Gender in Christian Perspective

We noted in an earlier posting that the genders have been at war.  Relations have not always been mutually beneficial or friendly.  Gender is often addressed within various religious perspectives, and religion becomes one of the major cultural forces that imprint notions of gender upon emerging generations. 

Within Christendom, gender is sometimes forced into the constrictions of the larger society, so that “gender feminism” rules the church.  Women are then appointed as preachers and elders.  The preaching that is allowed within this perspective may challenge the Bible as outdated, or even as corrupted by males who disadvantage females.  The same battle that rages in the larger culture sometimes rages also in the fellowship of male and female Christians.

By and large, the Bible is the essential source of authority for Christianity.  In all areas of doctrine, faith, and practice, including gender relations, the Bible is upheld as the authentic, quintessential measure of what it means to be Christian.  The Bible generates a perspective that sometimes clashes against the perspective of the larger culture.  This Biblical authority will be honored by some; disdained and repudiated by others.  For many of us, the Bible is regarded as the Word of God.  We submit ourselves to the judgment of Biblical teaching, rather than deem ourselves to be its judges.  What sort of gender perspective results when the Bible is honored?  What relations are placed between the masculine and the feminine in the home (marriage and parenting), in the church, and in the larger culture?

Creation:  an unequal ordering of equals.

The Bible opens with narratives describing God’s Creation of the cosmos.  Human beings are uniquely honored in this Creation with the privilege of wearing God’s own image.  While all of the creation and ordering that spans the universe, to one degree or another, bears the stamp of God’s imprint and so offers a reflection of His glory and essential character, such quality finds unique expression in the human element of God’s creation:  “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.  And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:26-27). 

Because man is uniquely given this privilege, he is given dominion over the rest of creation, including other species of plants and animals as well as the material substance of the created order.  Mankind sits at the top, as a sort of “God in miniature” since he exhibits the image of God.  Curiously, this invites another clash with modern society.  Just as the recognition of gender roles (especially those that grant priority of one gender over the other) was deemed to be “sexist”, some deny the superiority of any single species over the others.  They call such claims to superiority, “species-ism.”  This differentiating of perspectives demonstrates the unique path of thought and philosophy of life that results when the Bible is embraced as authoritative.

Genesis shows man to be fundamentally a “misfit” in the created order.  Although like God and the bearer of the Divine “image”, man is not located where God is.  He is placed here below, with his feet on earth/Earth.  And man also shares a biological commonality with other animal species, and he takes his place among them.  As God creates the wonder of bio-diversity, one species after another, He parades them before His smaller image-bearer and allows man/Adam to name them.  God creates; Adam merely names.  He is like God, but different in a lessened potential. 

And when God sees that Adam needs to connect socially, that man will be lonely unless companionship is provided.  There is a separation between Adam and God—between Big God and little god—that leaves unfulfillment in spite of wearing God’s image.  So God parades the various animal species before Adam as an offer of companionship.  But none of these will suffice.

So God puts Adam under anesthesia, severs off part of his body, and from this He creates another human, this one female.  She has a commonality with Adam beyond any animal species, for she was formed out of his essence.  He recognizes this, declaring:  “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Gen. 2:23).  This pairing is apparently unique.  While God apparently created the lions, penguins, and lizards in ordered pairs of each gender, mankind starts with the male, from which the female is provided after a severance and reconstruction.  This gives the male a certain priority. 

We see this also in the search for a helper suitable to Adam, a search which was unsuccessful among the animals.  So, God works through surgery and reconstruction.  And this new work of God yields a being who, like Adam, is also in the image of God:  “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:27).  Here, “man” in the Hebrew is “Adam” which, like the word “seed”, can be either singular or collective.  The collective here would be translated, “mankind.”  God created mankind in His own image, and this creation includes male and female.  In context, the primary meaning of mankind’s bearing the image of God is a matter of authority.  God creates everything and is thus supreme over it; yet He delegates authority over Creation to His male-and-female image-bearers.  Man and woman jointly sit on the throne over God’s created order, and this suggests a fundamental equality between them that is entered by no other creature.  We see this equality surfacing in Bible passages like 1 Cor. 7:4, "The wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power over his own body, but the wife."  This "power" would surely reside only with the husband if God had intended less than equality with the wife.

What is curious, however, is that this “equality” is ordered not in parity, but in hierarchy:

·        Adam is created first, then Eve.

·        Eve is made for Adam’s benefit.

The same “inequality within equality” plays out when the serpent tricks mankind into surrendering their throne.  The serpent first deceives Eve, who takes in Adam.  When God judges the three of them, He faults the man for listening to his wife instead of taking authority:  “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree…”  (Gen. 3:17).  Whereas mankind had dominion over creation (including the serpent), they allowed the serpent to dominate them.  They gave away their priority that God had placed in their hands.  And, according to the same theme, Adam gave away his authority over Eve.

 

Theological Reflections

 

It might be a good idea to refrain from rebelling against the apparent unfairness of the “inequality within equality” that God has ordered between him and her.  At least we should watch how this plays out and see if we are viewing a Divine mistake, or if this curiosity bears out some of the marks of the amazing wisdom that we normally expect from our Creator.

First, if you are a woman, imagine the position in which God has placed the man.  He has authority, yes, but it is authority over a being, a fellow human, a fellow image-bearer, who is every bit his equal.  An American President who is respectful toward Constitutional authority recognizes that he stands under this authority no less than those over which he “presides”.  This recognition properly inspires humility such as one does not find in a tyrannical dictator.  The President is in authority over his equals, after all. 

In 1789, a British sea captain named William Bligh commanded the ship HMS Bounty.  Bligh mistreated his crew with harsh punishments and public humiliations.  Finally, repelled by his cruelty and attracted by the charms of the women of a tropical island paradise, they mutinied against his authority.  His treatment of them was not that of one who respected them as his equals.  This historical event demonstrates what we understand as commonplace in all human society:  although all humans share a fundamental equality, some of these “equals” are placed over other “equals” in positions of authority.  And this arrangement need not degenerate into tyrannical abuses of that authority.  There is a difference between being "authoritative" and being "authoritarian."

A “leader-equal” should be moved by recognition of that equality to fair, reciprocal, and respectful treatment of those under his authority.  This moral imperative is not restricted to gender ordering, but applies to leadership and followership in many areas, such as government and business and other organizational structures.

Second, if you are a man, imagine the position in which God has place the woman.  Although every bit your equal, she submits to your authority.  She willingly accepts this position with all of the vulnerability it brings upon her.  Her decision may place her under a brutal, selfish dictatorial tyrant or may place her safely under a benevolent, respectful, fair-minded leader.  I would suggest that the acceptance of this social/organizational vulnerability is precisely what Peter means when he refers to woman as the “weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7).  It is not a reference to physical weakness, much less to intellectual weakness.  It is a positional weakness.  It is a weakness voluntarily accepted in reverence to God and, hopefully also, in respect for the man.  She accepts his authority though she knows he is no better than her; they are equals who alike wear the very image of Creator-God.

Now, certain dynamics like these we have just discussed are turned loose when God orders man and woman in what seems to be a most unnatural ordering of equals.  Instances of unfairness jump out energetically into view.  Authority will be readily challenged.  Opportunities and temptations for mutiny abound.  Inherent tension can erupt in battles of conflict.  When two equal marbles are stacked vertically, they have the tendency to fall to the same position.  They can remain stacked only if great care is taken and interference is prevented.  The same happens when equal man and woman are placed in hierarchy rather than in parity, which is obviously the natural ordering.

So, given this unnatural and inherently unstable ordering, why would God set such an ordering in place within gender relations, a factor of primary significance in what it means to be human?  To answer the riddle, we will have to look more deeply at what the Bible says about gender relations, especially in marriage, but also in the church.

But we might speculate a little.  It has been suggested that God has placed man and woman in roles quite opposite their native proclivities.  In other words, woman tends to want dominion, but God has placed her in subjection.  And man tends to shirk the responsibilities that belong to a leader, but God has placed him in an authoritative position.  This has the effect of causing each gender to fortify their native weaknesses and shortcoming.  Perhaps.  But I’m not sure these characterizations apply commonly to men and women.

Another speculation, that seems to be on firmer ground, is that God has made this arrangement because it teaches humanity lessons in “leadership” and “followership” that are essential for success in our relationship as humans to God.  Some of the same inherent tensions and abuses that pertain to gender relations also crop up when little gods try to relate to the Big God.  Perhaps God threw the "riddle of gender" into His Creation to be an exercise that would prepare us for something bigger. 

Gender Relations

Gender speaks to the existence of people as males and females, masculine and feminine.  It is one of the most important factors in human relationships.  Unfortunately, our culture has long been confused over gender.  One news magazine in recent years even declared on its cover:  “Men and Women Really Are Different.”  That would seem obvious.  The reason why they felt the need to say it is a matter of history.

 

The Battle of the Sexes

 

It is an unfortunate truth that in many cultures throughout human history women have been devalued and even mistreated.  Our own country has a long tradition of addressing this undeniably legitimate complaint by women.  Among other advances, it won them the right to vote.  “Feminism” is the movement based on this complaint.

 

While few would deny that the basic cause or complaint of feminism is just, some solutions to the basic problem have been failures.  Especially, what has been called “gender feminism.”  Gender feminists demand that gender should have nothing to do with human relationships.  Especially they demand that all gender specific roles, like that of a husband being different from a wife, or of a father being different from a mother, should be thrown out.  The idea that men or women are better suited to certain roles, in this perspective, is called “sexism.” 

 

Archetypes and Stereotypes

 

How do people become what they are?  Where does personality come from?  In part, we are born with certain fixed characteristics—archetypes.  We all contain an element of ego, of concern for self, that owes itself to nothing more than meeting the challenges of survival.  Other characteristics are learned, passed on to emerging people from significant others or from the parent culture.  Gender feminism assumes that all gender traits are stereotypes, that gender starts with learning.  Moreover, it holds that what our culture traditionally has taught about gender has been developed by men as a way to disadvantage and abuse women.  Reflexively, any and every gender stereotype is challenged, resisted and overthrown everywhere possible.

 

Gender feminism has greatly influenced modern culture.  It has confused marital roles (husbands and wives), parental roles (fathers and mothers), and especially gender as it relates to roles of authority in society and in the church.  Mothers were encouraged to enter the traditionally male work place, perhaps even when it meant abandoning the womanly nurture of children (motherhood).  The husbands who left the workplace to attempt this mothering were called “Mr. Mom.”  All such roles involved stereotypes that, it was thought, should be thrown off and gender relations should be relearned.  Notice that the idea that gender can be learned or unlearned has made homosexuality the step-child of gender feminism.  Formerly, it was understood that males were to select females as mates.  But once gender was seen as an arbitrary stereotype, the choice of a mate also became arbitrary.  Some even try to change their physical gender through surgery.  Great effort was placed in reproductive medicine (birth control, abortion, etc.) to reduce or eliminate the role of gender in relationships.

 

It is not to be denied that some gender stereotypes are unnecessary, downright silly, and perhaps even served to disadvantage one gender before another.  Yet it must be admitted that even some of these were willing disadvantages, in which one gender willingly disadvantaged itself before the other as a gracious gesture.  For example, a woman would honor her husband by taking his name in marriage.  Or a husband would open doors, or show other courtesies for his wife.  Making such concessions promoted the greater good of neither the male nor the female; this was for the good of their union as a couple.

 

However, it cannot be denied that gender feminism has confused archetypes with stereotypes.  There are certain aspects of maleness and femaleness that are built-in—they cannot be denied without damage to self, relationships and society.  Gender feminism denies the undeniable, leading again to the breaking news story:  “Men and Women Really Are Different.”  Studies in human infants, before they can be tainted in any way by cultural imprinting of gender traits, show gender distinctiveness between baby girls and baby boys.  Attempts to imprint maleness on girls or to imprint femininity on boys diminishes rather than exalts essential personhood, and shows itself as a cruel enterprise.    

 

Gender traits that are archetypes involve much more than the genital and reproductive organs.  Science has identified many aspects of biology and physiology that show differences between men and women—brain structure, hormones, etc.  There are ways of socializing that are uniquely male or female.  Many books have been written in recent years that draw conclusions which modern feminism would eagerly reject even when the evidence goes against its dogmatic contentions.  Each gender is thus better suited to certain roles or functions.  The general truth of these distinctions is not to be denied, even if we admit a great deal of commonality in a shared humanity between men and women.  These are one species; not two (the differences are so stark as to allow John Gray to title his bestseller, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus).  And, the general truth is valid also even if we acknowledge that some men are more “manly” than others and that some women are more “womanly” than others.  While the magnitude of gender uniqueness varies between individual men and individual women, the fundamental distinction between male gender and female gender will still be there at the end of the day, a factor that stubbornly resists denial. 

 

While it might be wise, in some instances, to challenge gender stereotypes, it is foolish to defy aspects of gender that are built-in and are fundamental to our humanity.  We may even find them a cause for celebration.

Eden lost: Restoring what had been better....

Restoration begins with the sweet memory of a better state of affairs, of a time when things were better, or were as they should be.  Restoration finds its home in a world in which decay, corruption, rust, and depreciation are facts of life.  This is the natural tendency of things.  Restoration undertakes very “unnatural” processes like repair, renewal, reclamation, and revitalization.  Progress is not a default direction; it happens only through deliberation.  In fact, in the sense we mean it, Restoration transcends from an “unnatural” to a “Supernatural” process.

Restoration encompasses everything from the micro to the macro.  On the largest scale, the entire created order has fallen from the pristine, honorable, pure state given by the Creator.  Jesus will remain in Heaven until “the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21).  The creation will be again put right.  We would notice the damage if someone placed a moustache on the Mona Lisa, but not everyone has the vision to behold the satanic marring of God’s good creation.  Things are in disrepair, and terribly so.  Jesus would not have taken the Cross if a little patch or cosmetics would suffice.  The damage could be fixed by nothing less than Jesus’ sin-bearing death on the Cross.

Restoration takes in every smaller part of Creation that has suffered damage.  The Great Commission that undertakes the evangelism of the non-Christian world aims to restore humanity to honor, glory, and nobility that the stained image-bearers of God traded to the Devil in the greatest swindle of all times.  Every person who has fallen from perfection should hunger desperately to have themselves restored.  This restoration of the individual is the most micro level of the work of God.

And the American Restoration Movement remembers a time when the church was in better shape.  There was a time when unity was a non-negotiable quality that Christians would fight for, if ever a sign of unraveling fell into the holy fellowship of God’s people.  That unity was so important to Father and Son that they sent the Holy Spirit to indwell first one Christian and another, and then to be the common indwelling Presence shared by all.  Not everyone can see the ugliness when Christians denominate into separate fellowships and begin to see some as “one of us” and others as “one of them.”  Some think it’s beautiful to have such variety of faiths and celebrate the diversity.  Others of us long to go back….

Restoration has to be a “back-to-the-Bible” process.  Love alone is not enough, though it is indispensable.  Love has to be guided by knowledge, wisdom, and clear direction that can only come from the revelation of God.  When my relationship with God slips, I have to restore it through the correction that comes from Scripture.  When my church slips, crossing some doctrinal line or failing to honor God in theological belief, we have to submit to what is Written.  Whole denominations have to come to fresh terms with the body of tradition that they have inherited, perhaps uncritically in view of the Bible.  All of the “isms” that define one identity group (but not the others) can be legitimately retained only if they are true to what God has revealed and declared, or they must be jettisoned sacrificially not merely to please God, but to enable restoration of fellowship with Christians who are unable to join them in such beliefs because they, in truth, are not supported in the faith once delivered to the saints.

There is a cost to restoration.  To regain what was good, some adopted substitute will be lost.  Some theological trend that has been cherished for centuries, and traces its memory to someone pedestalled as a hero, might have to be wadded up and summarily trashed.  Arguments will arise and relationships will shake and sometimes break.  Church discipline will have to be enforced and meals will no longer be eaten with someone we loved dearly, and love still.  Those who love the truth will sometimes have to walk away alone.  Your hearts will be broken.  Paul wrote, “For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part, I believe it.  For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident” (1 Cor. 11:18-19).  The Prince of Peace himself came to bring, not peace, but a sword, creating enmity even between the sharers of a common household (Matt. 10:34ff.).

Fact is, today we have numerous “Christianities” and numerous strategies by which salvation in Jesus might be had.  I hope I’m not the first to see that God did not create them all.  I hope others can see that they all do not have God’s approval (see the Bible).  There are not many paths from which we may choose.  There are but two; one considerably wider (and easier) than the other (Matt. 7:13-14). 

For example, consider baptism, the salvation-bearing rite of Christian initiation.  To accommodate those who cannot accept the plain teaching of Scripture, shunted aside as they are by this theological trend or that, some have instead created “the Sinner’s Prayer”.  Others have changed the meaning of the act, still insisting that new (already-saved, it is supposed) Christians yet obey the command to “get wet all over”, now for some other contrived reason—perhaps an outward public confession of an inward faith.  They, thus, obey God’s command to “be baptized”, right?  Forget for the moment that getting wet all over is quite a strange way to publicly declare faith.  The silly notion has not a single support from Scripture.  Some baptisms are quite private (the eunuch, the Philippian jailer), and at others we never hear the call, “Gather a crowd, they’re about to get wet all over!”  Meanwhile, the plain declarations of union with Christ Jesus, with remission of sin, and with reception of Spirit are ignored suspiciously or explained away torturously.

This is a call to anyone who longs for a better day.  Those of a Restorationist bent have little appreciation for the current state of things.  There were Restorationists around who saw the great Temple of God razed to the ground, and who could not applaud its disappointing replacement:

And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Jehovah, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise Jehovah, after the order of David king of Israel.  And they sang one to another in praising and giving thanks unto Jehovah, saying, For he is good, for his lovingkindness endureth for ever toward Israel.  And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised Jehovah, because the foundation of the house of Jehovah was laid.  But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, the old men that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:  so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.  (Ezra 3:10-13, ASV)

In our day, there is great rejoicing over the broad diversity of Christendom, but not from those who remember the sweet unity that was once shared in the Spirit in shared beliefs.  Those of us who have seen something better than the current Babel within Christianity will work for Restoration.  We will rebuild, repair, restore.  And while great improvements in doctrine and theology continue to be made outside of churches of Christ, our own fellowship is suffering erosion in the same areas.  Wouldn’t it be ironic if those churches of Christ who strategically seek to be “like the other denominations” now find themselves in need or Restoration, while the denominations themselves have moved onto the ground they had vacated?  In the crucial concerns of Spirit and baptism, this looks to be the situation.

 

 

The American Restoration Movement

There is something so beautiful and so right in Restoration.  There is something so ugly and so wrong in a divided Christianity.  I was raised Catholic.  Eventually, I was engaged by the church of Christ and was challenged by the ideal of unity with all other Christians.  And, I was challenged to consider the inner mechanisms that were dividing Christians and preventing them from achieving unity in Christ.

There were so many belief systems.  And each attracted around itself adherents who recognized each other as brothers and sisters, and who recognized all others as outsiders.  Against the grain of this division and divisiveness, the churches of Christ were presented to me as those who had turned away from it all.  They had unsprung the very mechanisms of division.  Abandoning their peculiar beliefs, practices, and traditions, they agreed to come together in unity holding only to the Bible. 

This noble path is not an easy one to walk, as our history plainly declares.  Anti-divisiveness, in the height of irony, can become its own divisiveness.  The same pride that attached to the myriad of denominational allegiances can make its home with Restorationists.  Arrogance and snobbery, and unrivaled sectarianism, have rooted in our souls as strongly and as deeply as in the denominations that we have come to despise.

For so long, I have focused not on Restorationism, but on its truest objects:  truth, Divine revelation, and God.  I am reminded of “conversations” with my wife, in the early history of our long and beautiful marriage, that degenerated from the driving issues to “communication about communication.”  The real issue was set aside, while we now bickered over how our very conversation was problematic.  The resulting “communication” did not seem at all helpful, if resolving the initial conflict was the objective.  In like manner, I have not devoted much energy to the cause of Restoration, to our conflicts.  It is woven into my deepest orientations.  Instead, I have focused especially on the Scriptures, the Cross, and the things that make for unity in Christ Jesus. 

More than a few years have gone by since I was baptized into Christ, since I abandoned all other allegiances for the one to Jesus and His people.  I was aware of the arguments over the direction of our movement.  But I largely ignored the squabbling.  Now, quite a few years later, I am facing the awareness that the very cause of Restoration has been largely abandoned within churches of Christ.

It’s a good thing my convictions are so carefully formed and well-founded.  I have a profound sense of abandonment and isolation.  I can review history and note all of the failures in the pursuit of unity.  While many apparently conclude this review by declaring Restoration to have been a failed project, I see the past failures as lessons to be learned, none of which is strong enough to devalue the cause of unity in Christ.  Perhaps I am the last remaining Restorationist.

I have much more to write on this.  This blog will now become a true blog (rather than a depository for some of my work).  I encourage dialog.  Perhaps the fire will re-ignite.

new chapter

I have written a new chapter, and have decided to place it as the new Chapter Four.  In Chapter One, I promised to return to the way Luke describes the Cornelius event in ways strikingly similar to his description of Pentecost.  Did Luke present the Cornelius episode as another Pentecost?

I nearly forgot to pull that matter off of the back-burner, until I had a dream.  Someone (in the dream) challenged me, "But Luke refers to both Pentecost and Cornelius in terms of "gift" (and he uses the same Greek word in each case)."   That is an unusual dream, even for me!

This took me back to the first time I was formulating the theology presented in this book.  I was troubled by the similarity of Cornelius to Pentecost.  I knew the coordinates by which I was navigating were solid, but I was not sure how to address this.  I felt Pentecostalism sneaking through my open windows and under my doors...

Had I not dealt with this, I sense I would have left a vulnerability to the book as a whole.  I hope it helps my readers in their own understandings of the Spirit.

As usual, there are some formatting specifics that do not translate onto the blog and that will be in the published book.  The book will look really good in print.  Getting ready for publication is the next step.  I hope you will support my efforts.

(The new) Chapter Four

 

 

Many Pentecosts?

“And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them,

even as on us at the beginning.”

Acts 11:15

________________________________

 

Some Scriptures lend themselves to wrong readings.  Here are a few to consider:

·        1 Thess. 5:22 (KJV) reads, “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”  I was once taught (and for a while believed) that this means that Christians should avoid not only actual evil, but should also avoid anything that merely gives the appearance of evil to someone watching.  It does not mean that[1].  It means Christians should avoid actual evil when it might appear.  Specifically, in context, we should avoid evil that is put forth as “prophecy” (otherwise, we are to cling to what is “prophetically” good).

·        Matt. 18:20 reads:  “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  This verse is far too frequently used to validate lightly attended worship events.  It means no such thing (read the whole section).  It means that the results of church discipline are binding, because the Lord supports the judgment of the (two or three) witnesses.

Luke’s writings in Acts regarding the Holy Spirit are easily misread.  As in the erroneous readings exampled above, the wrong reading seems to make sense.  That does not mean it is a good reading.  This will take a little effort, but our intent is to show why these passages spawn different readings, to show why Luke wrote in such a way that perhaps contributes to the confusion, and to suggest the best way to read these important texts.    

We made a somewhat oblique approach to these competing readings (in Chapter One) when we defined “baptism in the Holy Spirit” as a judgment, while noting that others define it as an overwhelming personal experience of the supernatural.  While I believe this is a misreading, I can see how it arises when one reads Acts.  Both readings seem to make sense.  The mistake is what we might call a “natural” one.     

 “BIG EVENT” and “little events”

The confusion arises when we try to read Acts and understand the relationship between what I call the “BIG EVENT” and what I call the “little events.”  Watch how this plays out.

We have said that the “BIG EVENT” was Pentecost.  This was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon “all flesh.”  This was the falling of God’s judgment, dividing Spirit-indwelt Christian from Spiritless unbelievers.  In grammar, the “perfect tense” speaks of an event in the past that continues to have effects in the presence:  “I have become a Christian!”  That transformation occurs only once and is never repeated, but its effect is felt forever after.  In this sense, Pentecost was a “perfect tense” event:  the Holy Spirit has been outpoured, once with lasting results.

The “little events” are those evangelistic conversions that incorporate baptism into Christ (water-baptism) and reception of the Holy Spirit.  We include among these the conversions of the Samaritans[2] (Acts 8), of Cornelius (Acts 10), and of the Ephesian disciples of John the Baptist (Acts 19).  All of these “little events” share something in common with the “BIG EVENT”:  speaking in tongues.

I see the relationship between them as one of “cause and effect.”  The conversions are simply results of what happened on Pentecost.  Some of what happened on Pentecost was “non-repeatedly” unique (especially, the Spirit was outpoured this once, not repeatedly).  However, since Luke does not want us to miss the “cause and effect” relationship, he paints large some things that, to be sure, are “repeated” between the BiHS and the conversions that follow later. 

In contrast to me, others see the relationship between “EVENT/events” as a “this-is-that equivalence.”  That means Pentecost was not unique.  As the Spirit was outpoured in the “BIG EVENT”, so He was outpoured in the “little events.”  If this is so, then the experience of the apostles may be repeated in the experience of every believer, when the Spirit is also outpoured upon them.  If there was a Jerusalem Pentecost, then there was also a Samaritan Pentecost, a Gentile Pentecost (with Cornelius), and another Pentecost with the disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus.

The nub of the matter is whether Pentecost was unique as THE event in which the Spirit was outpoured.  Or, was it rather merely another “little event”?

Luke’s use of “catch-words”

It is more than tongues that are shared.  When Luke writes his story of the church (Acts), he also employs “catch-words” that link the experience of apostle with that of convert.  It is as though each of these special words fairly glows on the page, and Luke ties them together with luminescent pieces of string.  The links tie episodes separated by long sections of narrative.  In each case, one or more of the “little events” is connected back to Pentecost.  Watch the way shared vocabulary makes this happen:

1.  An entire quotation from Jesus:

Pentecost:  “For John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days hence” (Acts 1:5).

Cornelius:  “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit” (Acts 11:16).

2. The word “gift”:

Pentecost:  “Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

Samaritans:  “Thy silver perish with thee, because thou hast thought to obtain the gift of God with money” (Acts 8:20).

Cornelius:  “And they of the circumcision that believed were amazed, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 10:45).

Cornelius:  “If then God gave unto them the like gift as he did also unto us” (Acts 11:17).

3. The words “outpoured” or “poured forth” or “poured out” (same word in Greek):

Pentecost:  ”I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh: And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, And your young men shall see visions, And your old men shall dream dreams:  Yea and on My servants and on My handmaidens in those days Will I pour forth of My Spirit; and they shall prophesy”  (Acts 2:17-18).  And, “Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear”  (Acts 2:33).

Cornelius:  “And they of the circumcision that believed were amazed, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For they heard them speak with tongues” (Acts 10:45-46). 

4.  The words “fell upon”:

Pentecost:  Peter “casts back a line” from the experience of Cornelius to the experience of the apostles (see below).

Cornelius:  “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, even as on us at the beginning” (Acts 11:15).

Ephesians:  “And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on[3] them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied” (Acts 19:6)

Luke is able to use these catch-words to link episodes without disrupting the flow of his narrative.  He does not need to stop in each case, and offer a lengthy explanation.  Instead he just drops these eye-catching markers and keeps his story moving.  Obviously, Luke wants to associate “BIG EVENT” with “little events.”  But exactly what association is he making?

A “this-is-that” equivalence?

If this really is Luke’s meaning, he might have written this way.  This is one possible explanation for Luke’s writing strategy.  And so, I would be irresponsible to not give this due consideration.  However, we may offer the following reasons not to support this reading.

First, regarding tongues, we have seen that this experience is not a “normative” part of Christian conversion in Acts, as Luke presents it.  These incidents fell, not commonly, but strategically—every time evangelism needed to break a barrier.  Luke records other conversions that make no mention of tongues; yet baptism is a consistent part of conversion.[4]  This downplaying of tongues contradicts the theology of Pentecostalism, which understands tongues to be the essential mark of every true conversion. 

Second, Pentecost is not presented with such low significance.  The significance is not simply that it was the first among many incidents.  When Peter made a case for the significance of that great day, he insisted that what took place here had significance for the whole of humanity (“all flesh”), and not just for the Jewish apostles.  This was the very day to which the prophets of long ago had pointed.

Third, you can accept this reading only if you contradict “judgment” as the primary aspect of what happened on Pentecost.  We made a substantial case for this understanding.  The supernatural experience of tongues is so alluring that many see it as the primary aspect.  It is not.  The only responsible way to define Pentecost is to see it as a judgment, and this fundamental decision then should inform other decisions of interpretation, such as the one at hand.  Get that first step wrong, and many false paths may be entered.  Get it right, and the way broadens under your feet.

Fourth, and this is crucial, this reading wrongly identifies the entrance-point of the Holy Spirit into the life of a Christian.  It is not at the point of speaking in tongues.  We have established baptism as the entrance-point of the Spirit into the life of a Christian.  This became possible only because of Pentecost.  The promise of Acts 2:38, with its wide inclusion of all whom the Lord will call (v. 39), stands at the beginning of Luke’s story of the church and he means us to carry that understanding all the way through in our reading.  This is an outworking of the identification of Pentecost as a judgment, and is another course marker by which a truly Biblical interpreter will navigate.

Fifth, regarding the catch-word “gift”, it is not easy to tell when Luke uses this word to refer to the Holy Spirit, or to abilities (like tongues).  We may receive the Spirit or the abilities, each may be considered a “gift” (and Luke uses only one word for gift:  “dwrean”[5]).  The apparent confusion and ambiguity probably come about because Luke sees tongues as a “sign” of the Spirit.  To see tongue-speaking is to see the Spirit.  They are linked gifts.  Here is an example:  “And they of the circumcision that believed were amazed, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God” (Acts 10:45-46).  Which “gift” is meant—the Spirit himself, tongues, or both?  And we have noted that while the “gift” of the Spirit comes at baptism, the “gift” of tongues came before, during, or quite later than baptism.  We are able to undo much of the confusion when we understand that the Gift and the gifts are not simultaneous and when we grasp the strategies used by the Spirit in these different timings.    

Finally, this reading seems to be missing the real reason why Luke links “BIG EVENT” with “small events”.  The church was growing around a small group of Jewish apostles of Jesus.  The growing nucleus, at first, was entirely Jewish.  It could ONLY have been the Spirit of God that made brother and sister of Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles!  The Spirit used tongues strategically to usher evangelistic growth across barriers that, on the human level, seemed impossible to breach.  Luke used vivid catch-words to link ALL Christians—of whatever stripe, nation, language, or ethnicity—to the foundational event experienced by the apostles:  Pentecost. 

Was Luke an irresponsible writer?

Luke may have been so strong and vivid, in making this connection, that he opened his story to potential misreading.  I do not believe that Luke is a careless writer.  I simply believe he was avoiding an even greater misreading:  one that parted—rather than joined—Jews and non-Jews in the church.  He had to write strongly to avoid any impression that Jews were the “real” Christians, and the Gentiles so only in some secondary sense.  Or, that fellowship should be segregated into Jewish churches and Gentile churches (really resulting in at least two churches, instead of one).  How different church history might have been had Luke toned it down!  And really, he had no other means to avoid the confusion between the alternate readings of his book that we have been discussing.  He was making a point, and it is our responsibility as readers to allow him to make it, while following the other interpretive clues that he has left us to protect us against any misreading.

No, the experiences of the converts were undeniable links, through the Holy Spirit, to the apostolic experience of Pentecost.  The Spirit had been outpoured, and was available in baptism—to all who believed (God made no distinction).  Given this profound sharing, how could those involved begin to look at each other (any longer) as less than equals in Christ, fit for brotherhood and family unity?  The apostles were marked out as God’s authoritative spokesmen, but they were brothers even with Samaritans and Gentiles. 

I have a suspicion that we modern readers tend to misread Luke at this point, because we are incapable of experiencing the breathtaking wonder of mixed fellowship.  It may be because our experience of fellowship is homogenous:  everyone in the local church shares our ethnic, national, and socio-economic markers.  You may even have sought the comfort of a church that spares you the “discomfort” of diversity.  Or, you may be onboard with the modern cultural celebrations of diversity, and may simply take such distinctions for granted.  The Bible does not celebrate diversity for its own sake, with its natural tendency to produce class distinctions and rivalry, competition rather than bonds of unity.  Either way, we modern readers may be left out in the cold even when a mighty workman of words, such as Luke (or Paul), sets before our eyes the most spectacular achievement of the Holy Spirit.  We read of this, yawn, and turn the page.

The Spirit calls us to the celebration of diversity that is unified in Christ!  Few opportunities in life allow the celebration of unity in diversity.  It is easier to join a “gang” of people just like us.  When these opportunities are found, they can be life-changing.  The early American experience of immigration led to the minting of coins that proclaimed, “E pluribus unum”—meaning “one out of many.”  The value of shared citizenship led a diversity of new arrivals to set aside their distinctive identities as a secondary matter.  One was now an American, and not just a “hyphenated American”—Italian-American, Hispanic-American, etc.  Similar experiences are possible when people of different backgrounds join together on a sports team, in the military, or in a corporation.  They have to work together in a way that admits diversity, but that allows them to function as a unity.

So, we may put the matter quite simply:  Luke did not write to offer us each our own outpouring(s) of God’s Spirit.  He wrote to unify us when each has that Spirit in the habitation of each heart.

The case of Cornelius

Luke is so taken by the capture of the first Gentile into Christian fellowship that he tells the tale of his conversion three times:

·        The first telling comes in Acts 10.  Peter is given a vision to guide him to accept “unclean” Gentiles, and the Spirit connects the evangelist with his converts.  He arrives and preaches the gospel of Jesus.  The climax of the story is told this way: 

While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word.  And they of the circumcision that believed were amazed, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God.  Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?  (10:44-47).

·        The second telling comes when Peter is “called on the carpet” to explain to the “mother church” in Jerusalem how he could be so audacious as to share what is holy with the Gentiles.  He starts with his vision and tells the tale, and describes the crucial moment this way:

And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, even as on us at the beginning.  And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit.   If then God gave unto them the like gift as he did also unto us, when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that I could withstand God?  (11:15-17).

·        The third telling comes at the “Jerusalem conference” which is the major discussion of what the church is to do with Gentiles in view of the issue of circumcision.  Peter sees significance in his experience with Cornelius: 

And God, who knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit, even as he did unto us; and he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith (15:8-9).

The event of Cornelius is the “little event” par excellence.  We can see Luke’s telling of the story “lighting up” both with catch-words and with repetition.  So much did he want to unify Jew and Gentile—in Christ, in Spirit, in God—that he drapes the story of the first Gentile conversion in expressions that were first employed at Pentecost.  He blurs the distinction between the “gift” (that is the Spirit) and the “gift” (by which the Spirit made apostle and convert speak in tongues).  But Luke does not set forth two outpourings (even though reading this way seems to make sense).  There was only one outpouring.  It fell on Pentecost, and it was so comprehensive that Peter saw that “perfect tense” experience reaching forward to take in Cornelius just as it had the apostles.

Notice that Luke draws-in the events of Samaria (Acts 8) and the events drawing-in the Ephesian disciples of John the Baptist (Acts 19) in ways that employ the same strategy of writing.  Catch-words light up like candles in the dark.  These two episodes are not played up with a three-fold repetition like Cornelius, however, because their significance pales next to the capture of the first Gentile convert.  Luke will make sure the reader sees Samaritans and off-track disciples of the Baptist as “insiders” to the Christian community, but these are smaller, less significant jumps than is Cornelius. 

It might be well to conclude with another reflection on Pentecostalism and J. W. McGarvey.  Each represents a similar misreading of Luke.  They are similar because they are so bedazzled by the overwhelming, personal, supernatural experience of tongues that they miss the role of Pentecost as a judgment.  However, McGarvey works to isolate “baptism in the Holy Spirit” to only two outpourings:  Pentecost and Cornelius.  He employs the “all flesh” of Joel’s prophecy to include a single Jewish event and a single Gentile event.  He thus thinks to have set a safeguard against Pentecostalism, which may look for additional outpourings (including gifts of tongues for modern Christians).  However, if I were to play “Pentecostal advocate”, I might ask how he can exclude Samaria and Ephesus as additional outpourings, given Luke’s use of catchwords?  It seems to me that McGarvey and the Pentecostals are locked into an unresolvable conflict in the choice, between only two outpourings, and the choice that allows more.  While those following McGarvey may find some security against rampant claims to supernatural experience, I can also understand why his Pentecostal opponents may find his interpretation less than conclusive.

It is a far more satisfying of an interpretation to begin surefootedly by accepting Pentecost as a judgment dividing all of humanity.  That judgment fell when the Spirit was outpoured in a non-repeatable event.  It happened once; and we need not look for another.  That single outpouring provides the supply that ever fills the experience of baptism in conversion—Samaritan, Gentile, or otherwise.  Even if invisible to the human eye, it is a sure guarantee for every believer of the gospel of Christ Jesus.  The Spirit made this promise “visible”, on occasion, by gifting certain unlikely converts with the same gift enjoyed by the apostles on Pentecost:  tongues.  The result is that the very bodies of Christians become vessels in which the Spirit of God dwells, individually and communally.  And, this presence of the Spirit, in them, makes His absence within non-Christians a more glaring omission.  These are the two sides of the judgment that fell, just once, on Pentecost.

I hope this explanation helpfully shows why Luke wrote as he did, explains why he may be easily misread, and offers a better alternative.  

    

 

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[1] We should know this, because Jesus did not back off from activities that “had the appearance of evil.”  Otherwise, for example, He would not have healed on the Sabbath.  Or, He would not have socialized with the common folk.  Instead, He expected His critics to responsibly interpret what they saw Him doing, rather than to conform Himself to their fussy expectations.

[2] Although tongues are not explicitly mentioned, we are speculating that this also happened in the case of the Samaritans.  

[3] Different Greek words are represented in this verse, although one or two manuscripts contain the same word as the other passages.  At any rate, the expressions are synonymous.

[4] This occasional nature of tongues stands in contrast to the frequent mentions of baptism.  I. Howard Marshall (Luke:  Historian and Theologian, p. 195) writes, “In almost every record of conversion [baptism] is explicitly mentioned; the exceptions are Acts 2:47; 4:4; 6:7; 9:42; 11:21-24; 13:48; 14:1, 21; 17:34, and in these cases we have to do for the most part with summary statements in which the interest is not in the fact of conversion as such but rather in the growth and spread of the church.  The existing pattern of conversion shows that for Luke baptism was indispensable, and there is no reason to suppose that there was any other practice in the early church.”

[5] There is no evidence that Luke knows of the word “carisma” (“charisma”), a word which is unknown in the Greek language before the apostle Paul, who may have coined the word.