Forty five years ago, in my first Bible class at Wayland Baptist University, I was taught that the Bible was a book of progressive revelation.  This means that the knowledge of God and ethics increased, grew greater in insight as time passed and the later revelation was greater, more important than the earlier.  Sometimes it superseded some of the earlier all together.  The clarity, meaning, depth and importance of the later was always greater than the former.

The prophet’s  interpretation of Mosaic law is often greater that the legal code itself.  For example, “God desires mercy and obedience and not sacrifice.”  The prophets interpretation and application of the law involved changes or evolution of thought.  Real spirituality for any religion or person always involves spiritual evolution or change.  Without change and progression of thought all religions, nations, institutions and social groups die.

So why do churches, and other social and political groups insist on maintaining a static orthodoxy as a litmus test for belonging to their group?  Why are we so afraid of change?  Not all change is good but without change we miss God’s mark for our lives.

To be a prophet in the Old Testament and point the way to renewal with God was to criticize Israel’s religious and political institutions.  It sometimes meant giving new interpretations and depth to to the Scriptures.  They said things like, “God is not so interested in how faithful we are to the existing institution but in how well we do justice, loved mercy and walked humbly before the Lord our God.”

Jesus reinterpreted the whole Mosaic law for his day.  Paul summed up this reinterpretation as the spirit and intent of the law.  He said, “The letter of the law or scripture kills, destroys, but the spirit of the law or scripture gives life.  Following Jesus is living up to the spirit and intent of the God given teaching and not in being a good Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Hindu or Buddhist or anything else.

In fact, if our focus is on being a good one of the above or being a good Republican or Democrat, etcetera, we will be a destructive force.  Our focus must be on the progressive spirit which created each of these institution to be constructive in society.  All institutions must be evolving to meet the needs of the evolving historical context.  The only true ethic is always a situational ethic.

Throughout American history, Progressives have come up with new ideas, reforms and insights to help the current situation that generally conservatives opposed tooth and nail.  But when the progressive ideas took root and prospered they often became the new static orthodoxy and eventually had to be opposed with different ideas of change to meet the new evolving historical context.  To understand and appreciate the forms of the past is life enhancing but to consider them as the only way to do things is death.

When chloroform was discovered in the nineteenth century, many doctors opposed its use in aiding childbirth because the scriptures said, “Woman was cursed to give birth in pain.”  This biblical conservative view was the way of death.

The Phillipines have the fastest population growth in Asia.  They can not feed their people.  The Phillipines are 80% Catholic.  When the government or anyone else tries to make birth control pills or other contraceptives available to the poor populace, the Catholic church squelches it with a vengence.  This conservatism is death dealing.  It is based on a foolish anti sexual bias and desire to control people which is nearly 2,000 years old.

When will we ever learn?  What dinosaurs do you see in our world that need to be allowed to die and be replaced by better evolving ideas?

Hebrews 5: 11-14.  (Amplified Bible.)

11.  Concerning this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since you have become dull in your (spiritual) hearing and sluggish (even slothful in achieving spiritual insight).  12. For even though by this time you ought to be teaching others, you actually need someone to teach you over again the very first principles of God’s word.  You have come to need milk, not solid food.  13. For everyone who continues to feed on mik is obviously inexperienced and unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness (of conformity to the divine will in purpose, thought and action), for he is a mere infant (not able to talk yet)!  14. But such solid food is for full grown men, for those whose sense and mental faculties are trained by practice to discriminate and distinguish between what is morally good and noble and what is evil and contrary either to divine or human law.

The sculptor of the Chief Crazy Horse Monument, after 40 some odd years of carving on that granite mountain, told his kids, who were going to continue his work, “It doesn’t matter when you finish this massive project.  What matters is that you keep working and make progress.”  The same can be said of the Christian life.  We must keep working at learning and following the way of Jesus and make progress in it.  God does not expect absolute perfection but She does demand that we make progress.

But if we become dull and sluggish in our spiritual hearing, we lose all our traction in making progress.  He who ceases to make progress ceases to be good.

Our spiritual hearing which provides insight into what we need to do good and how we need to do it is two things.  (1) It is hearing the way of the Lord taught and preached and assimilating it into our lives to practice it.  (2) It is meditating, praying and listening to God speak to us through our inner voice and assimilating and obeying what we hear.  Each of us has an inner voice but the use of it must be cultivated.

To stay enthusiastic about life and getting up in the morning is very important to health and wholesomeness for all of us.  Many become dull and sluggish as they approach middle age.  The only way to stay sharp and enthusiastic is to determine to take care of one’s self and act that way whether we feel like it or not.  The same kind of determination is necessary for growing in the Christian life.

There are two difficulties in teaching the Christian way to others.  (1) It is not an easy way to grasp and (2), it can’t be learned in a day.  It takes effort to teach it and learn it.

Some American Christians teach the way of salvation in such an easy way that many converts think that all there is to being saved is mental assent or belief to a handful of assertions.  They are, you can be saved by the ABC’s of salvation.  A, admit you have sinned.  B, believe Jesus is the Son of God and died to pay for your sins and rose from the dead.  Confess your sins, asking for forgiveness and confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior.  Some add, this saves you forever and you just need to work at growing in good works.  The good works part is often emphasized only lightly.

This simplistic approach makes a lot of people think that this easy believism gives one a ticket to heaven and that is the main thing to being a Christian.  Nothing could be more wrong.

Becoming a Christian starts not with mental assent but with experiencing Christ’s way.  And how you begin keeps repeating itself all through life as you grow to spiritual maturity.  The beginning and continuity is participating in dying to your selfishness and coming alive to goodness, righteousness, justice.  This is  walking in the way of death and resurrection which is Christ’s way first, last and always.

You learn the Christian way most by teaching it to others.  You can only teach it if you are living it.  That is one reason the author of Hebrews says that they have been in the Christian faith long enough that should be teaching others.  But they have need of being taught the basics of the faith once again.  If we do not practice the basics we don’t make any progress.  We become milk sucking babies instead of solid food eating adults in the faith.

This does not mean we have to be professional teachers.  The Greek here means having a real and mature grasp of the meaning of one’s faith.  Anyone who has this grasp will teach their faith as they go through life living it.  They will teach naturally and by example.  But these Jewish Christians are not teaching the faith because they neglected the simple basic elements of Christianity (stoichea).

In every age the church’s greatest problem is Christians who refuse to grow up.  Today, they refuse to grow in knowledge of the historical Biblical scholarship and theological thought that advances understanding and personal liberty in the faith.

Baby Christians say, “What was good enough for my grandpappy is good enough for me.  Give me that old time religion.”  But our culture’s old time religion lacked a  lot the first time around and it is not worth a dime in facing the modern world.

Every generation needs new biblical and theological insight.  Every Christian is responsible for developing his own theological understanding to as high a degree as possible.  For God is infinite and the riches of Christ are unsearchable.  We are morally obligated to be as intelligent  followers of Christ as possible.

Some Christians refuse to grow up in behavior.  They can not imitate Christ’s way because they have refused to cultivate his generosity and sensitivity of spirit in all social situations.

Peter Pan is a very appealing story.  But a child who will not grow up in real life is a sad tragedy.  so it is with a Christian who will not grow up.

Hebrews 5: 1-10.  (Amplified Bible.)  Part 2.

A priest is not worth his salt unless he is at one with men living the experiences of all men and loving it and them.  Now, ordinarily, this oneness with men necessitates offering sacrifice for one’s own sin.  Jesus baptism by John could be taken to show Jesus’ cognizance of his own imperfections.  But Jesus was not appointed by men to an institutional priesthood but by God to an eternal priesthood because of his humble serving life.  That life was his sacrifice for us all.

Jesus was one with men but he was one with God also.  At his baptism God said to him, “You are my son, today I have begotten you (adopted you).”  As God’s adopted son, Jesus was  not absolutely perfect as the late first church made him out to be.  The church by this time was Grecian in its idea of perfection and many other concepts instead of holding the Hebraic biblical idea of perfection and a number of other things.  Hebraic biblical perfection meant spiritual maturity and adequately equipped for one’s calling and mission.

Jesus, as most Galileans, probably had very little to do with temple worship or sacrifice.  But Jesus did submit to John’s baptism which was a  baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins.  In the earliest gospel, Mark 1: 9, Jesus was simply baptized by John implying that Jesus agreed with the message of repentance of sins and forgiveness of sins for himself.  He thus started his public mission as a follower of John’s movement for baptism implied submission to that movement.  This fact was a later point of contention between some followers of John’s movement and some disciples of Jesus.  They argued about who was the greater.

Jesus did not stick with John’s movement long.  He outgrew it quickly.  Historical evidence suggests that he came to disagree with John on a fundamental issue.  John believed the only solution to the current woes of Israel was an apocalyptic end of the world Judgment.  John was not trying to reform current social, political, religious wrongs.  He was preaching get ready for a judgment that would end them all, destroying the wicked and exalting the righteous remnant.

Jesus thought differently.  He was not an apocalyptic end of the worlder as is often assumed.  He was a social, religious, political reformer who preached the kingdom of God has come right here and now and there is hope for a better life today.  The apocalyptic end of the world view was a strong Jewish belief in Jesus’ day.  It pretty well originated in the 400 hundred years before Christ.  It is a very strong fundamentalist Christian belief  today.  But Jesus did not and does not concur with this simplistic self-righteous solution.

Jesus was more hopeful and believed people, society could change.  He taught, “Behold the Kingdom of God is within you (in your hearts) and among you (surrounding you).  (Luke 17: 21.)  There was hope of saving change for individuals and culture by giving oneself to the Rule of God within one’s heart.

The apocalyptic end of the world Son of Man sayings in the gospel are not Jesus’ words, according to the best historical analysis.  They are the words of the angry Jewish Church around 60 C.E.  They were angry because of rejection by non-Christian Jews.  Their words circulated and were placed upon Jesus lips in the first Gospel about 70 C.E.  Sometimes the internal evidence of the gospels themselves imply the words are not authentically from Jesus.

For example, see Matt. 25: 31 where the words that are attributed to Jesus are not authentically his because he speaks of the Son of Man in the third person.  If you take them as the words of Jesus, then you have to conclude that Jesus taught that someone else was the Son of Man and he would come on his throne of glory to judge the world.  They are the words of the Jewish church added into their story of Jesus to strike back at the non Christian Jews who have rejected them and failed to minister to them when they were cold, hungry, sick and in prison.

There is truth in this passage on how to treat others.  But these are not the words of Jesus.  Understanding this helps us to wholesomely interpret passages such as this in the gospels which the uneducated church uses to promote their particular scheme of the end of the world.

As the church moved into the second half of the first century, it viewed Jesus more as absolutely perfect and could not tolerate the picture of Jesus’ baptism in Mark and its portrayal of Jesus’ submission to John and the possible implication that Jesus desired the baptism for the forgiveness of sins.  So, Matthew’s gospel written about 15 years after Mark (85 C.E.), portrayed John as strongly protesting that Jesus is too good for him to baptize.  And Jesus is pictured as speaking from a higher position than John, “Permit it just now; for this is the fitting way for (both of us ) to fulfill all righteousness (that is, to perform completely whatever is right).  Then he (John) permitted him.”  So Jesus’ baptism is explained in a way that shows his perfection and superiority to John.

Next in John 1:19-36 written about 95 C.E., the baptism of Jesus is never directly mentioned.  and John pictures Jesus as the very Lamb of God who is extremely greater than he and takes away the sins of the world.  Whereas in the Markan gospel John was shown as doubting Jesus even when he was near his death.

In the historical progression of the four New Testament gospels one can see by careful reading and comparison the church’s evolution of thought about Jesus as they make him ever more absolutely the perfect savior from sin.  They do this by placing their developing theology on the lips of Jesus and men like John the Baptist.  It seems to me that they turned away from the humility that Jesus claimed for himself, especially is this so in John’s gospel.  But it is in humility that all of us find God and that was Jesus basic message.

If one will listen to the good biblical historians of today he can discover lots to the early church’s progression of thought about Jesus in their telling of Jesus’ story.  Understanding this and learning what is authentically Jesus and what is not liberates us to a greater spirituality in following Jesus than the fundamentalist view of the Bible can ever give us.

All who follow Jesus’ way of humble service are priests to our fellow men.  Jesus so gave himself to God’s way of service that he exemplifies the highest form of priestly service.  Thus it is quite correct to speak of Jesus as our great High Priest in heaven exalted and appointed forever as a priest in the order or rank of Melchizadek.

Melchizadek is a very mysterious figure in history who has no background or genealogy.  His one brief appearance to Abraham in Genesis is so awesomely mysterious that rabbinic interpretation over time made him a symbol of God appointed eternal priesthood. It is in that eternal rank that the author of Hebrews places Jesus.  A Jew could give no greater honor than this.

Jesus exhibited the three marks of true priesthood.  (1).  He was appointed to help men with the things related to God.  (20).  He was one with men in every way.  (3).  He did not appoint himself to the priesthood; God did because he humbly served.

It was a funeral meal for the family of a relatively young grandmother.  I observed a conversation between two adults and a young boy about nine years of age.  The boy was sad, sullen, grieving hard for his grandmother who obviously had been a  good friend and confidant.

The woman tried to comfort and cheer the boy with patronizing cliches such as, “You know this is not the end.  We shall soon see your grandmother again.”  She spoke rather nonchalantly and her words grated on the raw soul of the boy.  They made him angrier.  They made me angry for they were unfair because they were unloving.  They were virtuous bullying of a child who could not afford to strike back in anger.

The boy needed someone to listen to his hurt, to let him see that it was alright to be full of anger and hurt, that he was not condemned for it.  His grandmother would understand and the one listening to him understood also.  The boy needed someone to accept him fully in his hurting and help him to embrace it and learn how to work his way through it.  He needed someone to help him see that his hurt and anger was because he loved his grandmother so much and that is a good thing.  To love much is always to risk hurting much.  But the risk is always worth the cost.

The woman’s words were not untrue.  They were insensitive.  They had no healing sensitivity for the moment.  Thus they were wrong for the moment.  They were an example of terrible, destructive words spoken in the pursuit of virtue.

Virtue can be an enemy of Christlikeness.  When our concern is to be virtuous, we can be very selfish because our focus is on our perfecting our selves.  So we rush to spout correct doctrine to prove our virtue and we miss the mark of mature morality.  We fail to be generous and sensitive to others according to the needs of the moment.  Pushing our virtue can destroy others when we toss about Christian cliche grenades thoughtlessly.

In the gospel of John Chapter 8, Jesus tells the accusers of a woman caught committing adultery, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.”  These men were selfishly concerned only with doing the right thing according to the law.  Their attempt at virtue was very selfish.  They had no concern for the woman and perhaps others they might destroy in the name of their virtue.

The accusers leave.  Then Jesus tells the woman, “Neither do I condemn thee.  Go and sin no more!”  This is true spirituality, true moral maturity.  It promotes good behavior and turning from sinfulness.  but it is generous and sensitive in a healing way to the people involved.  It is unconcerned with others perception of its own virtue.

Some of the church’s evangelism is more concerned at times with establishing our own virtue than it is with helping people to a saving spirituality.  Jesus condemned those in his day who would cross land and sea to convert one person.  On the surface this sounds very virtuous.  But Jesus said that in so doing they made that person twice as much a child of hell.  (Matt. 23:15.)  Yes, even evangelism can be done to prove our own virtue to ourselves and to others.  This is defensive religion because we are trying to certify our faith by collecting scalps.  Evangelism must be done with generous love and sensitivity to the person’s historical context.

Charles Reagan Wilson in his 1980 research book, “Baptized in Blood, The Religion of the Lost Cause”, shows that much of the great foreign missions push of Southern Churches between 1865 to 1925 may have been motivated by a selfish desire to certify the South’s superior virtue spiritually because they had been so crushed by their Civil War defeat.  It is always good and necessary to examine how and why we practice our faith.

Heb. 5: 1-10. (Amplified Bible.)

“For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in things relating to God, to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.  2. He is able to exercise gentleness and forbearance toward the ignorant and erring, since he himself also is liable to moral weakness and physical infirmity.  3. And because of this he is obliged to offer sacrifice for his own sins, as well as those of the people.  4. Besides, one does not appropriate for himself the honor (of being high priest), but he is called by God and receives it of Him, just as Aaron did.  5. So to Christ (the Messiah) did not exalt Himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed and exalted by Him Who said to him, You are My Son; today I have begotten You; (Ps. 2: 7.)  6. As He says also in another place, You are a Priest (appointed) forever after the order (with the rank of Melchizadek.  (Ps. 110: 4.)  7. In the days of His flesh (Jesus) offered up definite, special petitions (for that which he not only  wanted but needed) and supplications with strong crying and tears to Him who was (always) able to save him (out) from death, and He was heard because of His reverence toward God (His godly fear, His piety, in that He shrank from the horrors of separation from the bright presence of the Father).  8. Although He was a Son, He learned (active, special) obedience through what he suffered.  9. And, (His completed experience) making Him perfectly (equipped ), He became the Author and Source of eternal salvation to all those who give heed and obey Him. (Isa. 45: 17)  10. Being designated and recognized and saluted by God as High Priest after the order (with the rank) of Melchizedek. (Ps. 110: 4.)”

The writer of Hebrews is making his greatest contribution to Christian thought with his building of the mythology of the High Priesthood of Jesus.  This myth is truth but one does not have to take it too literally for it to be powerfully effective.

Did someone in the church see Jesus in heaven at God’s right hand wearing priestly vestments?  No.  Rather Jewish Christians like the author and recipients of the letter of Hebrews took from their Jewish religious background the concept of high priesthood they were familiar with and applied it to Jesus because of how the story of his life, teachings, death and resurrection made them feel.   It made them feel accepted, forgiven, recipient of mercy as children of God who could commune with God in trust and confidence.

Being made to feel this way is what a good priest does for men.  Thus, they correctly imputed to him their concept of a great high priest.  For a priest who brings men to God is what Jesus was, though he was never called that before  his death.  He becomes that to each of us when we trust his gospel to walk in his way.

This pass has three qualifications for the a priest that are universally true for all time.  Jesus meets all three excellently.

(1.) Priests are appointed on men’s behalf to lead men in understanding the things concerning God.  Jesus did seek or claim the office of priest.  But he did his work as reform movement leader seeking social, spiritual and economic justice for his fellow Galilean peasants that he became a doorway or bridge into God for many, giving them hope.  And this is the true work of a priest.

When God raised Jesus from the dead, it designated Jesus as Son of God with power (Rom. 1: 4) and led to Jesus becoming our High Priest.  In a real sense , those early believers and we also have through our faith appointed Jesus as our High Priest.  Jesus is not the only bridge into God.  But wherever we find the way of  God or salvation, it will always essentially be the way that Jesus walked which is dying to sefishness and coming alive to God’s way of justice.

A priest in Israel served primarily to teach God’s law and to offer sacrifice for sins.  But the sacrifices were never a payment for sins.  The sacrifices were only for sins of ignorance and never for sins of presumption, which were planned, premeditated, purposeful sins.  The sacrifices for sins of ignorance restored a sense of forgiveness and removed psychological barriers between the worshiper and God.

Sins of ignorance were sins committed due to a lack of knowledge or understanding.  They were also sins committed when one was overcome in a moment of impulse or passion or anger.  Sins of of presumption were deliberate and calculated.  See Heb. 10: 26, Lev.4:2, 13, Num. 15: 22-31, Duet. 17:12.

Sacrifice throughout religious history has always primarily meant gift and fellowship.  It has seldom meant a payment to procure the forgiveness of sins though many like to think that.  But that thinking has always resulted in the cheapening of God’s way of grace and salvation.

In the Folsom Prison recording of the 1960′s Johnny Cash said to the prison inmates something like this, “I know some of you have trusted Jesus as your Savior, perhaps a long time ago.  You have made that transaction and his blood paid for your sins.  So you got that done, settled.”  (Cash was a Southern Baptist.  This is a typical Southern Baptist expression of the erroneous doctrine of substitutionary atonement.)

Well!  Salvation is about loving redemption and transformation of life and not about a contractual transaction that obligates God to give you eternal life because you believe Jesus paid for your sins.  This kind of transactional salvation that binds God to save you has not done a whole lot of long lasting good in histroy.  It fails to stand the test of time.

Wherever this simplistic view of salvation has led to some good, it was because other major factors of grace and judgment were added in.  If there is a simplistic transaction that binds God to save, I wonder how worthy that God is and how much the transaction is wishful magic.

Throughout religious history, animal sacrifice has meant gift and fellowship.  It was a gift to one’s god and the meal which often accompanied it meant fellowship with one’s god in a festive occasion.  This was true in the Old Testament and in other religions.

Sometimes this meal was seen as actually eating and drinking one’s god and being empowered by him or her.  Do you think this is odd?  What about a large amount of Christians who have basically the same view in their Lord’s supper, communion.  They teach they are actually eating the blood and body of Jesus Christ.  The roots of even our Christian religion go back many thousands of years.

We should view Jesus sacrifice as meaning primarily gift and fellowship and not payment for our sins.  His sacrifice that saves us is not just his death but his whole life.  His whole loving life, death and resurrection is a gift that delivers us out of our self destructive and self defeating ways of living.   All of his life is a gift that brings us into fellowship with him and with God.  This fellowship is forgiving and saving.  (Mark 10: 45, Rom.5: 8-10.)

Jesus death was and is a saving sacrifice because it shows us his life of love which is a gift of God’s love to us that we might believe the good news of His love and enter into fellowship with God.  Yes, the sacrifice of Jesus in his whole life and teachings is a gift and a fellowship that we might enter into and worship and serve God.  In this way he is our High Priest and we cannot find a better one.

We too are called priests of God when we give our lives to God to help others know his gift and fellowship and enter into it.  This is priestly sacrifice we can make in imitation of Jesus our Lord.

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Heb. 4: 14-16.  (Amplified Bible.)

“14.  Inasmuch then as we have a great High Priest Who has (already) ascended and passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession (of faith in Him).  15.  For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to  understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses, and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but one Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning.   16.  Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners) that we may receive mercy (for our failures) and find grace to help in good time for every need (appropriate help and well timed help, coming just when we need it).

Here is the biggest and most important conception of the book of Hebrews, Jesus is the perfect High Priest.  For one to have this designation he must be fully connected to men and to God.  This was true of Jesus.  He was completely human; he was not God walking in human flesh.  But he walked deeply aware of God and the world of Spirit all around him.

Remember here that we are thinking of the Hebraic, biblical conception of perfection.  This means that we are not talking about absolute, pure perfection.  Jesus never claimed absolute perfection as a human being.  Hebraic perfection means simply that Jesus was spiritually mature and completely adequate for fulfilling his divine calling and mission.

The early church saw Jesus’ spiritual maturity and adequacy and made him their High Priest.  He never claimed to be that; he never sought the position.  The church made him that after the first Easter.  It was a good move by the Church but we need to realize it was a move by the Church as they processed and sought to explain the meaning of Jesus that they felt.  This Jewish Christian epistle is the highest expression of Jesus’ priesthood.

For the church, Jesus became forever associated with the very meaning of God when they experienced him risen from the dead.  This is the meaning of Jesus ascended on high and was seated at the right hand of God.  After this, to think of God was to think of Him in terms of Jesus’ teaching.

Jesus’ story gave the church such hope and confidence in God’s favor towards men that Hebrews speaks of Jesus as our High Priest who makes us known to God and God known to us.  Jesus is our doorway into or bridge unto God.  This is not to say that there are not other doorways or bridges into God.

Jesus has ” passed through the heavens” to the very presence of God.  He has blazed a pathway and opened a doorway to the very presence of Ultimate Reality.  No New Testament writer stressed the sheer greatness of Jesus as the writer of Hebrews did.

In verse 15 it says Jesus was tempted in every way as we all are “but without sin or without sinning.”  The late first century church did, to our eyes, which are informed by the Grecian view of of perfection, seem to think of Jesus as absolutely perfect.  Certainly this was the view of the Church by the first Ecumenical Church Council in 325 C.E.  But, again, it is best to see Jesus’ perfection in the light of the Hebraic biblical usage of the word perfect.  The Hebrew concept of perfection meant not absolute perfection without any flaw.  It meant one who stuck to his God given mission or calling without turning back.  Take Noah for example, he surely had his flaws, but he is called perfect in his generation because he did not go back on God’s mission for him (Gen. 6:4).

Also see Gen. 17:1.  The perfect that Abraham was to be in walking habitually before God was blameless, wholehearted, complete but not absolutely without any sin.  Abraham made several big mistakes on his journey but he kept pressing on according to God’s calling and that is Hebric perfection.

Lev. 22:21 says the freewill animal offering must be perfect but that meant only no visible blemishes or sickness.  Any stock show judge will tell you that no animal is absolutely perfect in every way?

We must be blameless and true to God in our historical context as Noah and Abraham and other saints have been.  Every human in history has weaknesses and flaws but by God’s grace we are accepted as if we are spiritually mature and completely adequate for our Divine calling as was Jesus of Nazareth.  This acceptance empowers us to be, not absolutely perfect, but faithful in pressing on towards God’s goal of mature goodness for our lives.  This we can do and it is all the perfection that God requires of us.

Psalm 18: 32, “God girds me with strength and makes my way perfect.”  This can be translated correctly as God makes my way completely adequate.  There is no absolute, pure perfection in this world.  But with God’s help we can be mature and adequate for our tasks in life as Jesus was.  This is all God requires.  This is all Jesus was or we can be.  But it is enough, joyously enough!  Jesus had no more and we need no more.  Amen!

God gives us mercy for all our failures so why would He demand a pure Grecian type of perfection that neither Jesus nor us can achieve?   God gives us gracious “help in good time for every need.”  This is “appropriate help and well timed help, coming just when we need it.”  We often call this help a miracle not because it is supernatural (beyond nature) but because its timing is so right for our needs that we are filled with awe and wonder.  I think that most of what we call miracle is often because of its impressive timing.

Hebrews 4: 11-13.  (Amplified Bible.)

“11.  Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strove diligently to enter that rest (of God, to know and experience it for ourselves), that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief  and disobedience (into which those in the wilderness fell).  12.  For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power (making it active, operative, energizing and effective); it is sharper than any two edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and (the immortal) spirit, and of joints and marrow (of the deepest parts of our nature), exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.  13.  And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, naked and defenseless to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”

To really hear the alive word of  God is like looking into a mirror and seeing ourselves as we really are in the depths of our being.  This can be a terrifying experience, for what we fear the most is being exposed in the deepest parts of our nature and knowing that Infinite Wisdom sees, knows and judges us we truly, essentially, are.

The purpose of therapy is to open people up and help them see themselves as they really  are.  This must be done in an atmosphere of loving acceptance or the patient may self destruct from seeing himself with the thoughts and purposes of his heart naked before him.

This is why we are delivered from our worst selves unto our best potential selves by loving acceptance that works through faith.  God’s grace accepts us in love and forgiveness in spite of our sins.  God’s gracious loving acceptance is given to as if we are already spiritually mature and completely adequate for our calling and mission as Jesus was.

God’s word of acceptance by grace does not mean we have to be perfect.  Rather it means that we must be honest with ourselves and enter the path of becoming our best potential selves.  When Jesus was called good by the rich young ruler in Mark 10: 18, he replied, “Why do you call me good?  There is no one (essentially and perfectly) good-except God alone.”  Jesus did not claim perfection but he was by God’s grace enabled to become spiritually mature and completely adequate for God’s calling in his life.

God’s powerful, living word penetrates to the “dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and (the immortal) spirit.  This powerful word then shows us how we must keep a balance between soul and spirit to have a whole religion of true worth.

Many associate religion only with spirit.  Spirit receives inspiration which makes us fly high in our excitement.  This is good.  But flying high while leaving the soul, which is tied to ordinary daily life, behind is like Icarius flying to close to the sun with his waxen wings.  The sun melted the was causing him to fall to his death.

Spirit in religion inspires us to attempt great things and to sometimes think we can do anything.  But this notion standing alone is self destructive (demonic).  The soaring greatness of spirit must stay wed to soul.  For soul keeps our feet on the ground.  Inspiration is meant to help us find and serve God in the ordinary things  of life.  Only thus, in ordinary life with spirit and soul working together, do we find true spirituality.

The ordinary and mundane good works of life such as nurturing ourselves and our families in living every day life well is the necessary path to wholesome spirituality.  Our spirits can help us find joy and beauty in ordinary life, nurturing our souls, when we choose to stay there in the ordinary human existence.  We can soar to the mountain top at times but God’s accepting gracious love always helps us to come back down to the valley and village where our souls must live.

What is romanticism in religion?  It is relying as much on irrational  mystery, mysticism, myth, intuition and the depth of the soul’s feelings as upon rational thought and explanation.  The rational and irrational must be balanced in wholesome religion.  The irrational romantic elements are missing in much of religion and life today and we are the poorer for it.

In the West we want a religion of knowing, explanation, thinking it is the best.  (Protestants are especially bad about this.)  The rational is very important but without the irrational elements of romanticism we live in an unstable house of cards.  Religion is a balance of knowing and unknowing, even in the Bible.  God may speak from the cloud clearly as to what we should do but we are never allowed to penetrate the cloud and fathom the mystery that is God.  We just don’t know.

The great geniuses like Einstein seem to intuit the universe’s secrets with mystical feeling long before they discover the rational formulas that explain more of the universe.  They feel the universe in their soul as a lover feels the approach of her beloved  long before they ever see and touch each other.

Our religion desperately needs to cultivate this kind of romanticism.  It will mean our enrichment and certify the validity of our lives.  Neglecting the irrational of romanticism produces what we have today, a rash of Bible thumpers with a chapter and verse answer to every problem.  These aristocrats of arrogance dismiss the deep feelings of the soul with a wave of their hand.  They know everything.  Thus, they cave in the well of joy.

In romantic religion, God is everywhere.  He is found in nature and thus nature is loved and cared for by the worshiper.  The awe and mystery of God is felt in sex which is a wonderful part of created nature and is to be gaurded and nurtured with awe.

Romanticism does not demand an explanation of God nor rely upon dogmatic creeds about Her.  God is and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.  This is enough for the romantic faith for no one could ever explain fully the Eternal Mystery.  If one could, then God is too small for our worship.  Romantic religion feels and experiences God.   It focuses not on explanation but appreciation and thanksgiving.

In romanticism myth is abounding and necessary.  All myth is not literal history but is meant to teach some great truth.  The myth of the virgin birth of was a story form of proclaiming Jesus’ greatness as a master of men.  Stories of virgin births can be found often in ancient religious and political literature.  But always they are a literary device to introduce us to great personages who transformed history.  This is important because unless the church learns to deal honestly with the framework of legend and myth that permeates all sacred literature, including the Bible, the Bible’s influence for this generation will be lost.

Romanticism mystically feels the inner truth of all miracle stories that seem supernatural without taking them as literal history.   It draws the meaning from them and puts it into practice in everyday life.   After all which is better, believing that Jesus walked on water as an article of faith or practicing Jesus’ faith and way of life that enables one to rise above the emotional storms of life and walk on towards good goals?  Which, in the adversities of life, will do you and others around you the most good?  Which do you think God would most prefer you to produce?

The real miracle of Christmas is that Christ, his attitudes of justice and love and all his teachings, can be reborn in us.  We simply must trust the  Mystery and yearn for Christ to live in us and through us.  This is the true Christmas faith.

Hebrews 4: 1-10 (Amplified Bible).

“1.  Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still holds and is offered (today), let us be afraid (to distrust it), lest any of you should think he has come to late  and has come short of (reaching) it.  2.  For indeed we have had the glad tidings (Gospel of God) proclaimed to us just as they (the Israelites of old did when the good news of deliverance from bondage came to them); but the message they heard did not benefit them, because it was not mixed with faith (with the leaning of the entire personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom and goodness) by those who heard it; neither were they united in faith with the ones (Joshua and Caleb who heard (did believe).  3.  For we who have believed (adhered to and trusted in and relied on God) do enter that rest, in accordance with His declaration that those (who did not believe) should not enter when He said, As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest; and this He said although (His) works had been completed and prepared (and waiting for all who would believe) from the foundation of the world.  (Ps. 95:11.)  4.  For in a certain place He has said this about the seventh day:  And God rested in the seventh day from all His works.  (Gen. 2:2.)  5.  And (they forfeited their part in it, for) in this (passage) He said, They shall not enter my rest.  (Ps. 95:11.)  6.  Seeing then that the promise remains over (from past times) for some to enter that rest, and that those who formerly were given the good news about it and the opportunity, failed to appropriate it and did not enter because of disobedience,  7.  Again He sets a definite day, (a new) Today, (and gives another opportunity of securing that rest) saying through David after so long a time in the words already quoted, Today, if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts.  (Ps. 95: 7-8.)  8.  (This mention of a rest was not a reference to their entering into Canaan.)  For if Joshua had give them rest, He (God) would not speak afterward about another day.  9.  So then there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the (true) people of God.  10.  For he who has once entered (God’s) rest also has ceased from (the weariness and pain) of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own.  (Gen. 2:2.)”

Here are some practical applications of this passage for today.  First, this is another very real and frightening warning for all Christians.  If we are disobedient in going forward in God’s way of dying to selfishness and coming alive to practicing and furthering justice for all in life, we will miss out on God’s peace.  Secondly, this warning should humble those who teach, “Once saved always saved,” which promotes laziness and often disrespect of God’s continuing call to obedience.  This teaching coupled with a simplistic and mechanistic plan of  salvation like admit your sins, believe Jesus is the Son of God and died for your sins, and confess Jesus as your Lord before others and you will be saved is a death trap to real spirituality.

This Hebrews passage is very complicated.  It is best to try to get a broad outline of its argument to start our process of understanding it.  The author of Hebrews uses the word rest in three different ways in this passage.  He uses it to mean the peace of God.  Then he uses it to mean the Promised Land of Canaan that the wandering Israelites under Moses were trying to get into. And finally he uses it of God’s Sabbath rest mentioned in the first creation story of Genesis.

This way of using one word in several different ways was typical of refined thought in the first late century among all writers.  However, no worthwhile Bible scholar today would use the scriptures to argue a point as the Hebrews writer did for he took the scriptures out of their historical context.  But his grouping them together is done in a very logical way to make his point clearly.

The use of rest as the peace of settling in the promised land of Canaan after their years of wilderness wanderings is long gone.  Those who through lack of trust and obedience failed to enter the Promised Land on their first opportunity  lost that opportunity forever.

The promise of rest as the peace of God for His people still abides.  It has not changed.  But there is a real danger that we shall fail to participate in God’s peace now through our own lack of trust and obedience in God’s promise of peace.

Finally, the Hebrews author uses rest in a third way.  Though some in the past missed out on this rest through their unbelief , the fact is, this rest remains for us to possess today.  But we must continue to trust in the gospel of grace which tells us that we are accepted now as if we are spiritually mature and completely adequate for our mission or calling to follow Jesus by practicing his way of justice in life.

The remaining rest is a favorite rabbinical conception from the first creation story of Genesis 1 and 2.  This story is mythical poetry which teaches great truths in its historical context.  These truths apply to us but the story as all religious myths was never meant to be taken as literal history.  I firmly believe that God created us through a process of evolution.  It is a poem of God creating everything in six days and each day has a morning and an evening, that is a beginning and an end.

But the seventh day has no mention of a morning and evening.  It is the Sabbath when God rested and the rabbis said that it never ended.  Thus there remains a rest of God that is peace that passes understanding.  It is peace because you believe there is no condemnation because God in grace has accepted you.  It is peace because you have a great purpose, cause, for your everyday life, living the way of God.  This sense of calling, purpose, give a glorious sheen to every menial, mundane aspect of one’s life as well as the more exalted aspects.

Chapter 4: 1b says, “Let us be afraid (to distrust it, God’s promise of rest,), lest any of you should think he has come to late and has come  short of (reaching) it.”  William Barclay in his commentary, “The Letter to the Hebrews”, has a very interesting and valid interpretation and application of this verse.  He says it may mean, “Beware lest you get the idea that you have arrived too late in history ever to enjoy the rest and peace of God.”

Barclay says this warning means that it is easy to think that the great days of religion and the church are behind us.  Certainly the church tends to think its greatest time is behind it and it can only be restored by restoring outdated and wrong convictions and viewpoints.  The church today is missing out on God’s rest and peace because it will not hear His voice within themselves and repent of putting the growth of her institutions over the real needs of humanity.

The “let us be afraid” here doe not mean the fear that incapacitates but the fear that motivates one to put everything he has within him into making sure he does not mess up on what is most worthwhile.  This is simply the basic Christian attitude towards living life!

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There is a Divine Spirit Who is Source of all the power that is who lovingly provides for His/Her creatures.  Source teaches us that there is always more resources available to us in any situation than we at first realize.  This is why Jesus taught in Math 6: 25-34 that we are not to worry about the necessities of life, what we shall eat or drink or wear.  We are not to worry about tomorrow and the needs it will bring.  If we seek first God’s rule and its justice for us all, then what we need will be added to us.

God provides for us daily first and foremost by providing us strength and wisdom to do our best at providing for our lives and those whom we are most responsible for.  But when we are weak and our best is not good enough God provides for us through innumerable different sources that causes us to be thankful and trust all the more.  Trust in the goodness of God is indispensable for realizing God’s provision.

God takes up the slack for the trusting person when their strength grows weak.  This is the first lesson that the story of the inexhaustible jars in I Kings 17; 7-16 teaches us.  Trust makes us able to see, find and receive God’s provision.

These jars can also teach us how to interpret miracle stories in sacred texts if we will listen and think. You can take a miracle story as quite literal history and be a good follower of Christ.   You can do this but you do not have to in order to be a good practicing Christian.

However, if you are a literalist in all things religious it creates some unnecessary problems and hindrances.  No one one preaches miracle stories as literal history which you and I should imitate or experience.  They may say you should believe them as accurate history but they never say you should have faith enough to literally experience the same thing for yourself.  The application of the story they always apply metaphorically.

For example take the story of Jesus walking on water and Peter doing it a little bit.  No one preaches this to encourage you to walk on water, saying that if you had enough faith you could do this.  The church has always interpreted this miracle story metaphorically as a picture of spiritual truth that we all can and should use practically.  It pictures the truth that the early church saw Jesus as one who had faith and lived a way of life that enabled him to be imperturbable in the storms that life throws at us.  No matter how great the particular storm, Jesus could rise above and stay on top of the circumstances, not letting them drag him down.

Through practicing Jesus faith and way of life we all can be calm in the emotional turmoil and trouble of life.  This is the kind of power we need to live successfully.  If we could walk on water by faith alone, what real good would it do us in making us a better person?  Also what real good does it do to make us a better person to believe that Jesus actually walked on water? And what real good do we do to others that makes them better people in handling life’s problems by forcing them to believe that such miracle stories must be believed in order for them to be good Christians?

Throughout the history of all great religious traditions the heroes of those traditions have had miracle stories created about them.  And in all of them the important thing about those stories is their inner significance or truth that they are trying to teach by a pictorial story.  This inner truth is always something that helps us live a practical spirituality of overcoming the trials and tribulations of life.

In I Kings 17, the widow whom Elijah promised that if she would feed him the last stores of her food first before she and her starving son ate,  then God would see to it that her jar of oil and jar of flour would not fail all the days of the drouth ahead and they did not fail to have something in them each day.  Some want to look at this and say, “It is a miracle of regeneration of edible material!”

But I say that the meaning of this story is that God always provides what is needed for those who trust him and put him first as this starving widow woman did by feeding the prophet Elijah the last of what she had to eat before she or her son had a bite.  That is her faith and goodness showing.  Do the same and God will provide for your needs.

But I doubt it was a miracle of regeneration of materials.  Most likely the neighbors who knew she and her son were starving took pity on her when they saw that now she had a holy man to feed in addition to themselves and they took turns sharing a little of their flour and oil regularly with her.  After all did not Jesus teach that if we give unselfishly to bless and help others God will return it unto us at the hands of others?