Who Owns God? Christian Faith, Immigration and Compassion

Who Owns God? 

On Christian Faith, Immigration and Compassion?

From a squirrel on a cable to the vast cosmos and the stranger at the border, Don Kenobi reflects on God’s unfathomable immensity, His boundless love, Christian hospitality and the politics of exclusion.

The Squirrel on the Cable

I looked up and saw a black squirrel scurrying along a cable. A power cable, perhaps a telephone line. I couldn’t tell.

And a thought crossed my mind: how many squirrels are there in the world?

Then another thought stopped me. God knows. He knows exactly how many there are at this moment. How many died last night. How many were born between six yesterday evening and six this morning.

Selah!

Earlier, I had seen telescope images on television. Vast clouds in space, a kaleidoscope of colours, creation stretching beyond anything my mind could comfortably hold.

Let me marry those two thoughts.

A God Too Great for Our Prejudices

The God of that immensity knows the squirrel on the cable. Yet here we are, on this little speck of dust, imagining that He belongs exclusively to us. Our congregation. Our religion. Our race. Our country.

We hate somebody, then persuade ourselves that God must hate that person too. We want somebody excluded, so we construct a theology that puts them beyond His mercy.

What astonishing presumption.

I cannot reconcile the greatness of God with the smallness of a faith that requires me to despise another human being. Nor can I accept that His justice becomes negotiable whenever the offender belongs to our camp.

We need to examine what we are preaching, what we are accepting, and what we are allowing others to do in God’s name.

Paul’s warning about “dogs” comes to mind: his fierce rebuke of those insisting on circumcision as a religious requirement. Two thousand years later, we should still be asking who is placing barriers between people and the grace of God.

The Stranger Moving Towards Us

And that brings me to another thought.

How do Christians who defend the movement of Europeans across the world, including conquest and settlement, become so hostile when people move in the opposite direction?

How do we celebrate carrying our faith into somebody else’s homeland, yet resent the stranger who arrives in ours?

Perhaps we should consider what people are moving towards. Safety. Opportunity. Justice. Some assurance that their children will matter, that their labour will be rewarded, that their lives will not depend entirely on the whims of the powerful.

These hopes draw people to Western countries, including societies shaped by Protestant as well as Catholic traditions. Such societies have many influences, and their histories contain grievous betrayals of the gospel. Still, wherever their institutions uphold human dignity, protect the vulnerable and make room for compassion, I believe we can recognise something of the light of Christ.

Perhaps some who migrate towards these societies are responding, without even naming it, to that light. To the promise of a place where mercy has some public expression, where the stranger might find protection and the powerless might receive a hearing.

The Great Commission at Our Doorstep

And if so, has the Great Commission not, in one sense, been made easier?

We once crossed oceans to take the gospel to people. Now people cross oceans and arrive among us. What an opportunity to make the love of Christ tangible through hospitality, fairness, friendship and service. What an opportunity to bear witness without making anyone’s welcome conditional upon conversion.

But some Christians seem offended by the opportunity itself.

They speak as though the peace, security and prosperity they enjoy must be guarded against the very people with whom they were commissioned to share God’s love. They praise Christian civilisation, then resist the obligations that come with that claim.

There are questions to debate about immigration. Of course there are. Housing, public services, employment and the capacity to receive people require serious thought. But there is a profound moral difference between addressing those questions and making hostility towards immigrants a badge of patriotism.

When we make the stranger an enemy simply for being a stranger, what exactly are we defending?

We cannot preach love of neighbour and quietly insert a condition: provided the neighbour comes from the right country.

God in a Back Pocket

Yet narrow religion keeps attempting the same extraordinary feat: cornering the God of the universe and slipping Him into a back pocket.

He is ours. Ours alone. His peace, His joy, His grace and His salvation are apparently benefits reserved for our own people.

And Christ’s Great Commission? Just a thought, perhaps. Something He said. Surely He could not have meant that we should welcome an actual opportunity to practise it.

You see the absurdity?

In Whose Interest?

When politicians cultivate contempt for immigrants, and Christians bless that contempt, whose purposes are being served? When fear becomes the organising principle of our public life, whose spirit are we allowing to guide us?

I cannot see the work of Christ in a politics that needs us perpetually suspicious of one another. I see fertile ground for the divider: humanity consumed by discord, nations driven towards conflict, resources poured into weapons while human needs go unanswered.

We become better equipped to destroy one another and less willing to care for one another. We impoverish ourselves spiritually and materially, making the world less like the kingdom of God we claim to desire.

In whose interest is all this?

Final Thoughts

The squirrel on the cable.
Those extraordinary clouds in space.
The stranger at the border.
God knows them all.

Even you.... 

Remember all that before you purport to speak for Him.

Don Kenobi | Christianity Without Apologies

#MyFrancisEssays #OldManInTheMolue 

#WhoOwnsGod #GodsBoundlessLove #WelcomeTheStranger 

The Church, Its Comforts, and the Destinies We Could Change

WHAT IF?

The Church, Its Comforts, and the Destinies We Could Change

I attended the funeral of a dear friend who passed away on earlier this year. The funeral took place somewhere in Lagos.

I cannot quite remember whether the church was housed in an elaborate tent or a bungalow. What I remember is that it was not an ostentatious affair.

Nothing about the place suggested an extravagant display of wealth. Yet considerable effort had gone into making the space comfortable and sophisticated. I looked around and noticed the air conditioners. Packaged air-conditioning units. Several of them.

I have encountered places of worship ranging from the modest to the magnificent, from the sprawling auditoriums of Lakewood Church and The Potter’s House in Texas to the historic grandeur of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Each, in its own way, reflects the considerable resources devoted to creating spaces for worship.

Yet, for reasons I cannot quite explain, it was in this relatively modest church in Ikoyi that I found myself asking a question I had never seriously considered before.

I have seen magnificent buildings, impressive auditoriums, sophisticated sound systems, elaborate lighting, and the full paraphernalia of modern religious worship.

But on this particular occasion, something happened. I began to wonder what Jesus would make of it all.

Not what the church leadership would say. Not what the congregation would say. Not what the building committee would say in defence of its expenditure.

What would Jesus say?

I looked at those air-conditioning units and began to think about the cost of acquiring them, installing them, and keeping them running. The diesel, the generators, the maintenance, the technicians, the electricity, and the eventual replacement of equipment.

And suddenly, the air conditioners became more than air conditioners.

They became a question. A question about priorities, about the Church and its mission, and about the relationship between the resources we consume to maintain our institutions and the destinies we might change if we chose to spend some of those resources differently.

And I began to wonder.

What if?

What Does It Cost to Maintain the Church?

What if we could quantify the total recurring expenditure of churches across Lagos? Not just air conditioning, but generators, sound equipment, lighting, buildings, maintenance, administrative overheads, fleets of SUVs, and the private jets and helicopters used by some prominent religious leaders. Everything.

What if we could put a figure to the amount of money required every month to keep the religious machinery running?

I have no idea what that figure would be. Perhaps it would be less than I imagine. Perhaps considerably more. But I suspect it would be large enough to deserve a serious conversation.

And I am not talking about the money people give in church. I am talking about what the Church spends to maintain itself.

The Comfort of the Sanctuary

I know the arguments. People need to be comfortable when they come to worship God. Churches need good sound systems so people can hear the Word. They need generators because public electricity is unreliable, and air conditioning because Lagos can be unbearably hot.

Churches need buildings, equipment, administrative structures, and money to function. I understand all of that.

I am not suggesting that Christians should worship God in misery, that churches should abandon their buildings, or that every expenditure on comfort is wasteful. That would be a simplistic argument.

But there is a question we rarely ask.

At what point does providing comfort for those who have gathered to worship become more important than providing relief for those who are struggling to survive?

At what point does the maintenance of the institution begin to compete with the mission for which the institution exists? And how would we know if we had crossed that line?

These are questions about proportion, priorities, and whether our expenditure reflects our professed values.

In my latest book, Apprentice Nations, I argue, and I paraphrase here, that budgets are moral documents because they reveal what governments truly value. Every allocation represents a choice between competing priorities: the powerful and the powerless, political convenience and public welfare, wasteful prestige projects and essential services.

Speeches may proclaim concern for the poor, but budgets reveal the truth.

Follow the money and you will discover who matters, what matters, and what kind of nation a government intends to build.

That argument applies just as readily to ecclesiastical institutions.

We sing about the love of God. We preach about compassion. We quote the Scriptures about caring for widows, feeding the hungry, and remembering the poor.

Every Christian knows the familiar hymn: Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.

But how much of our collective expenditure is devoted to making those things happen?

I do not know. And that, perhaps, is part of the problem. We do not seem particularly interested in asking.

What If We Sat Down Together?

Imagine, for a moment, that the leaders of the various Christian denominations in Lagos agreed to sit around a table. Not to organise a crusade, plan a convention, discuss church growth or membership figures, or consider acquiring another property.

But to examine their expenditure.

The elders, bishops, pastors, accountants, and people who understand the financial workings of our institutions would put the figures on the table.

This is what we spend every month on electricity and diesel. This is what we spend on buildings and maintenance. This is what we spend on administrative overheads, transportation, equipment, and the other costs associated with running our institutions.

They would add everything up and establish what it costs to keep the machinery of organised Christianity running in Lagos.

Then, having established that figure, they would ask another question:

What if we agreed to reduce that expenditure by 25 per cent?

Not by closing churches, abandoning worship, or dismissing the people who work in our institutions, but by examining our spending, eliminating unnecessary extravagance, sharing resources where practical, improving efficiency, and asking whether everything we currently pay for is genuinely necessary.

Twenty-five per cent.

What would that amount to? I do not know. But suppose the savings were substantial.

What could we do with the money?

The Destinies We Could Change

What if we established a fund to support children from poor families who have the ability to learn but cannot afford school fees? What if we provided scholarships, vocational training, apprenticeships, and access to tools for young people willing to work but lacking the means to begin?

What if we helped people acquire the skills necessary to earn a living rather than merely providing occasional assistance when their circumstances became desperate?

We could create programmes to help small businesses survive their first difficult years, establish properly managed microfinance institutions offering responsible financing to people excluded from conventional banking, and invest in productive enterprises that create jobs and generate income.

We could help people establish farms, workshops, small manufacturing businesses, and service enterprises.

What if our churches became centres not only of spiritual instruction but also of practical economic empowerment?

And what if we did these things on a scale that individual congregations could never achieve alone?

Consider the possibilities.

A child who would otherwise have abandoned school completes an education. A young person learns a trade and becomes financially independent. A woman who has struggled for years to sustain a small business obtains the capital and training needed to expand it.

A community gains access to clean water because several churches pool their resources. Unemployed young people receive the equipment and support needed to establish a cooperative enterprise. A family escapes a cycle of poverty that has persisted for generations.

These are not merely charitable transactions.

They are interventions in human destiny.

And the people who benefit are not simply recipients of our generosity. They become producers, employers, taxpayers, parents, innovators, and contributors to the society around them. They acquire the means to help themselves and, in time, help others.

What if this became a central measure of the Church’s success?

Not merely how many people attended our services last Sunday, but how many acquired the means to live with dignity because we were here. Not merely how many buildings we constructed, but how many lives we helped rebuild. Not merely how much money we raised, but how much human potential we released.

And Then, Another 25 Per Cent

Let us suppose we succeeded. The first 25 per cent reduction in expenditure has been implemented without compromising the essential work of our churches.

The lights still come on. Services continue. Pastors still preach. Congregations still gather.

But we have discovered that some things we once considered indispensable were, in fact, negotiable. We have learned to distinguish between what is necessary and what is merely desirable, and that institutional comfort need not require institutional extravagance.

Now, what if we went further?

What if we challenged ourselves to find another 25 per cent in savings, where genuinely achievable? And what if we committed those additional resources to public education, primary healthcare, vocational training, community infrastructure, agricultural development, small and medium-sized enterprises, research, innovation, and housing for vulnerable families?

We could also use our collective influence to press governments to fulfil their responsibilities.

Imagine churches working together to demand functioning public schools, better-equipped hospitals, reliable electricity, decent roads, clean water, and policies that encourage productive enterprise.

Imagine them publishing evidence of neglected public services, organising citizens around specific local problems, and holding elected officials accountable for their promises.

Imagine the Church becoming a formidable advocate for the public good, not because it seeks political power for itself, but because it recognises that the welfare of the people is inseparable from the mission it professes.

There is an important distinction here. The Church should not have to replace the government. Government has responsibilities funded by taxes collected from the people.

But the Church can help communities organise, identify their needs, demonstrate what is possible, and insist that public institutions do their jobs.

It can combine compassion with accountability.

Charity can relieve suffering today. Good governance can prevent some of that suffering tomorrow.

We need both.

When We Become Accustomed to the Smell

There is an old observation about people who live close to a sewage dump. After a while, they become accustomed to the smell. They no longer notice it as a stranger would. What is unbearable to an outsider becomes an ordinary part of their environment.

I wonder whether something similar happens to institutions.

We become accustomed to the way we do things. We inherit structures, habits, traditions, and expectations. We learn to defend them. Eventually, we stop asking whether they still serve the purposes for which they were created.

We become so familiar with our arrangements that we mistake familiarity for necessity.

Perhaps this happens in government. Perhaps in business. Perhaps in our churches.

We become accustomed to the expense of maintaining our institutions. We learn to justify it and develop arguments for why it must continue. And because everyone around us has accepted the arrangement, we rarely question it.

But a stranger comes along. Someone who has not yet become accustomed to the smell.

And suddenly, what everyone else regards as normal begins to look questionable.

I wonder whether that is what happened to me at the funeral.

I was looking at the air conditioners. But perhaps I was really looking at the distance between the resources we consume and the needs we claim to care about.

Perhaps the question was not whether the church could afford those air conditioners, but whether we had considered what else we could accomplish with the money.

And perhaps that is a question worth asking in every church in Lagos.

What Would Jesus Say?

I must be careful here.

I cannot claim to know precisely what Jesus would have said about those particular air conditioners. Neither should I pretend that every church expenditure can be judged by a single calculation.

But we do have the Gospels.

We have the story of the Good Samaritan, who did not merely express sympathy for a wounded stranger but spent his own resources to ensure that the man received care. We have the feeding of the multitude, where the immediate needs of hungry people were not dismissed as somebody else’s responsibility.

We have Jesus’ instruction to the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, give to the poor, and follow Him. We have the warning that it is possible to gain the world and lose one’s soul.

And we have a Jesus who repeatedly directed attention towards people whom society had neglected, marginalised, or considered unworthy of attention.

The question, therefore, is not whether Christians are permitted to own comfortable buildings or use modern equipment.

The question is whether our material arrangements serve the mission of Christ or gradually become ends in themselves.

Can we claim to love our neighbours while remaining indifferent to the conditions in which they live? Can we celebrate the growth of our churches while entire communities struggle to educate their children?

Can we measure spiritual success exclusively by what happens inside our auditoriums when so much suffering happens outside them? And can we continue to insist that the Church is transforming society without examining the evidence of that transformation?

These are uncomfortable questions.

But discomfort is not always the enemy of faith.

Sometimes it is the beginning of repentance.

What If We Tried?

I am not suggesting that churches should abandon their buildings, sell every vehicle, switch off every air conditioner, and distribute the proceeds to the poor. That would be a caricature of the argument.

Churches need resources to fulfil their missions. They need competent leadership, responsible administration, and sustainable operations. Some investments in facilities and equipment are entirely justified.

Nor am I suggesting that the money should simply be handed out without accountability. Money intended to help people can be wasted, mismanaged, or captured by the very interests it was supposed to serve.

Scholarship programmes need transparent selection criteria. Microfinance requires sound underwriting and responsible lending. Business-development programmes need competent management, while community projects need measurable objectives and independent oversight.

If we are serious about changing lives, we must be serious about how the money is spent.

But none of these considerations should prevent us from beginning the conversation.

Let us start with the numbers. Understand what we spend, identify unnecessary costs, and agree on what we can reasonably save. Then let us choose a small number of communities and demonstrate what coordinated action can achieve.

We could begin with scholarships, support vocational training, establish a carefully governed enterprise fund, and help finance businesses with viable plans. We could measure the results, publish them, and, if the experiment succeeds, expand it.

There is no need to wait until every denomination agrees or every pastor is convinced. A group of willing churches could begin. The results might persuade others.

Imagine the testimony of a young woman who started a business with support from such a programme. A young man who acquired a technical skill, found employment, and eventually established a workshop of his own. A family whose children remained in school because the Church helped remove a financial obstacle.

Imagine the difference between a congregation that celebrates its own expansion and one that can point to an expanding circle of people whose lives have been transformed.

Both may be doing worthwhile things.

But should we not aspire to do more?

The Question I Cannot Shake Off

I keep returning to that funeral. To the air conditioners, the diesel generators that power so much of our religious infrastructure, and the cost of maintaining buildings, equipment, vehicles, and the other trappings of organised religion.

And to the millions of people trying to find their way out of poverty.

I think about children whose education is interrupted because their parents cannot afford school fees, young people who have the capacity to work but cannot find a foothold in the economy, and entrepreneurs with ideas, determination, and a willingness to work but without the capital to begin.

I think about families for whom an unexpected medical bill can become a financial catastrophe.

And I wonder how much of this suffering might be relieved if institutions with substantial resources pooled even a modest proportion of what they spend on themselves.

I do not know how much money the churches of Lagos spend every month maintaining their operations. I do not know what percentage could be saved without compromising their essential work, or how many lives could be transformed with those savings.

These are questions that require evidence, not guesswork.

But surely we can find out.

Surely the Church, with all its intellectual, financial, organisational, and human resources, can commission such an exercise. Surely we can put the numbers on the table and have an honest conversation about what they mean.

And surely we can ask whether the resources entrusted to us are producing the greatest good they reasonably can.

Because the issue is not the air conditioner, the generator, or even the building.

The issue is what we believe the Church exists to accomplish.

Is it enough to gather people every Sunday, preach the Gospel, collect offerings, pay our bills, maintain our buildings, and repeat the process the following week?

Or should the Church also be asking what kind of society its presence is helping to create? What kind of people it is helping to form? What kind of poverty it is helping to dismantle? What opportunities it is helping to create, what governments it is helping to hold accountable, and what future it is helping to make possible?

I am not offering answers to all these questions.

I am asking that we begin to ask them.

Because there is something profoundly troubling about an institution that preaches deliverance while remaining insufficiently curious about the conditions from which people need deliverance.

And there is something profoundly hopeful about an institution that begins to understand its resources not merely as the means of sustaining itself, but as instruments for transforming the world around it.

What If?

So I return to my question.

What if we reduced our recurring expenditure by 25 per cent? What if we used the savings to educate children, equip young people with skills, finance productive enterprises, support struggling families, and help communities become more prosperous?

What if we measured success not only by the growth of our congregations but also by the growth of human possibility?

What if we discovered that we could do more for the Kingdom by spending less on ourselves?

I do not expect everyone to agree with me. Some will have objections. Others will question my assumptions or argue that the numbers do not justify the proposal.

Fair enough.

Let us examine the numbers, test the assumptions, and debate the proposal. But let us not dismiss the question merely because it makes us uncomfortable.

I have no grand conclusion to offer. Only a thought that occurred to me at the funeral of a dear friend, and a question that has refused to leave me alone.

What if the Church began to measure some of its success by the destinies it changes outside its own walls?

Don Kenobi 

#MyFrancisEssays 
#OldManInTheMolue 

St. Paul: Beware of Dogs....

 St. Paul: Beware of Dogs, Beware of Evil Workers

 Why did St. Paul call religious teachers dogs?

Philippians 3:2 warns against imposing 

Old Testament requirements that undermine 

salvation through Christ

 

Beware of Dogs!

 

In Philippians 3:2, Saint Paul issues a rather extraordinary warning: “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.”

 

Dogs! Evil workers! Mutilators of the flesh! Three descriptions, one warning. And consider this carefully: Paul uses such extraordinary language to condemn people who insisted that Gentile converts must undergo circumcision to be fully accepted as Christians.

 

He is not talking about prostitutes, drunkards or people openly hostile to Christianity. Not LGBTQ people. Not liberals. Not the usual targets of religious condemnation. He is talking about people who considered themselves defenders of religious truth!

 

These were people who knew the Scriptures, revered Moses and Abraham, and believed they were protecting the requirements of God’s covenant. They were not presenting themselves as enemies of religion. Quite the opposite. They believed they were defending it.

 

And what was their offence?

 

They insisted that Gentile Christians must be circumcised and observe Jewish religious requirements to belong fully to God’s people. In effect, they were making circumcision a condition of salvation.

 

Now, I find this extraordinary. If Paul could use such forceful language over a covenant sign that the Lord God Himself had given to Abraham, surely every one of us who professes to proclaim the Gospel ought to tremble at the responsibility of speaking in God’s name.

 

I certainly do. I sincerely hope I am not twisting Scripture in making the argument that follows. After all, I have no desire to become one of the very people Paul was warning against!

 

But the more I consider this passage, the more convinced I become that its warning is profoundly relevant to contemporary Christianity.

 

What Made Paul So Furious?

 

Paul was not furious because circumcision was evil. God Himself had given Abraham that covenant sign. Nor was Paul rejecting the Old Testament, from which he drew so much of his own teaching.

 

His objection was that these teachers were turning circumcision into a compulsory entrance examination for salvation. They were placing an additional requirement upon what Christ had accomplished.

 

Jesus Christ had come, suffered, died and risen from the dead. The Gospel was being preached to people of every nation, and now these new believers were being told that faith in Christ was insufficient. They must also submit to particular requirements of the Mosaic Law.

 

For Paul, this struck at the very heart of the Gospel.

 

And here lies the relevance of his warning today: Whenever we take an Old Testament requirement and make its observance a condition for receiving the salvation Christ has accomplished, are we not repeating the very error for which Paul called those teachers dogs?

 

That is the central question of this essay.

 

I am not suggesting that Christians should discard the Old Testament. Far from it. The Old Testament is Scripture, and Christ Himself declared that He had come not to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil them.

 

The question is how we understand those Scriptures in the light of Christ.

 

There is a world of difference between learning from an Old Testament commandment and insisting that Christians must observe it as an additional condition for salvation.

 

There is also a profound difference between encouraging believers to give generously and teaching them that God’s favour can be purchased through prescribed financial contributions.

 

Paul was confronting the first kind of error. I believe we must be equally vigilant about the second.

 

Why Did Paul Call Them Dogs?

 

In the culture of Paul’s time, dogs were often regarded as unclean animals. Some Jews used the word contemptuously for Gentiles, and Paul turned the insult around against those who considered themselves religiously superior.

 

Paul could be a very dangerous man with words!

 

He also called these teachers “mutilators of the flesh,” refusing even to dignify what they were demanding with the name circumcision.

 

According to bible scholars, the Greek word for circumcision is peritomē, meaning cutting around. Paul instead uses katatomē, a word associated with cutting up or mutilation. 

Paul was dangerous with words (when he was provoked to righteous anger

 

His point was devastating. When circumcision is imposed as a condition of salvation, a sacred covenant sign is reduced to mere cutting of flesh.

 

Then Paul delivers the real blow in the next verse He declares: “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”

 

Wow!

We are the circumcision! We who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus and place no confidence in the flesh, we are the true circumcision.

 

Think about what Paul is saying. The very people being told that they must undergo circumcision are being assured that they already belong to the true circumcision through Christ. That their acceptance before God does not depend upon acquiring a particular physical mark or religious credential.

 

But how can an uncircumcised person be circumcised?

The Circumcision of the Heart

 

Because Paul is speaking of the heart - the Lord God wanted a people whose hearts belonged to Him.

A people who loved:

Justice,
Who practiced mercy and
A people who walked humbly before Him.

 

Paul’s warning remains relevant nearly two thousand years later. The danger is not simply that we might misunderstand a religious practice, but that we might become so attached to its outward observance that we forget what it was intended to accomplish within us.

 

And this brings us to a particularly uncomfortable question about contemporary Christianity.

 

When Religious Work Becomes Evil Work

 

Paul calls these teachers evil workers, a remarkable description because it suggests that it is possible to work very hard for God while working against the very thing God is trying to accomplish.

 

Consider some familiar declarations. “Unless you belong to our church, you cannot be saved.” Or, “Unless you pray in this particular manner, God will not hear you.” 

 

And, of course, the ever-popular, “Unless you sow this seed, your breakthrough will never come.”

 

Somebody tells you that Christ died for your sins, but before you can enjoy the blessings of His sacrifice, have you paid you tithes, first fruits! Covenant seeds! Prophetic offerings?

 

Now, let me be careful here.

 

There is nothing inherently wrong with Christians giving money to support their churches, helping the poor or contributing generously to worthwhile causes. Giving is an important expression of Christian faith - but... but.. give the people a chance! Give them a chance to express that Christian faith.... Don't rob God twice:

First of the money you collect unlawully, and second of the joy of seeing his little ones grow in faith and exercie that faith through their giving to worthy causee - stop ribbing them of the chance to grow through your coercive demanfds!!

 

Clearly I am bnot suggesting that every appeal to an Old Testament passage is an abuse of Scripture.

 

The problem arises when a religious obligation is presented as a transaction with God, when people are told that unless they make a particular payment, God will withhold His blessings, refuse to answer their prayers or deny them His favour.

 

Consider Malachi 3:10, the familiar passage about bringing tithes into the storehouse. It is frequently preached as though it establishes a direct financial contract between the contemporary Christian and God.

 

Pay your tithe, and God will open the windows of heaven. Fail to pay, and you risk losing His blessings.

 

But is that what the Gospel teaches?

 

                

Malachi was addressing a particular people within a particular covenant relationship. Christians must surely ask how that passage is to be understood in the light of Christ and the New Covenant.

 

The New Testament certainly teaches generosity. Saint Paul himself encourages believers to give willingly and cheerfully, not reluctantly or under compulsion.

 

But that is quite different from presenting a prescribed payment as the price of divine favour.

 

If circumcision could not be imposed as an additional condition for salvation, on what grounds do we impose financial obligations as conditions for receiving God’s grace?

 

To be clear, salvation and temporal blessings are not identical questions, and Paul’s argument about justification cannot simply be transferred unchanged to every teaching about giving. Nevertheless, the underlying danger deserves serious examination: the tendency to turn our relationship with God into a transaction.

 

The language may have changed, but the temptation remains familiar. We take something that may have a legitimate place in religious life and elevate it into an indispensable condition for obtaining what God freely gives.

 

That is how religious work can become destructive, even when those engaged in it believe they are serving God.

 

Beware of the Dogs in Our Own Pulpits

 

We must all be careful, therefore, especially those of us who consider ourselves Christians, defenders of the faith and proclaimers of the Gospel. We must be careful about the things we say, the teachings we promote, the people we condemn and, perhaps most importantly, the people and causes we defend.

 

There are many dogs in pulpits today. Of that, I have no doubt. People who present themselves as servants of God but whose words and actions undermine the very Gospel they claim to preach.

 

There are workers of evil whose works are manifest for all to see. Some knowingly defend, excuse and support conduct that is blatantly evil by the very moral standards they profess to uphold. Some even accept positions on councils and advisory bodies established by people whose wrongdoing they ought to be confronting.

 

And what makes this particularly troubling is that they often claim to be defending Christian values!

 

Justice? They love justice, but too often only when it concerns themselves, those who look like them or those who worship as they do. Injustice against others becomes something to explain away, minimise or simply ignore. The command to love one’s neighbour appears to acquire qualifications that Christ never attached to it.

 

Mercy? They preach about mercy but seem to have little patience for it when the suffering person belongs to a group they dislike. Empathy itself becomes a dirty word, something to be mocked as weakness or dismissed as fashionable sentiment. “The wages of sin is death!” they thunder, apparently forgetting that the same Scriptures proclaim the mercy of God. Mercy, it seems, is reserved for themselves and those they consider deserving of it.

 

Humility? Not much of that either. Some proudly describe themselves as “Shemites,” as though such a label confers spiritual superiority, while invoking “Hamites” as a contrasting category. These are ancient genealogical names turned into supposed measures of human worth, as though the Gospel had not already confronted the very idea that ancestry establishes one’s standing before God.

 

And these are people who profess to follow Jesus Christ!

 

Be in no doubt about the seriousness of this contradiction. When religious leaders defend injustice, withhold mercy, promote human hierarchies and excuse wrongdoing because it serves their interests, they provide striking contemporary examples of the broader danger illustrated by Paul’s warning: religious conviction employed in the service of evil.

 

And some of them are extraordinarily religious!

 

Perhaps the most dangerous religious person is not the one who knows he is doing wrong, but the one who is so convinced of his own righteousness that he can no longer recognise evil in what he says, does or defends.

 

That is precisely what makes Paul’s warning so uncomfortable. Being religious does not necessarily mean that we are doing God’s work. We may, in fact, be working against Him.

 

And that is a warning for all of us, myself included.

 

Good Works Are the Fruit of Grace

 

There is another distinction we must preserve. Paul was not saying that obedience is unnecessary or that good works are worthless.

 

Far from it.

 

Good works are the fruit of grace, not the price we pay to purchase it.

 

Christian faith is not a licence to ignore God’s commandments or abandon our responsibilities towards others. Saint James reminds us that faith without works is dead.

 

The Christian life requires repentance, obedience, charity, justice and mercy. The sacraments themselves are gifts of grace, not trophies of human achievement.

 

But none of these things gives us the right to imagine that we can place God under an obligation to reward us.

 

We respond to grace; we do not purchase it.

 

There is a profound difference between giving because we love God and giving because someone has convinced us that God will punish us financially if we refuse.

 

There is an equally profound difference between observing a religious practice because it draws us closer to God and insisting that the practice itself gives us power over God.

 

Does Christian Love Permit Such Language?

 

There is, of course, an uncomfortable question. Why did Paul call people dogs? Is that not contrary to Christian love?

 

Paul was confronting a teaching he believed endangered the Gospel, and his language was deliberately forceful. But understanding his language does not give Christians permission to insult everyone who disagrees with them.

 

Some Christians read “Beware of dogs” and immediately begin looking for people to bark at!

 

That misses the point.

 

Paul was challenging a religious teaching, not condemning an ethnic people. Paul himself was a Jew. Jesus was a Jew. The apostles were Jews. This passage must never become an excuse for contempt towards the Jewish people.

 

Indeed, the concept of circumcision of the heart came from the Jewish Scriptures themselves. Paul’s argument was about the meaning of belonging to God and the sufficiency of Christ, not the inferiority of any people.

 

And perhaps this is where we ought to be especially careful about applying Paul’s language to contemporary religious leaders.

 

It is one thing to identify teachings and conduct that contradict the Gospel. It is another to assume that everyone with whom we disagree deserves to be called a dog.

 

We must be prepared to challenge wrongdoing without allowing our own indignation to become another form of self-righteousness.

 

Why Have I Never Heard This Preached?

 

Can I be honest?

 

I do not remember ever coming across this passage before now. Neither do I remember hearing a sermon devoted to it, and I find that rather extraordinary.

 

You would think that a warning this important, delivered by Saint Paul to the early Church, would occupy a prominent place in Christian preaching. After all, Paul is warning believers about the danger of religious people who distort the Gospel while imagining themselves its defenders.

 

What could be more relevant to Christianity today?

 

Yet I suspect many Christians are far more familiar with Malachi 3:10, the passage about bringing tithes into the storehouse, than with Philippians 3:2.

 

Why? Could it be that some passages are more convenient to preach than others?

 

Malachi 3:10 can be used to encourage people to give money, while Philippians 3:2 challenges those who claim religious authority to examine themselves.

 

One can fill the collection basket.

 

The other might empty a few pulpits!

 

Of course, I cannot conclude from my own experience that the passage is rarely preached. Perhaps I simply have not been paying sufficient attention. But that does not diminish the importance of the question it raises.

 

Are we teaching the whole Gospel, or are we selecting those passages that best serve our interests?

 

Are we leading people towards Christ, or are we placing additional burdens between them and Him?

 

And are we willing to examine our own religious practices with the same seriousness with which we scrutinise the behaviour of others?

 

Rejoice in the Lord!

 

There is something beautiful about the order of Paul’s words. Before he says, “Beware of dogs,” he says, “Rejoice in the Lord!”

 

Why? Because he wants to protect the joy of the Philippian Christians, the joy of knowing that their acceptance before God rests upon Christ rather than religious credentials, ancestry or human achievements.

 

And Paul knew something about religious credentials. Circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, zealous for the Law!

 

What a résumé! If anybody wanted to compete in religious qualifications, Paul was prepared to show them his certificates!

 

But then he says that everything he once counted as gain, he now counts as loss for the sake of Christ.

 

All those magnificent credentials, all that religious prestige, all those achievements suddenly became secondary to knowing Christ.

 

Paul had put his religious résumé beside Christ, and suddenly, it was no longer magnificent.

 

The God Who Sees the Heart

 

That, ultimately, is the lesson.

 

The Old Testament remains Scripture. Its teachings about justice, mercy, holiness and love of neighbour remain profoundly important to Christian life. But Christians must understand those teachings through the fulfilment of God’s promises in Jesus Christ.

 

We must not turn religious observances into additional conditions for salvation, nor transform acts of generosity into payments for divine favour.

 

And if we are ever tempted to boast about how much we have done for God, we should remember what Paul did with his magnificent religious résumé.

 

He put it beside Christ.

And suddenly, it was no longer magnificent.

 

I rest my case

 

Don Kenobi

#OldManInTheMolue 

#MyFrancisEssays 

#ChristianityWithoutApologies