Biggest Out of Context Pet Peeve: Matthew 18:20

Out of all my pet peeves when it comes to verses taken out of context, Matthew 18:20 ranks at the top.  The verse says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.”

Let me tell you what it does not mean.  It does not mean that Jesus is more present or more gracious when a group gathers for prayer. If you believe that, you 1) have never read the passage, and 2) are wrong.

Here’s what the verse says in its full context, Matthew 18:15-20 in the English Standard Version:

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

Jesus is teaching his disciples about church discipline. In the context, verse 20 means that when Jesus’ disciples agree on a matter of church discipline concerning an unrepentant church member, Jesus will be divinely present among them as they seek Christ-like unity and wisdom in making  their decision.

That’s what the verse means. Plain and simple.  So the next time the big-haired church lady with a tambourine tries to guilt you into showing up at the 5 am prayer time by quoting Matthew 18:20, you’ll know how to (lovingly) respond.

Terry Harrington spent 25 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit

A gripping story from Sports Illustrated about an Omaha man who unjustly spent 25 years in the Iowa State Pen for murder.  Here was an eye-opening paragraph:

Harrington recalls the prison experience with a string of “de” words: demoralizing, degrading, dehumanizing. He has stories of gang fights and riots and inmates throwing feces on guards. He says that by the end of his first week, two inmates had been killed, one of them “cut up and put in a laundry bag.” Still in possession of his faith, Harrington went to church services. He soon quit when he saw the chaplain, also a prison guard, clutching a rifle, threatening to blow an inmate’s head off. “This guy’s going to teach us about morals and forgiveness?” says Harrington. “No, thanks.”

The story is quite long, but it is well worth it. You will not be disappointed. It is a tale of an man seeking justice and needing an outside advocate to provide it for him. The parallels to the gospel fall drastically short; however, the story makes me thankful for Jesus, who was innocent and took our death sentence for us. It also makes me long for his return when he will make all things right and bring justice to all those who have been unjustly tried and treated.

Read the whole thing.

Jay Cutler, Colin Cowherd, and the Anonymous Commentator

Every now and then I tune into Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio. Most of the time, Cowherd annoys me. Some days, like today, he hits it right on the nose.

Today Cowherd was talking about Jay Culter. If you didn’t know, Jay Cutler, the Bear’s quarterback, did not finish this Sunday’s NFC Championship against the Packers because of a knee injury. People attacked Cutler immediately and questioned his determination and toughness — including many current and former players who Tweeted their opinion.

Current and former football players are one thing (though it is quite hypocritical because they hate when the media assumes things before they can be confirmed). People posting anonymously on message boards are another thing. Cowherd spoke about this and I couldn’t agree with him more.

I’m paraphrasing here, but he basically said, “It’s so easy to hide anonymously on a message board. It’s easy to be tough when you call into a radio show. How many of you would be posting on message boards or calling into my show if you had to tell us your phone number and address? The answer is zero.”

Technology is wonderful for so many reasons. But it also creates cyber soldiers who battle in the shadows, and would never dare step into the light of day for a fair fight.

The Result of a Debased Mind: Practicing and Approving of Evil Deeds

Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:32)

These unbelieving sinners that Paul has just spoken of in verses 28-31 know that what they are doing is wrong. Paul never speaks of the law in these verses, which is significant.  This communicates to us that all humans are under the same judgment, even if we haven’t received the Ten Commandments or a list of do’s and don’ts from God.  We all suppress God’s truth.  We all exchange his glory and truth for idolatry and lies.

God has built it into the hearts of human beings to obey a moral code.  That is why in nearly all cultures over all time murder and rape are wrong.  What other explanation can there be?  People “know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die” (cf. Rom. 3:23).   This verse tells us that all people have some knowledge of God, as verses 19-21 tell us.  It shows that even if people do not have a Bible or a missionary, they are still held accountable to God.  Of course, Paul himself is talking about people without a Bible, since nearly all of the known Gentile world in his day did not have written Scripture and did not read the Old Testament.

Not only do people do such things as those listed in verses 28-31, but they also give approval to those who practice them.  This means that they congratulate evil and hate what is good — a gross inversion of God’s intention (see Rom. 12:9).  Our modern minds probably immediately go to a man bowing down to a golden idol and congratulating others who worship with him.  But consider the businessman on Wall Street who has committed fraud and is laundering money.  He defies the decree of God.  And his business partner has joined him, risking his job, credibility, integrity, family, and friends.  Instead of coming to his senses, this man congratulates his partner and tells him, “This is the only way you’ll get ahead, make money, and make something of yourself in this company.”  He not only does evil, but he is approves others doing it as well.  He is doubly guilty.

This can also happen with much “smaller” things.  And it can be passive, not active.  Take pornography, for example.  Instead of hating the sin and actively fighting against it, a man may rebuke his friend because he himself is fighting the same sin of pornography.  Instead of lovingly rebuking his friend who sinned while on the Internet yesterday, he says, “It’s okay.  I’m right there with you.  God forgives.”  Though that is true, it is not actively engaged in the battle against sin.  It’s passive and communicates a lackadaisical attitude toward the self-destructing ability of sin.  “Approving” sin may come in many shapes and colors.  And we must be careful to watch out for it at all times.

 

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity.”

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:24-25)

The reason God gave people up in the lusts of their hearts is due to the fact that they “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images” (v. 23).  God has simply given people what they really wanted.  And as we have seen above, this is the wrath they will experience.  It will not be true joy and happiness.  It will not be satisfying and fulfilling.  It will not be all they dreamed of.  In fact, these dark exchanges will ruin their lives and cause them to be miserable.  God “gave them up” (Gk. paradidōmi) is active and aorist in its tense, meaning it happened at one time.  It also shows that God has done something, not simply “allowed” it to happen.  This does not mean that God compels or causes people to sin—that would be contradictory to God’s nature and being (cf. James 1:13).

The human element in all of this is that these people have already chosen to rebel against God.  They have given themselves up.  On the other side of the coin, God, in his sovereignty, is still over all and controls the ebbs and flows of the world.  Remember that our verb “gave them up” is active, not passive.  God has not caused anyone to sin, but he reigns over them in his righteousness with his good, wise, and holy reasons.

What has God given people up to?  Paul says to “the lusts of their hearts to impurity” and “the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.”  The first thing—“in the lusts of their hearts to impurity”—obviously carries with it heavy sexual connotations.  But the greater thing to note is that Paul says that lust starts in the heart.  Lust is not merely a physical problem, and “lust” is not only a sexual sin.  Lusting means craving something that is forbidden.  Even if we have not sinned sexually in our lives, we have still “lusted” after something (praise of man, companionship, success, money, etc.).  The first thing Paul has in mind, however, is probably sexual immorality of any kind, because that is what he mentions first in vv. 26-27.  The external actions of infidelity, homosexuality, pornography, sensuality, etc. are all symptoms of a greater disease: lust in the heart.

To stop fornicating or committing homosexual acts would not do anyone any good.  The problem goes deeper than just our actions.  Paul tells his reader that God has given people over, not to their physical desires, but to the lust that exists in their heart.  Their hearts have longed for what they cannot and should not have; therefore God gives them over to impurity.

The word “impurity” is the Greek word akatharsia which means “uncleanness in a moral sense.”  God has given people up to the lusts of their hearts to be morally unclean.  This word is used 10 times in the New Testament, nine times in Paul.  Every time Paul uses the word it is coupled with (and placed directly next to) sexual immorality (see Rom. 1:24; 6:19; 2 Cor. 12:21; Gal. 5:19; Eph. 4:19; 5:3; Col. 3:5; 1 Thess. 2:3; 4:7).  There is no doubt that Paul has sexual immorality in mind when he speaks of moral impurity in Romans 1.  Later in verse 24 confirms this because our “bodies” are what are dishonored when we sin sexually (1 Cor. 6:18).

The second thing—“the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves”—is probably a fuller description of the first phrase (Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 112).  In other words, this phrase describes what impurity really is.  It is the “dishonoring” of your body among yourself.  “The expression, among themselves, is not without its force; for it significantly expresses how deep and indelible are the marks of infamy imprinted on our bodies” (Calvin).

God’s desire is for our sanctification, especially in the area of sexuality (see 1 Thess. 4:3-4). Instead of being delivered over to impurity, God wants us to surrender to him and be pure sexually, and in all areas of life. It is no wonder that some 2,000 years after Paul wrote this letter our world is plagued by devastating sexual sin. People have what they desired, and it is ruining lives, families, cultures, and whole countries.  God have mercy.

Do you avoid what is serious, controversial, and eternal?

This is an article from last year written by Greg Doyel of CBS Sports. Doyel writes about the so-called “anti-abortion” ad that Focus on the Family ran with Tim Tebow and his mother during the Super Bowl.

Basically, he wrote that it was wrong to run a 30-second “political” ad during the Super Bowl.  He writes, “Still, I don’t want to see. Not during the damn Super Bowl. And I’m not complaining about the ad because it’s anti-abortion and I’m not. I’m complaining about the ad because it’s pro-politics. And I’m not. Not on Super Sunday. If you’re a sports fan, and I am, that’s the holiest day of the year. That’s a day for five hours of football pregame shows and four hours of football game and three hours of postgame football analysis. That’s a day for football addicts to gorge themselves to the gills on football.”

Turns out, the ad really wasn’t about abortion at all. You can watch it here.

For a full disclosure, Greg Doyel rubs me the wrong way. He makes an the occasional appearance on a local sports talk radio show in Omaha, and more often than not, he’s rude and crude. The article brings out his true colors: the fact that he is more concerned about being entertained by football than talking about serious things.

My point isn’t to bash on Greg Doyel. My point is to expose an epidemic in America, and in the world at-large. The epidemic is that we want to avoid anything serious, controversial, and eternal. We want to make life a big Disneyland. I enjoy football, but football is not serious. It is not controversial. And it only lasts for four months of the year. Abortion is infinitely serious. It divides families and communities. And the decisions made regarding it will echo long into eternity.

Abortion is all that’s serious, controversial, and eternal. There are other issues. And until Christ returns, the epidemic that life is all fun and games will continue to spread and take millions of souls with it.

Tim Hawkins on Noah’s Ark

If only our children’s Bible’s told the actual story.