The Pharisee and Taxman Story.

Luke 18.9-14.

Immediately after the Persistent Widow Story, Jesus tells this one. It likewise touches upon prayer… but it’s more about people who consider themselves devout, yet are jerks. Sometimes it’s called the Pharisee and Publican story, ’cause “publican” is how the KJV translates τελώνης/telónis, “collector of tolls, customs, or taxes.” But “publican” is an anachronism at this point in history.

Yep, it’s history lesson time, kids. Before the Cæsars took over, Rome was a republic. Not a democracy; it was an oligarchy run by patricians, the Roman upper caste. At some uncertain point in their past, the patricians overthrew their king and ran Rome collectively. Every year, patricians elected two consuls to run things; the consuls selected senators, and these senators ruled for life. But senators weren’t permitted to collect taxes, so they hired lower-rank patricians to do it for ’em. These tax-gatherers were from the publicani rank, and over time, publicani became synonymous with taxmen.

These publicans practiced tax farming: Different companies applied for the job of collecting taxes in a certain town or county, by offering the government an advance—say, x10,000. (The x stands for denarii; it’s like our dollar sign.) If they outbid everyone they got the contract, and had to pay the government the x10,000 advance. Now they had to make the money back: Collect rent, charge tolls, demand a percentage of merchants’ profits. They shook everybody down to make back that x10,000.

Everything they made beyond that x10,000, they got to keep. So the more unscrupulous the publican, the higher taxes would be, and the richer they got. Richer, and corrupt. They’d bribe government officials to get their contracts, bribe their way out of trouble if they were charged with over-taxing, and bribe their way out of trouble for any other crimes.

When Cæsar Augustus took over the senate in 30BC—that’d be about 60 years before Jesus tells this story—he took tax-gathering away from the publicans and put government officials in charge of it. He figured it’d lower taxes and reduce bribery. The publicans switched careers, and got into banking and money-lending. So, like I said, “publican” is an anachronism: Publicans weren’t taxmen anymore.

But Cæsar’s reforms didn’t fix the problem. Lazy government officials simply hired tax farmers to collect for them. Any wealthy person could bid for the job and get it. That’s what we see in first-century Israel: Wealthy Jews became tax farmers, and did the Romans’ dirty work for them. Their fellow Jews saw them as traitors—as greedy, exploitative sellouts. Which, to be fair, they totally were.

So to Jesus’s audience, a Pharisee—a devout follower of the Law of Moses—would be the good guy; and a taxman would be an utter scumbag. And now, the story.

Luke 18.9-14 KWL

9Jesus also says this parable

to certain hearers who imagine themelves fair-minded

and despise everyone else.

10“Two people go up to temple to pray.

One’s a Pharisee, and the other a taxman.

11The Pharisee, standing off by himself, is praying this:

‘God, thank you¹ that I’m not like every other person!

Greedy capitalists, totally unfair, totally unfaithful!

Or even like this taxman!

12I fast twice a week.

I tithe whatever I get.’

13The taxman, who’d been standing way back,

didn’t even want to raise his eyes to heaven,

but beat his chest, saying,

‘God have mercy on me, a sinner!’

14I tell you² this taxman goes back to his house

declared right in God’s eyes

—same as the other man!

For everyone who raises themselves will be lowered.

And those who lower themselves will be raised.”

The Feast of Peter’s Confession.

Today, 18 January, is a feast day for Anglicans, Lutherans, and Orthodox Christians, held in memory of when Simon Peter first publicly identified as Messiah.

Weirdly, not Roman Catholics, even though they’re huge fans of St. Peter, whom they consider the first pope. They’re the ones who started the feast too. It was part of their Feast of St. Peter’s Chair—which honors, as the title plainly states, St. Peter’s chair. His literal chair. (But probably not—unless they swapped out broken parts of it until it was all swapped, Ship of Theseus style. The oldest parts of it date from the 500s.) It’s big, it’s wooden; they’ve got it in a place of honor in the Vatican. They think Peter sat on it when he ran the Roman church. Catholics moved that feast to 22 February, and dropped the Feast of the Confession, and celebrate his confession along with his chair. After all the chair didn’t confess anything.

The other liturgical churches kept the Feast of the Confession where it is, and celebrate it then. If you’ve read the gospels, you know the story. Here’s the Matthew version of it.

Matthew 16.13-20 GNT

13Jesus went to the territory near the town of Cæsarea Philippi, where he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

14“Some say John the Baptist,” they answered. “Others say Elijah, while others say Jeremiah or some other prophet.”

15“What about you?” he asked them. “Who do you say I am?”

16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

17“Good for you, Simon son of John!” answered Jesus. “For this truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my Father in heaven. 18And so I tell you, Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church, and not even death will ever be able to overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven; what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.”

20Then Jesus ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

These events took place near Cæsarea-Philippi, yet another one of the cities named for the Cæsars, but also named for Herod Philip, tetrarch of the Dekapolis, who founded it. (It’s now called Banias. It’s one of the sources of the Jordan River.) At the time Jesus and his Twelve were in the Dekapolis, which was largely populated by Syrian Greeks, who were less likely to recognize Jesus and his kids: Nobody would know their cultural background, nor what a Messiah is. So it was kind of a safe space for Peter to come right out and say Jesus is Messiah.

Even so, Jesus shushed them and told them not to repeat this. In their culture “Messiah” means king. If you claim you’re the king, anybody else who’s using or who covets the title, might object. Especially when you have a really good claim to the title, as Jesus does.

Spiritual warfare: Resist temptation!

Plainly and simply, spiritual warfare is resisting evil. Evil in our own lives, evil in our families and church, evil in the world.

Now yeah, some Christians only describe it as fighting evil. And mostly they imagine fighting some evil spirit, if not Satan itself. The devil and its imps are trying to destroy the world, so they’re fighting back! They’re praying really, really hard for the devil to get defeated, and bound in unbreakable chains. In some cases they’ll pray directly to the devil: “I bind you, Satan; I order you into the pit.” I’m not sure they understand only Jesus puts Satan in the pit. For that matter I’m not sure they understand spiritual warfare in general.

Y’see, back in the 1980s, author Frank Peretti wrote some novels about an unseen cosmic battle taking place between the good and evil spirits, which used humans as their proxies. (Much like the Greek gods manipulated humans in Homer’s Iliad.) From the humans’ point of view, there was a culture war going on between good Christians and evil pagans. From the spirits’ view, they were fighting in the skies with sabers and scimitars. And somehow prayer made the angels’ swords mightier. And that’s why we gotta pray. Our prayers are like the charging cable for our angels’ lightsabers!

In real life? No. Dumb. But the novels really struck a nerve with the fleshly, fightin’ part of culture warriors, and to this day you’re gonna find some the language from Peretti’s novels mixed in with the speech of “prayer warriors.” Doesn’t matter that none of this is biblical. They’ve heard this myth so long, and heard other Christians quote it as if it’s wholly true, so they’re convinced it’s totally biblical.

But again: Spiritual warfare is about us resisting evil. And to do that effectively, we gotta be humble before God. We gotta recognize there’s no way we can defeat evil without him. He’s gotta empower us to resist. He, not our prayers, does it.

James 4.7-10 KWL

7So be submitted to God;

stand against the devil, and it’ll run away from you.

8Come near to God

and he’ll come near to you.

Sinners, cleanse your hands!

Those on the fence, sanctify your minds.

9Recognize your misery, mourn, and weep.

Change your laughter into sorrow

and joy into shame:

10Be humble before the Master

and he’ll lift you up.

But of course the Frank Peretti novels indicate the only human activity in spiritual warfare consists of evildoers unknowingly following the evil spirits, or saints praying. So “spiritual warriors” are gonna insist they have been spiritually battling—with all the weepy, loud praying they do, which knocks down strongholds and takes ground for God. (“Takes ground” when the novels only describe spirits fighting in the skies. What ground. Meh; whatever.)

In reality God wins the battle against evil in the End, with or without us. But of course he’d much rather have us on his side, and not get consumed by all the evil, and destroyed. So I recommend doing as James said: Come near to God, clean your hands and minds, stop laughing off these things as if they’re nothing to worry about, and acknowledge Jesus is right and we are not.

Stop assuming prayer is warfare, worship is warfare, going through the motions of devout religiosity is warfare. None of those things are. Jesus and his apostles never describe ’em as such. Because they’re not.

Submitting to Jesus and resisting temptation: That’s warfare.

The scriptures’ purpose. [2Ti 3.15-17]

2 Timothy 3.15-17 KJV

15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

Most of the time, when Christians memorize this passage, they only memorize verse 16, the bit about scripture being inspired, and profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. They might also memorize verse 17, which says this’ll prep us for good works. But seldom do they include verse 15, which is a huge mistake.

I’ve heard more than one preacher pitch the question, “What’s the scriptures for?” and then launch into 2 Timothy 3.16: It’s for doctrine! And reproof!—or as the New International Version puts it, rebuking!—and man alive do they love to rebuke this evil, evil world and all its sins, and throw proof texts at this world as if our pagan world is somehow gonna be convicted by sayings from a book it considers massively out of date. Never you mind that Paul wrote this passage to Timothy, a Christian, and that it’s about us Christians rebuking ourselves for our own selfish behavior, and reminding us to follow Jesus for once.

It’s for correction! It’s for instruction in righteousness! And again—it’s for Christians to self-correct; it’s for Christians to work on being on being righteous, although a better translation of δικαιοσύνῃ would be justice. It’s not about us being good, although we absolutely should be good, and the scriptures do teach us the difference between good and evil, and push us towards goodness. It’s about doing the right thing to God and others, and being fair-minded and equitable in a cruel world which upholds social Darwinism and worships Mammon.

But these preachers skip verse 15 altogether, and completely miss Paul telling Timothy, plain as day, what the scriptures did for him. They made Timothy “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” 1Ti 3.15 KJV. The scriptures taught him how to be saved.

And that is what the scriptures are for. What the bible is for. Doctrine, rebuke, correction, and justice, make very little sense, and have very little lasting impact, when they’re not in the context of how God saves us and adopts us as his children, and is making his temple and an everlasting kingdom out of us.

Doctrine is for us Christians—because pagans aren’t gonna follow it! Rebuke is for us Christians—because pagans dismiss it. Correction is for us Christians—because pagans don’t think they’re wrong and need correction, and unfortunately way too many Christians believe the very same thing. And training in justice is for us Christians, because pagans think justice is about putting criminals in prison, executing rapists and murderers… and giving free passes to the wealthy and famous because somehow these qualities are rewards for them being better and smarter people, and again, that’s just social Darwinism talking. God taught us better than that, but social Darwinists have convinced many a Christian that perhaps we, just by being Christian, are also some of those better and smarter people, and maybe we deserve some free passes too. Maybe we should get to take over the country or something. “If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine,” Lk 3.7 promises Mammon, and Christians who can’t tell the difference between it and Jesus are perfectly happy to bend the knee. ’Cause they might know their bible verses, but they’re missing the context.

But I digress. We learn this stuff from the scriptures, and practice it, because we’re a saved people. Because Jesus called us forth from our cruel world, forgave us, showers us with infinite blessings, and makes a new nation out of us; a nation that’s marked by the good works he wants us to do for others. We don’t do those good works just because the bible says; we do it because we’re sharing those blessings. And if those whom we’ve helped bless, wanna know how to likewise be saved… well if you’ve memorized verse 15, you know that’s why we have the scriptures in the first place.

Getting hungry for God. Literally.

FAST fast verb. Go without food [for God].

2. noun. A period of going without food [for God].

Whenever I talk to people about fasting, their knee-jerk reaction is “No food? No food? No FOOD? You’re outa your [profane adjective] mind.” After all, this is the United States, where a 20-ounce soda is called a “small.” In this nation, the stomach rules.

This is why so many Christians are quick to redefine the word “fast.” Fr’instance the last several churches I’ve been a part of, have annually done a 21-day “Daniel fast,” which I described elsewhere. It’s not a literal fast; nobody’s going without food. They’re only depriving themselves of certain kinds of food, depending on who writes up the Daniel fast’s menu. Usually no meat or sweets. But no hunger pains either.

Fasting, actual fasting, is a hardcore Christian practice. The only things which go into our mouths are air and water. In an “absolute fast” you even skip the water. Now, we need food and water. If we don’t eat, we die. And that’s the point: Push this practice too far and we die—but God is more important than our lives. That’s the declaration we make when we fast: Our lives aren’t as important as God.

Why would we do such a thing? For the same reason Jesus did it, when he went to the desert for the devil to tempt him. Mt 4.1-2, Lk 4.1-2 Fasting makes people spiritually tough. It amplifies our prayer and meditation by a significant factor, which is why it’s a common prayer practice. When we deprive our physical parts, and shift our focus to the spiritual parts, those parts get exercised; they get stronger.

We reject our culture, which teaches us we should never deprive ourselves of anything. We recognize God, not food, is our source of life. Our minds get better attuned to God’s will. We hear him better, because our bodies physically feel our need for him. We detect spiritual things faster. We discern the difference between good and evil better.

Yeah, fasting does all that. That is, when we’re praying as well as fasting. If you’re fasting but not praying, it’s time wasted.

Don’t get me wrong. Other forms of self-deprivation have the same effects. Dieting for God, or going without certain beloved things and hobbies, because God’s more important than any of our desires, can also achieve the same things as fasting. Just not as quickly; not as intensely. The stakes simply aren’t as high. Fasting is hardcore, remember? Going without bacon, as hard as that might be for you personally, isn’t life-threatening. (In fact it’s better for your health.) But though a small thing, it’s still a sacrifice, and part of the proper mindset: “God is more important than my palate.”

The One Sheep in a Hundred Story.

Matthew 18.10-14.

This particular story is often called the Lost Sheep Story, which makes it really easy to mix up with the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin Story which Jesus tells in Luke 15. It’s mighty similar: A shepherd has 100 sheep, one gets lost, and the shepherd leaves the 99 behind to find the one.

But too often when people tell the story, they skip its context. Because they’re focused on telling the parts which parallel with Luke 15; they only wanna talk about the shepherd finding the lost sheep. And then they wanna talk about evangelism, or about how Jesus loves us so much he’s willing to ditch all the other Christians and go after the lost, and how we gotta be willing to ditch all our Christian sisters and brothers and focus solely on missions.

It misses the whole point of the parable. What is the point of the parable? Duh, the context. Jesus told this story for a reason, and if you ditch his reason because you’ve got your own reasons for telling this story, you’re not preaching his gospel; you’re preaching your own.

So I’m gonna share this story, in context, so you can see for yourself what Jesus means by it. Beginning, not at verse 12 like they preach it, but verse 10.

Matthew 18.10-14 KWL

10“See to it you² don’t dismiss

even one of these little ones.

For I tell you² their heavenly angels

see the face of my heavenly Father

all the time.

11{For the Son of Man comes

to save those who are being destroyed.}

12“What do you² think?

When a certain person comes to have 100 sheep,

and one of them might wander off,

won’t he leave the 99 in the hills,

and go seek the wanderer?

13And when he happens to find it,

amen!—I promise you, he rejoices over it

more than the 99 who didn’t wander off.

14Likewise it’s not the will of your² heavenly Father

that one of these little ones be destroyed.”

Brackets around verse 11 are to remind you the Textus Receptus added this verse to the bible. Jesus legitimately says it in Luke 19.10, and St. John Chrysostom, when he taught on this passage in the late 300s, quoted it… so starting in the 700s, the copyists of various Matthew manuscripts decided to tuck it inbetween verses 10 and 12. That’s how it got into the Vulgate, the Textus, and the KJV.

The Luke parallel to this story isn’t about little ones—by which Jesus means children—being dismissed, overlooked, corrupted, or destroyed. It’s about how Pharisees objected to Jesus dining with taxmen and sinners. Jesus used this story to tell them his Father also cares about taxmen; that they’re lost, and the Father wants ’em found. But here, Jesus tells the story for a different purpose: He doesn’t want us to dismiss children, and permit them to go astray. We’re to lead ’em to Jesus and raise them to follow him. If they later go astray and apostate, it absolutely shouldn’t be because we pushed ’em thataway. It usually is, though.

Epiphany: When Jesus was revealed to the world.

Today, 6 January, is Epiphany, the day which celebrates how Jesus was revealed to the world.

True, the Christmas stories depict Jesus’s revealing when he got born, on Christmas Day. (Which was not 25 December. That date was set because it’s 12 days before Epiphany; not, as pagans claim, because we swiped the winter solstice holiday from Saturn. As I keep reminding folks, we stole our holidays from Jews, not pagans.) Jesus gets foretold by Gabriel and Elizabeth and whatever angel appeared to his dad in a dream, but to the rest of humanity, there are the angels who appear to the sheep-herders, there’s the two prophets who identify him after his circumcision, and a few years later the magi.

But in the Roman culture, you were revealed to the world at your adoption. That’s where your dad—whether biological or adopted—formally declared you his child. Joseph did that when he gave Jesus his name, but the Romans would do it when you reached adulthood, and Jesus’s heavenly Father definitely did that at his baptism. John the baptist described it thisaway:

John 1.29-36 The Message

29The very next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and yelled out, 30“Here he is, God’s Passover Lamb! He forgives the sins of the world! This is the man I’ve been talking about, ‘the One who comes after me but is really ahead of me.’ 31I knew nothing about who he was—only this: that my task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God.”

32John clinched his witness with this: “I watched the Spirit, like a dove flying down out of the sky, making himself at home in him. 33I repeat, I know nothing about him except this: The One who authorized me to baptize with water told me, ‘The One on whom you see the Spirit come down and stay, this One will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34That’s exactly what I saw happen, and I’m telling you, there’s no question about it: This is the Son of God.”

35The next day John was back at his post with two disciples, who were watching. 36He looked up, saw Jesus walking nearby, and said, “Here he is, God’s Passover Lamb.”

Ancient Christians began in the third century to celebrate Jesus’s baptism in January. Why January? Two theories. One is Jesus’s baptism had to take place during the Jordan River’s flood stage, usually in January. Otherwise there wouldn’t’ve been enough water to immerse him.

The other theory is the ancient churches divided the gospels into a year’s worth of readings. If you begin with Mark, you’ll get to Jesus’s baptism story in the first week of January, so that’s when they’d observe and celebrate Jesus’s baptism. Two major problems with this theory: First, New Year’s Day in the Julian calendar is 25 March. (Yes, that’s a really odd place to put New Year’s Day, but that’s how it was till the Gregorian calendar moved it to 1 January.) Second, why would you begin the yearly gospel readings with Mark instead of Matthew?

Regardless of why, ancient Christians began to celebrate Jesus’s baptism on 6 January. (Eastern churches which still use the old Julian calendar still celebrate it on 6 January, but since they’re out of sync with our calendar, to us they celebrate it on 19 January.) And since they hadn’t created the holiday of Christmas yet, the ancient Christians began celebrating everything having to do with Jesus’s birth and childhood on Epiphany, till they realized it needed its own celebration. Thus the 12 days before Epiphany evolved into the 12 days of Christmas.

Nope, we still don’t know when Jesus was born, or baptized. Does it even matter? We just need a day or two to celebrate. Or 12. And for the longest time Epiphany also lasted several days. Usually eight.

Epiphany also marks the end of Christmastime. Bummer.