect tense verb. Here is how the King James renders the passage from the Textus Receptus:

John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

Notice that without the definite article, the participles are seen to function as verbs that complete the past-tense helping verb ἐγένετο. The helping verb is translated various ways in English depending on context. The KJV phrasing sounds a bit archaic to 21st-century ears, but a more contemporary way to put it might be “John was baptizing…and preaching.” In other words, the translators don’t see this as a title for John. It’s neither “John the Baptist” nor “John the Baptizer”; it’s just “John” with a double predicate. Two of the three “preferences” used when deciding between two or more variants are prefer the shorter reading and prefer the more difficult reading. This passage is shorter than the UBS text, but is not as difficult as that text or the B text. Another poorly attested variant based on the D text is similar to A but changes the order of the text. I don’t detail that in the text of this post. It is diagrammed in Figure 1, however.

B (Vaticanus)

The B (Vaticanus) text has the definite article with βαπτίζων, and the passage can then be read like “John the Baptizer” is a title, especially without the καὶ (“and”; I will cover why that is important in the discussion of the א [Sinaiticus] text). The lack of a καὶ suggests that the two participles should not be taken as a compound predicate, as in the A text. The second participle describes what John was doing in the wilderness and functions very much like an adverb, as anarthrous (=without the definite article) participles often do. So the B passage could be translated like this:

John the Baptizer was in the wilderness preaching baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

or

In the wilderness, John the Baptizer was preaching baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

This would be an acceptable translation if the B variant were not so poorly attested.

א (Sinaiticus)

I think that the reading of the א (Sinaiticus) text is the more difficult reading, but perhaps not for the reasons you think. For the most part, the καὶ is accepted as original to the text. If this is so, then it makes perfect sense to have the definite article before βαπτίζων. How are the two words related? It’s a rule I’ve discussed before in the blog, the Granville Sharp rule. If two singular, personal, non-proper nouns or substantives (words that can function as nouns; in this case βαπτίζων and κηρύσσων) are joined by καὶ, and only the first noun has the definite article, then the two nouns refer to the same person. This reading is slightly more difficult than the A text reading, because the construction is a bit more sophisticated. Since the two participles refer to the same person, the definite article would not be out of place. That doesn’t negate the reading of the A text necessarily, but since adding the definite article would not have been necessary to make sense of the text, it would seem to me that someone removed it somewhere along the way to make it a little easier to understand. In this case, the difficult passage is preferred over the shorter passage.

Given Mark’s penchant for shorter statements more to the point, the passage could be rendered like this:

There was John, the one baptizing in the wilderness and preaching baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

or

There was John, the Baptizer in the wilderness, the Preacher of baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

The former option isn’t much different from the A text reading above, but instead of just doing a straight noun/verb translation, I assumed Mark was using the participles to explain which John he intended (“There was John, you know, the guy who baptizing and preaching”). Note that the last option, for consistency, treats both “Baptizer” and “Preacher” as titles, because the definite article before βαπτίζων governs κηρύσσων as well. Mark does use the phrase Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτίζων in 6:14 as well, so there is precedence for the phrase as a title. My translation of 1:4 with the titles sounds a little bit awkward to our English ears, but Greek speakers would have understood the construction immediately.

Nominative Absolute?

On a more technical note, it is entirely possible that the entire verse was intended as a nominative absolute. That’s basically a phrase in the subject case that stands apart as a separate clause and serves as the antecedent for a pronoun. The first four words of vs. 5 give the verb and the pronoun for John (καὶ ἐξεπορεύετο πρὸς αὐτὸν “and [everyone] went out to him”) before Mark states the subjects of the verb, so that’s a good clue that 1:4 might be functioning as a nominative absolute. If that is so, the editors of the Greek New Testament should put a comma instead of a period at the end of verse 4. This would further support the reading of the א text.

Conclusion

Talking about textual variants may not be the most exciting topic in the world for a blog, but I think it is important that people understand the care scholars take to restore the original text of Scripture. I hope that I have made this understandable for most audiences, but if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me through the comments or e-mail link. Thank you for reading!

Peace

Scott Stocking

Appendix

Figure 1: Sentence Diagrams for Mark 1:4 Variants

February 20, 2012

Judas’s Kiss (Matthew 26:48–49; Mark 14:45)

Filed under: Acts,Life of Christ,Luke Gospel of,Mark Gospel of,Matthew Gospel of,New Testament,Passion,Septuagint — Scott Stocking @ 2:43 pm

Introduction

Those of us who read the Scriptures with any regularity (and even with some irregularity) have noticed the phenomenon of selective attention. What I mean by this is, when you read a passage of Scripture you know you’ve read before, you notice something that speaks to your heart in such a way that you say, “Why didn’t I see that before.” That has happened to me quite often in reading the English translations of the Bible, even though English is my native tongue. You’d think I’d remember more than I do when I read Scripture. But now on my second time through the Greek New Testament (GNT), I am experiencing that same phenomenon. Of course, having that full year of experience has seasoned me to notice certain features of the text that the occasional reader of the GNT might not notice.

Matthew 26:48–49

The subject of this blog post is one such passage. Matthew 26:48–49 is part of the story of Judas betraying Jesus to the authorities. My discussion in this post centers around the nature of the “kiss” by which Judas identified Jesus to the authorities. Here is how the text reads in the NIV, with the Greek words translated “kiss” identified:

Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss [φιλήσω from φιλέω] is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed [κατεφίλησεν from καταφιλέω] him.

The “Kiss”

New Testament Usage

Some may think the different words used for “kiss” here represent merely a stylistic difference, but an examination of the second word, καταφιλέω, reveals an interesting nuance that is lost in translation but not in context. The word is used six times in the New Testament: once each by Matthew and Mark (14:45) in their respective betrayal pericopes; and four times by Luke—three in his Gospel (Luke 7:38, 45; 15:20) and once in Acts (20:37).

Luke mentions the φιλέω kiss in his passion story, but he never outright says that Judas kissed Jesus. But it is Luke’s use of καταφιλέω that reveals the important nuance in Matthew and Mark. Luke 7 is the story of the woman who washes Jesus feet with perfume, tears, and her hair. The kissing is portrayed as a repeated action that at the same time indicates a sort of “sorrowful joy.” She is both truly repentant and truly grateful for the forgiveness Jesus would proclaim to her. In vs. 45, Luke even contrasts the φιλέω kiss he should have received from Simon as a customary greeting with the woman’s repeated καταφιλέω kissing. So Luke was fully aware of the contrast between the two words, just as Matthew and Mark were.

In Luke 15, Jesus uses καταφιλέω of the father welcoming home the prodigal son. In Acts 20:37, Luke again uses the word to describe what happened when Paul departed from Miletus after saying farewell to the Ephesian elders. Paul is facing grave danger as he returns to Jerusalem, and many of his friends think they will never see him again. This is no peck on the cheek. Strong emotions always accompany this kind of “kiss.”

Old Testament Usage

The use of this word in the Septuagint (LXX) is no different. It describes the affection Laban showed his grandchildren when Jacob departed (Genesis 31:28, 32:1). It also describes Joseph’s reunion with his brothers in Egypt (Genesis 45:15). Naomi parted with Orpah with this kind of kiss, and the bond was so strong that Ruth insisted on returning to Bethlehem with Naomi (Ruth 1:9, 14). The word describes David’s friendship with Jonathan as well (1 Samuel 20:41). But lest I be misunderstood or misinterpreted, there is absolutely no sexual connotation in these farewell “kisses.” They reveal the very deep bond of friendship that the people experienced.

Judas’s Kiss: What It Means

So what does this all mean for Judas’s kiss? The fact that Matthew and Mark use καταφιλέω to describe Judas’s betrayal kiss reveals a couple things in my mind. First, Judas seems to have genuinely loved Jesus. I don’t think it’s fair to suggest he wasn’t genuine about the show of affection, especially given the desperation of his remorse after the fact. Second, because of that love, I have to wonder if Judas was trying to force Jesus’s hand by having him arrested. Judas wanted as much as anyone to throw off Roman rule, but Judas apparently didn’t like where things were headed. I think it is within the realm of reason to suggest that Judas thought by having Jesus arrested, Jesus’s followers would rise up rebellion against Rome. Or perhaps he even thought that Jesus would make a mighty show of divine power to overthrow Rome.

His actions do not strike me as those of a man who had a traitorous heart from the beginning. Rather they seem to be desperate measures by a disillusioned man who was trying to make one last attempt to have things go his way. When he failed miserably and realized he had condemned his friend to death rather initiating a new world order, he killed himself in an ultimate act of desperation.

Conclusion

How many times do you and I get disillusioned about the way God is working in our lives? I know I have done my share of complaining to God that he’s not doing things the way I think he should be doing them. Then in desperation, I do something in an attempt to force God’s hand and realize after the fact how foolish I really was. I need to work on developing that deep and abiding trust in God that makes me want to melt into his καταφιλέω affection for me, just as the prodigal experienced when he returned home.

Peace!

Scott Stocking

February 12, 2012

Fruit (καρπός)

Filed under: 1 Corinthians,Biblical Studies,Matthew Gospel of,New Testament — Scott Stocking @ 6:38 pm

From the “Word of the Week” Files

Fruit is a common metaphor (word picture) in the NT. Occasionally biblical authors use the word in its literal sense, but more often than not it has spiritual significance. One of John the Baptizer’s warnings to the religious leaders was, “Produce fruit (καρπός) worthy of repentance” (Matt 3:8, my translation). Jesus uses this concept in the sermon on the mount (Matt 7:15–20) to refer to the deeds of the false prophets. In Gal 5:22–23, Paul describes the “fruit of the Spirit,” which is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Note here that “fruit” is singular in the Greek.)

In many occurrences of the word, there is a direct or implied contrast with the old way of life. In other words, fruit has to do with how you allow Christ to live in you. In the three passages cited above, fruit describes the result of a life changed by Christ. Fruit is about integrity more than anything else. Do people see Christ when they look at you? Do they understand that your life is a reflection of the workmanship of God, or are you working in your own strength to appease God?

The Scriptures say “God made it grow” (1 Cor 3:6). You can’t take credit for spiritual fruit; if you could, it wouldn’t be spiritual. This is not to deny the value of self-control and discipline, however. The point I am making is that it is one thing for an alcoholic to say he has not touched a bottle for five years, but quite another thing to say that Christ-in-you has crucified that old desire and replaced it with a new desire for a relationship with him. Good deeds reflect a life transformed by Christ. They should not be an attempt to prove you are better than another. That’s Pharisaic legalism. Nor should they be some sort of status symbol. Each one of us has unique gifts: some are used visibly and some are used behind the scenes. All gifts in the body of Christ work toward the greater good. When we are faithful to our individual callings, God is able to work them all together to cause growth.

This brings me to my final point. Fruit is something very personal. It has to do primarily with the results of your own relationship with God. This shatters one common myth about “fruit” in the NT, that it refers to evangelistic conquests (i.e., leading someone to Christ). Matthew 3:8 and other passages never imply that a successul Christian life means you’ve got converts notched in your belt. God is the only one who can take credit for converts, because he does all the work. We are only agents of his grace. To judge yourself or someone else based on the number of converts you or the other have been “responsible” for is to put yourself in the place of God.

For those who may have trouble with this last concept, I offer this quote from the opening paragraph of the “Fruit” article in the Expositor’s Dictionary of Bible Words, published by Zondervan Press: “For Christians who are convinced that ‘being fruitful’ means winning others to Christ, the description of fruit in Scripture may come as a surprise.” Fruit is not about winning others to Christ, but about totally and completely surrendering yourself to Christ and his grace so that he can prune you and cause phenomenal growth.

Peace!

Scott Stocking

February 4, 2012

A Tale of Two Photos

Filed under: Gambling,Matthew Gospel of,Paxton Illinois,Theophany — Scott Stocking @ 12:57 pm

I think it’s time I told this story. This is going to be so much different than my other posts, because I don’t anticipate I will use much Greek or Hebrew, although I am certain I will cite some Scripture.

The story begins back in about 2001 when I lived in Paxton, Illinois. My family and I had moved there in 1999 so I could take a position with Paxton Church of Christ. For whatever reasons, the position didn’t work out: it wasn’t a good fit for me, but I still knew I needed to be in the community. About 2001, the community got wind that the Miami Native American tribe was considering suing the State of Illinois to recover land outside of Paxton so they could build a casino. The community was in an uproar, especially since the mayor at the time came out in favor of it.

After about six months, the hubbub died down, and the Miami backed off as well, because it was obvious they didn’t have a claim on the area (they do have a historic presence a little further east, however, in NE Indiana). Even to this day, one can still see “NO CasiNO” signs around Paxton. But was it all just a show on the part of the anti-casino crowd? I didn’t ask that question until six years later, when the heart of my story begins.

King Richard

In March 2007, I saw an article in the Paxton Record that a local gas station owner, Richard Schwarz, was going to open “King Richard’s Raffle House.” After all the fuss about the proposed Native American casino, I figured it would be a slam dunk to shut this thing down before it got off the ground, but in the long run, there wasn’t much public opposition to the raffle house, even though I had the private encouragement of friends. The city had to pass a special ordinance allowing the “raffle house” to operate, and it had to be in accord with State laws on raffles. Legally any organization in the city that conducted any kind of raffle had to apply and pay the fee. The raffle law was part of all the gaming laws in Illinois (casinos, bingo, slots, etc.), most of which were taxed strictly. Bingo halls, for example, had to pay 5 percent off the top of their revenues, and according to a friend who worked with the Knights of Columbus bingo hall in the area, they were watched pretty closely. As long as such places took care to follow the law, I wasn’t going to oppose them.

Figure 1: The van that delivered the bingo equipment to King Richard’s Raffle House: “The Bingo Store on Wheels”

The raffle law was really designed to cover more traditional raffles, where you buy a ticket and hope your ticket gets drawn for the prize. But when King Richard started decorating the storefront in downtown Paxton in anticipation of opening, what was plastered all over the windows? Construction paper cutouts of bingo balls, with both the letter and the number! So from the start, it was obvious this was going to be an attempt to skirt the bingo laws of Illinois. The State even had a law that said bingo equipment could only be used for actual bingo operations, but the city council didn’t seem to think that was relevant. Figure 1 shows the van that delivered the bingo board in Figure 2. (Sorry about the quality; I took the picture on a nighttime setting, and that never worked too well on my camera.) It also delivered a rather pricey electronic bingo-ball machine that drew the numbers. Players used cards that looked exactly like bingo cards without BINGO on them.

Figure 2: (Sorry about the quality) This is the bingo number board in King Richard’s Raffle House. “BINGO” was covered up on the left of the sign.

Before opening night, April 10, 2007, Schwarz must have realized what trouble he would get in if he continued to promote his operation as “bingo” (he promoted it as “glorified bingo” to the city council) so the bingo-ball cutouts mysteriously disappeared and were replaced with only numbers in circles. Same idea, but somehow he thought that city and state officials would be fooled by the missing letters. Whether they were fooled or not, neither the state nor the city did anything about it. But read on, because the raffle house issue resurfaced in Urbana a couple years later, with different results.

Crunching Numbers

The idea behind the raffle house was that a nonprofit organization could rent the building and equipment and conduct the raffle games to raise money. However, Schwarz owned the equipment and he leased the building. The state law and city ordinance were clear that the charity had to lease the building. Schwarz had to submit financial records to the city on a monthly basis, so I started tracking and crunching the numbers he had reported. What I found was disturbing, confusing, and downright deceptive. What the numbers revealed was that, at least on paper, he was charging the charity $500/night(!) for the building plus $2 per person and $50/night for the city license fee. The average gross receipt per person was over $70. The charity had to agree to a one-month gig at the place, which worked out to a minimum of twelve nights per month. Again, on paper, that works out to almost $7000 per month just to be in the building. I don’t know too many charities that would be willing to expend that kind of money for a separate, temporary building for a month to raise money.

Opening night, seventy-six people paid to play at the raffle house. Table 1 shows what the numbers looked like for that opening night (I obtained the numbers monthly through an official FOIA request presented to the city):

Date

Month

#Play

Gross recpts

prizes

discounts

Hall Exp.

Raffle Exp.

Jars Holding

Net Proceeds

Sponsor Game

4/10

 April

76

$5,831.75

$4,065.00

$0.00

$652.00

$725.75

$98.00

$291.00

 

Table 1: First-night proceeds from King Richard’s Raffle House.

So the charity (The Trimble Foundation, which Schwarz himself operated), again, on paper, spent $652 to rent a building for one night and got $291 in return. Not exactly a great return on investment. In fact, that’s a loss. The scary thing is, this was the best night for the house until July of that year as far as attendance goes. In fact, the average attendance for April was 32 persons/night the house operated. Now I keep saying “on paper,” because the books show he didn’t charge the hall expense every night. And sometimes, he never charged the full amount, especially if it meant “breaking even” on the night.

On the few nights the house did show net proceeds, there was no “sponsor game.” As you will see in Table 2, there is an amount in the sponsor game column, and that is what went to the charity that night. The sponsor game doesn’t balance with the rest of the numbers. The sponsor games appear to have been an afterthought, a way for the charity to recover some money that night. You will also notice that there is no hall expense recorded for the next three nights, but there is one for the night (April 17) when the house broke even.

Date

Month

#Play

Gross recpts

prizes

discounts

Hall Exp.

Raffle Exp.

Jars Holding

Net Proceeds

Sponsor Game

4/10

 April

76

$5,831.75

$4,065.00

$0.00

$652.00

$725.75

$98.00

$291.00

 

4/11

 April

12

$546.75

$1,370.00

$0.00

$0.00

$50.00

$22.00

($895.25)

$25.00

4/13

 April

25

$1,204.75

$1,584.00

$0.00

$0.00

$50.00

$43.00

($472.25)

$35.00

4/16

 April

18

$790.75

$1,494.00

$0.00

$0.00

$50.00

$31.00

($784.25)

$25.00

4/17

 April

34

$3,050.50

$2,237.00

$0.00

$568.00

$186.50

$59.00

$0.00

$51.00

Table 2: The first five nights of the raffle house.

Note also that on three of these nights, prize distribution exceeded gross receipts, sometimes more than double. This was a regular pattern for the house, with 31 of its 111 nights of operation in 2007 showing a prize distribution greater than gross receipts, and that is before factoring in hall rental and other expenses. Note then, that even if the charity only “paid” hall expense on those two nights, a total of $1220, they only got back $427 on those first five nights. I would have backed out in a heartbeat if I had seen those kinds of numbers. When all was said and done, after 111 nights over nine months and half a dozen charities tried to tough it out, Table 3 shows the final damage to all involved. After the Watseka flooding (supposedly many regulars were from Watseka) and the implementation of the smoking ban in Illinois in December 2007/January 2008, the raffle house was no more. Over $250,000 had come into the raffle house, and the net loss to all charities (again, on paper; I suspect Schwarz absorbed most of the loss) was around $35,000 after the sponsor game is figured in.

3579

$250,760.25

$213,149.00

$7,515.00

$33,459.50

$29,816.50

$6,163.00

($39,342.75)

$4,846.00

#Play

Gross recpts

prizes

discounts

Hall Exp.

Raffle Exp.

Jars Holding

Net Proceeds

Sponsor Game

Table 3: The final numbers.

The Battle with City Council

It was one thing to be amazed at how many charities got duped into Schwarz’s scheme. It was equally amazing (and at times amusing were it not for the seriousness of it all) how a bunch of educated men on the city council could be duped by this as well. But then again, maybe that wasn’t so amazing, because all the city had to do was collect the $50/night fee. They never really had any risk for loss. It was all money in the bank for them.

The battle with city hall began in June, after I was fired from a five-year preaching ministry because Schwarz’s charity, unbeknownst to me at the time, had contributed $1000 the previous year to the church. He threatened to withdraw his annual support, which amounted to one tenth of the church’s annual budget, if I didn’t back down. As a man of integrity, I couldn’t. I had carefully researched the Illinois gaming laws and concluded that what Schwarz was doing was wrong, and the city council was complicit, especially since they had passed the ordinance the night before the raffle house opened, and there’s supposed to be a 10-day waiting period before the ordinance is in force in Paxton.

The battle got verbal at times. I even did my best Perry Mason impression and approached the mayor to show him that the proper signatures weren’t on the licenses, which should have invalidated them (if they had been bingo licenses, the State would have invalidated them on the spot). Instead, the city council voted to silence a citizen registering a complaint, because they couldn’t handle the truth. Around October, however, the city proposed some changes to the ordinance that seemed to offer some hope that would shut down the raffle house, or at least force it to offer a legally appropriate raffle. They had adopted some of the language from the state laws that restricted certain activities at the raffle house. I was generally pleased with the progress, and I even said so publicly, but the very next day, something happened that not only caused me to keep my vigilance on the raffle house, but may very well have been a genuine theophany in my own life.

As the Weather Turns

The Tuesday (October 23, 2007) after the committee meeting where the committee announced some of these changes brought some unusual weather. The sky was a brighter blue than usual that fall afternoon, but the wind was blowing from the east, which is extremely unusual for Illinois. At first, some big fluffy clouds began to blow in, but within an hour, clouds had pretty much filled the sky. I thought it was unusual, so when I got back from picking up my daughter from Girl Scouts, I grabbed the camera and walked across the street where I could get an open shot of the sky. I took a random picture of the sky, just to get the clouds and the incredible blue that was showing on the south end of the cloud bank (Figure 3). About 15 minutes later, the kids and I were back in the house, and it got pink outside. This was about a half hour before sunset. I grabbed the camera and we jumped in the car and headed to the west end of town (only a few blocks away), again so I could get a clear picture of the sky. Figure 4 is the amazing view we had that evening of a brilliant sunset. Neither of these photos has been edited. What you see is what the camera caught.

Figure 3: A face in the clouds.

Figure 4: A fiery sunset

I didn’t think much of the first picture, Figure 3, until I was showing it around a school event a few days later, and my daughter said, “There’s a face in the cloud.” Sure enough, I looked at it, and there it was, plain as day. And it was looking right at our house! My spirit (or the Holy Spirit) had told me that Tuesday there had been more to the weather than what met the eye. Even Robert Reese, the weather man for WCIA, commented on pictures others had sent to the station that day about the unusual weather. Now I had some confirmation. To me, anyway, that was the face of God I saw. If you look a little closer at the picture, you might be able to discern half of a second face behind God’s face, one looking directly at the camera. That faces appears to be much more sinister. I decided I probably shouldn’t get too comfortable with what had happened at the council meeting on October 22, and was I ever right.

To Not or Not to Not

When the final proposed changes in the ordinance were publicized in advance of the city council meeting in November, I got them as soon as I could. As I read through the new text, I discovered something very disturbing: where the State statute and the draft version of the city ordinance said “you can not do this” (I paraphrase for simplicity), the text presented to the city council for approval said “you can do this.” In other words, the city ordinance was in direct contradiction to the State statute, a no-no in any State. I made sure I pointed this out to the city attorney and the rest of the city council, but they didn’t seem to have a problem with it. At that point, I knew it was all about the money with them. Their attitude was, why should the state bother with puny little Paxton. They did, after all, have bigger fish to fry, like a governor who was eventually convicted on federal charges and tossed out of office and skyrocketing debt.

By that point, however, it became pretty clear from the numbers that the raffle house was on its last leg. The language that didn’t agree with the state statute wouldn’t really affect organizations that wanted to run traditional raffles, something I never really had a problem with, especially since I knew the integrity of the organizations that conducted the raffles. I knew I had done my best as a citizen to point out the flaws and errors in the system, and only God could take care of the rest.

But that theophany also confirmed in my mind that I had indeed been fighting a good fight, in spite of the criticism I took from my (now ex-)wife at the time. I felt it was important to show my kids that they can stand up against society’s wrongs, even in the face of personal crisis. I felt it was important to maintain a consistent defense against organized gambling establishments in our community. I know I earned the respect of many, but one final event proved to me that I had indeed been on solid ground.

Another Raffle House

About nine months after the raffle house shut down, I received information that a relative of Schwarz’s had a similar operation in Urbana. The tip turned out to be valid, and when I submitted a FOIA request to the City of Urbana for the information about the operation, they discovered they didn’t have any of the financial reports from the owner as State statute required. They eventually sent in an undercover cop who documented that the operation was a cover for bingo, and it was shut down within a week. All I had to do for that was write a letter. Hopefully Paxton’s city council can learn something from Urbana.

Conclusion

The whole series of events with King Richard’s Raffle House may have been the beginning of the end of my marriage, but through it all, I saw visibly God’s hand (and face!) at work. I knew he was with me and watching over me, even though the road was getting extremely rocky. In retrospect, the red cloud bank moving westward may have been as much about God’s anger at the city of Paxton for what they were doing as it was a sign that I should move back to the land of Big Red. It wasn’t too long after that that I started hearing the Husker fight song in my head at all hours of the day. I knew it was inevitable I would return to Nebraska.

I said I would quote some Scripture, so here it is, Matthew 16:1–4 (NIV), and Jeremiah 4:13:

The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven.

He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.

Look! He advances like the clouds,
his chariots come like a whirlwind,
his horses are swifter than eagles.
Woe to us! We are ruined!

I wasn’t looking for a sign that day. Or maybe I was but just didn’t know it. The sky was red that October evening, so I guess that meant fair weather ahead. It took a while to get there, but I think I’ve found my fair weather in Omaha, in spite of the six-plus inches of snow that kept me home today to write this post. Yes, I miss my kids; they fill my thoughts every day. But I have another kind of fulfillment here, one that the provider in me had not experienced in quite some time. My prayer is that each of you will find your purpose and fulfillment in God’s kingdom.

Peace,

Scott Stocking

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