Tag Archives: Craig S. Keener

Thinking Theology Aloud [Random]

Was Jesus Okay With Homosexuality? (2 of 6)

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According to existing historical records, Jesus never explicitly mentioned homosexuality.1 This fact leads many to critique the church today for focusing on “things that Jesus never once talked about,” as Richard Rohr has put it.2

What should we conclude from Jesus’ silence? Did his silence mean homosexual behavior was a non-issue to him? Was he okay with it?

This is part of a six-part blog series on Jesus and homosexuality:

    1. Introduction, Explanations, and a Summary of this Series
    2. How Should We Interpret Jesus’ Silence About Homosexuality?
    3. Does “Love Your Neighbor” Mean Jesus Affirmed “Gay Love”?
    4. Why It’s Wrong to Say Jesus Said Nothing About Homosexuality
    5. Historical Conclusions: Was Jesus Okay With Homosexuality?
    6. Conclusions for Today: Is Jesus Okay With Homosexuality Now?

Arguments from silence can be powerful. A famous example comes from the Sherlock Holmes short story “The Adventure of Silver Blaze.” Here is some dialogue that shows how silence helped Holmes solve a mystery:

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

Holmes: “That was the curious incident… Obviously the midnight visitor was someone whom the dog knew well. It was Straker who removed Silver Blaze from his stall and led him out on to the moor.”

The key lesson from this example is that silence is meaningful when you have a strong reason to expect noise instead.

There is a strong reason to expect a dog to bark if a stranger intrudes at midnight. Is there a strong reason to expect Jesus to have spoken about homosexuality? When the dog did not bark, Holmes concluded he must have been “okay with” the intruder. Can we include the same about Jesus and homosexual behavior? How should we interpret Jesus’ silence about homosexuality?

In this post I am going to explain why I think Jesus’ silence on homosexuality behavior is not very meaningful—why it is not good evidence he approved of it. His silence is best understood as agreement with the existing Jewish consensus about homosexuality.

A meme I found on Facebook. The person who shared it meant Jesus must approve of homosexuality, since he said nothing on the topic. I don’t think that’s what his silence meant.

Ancient Jewish Beliefs About Homosexuality:
What They Did

What was the range of beliefs about homosexuality among ancient Jews?

Let’s consider first what Israel actually did. It is clear that some Israelites engaged in homosexual activity during the time between the conquest of Canaan under Joshua (about 1400 BC) and the fall of Jerusalem at the beginning of the Exile (586 BC). Homosexual activity was common among the Canaanites before Israel entered the land, and over time Israel increasingly imitated them.

Various forms of homosexual activity are recorded several places in the Old Testament, some consensual and some not. For example:

Behold, the men of the city [of Gibeah], worthless fellows, surrounded the house, beating on the door. And they said to the old man, the master of the house, “Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him.”  (Judges 19:22; about 1300 to 1100 BC)

There were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations that the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. (1 Kings 14:24; about 930 BC)

Eventually homosexual prostitution happened right in the temple in Jerusalem:

And he [King Josiah] broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes who were in the house of the Lord (2 Kings 23:7; about 620 BC)

On the one hand, this evidence shows that many Israelites were okay with homosexuality—just as some Israelites were okay with sacrificing babies to idols and oppressing the poor and many other activities contrary to the Law of Moses. On the other hand, we have this evidence because it was preserved in texts that were part of the sacred scriptures of Israel, and these texts called these historical activities “abominations” (1 Kings 14:24).

Significantly, when we examine the period right before and during the life of Jesus, we do not find Jews practicing homosexuality like they did prior to the Exile.

Before the Exile, Jews widely imitated the sexual practices of the nations around them, just as they had imitated their idolatry. After the return from Exile, however, Jews showed an “obvious contrast with ancient Greek culture” around them regarding homosexuality, says commentator Craig S. Keener, an expert on the early Jewish and Greco-Roman setting of the New Testament. He summarizes the evidence:

Jewish people… unanimously rejected homosexual behavior… Jewish people associated homosexual activity especially (and probably largely accurately) with Gentiles. Although Jewish sources report Jewish adulterers, johns, and murderers, Jewish homosexual practice was nearly unknown… Idolatry and homosexual behavior [were recognized by] Jewish people… as exclusively Gentile vices.3

Ancient Jewish Beliefs About Homosexuality:
What They Wrote

When we move from historical practices to written perspectives, the evidence is unanimous: Ancient Jewish literature consistently condemns all forms of homosexual behavior. It is clear that, for ancient Israelites who were attempting to be faithful to the Sinai covenant, homosexual activity was never okay.

Let’s examine what ancient Jewish writings say about homosexuality. I’ll summarize the Old Testament evidence, but emphasize the evidence that is closer to Jesus’ day.

The Books of Moses present male-female marriage as the creation pattern (Gen. 1:27-28; 2:18-25). They also record two examples of homosexual activity that occurred before Israel existed: Ham “saw the nakedness of his father” Noah (Gen. 9:20-25) and the men of Sodom tried to “know” the men who were visiting Lot (Gen. 19:4-11). Both stories are brief, cryptic, and much argued over. In both cases, however, the narratives imply that the activity was not good.

The Law of Moses forcefully prohibited homosexual and transgender behavior:

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination… If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Lev. 18:22; 20:13; cf. Deut. 22:5; 23:17-18)

Significantly, these commands used the most general terms possible for homosexual behavior (“a man lies with a male”), avoiding narrower terms that would have applied only to cases such as temple prostitution.4 Underscoring this reality, both commands ended with the phrase “as with a woman”; it is clearly contrary to the rest of the Law of Moses to imagine that the commands were intended to mean “You shall not commit rape with a male as with a woman” or “You shall not engage in prostitution with a male as with a woman,” for both rape and prostitution were prohibited “with a woman” as well. Instead, these commands prohibited a male from doing with a man what would be, in the appropriate circumstances, right and good to do “with a woman.”5

These commands prohibited the act of homosexual union itself, not merely any possible negative attending attitudes or circumstances. They were not written in a form that distinguished between good homosexual activity (loving, consensual, faithful) and bad homosexual activity (lustful, violent, promiscuous), but between male and female.6 These commands, therefore, excluded female-female sexual relations as surely as male-male.7

Even consensual homosexual acts were forbidden by these commands, as is indicated by the shared guilt (“both of them have committed an abomination”).8 These blanket prohibitions of all homosexual acts formed the foundation, along with the Genesis creation account, for all future Jewish thinking about homosexuality.

The prophet Ezekiel described Sodom’s sins in a way that suggested her acts of “abomination” (compare with Lev. 20:13)9 were a chief reason for her destruction:

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it. (Ez. 16:49-50)

What about Jews living nearer to the time of Jesus? What did they write about homosexual behavior? Here are seven examples:

[Moses] compels us to recognize that we must perform all our actions… according to the standard of righteousness… For most other men [non-Jews] defile themselves by promiscuous intercourse… For they not only have intercourse with men but they defile their own mothers and even their daughters. — “The Letter of Aristeas” (second century B.C.)10

Neither commit adultery nor rouse homosexual passion… Do not transgress with unlawful sex the limits set by nature… And let not women imitate the sexual role of men. — Pseudo-Phocylides, Sentences (between 100BC and 100AD)11

The entertainment recorded by Plato [in Symposium] is almost entirely connected with love; not that of men madly desirous or fond of women, or of women furiously in love with men, for these desires are accomplished in accordance with a law of nature, but with that love which is felt by men for one another… for the greater part of the book is occupied by common, vulgar, promiscuous love. — Philo, On the Contemplative Life (early first century A.D.)12

All the world will be reduced to confusion by iniquities of wickedness and abominable fornications, that is, friend with friend in the anus, and every other kind of wicked uncleanness which it is disgusting to report. — 2 Enoch 34:2 (first century A.D.)13

What about our laws about marriage? That law… abhors the mixture of a male with a male; and if anyone does that, death is its punishment. — Flavius Josephus, Against Apion (about 97 A.D.)14

These are the felons who are put to death by stoning. He who has sexual relations with (1) his mother… (4) with a male, and (5) with a cow. — Mishnah, Sanhedrin (second century A.D.)15

The unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God, nor will… those who commit outrages and have sexual intercourse with males. — “The Testament of Jacob” (ancient; date unclear)16

It is important to notice several features of these quotes:

  • Their foundation for ethics was the Law of Moses.17
  • They appealed also to creation, and therefore considered same-sex promiscuity to be unnatural in a way that heterosexual promiscuity is not.18
  • They focused on same-sex acts themselves, not merely on contextual factors such as promiscuity or violence.19
  • They spoke against even mutual, consensual homosexual relations (“friend with friend,” 2 Enoch).

This is what Jews in Jesus’ day believed about homosexual behavior. This is the world into which Jesus was born.

There were no gay night clubs in Jerusalem. There was no “welcoming and affirming” synagogue in Nazareth. There were no Roman lawyers trying to convince Pilate to require Jewish bakers to make cakes for homosexual weddings. There were no Jews “coming out” on social media. There were no rainbow flags projected onto the temple mount. The Jerusalem Times was not publishing feel-good stories about LGBTQ persons.

Jewish denominations were debating topics like angels, the resurrection, how Jews should relate to their Roman occupiers, and even when divorce was justified.20 But there was no intramural rabbinical debate about homosexuality. Jewish leaders came to Jesus to explore and test his views on many issues, but no one asked him about homosexuality. No one had to. Everyone knew that everyone already knew the answer.  Homosexuality behavior was something “out there” that non-Jews did, and no Jewish rabbi had to stake out his public position on the topic.

“What did Jews writing after the Old Testament period, from the fifth century BC through the sixth century AD think about homosexual practice?” authors Fortson and Grams ask. After examining the evidence, here is their answer:

There is no debate at all: Jews consistently condemned homosexual practice of any sort after the return from the exile and right through the early church period. Jews understood the Old Testament to speak against homosexual behavior, and they accepted biblical authority in matters of sexual ethics.21

In fact, despite increasing homosexual activity within Israel prior to the Exile, the perspective of all existing ancient Jewish writings from the very first (the time of Moses) through the early Christian period is consistent:

For a period of about 2000 years, all Jews everywhere taught that homosexual unions of any sort were sinful and against nature.22

Interpreting the Evidence

For purposes of our discussion here about Jesus’ silence, this is the key sentence from Fortson and Grams: “There is no debate at all: Jews consistently condemned homosexual practice of any sort after the return from the exile and right through the early church period.”

This fits with Craig S. Keener’s summary of the same time period, as quoted above:

Jewish people… unanimously rejected homosexual behavior… Although Jewish sources report Jewish adulterers, johns, and murderers, Jewish homosexual practice was nearly unknown.

“Nearly unknown.” “No debate at all.” This is the world into which Jesus was born.

If homosexual activity was “nearly unknown” among Jews of the time, then it is no wonder that we do not know of any explicit word from rabbi Jesus on the topic.

If there is “no debate” about what Jews taught in this period about homosexuality, then there was little reason for Jesus to be debating the topic, either—or for us to debating what Jesus might have believed about it.

Historical Jesus scholar J. P. Meier makes the same point about Jesus and sexual ethics in general:

On sexual matters… one could call both Jesus and the Essenes extreme conservatives … apart from the two special cases of divorce and celibacy, where he diverged from mainstream Judaism [and arguably was more stringent than they were], his views were those of mainstream Judaism.  Hence there was no pressing need for him to issue or for the earliest Christian Jews to enshrine moral pronouncements about matters on which all Law-abiding Jews agreed.  If almost all Jews agreed that acts of fornication and adultery were wrong, there was no reason for Jesus, who shared these views (see, e.g., Mark 7:21-22; Luke 16:18) to exegete the obvious.23

Adultery was not a frequent topic in Jesus’ teaching.24 Sins of the heart were a more urgent concern, for many of his hearers aimed to “outwardly appear righteous to others”—avoiding public sins like adultery—“but within [were] full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt. 23:28).

If Meier’s observation is valid for adultery, how much more for homosexuality, which was “nearly unknown” among Jews at the time? Robert Gagnon summarizes things well:

Jesus’ alleged silence has to be set against the backdrop of unequivocal and strong opposition to same-sex intercourse in the Hebrew Bible and throughout early Judaism.”25

Conclusions

What, then, should we conclude from Jesus’ silence about homosexuality?

Given that (a) homosexual practice was “nearly unknown” within Jesus’ Jewish culture, and given that (b) there is “no debate” that Jews in Jesus’ day “consistently condemned homosexual practice of any sort,” it is wishful thinking to argue that, just because our historical records do not record rabbi Jesus specifically mentioning the topic, he therefore approved of homosexual relationships.

Remember the lesson from Sherlock Holmes: silence is meaningful when you have a strong reason to expect noise instead.  In this case there was little reason to expect a word from Jesus. If Jesus was silent on the topic, then we, with his original audience, can safely assume that he agreed with the Jewish consensus that homosexual behavior is sinful.

There is another silence, however, that is very telling.

Given the universal consensus among first-century Jews that homosexuality was exceedingly evil, imagine the outcry that would have arisen if Jesus’ listeners had noticed any reason to believe he was affirming homosexual activity. If Jesus, as a Jewish rabbi, had been understood to disagree with the Jewish consensus about homosexuality, he would have been immediately and forcefully rejected by fishermen and Pharisees alike. The silence from Jesus’ listeners on this point speaks powerfully: they saw no reason to think that Jesus affirmed homosexual behavior.

If they didn’t, why should we?

Thanks for reading. Comments are welcome, but thanks (again) for understanding that I have limited time for follow-up discussions.

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  1. I say “explicitly” because I think Jesus actually did talk about it, and even came very close to naming it. I’ll explain more in post 4. Some who are lobbying for Christians to accept homosexuality think Jesus mentioned it, too. I’ll explain why I disagree with their claim in post 5. ↩
  2. Richard Rohr, “Love Is Who You Are,” online article, adapted from Richard Rohr, True Self/ False Self (Franciscan Media: 2003), disc 2 (CD), Center for Action and Contemplation, August 11, 2016, https://cac.org/love-is-who-you-are-2016-08-11/, accessed September 7, 2019. ↩
  3. Craig S. Keener, Romans, New Covenant Commentary Series (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2009), Kindle Edition, commentary on Romans 1:24-27, emphasis added. Schreiner agrees: “Homosexual relations were not uncommon in the Greco-Romans world, while they were consistently frowned upon by Jews. Jews who practiced same-sex relations doubtless existed, but if they remained in Jewish society, they almost certainly kept it a secret to avoid social ostracism. Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, 2nd ed., Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018), 87. ↩
  4. S. Donald Fortson III and Rollin G. Grams underscore this point: “Temple prostitution is addressed in the Old Testament, and particular language was available in Hebrew to reference it. It could, therefore, have been clearly mentioned here had the author wanted to limit the laws to that context… Other prohibitions of certain homosexual acts in the ancient Near East… do not oppose homosexuality in general; they refer to specific types of homosexual acts. If, then, these laws specified what was prohibited, why did Lev 18:22 and 20:13 not specify particular kinds of homosexual acts? The answer to this question seems clear: any type of homosexual act was being prohibited.” ↩
  5. Gane provides a more word-for-word translation of the phrase “as with a woman,” but comes to essentially the same conclusion: “Both instances of the ban on homosexuality contain the phrase ‘lyings (plural of miskab) of a woman’ (18:22; 20:13)… By itself this idiom is morally neutral… ‘Lyings’ are illicit when one party usurps the customary sexual activity (hence the plural, apparently) that rightfully belongs to another… In Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 the one who usurps a woman’s ‘lyings’ is any male.” Roy Gane, Leviticus, Numbers,  The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 327-328. Kindle Edition. ↩
  6. Gagnon identifies the same purpose in this concluding phrase: “The reason for the prohibition is evident from the phrase ‘lying with a male as though lying with a woman.’ What is wrong with same-sex intercourse is that it puts another male, at least insofar as the act of sexual intercourse is concerned, in the category of female rather than male… The non-procreative character of same-sex intercourse was no more the primary consideration in the rejection than it was for the proscription of bestiality. Incest and adultery, two other sexual acts rejected in Leviticus 18 and 20 are certainly not wrong because they are non-procreative; but neither is the primary reason for their rejection that fact that children might arise. All three are wrong because they constitute sex with another who is either too much of an ‘other’ (sex with an animal) or too much of a ‘like’ (sex with a near kin and sex with a member of the same sex). These are transcultural creation categories, not superstitious dregs from a bygone era” (Robert Gagnon, “The Bible and Homosexual Practice: An Overview of Some Issues,” 2003, online article based on an interview with Zenit News Agency, March 21 and 28, 2002, pub. by OrthodoxyToday.org, http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles2/GagnonHomosexuality.php, accessed August 28, 2019.) ↩
  7. Several more observations confirm this: 1) It is very difficult to imagine a patriarchal society such as ancient Israel blessing lesbianism while prohibiting male homosexuality. 2) There is no evidence ancient Jews ever believed this law offered a loophole for lesbianism; rather, those who mentioned lesbianism spoke against it. 3) Ancient laws were paradigmatic rather than listing every conceivable situation (see Appendix at end of forthcoming post three in this series); thus, for example, the Ten Commandments, though addressed grammatically to males, apply equally to females. ↩
  8. The translation of Leviticus 20:13 by Jewish scholar Everett Fox confirms these interpretations: “A man who lies with a male (as one) lies with a woman—abomination have the two of them done, they are to be put-to-death, yes, death, their bloodguilt is upon them!” Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses (New York, NY: Schocken Books, 1995), 607. Fox’s translation aims to convey the literary forms, word-plays, and rhetorical power of the underlying Hebrew. ↩
  9. Yuan notes that the verbal parallel between Ezekiel and Leviticus actually involves a phrase, not just one word: “In Hebrew, ‘abomination’ is toevah and ‘did’ is asah. These two words appear next to each other not only in Ezekiel 16:50, but also in Leviticus 20:13. The prophet Ezekiel, inspired by the Holy Spirit, used these two words to connect Sodom’s sin with Leviticus 20:13″ (Christopher Yuan, book review of Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate, by Justin Lee. The Gospel Coalition, January 7, 2013, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/torn/, accessed September 5, 2019). It should be noted that Ezekiel uses toevah to refer to a wide range of sins, not only sexual ones. Further, toevah and asah are found together in multiple places in the OT, including elsewhere in Ezekiel, not only in these two verses. Nevertheless, given (a) that Sodom did commit sins of a homosexual nature, and (b) that homosexual acts were described using the same word pair “did-abomination” (asah-toevah) in Leviticus 20:13, it seems probable that Ezekiel is thinking here of Sodom’s acts of homosexuality.  Duguid suggests the same possibility: “The sexual sin to which it gave its name” (sodomy) “may lie behind the ‘detestable things’ of Ezekiel 16:50” (Duguid, Iain M.. Ezekiel, The NIV Application Commentary, p. 170. Zondervan. Kindle Edition). ↩
  10. The Letter of Aristeas, trans. H. T. Andrews, in The Apocrapha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. R. H. Charles (New York, NY: Clarendon, 1913), 83-122. Note: for these quotations of intertestamental Jewish literature, I am relying heavily on quotes and citations provided by S. Donald Fortson III and Rollin G. Grams in Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016). See there book for the extended contexts of these quotes and for more. ↩
  11. Pseudo-Phocylides, Sentences, 3 and 192, trans. P.W. van der Horst, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1985). ↩
  12. Philo, On the Contemplative Life 1:59, in The Works of Philo Judaeus, the Contemporary of Josephus, trans. C. D. Yonge, 4 vols. (London, England: Henry G. Bohn, 1854-55). ↩
  13. “2 Enoch,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, ed. James H. Charlesworth, trans. F. I. Andersen (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 158. ↩
  14. Flavius Josephus, Against Apion 2:199, trans. William J. Whiston (public domain, 1828). ↩
  15. Mishnah, Sanhedrin 7.4, in Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah: A New Translation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 596. ↩
  16. “The Testament of Jacob,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, ed. James H. Charlesworth, trans. W. F. Stinespring (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 917. ↩
  17. “The Letter of Aristeas,” Pseudo-Phocylides, Josephus, Mishnah. ↩
  18. “A law of nature,” Philo; “the limits set by nature,” Pseudo-Phocylides. Some argue that the concept of  “contrary to nature” meant “contrary to cultural custom.” But this makes little sense of the term’s use by those pagan Greeks who critiqued their own culture’s widespread acceptance of same-sex relationships. It makes more sense to see the term, in both its Greek and its Jewish uses, as meaning roughly “contrary to physical design; contrary to the way things were made to work.” In the Jewish context, this is equivalent to saying “contrary to how God created things to function.” Paul uses the term in Romans 1 in the context of explicitly referring to God as Creator. ↩
  19. “Intercourse with men,” “Letter of Aristeas”; “friend with friend in the anus,” 2 Enoch; “the mixture of a male with a male,” Josephus; “sexual relations… with a male,” Mishnah; “sexual intercourse with males,” “The Testament of Jacob.” ↩
  20. I cannot recall any example of when any Jew was surprised by Jesus’ position on a sexual topic except when his own disciples were surprised at his rigid stance on divorce and remarriage. ↩
  21. S. Donald Fortson III and Rollin G. Grams, Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016), 235. ↩
  22. Ibid., 248. ↩
  23. J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, volume 3 (New York, 2001), 502-503 as quoted in G. Thomas Hobson, “ἀσέλγεια in Mark 7:22,” Filologia Neotestamentaria 21 (2008), 73. ↩
  24. Jesus did teach directly on adultery. But the times he mentioned adultery fall into two camps: times he cited adultery in passing in lists of well-known sins or commands (cf. Matt. 15:19; 19:18), and times when he expanded the “textbook” definition of adultery to include lust or wrongful divorce (cf. Matt. 5:28, 32). The latter were the only times he “exegeted” adultery, to use Meier’s term. ↩
  25. Gagnon, ibid. Gagnon also summarizes what we can learn from Jesus’ “alleged silence”: There is no historical basis for arguing that Jesus might have been neutral or even favorable toward same-sex intercourse. All the evidence we have points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that Jesus would have strongly opposed same-sex intercourse had such behavior been a serious problem among first-century Jews.” ↩
Thinking Theology Aloud [Random]

“Red Letter Reductionism” Expanded

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Recently I received word that someone might be interested in publishing my “Red Letter Reductionism” essay that I first shared in 2013—if only I could reduce it a little.

So I expanded it from 23 pages to 31 pages. Then, with great effort and the judicious advice of a friend, I cut it down to 14 pages. Now I have two red letter reductionism essays:

  • “Red Letter Reductionism” (expanded version, 31 pages)
  • “Red Letter Reductionism and Apostolic Authority” (reduced version, 14 pages)

This is all rather expansive for an essay about reductionism, but I am thankful for the results.

I’m not sure I want to post my abbreviated essay until it has been published in print (trusting it will be). But here is the expanded version of the original essay:

Red Letter Reductionism

What is this essay about?

Red letter Christians are any Christians who in some way prioritize the words of Jesus over the rest of Bible, including over the rest of the New Testament. While the words of Jesus are indeed important, I think that elevating the Bible’s red letters over its black letters is a bad practice that can lead to bad results.

In this essay I explain why, focusing especially on the authority Jesus gave to his apostles, including his promise to speak through them.

From the essay introduction:

This essay is about red letter theology and red letter Christians. It is about the authority of the New Testament and the nature of the gospel. First, we need an introduction to red letter Christianity. Then we will ask whether it is harmless. To answer our question, we will consider the promise of the Spirit, the limits of pre-Pentecostal revelation, and the nature of apostolic authority. We will take a close look at Paul, examining his gospel and his apostolic claims. We will examine John 3:16 as a test case for red letter theology and then ask whether this theology paints a shrunken, two-dimensional Jesus. We will consider the relationship between the Sermon on the Mount and the gospel and ask whether Anabaptists are truly excited about the gospel. Finally, we will consult Matthew’s opinion on red and black letters, then conclude with two clarifications and five suggestions for readers of this essay.

What is new in this edition?

First, I combed the entire essay, trying to improve clarity and weed out overstatements. Then I added significant new content.

I invite you to read the entire essay, even (perhaps especially) if you’ve read it before. Most paragraphs were tweaked at least a little.

But I don’t want you to miss some of the new material I’ve included, so I’ll share four excerpts here (minus footnotes).

1. On the term “the authority of Scripture”:

We must pause to examine what we mean by “the authority of Scripture.” First, following N.T. Wright, I believe that “the phrase ‘the authority of scripture’ can make Christian sense only if it is shorthand for ‘the authority of the triune God, exercised somehow through scripture.’”[1] On the one hand, this definition prevents us from directing worship to a book rather than to its Author; on the other hand, it reminds us that reverence for Scripture as the word of God is not idolatry but essential fear of God. Second, the term authority is used variously to refer to both (a) the divine origin of Scripture and (b) the weight or influence that any portion of Scripture carries to shape our interpretations and behaviors. In this essay I am primarily addressing the question of the divine origin of Scripture, arguing that red and black letters alike are words from God and, in that sense, equally authoritative. But one question leads to another; those who question whether all black letters truly come from God will also not allow them to shape their interpretations and behaviors as strongly. So near the end of this essay I will briefly address the question of which passages of Scripture should rightly shape our interpretation of Scripture most directly and strongly.

2. On the self-awareness of the New Testament authors about the authority they exercised as they wrote:

At least some New Testament authors seem to have been aware of the authority entrusted to them as they wrote. Peter addresses his readers as “an apostle of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:1), declaring that what he had “written” was “the true grace of God” in which his readers must “stand firm” (1 Pet. 5:12). This self-identification as “apostle” is found at the beginning of many New Testament letters, and should not be missed. When an Old Testament prophet said “Thus says the LORD,” he was using a standard messenger formula—the same formula that was used by the herald of a king, who would preface his message by saying “Thus says king so-and-so.” This formula indicated that the prophet was on assignment, speaking God’s words.[1] A similar thing seems to be happening in the New Testament whenever an author claims to be an apostle. He is using this title to assert that he is God’s messenger—“the special envoy of Christ Jesus commissioned by the will of God.”[2]

…John… prefaces his prophetic visions with a blessing best reserved for the word of God (cf. Jesus’ statement in Luke 11:28): “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it” (Rev. 1:3a). At the end of Revelation, Jesus repeats this blessing on those who “keep” what John has written (Rev. 22:7; cf. 22:9), just as faithful saints elsewhere in the book are said to “keep” the commandments of God (12:17; 14:12) and the word of Jesus (3:8, 10).

John’s prophecy ends with a most solemn warning (that may come from the lips of Jesus himself):

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Rev. 22:18-19)

This warning adapts similar warnings found in the Law of Moses (Deut. 4:1-2; 12:32; 29:19-20), leading Oxford theologian Christopher Rowland to this observation:

In utilizing this prohibition from Deuteronomy John appears to regard his own revelations as being of equal importance with earlier communications from God given to Moses. There is no question here of this book being regarded by its author either as a series of inspired guesses or intelligent surmise. John believes that what he has seen and heard actually conveys the divine truth to his readers… John sees himself as the one who has been commissioned to write down the divine counsels for the benefits of the churches (Rev. 1:19).[3] 

3. On whether Paul undermines nonresistance:

Another reason some people are uneasy about Paul’s influence is because they fear he is not sufficiently clear on nonresistance. After all, a majority of Protestants historically have been all too quick to take up the sword and repay evil with evil. Does this endorsement of violence flow naturally from the Pauline Reformed theology that many of them embrace? More explicitly still, Romans 13 certainly has been and still is used by many Protestants to defend the Christian use of the sword. Isn’t it safest—even essential—to subjugate Paul’s ambivalent teachings on the sword to Jesus’ clear command that we must not resist evil?

Four brief responses can be given. First, Reformed or even Protestant theology simply does not explain most of the Christian use of the sword throughout history. Roman Catholics, too, have historically affirmed the Christian use of the sword, despite not being shaped by the Pauline theology of Luther which set the trajectory for Protestant doctrines. During the Reformation, Protestants and Catholics alike waged war and persecuted Anabaptists. And Christian just war theory is much older than the Reformation. It stretches back at least to Augustine (A.D. 354-430), was developed most significantly by the great Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225-1274), and remains the official doctrine of the Catholic church to this day.

Second, Paul is not to blame for Augustine’s formulation of just war theory. Augustine believed that Jesus’ command to love our neighbor meant that Christians must normally not kill in self-defense. Yet, drawing explicitly upon Greco-Roman pagan thinkers—especially Cicero[1]—he made an exception for “just wars.” Romans 13 was not his “starting point,” despite the chapter’s later close association with just war theory by thinkers such as Aquinas and Luther.[2] Augustine concluded, as one scholar summarizes, that “‘times change’… pacifism was appropriate… in the time of the apostles [but] not… in a day and age when kings and nations have succumbed to the gospel” in fulfillment of prophecy.[3] Augustine was well aware of what both Jesus and the apostles taught, but concluded that new circumstances called for new behaviors. Augustine’s theology was too pagan, not too Pauline.

This leads to a third point: the influence of politics on theology. Catholics and Protestants alike developed their theology within the context of a Christendom that extended back to Constantine, the first Roman emperor to bear the sword in the name of Jesus. Political allegiances shaped the magisterial theology of Zwingli, Luther, and Calvin, with each relying on the sword-bearing support of city councils or German princes. The Swiss Brethren Anabaptists, in contrast, counted the cost of losing political legitimacy at the time they chose believers’ baptism. Living as a persecuted minority, they were free of political entanglements that might have hindered them from following Jesus’ teachings on nonviolent enemy-love. Yet they developed their nonresistant theology, it must be noted, while also wrestling meaningfully with Paul’s teachings in Romans 13.[4] This influence of political power over our theology of the sword continues to this day, as Reformed theologian Preston Sprinkle has observed:

It’s fascinating (one might say disturbing) to see how each person’s political context or position shapes his or her understanding of Romans 13. Christians living in North Korea or Burma tend to read Romans 13 differently than Americans do… Not more than a generation ago, Romans 13 was hailed as the charter for apartheid in South Africa. American Christian leaders did the same during the years of slavery and segregation.[5]

“Most now would see such a view of Romans 13 as going a bit too far,” Sprinkle continues. “But only a bit.” He notes how Wayne Grudem has applied this chapter to America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, assuming that America is the good government and that Iraq and Afghanistan are the bad governments. “Were it flipped around and Romans 13 was used to validate Afghanistan’s invasion of America as punishment for horrific drone strikes on civilians,” Sprinkle suggests, “most Americans would see this as a misreading of Romans 13.”[6]

Which brings us to our final point: Paul is far clearer on nonresistance than many Christians, red letter or not, tend to acknowledge. In fact, Paul’s writings are in line with the entire New Testament, which “highlights Jesus’s nonviolent response to violence as a pattern to follow more often than any other aspect of his ministry.”[7] Paul “has the Sermon on the Mount ingrained in his soul,” Sprinkle observes, and most of “Paul’s litany of commands… in Romans 12… has the scent of Jesus’s Sermon.”[8] “Repay no one evil for evil… never avenge yourselves… if your enemy is hungry, feed him… overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:17-21). The clarity of Romans 12 and other Pauline passages should remove all doubt that when Romans 13 puts the sword into the hand of the third-person government (“he,” not “you”), Paul cannot be affirming Christian vengeance. After all, “Paul explicitly forbids the church in Romans 12 from doing what the government does in Romans 13.”[9]

4. On whether Matthew—the favorite gospel of many red letter Christians—promotes red letter theology:

David Starling addresses such questions in his recent book Hermeneutics as Apprenticeship.[1] First, Starling notes that both the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel and the six “antitheses” of Matthew 5 give Jesus’ own words a prominence that matches and perhaps even exceeds the law of Moses. Similarly, at the center of Matthew’s Gospel we find the mount of transfiguration, where God the Father exalts Jesus with an assertion (“this is my Son”) and a command (“listen to him!”). Starling suggests that “the assertion and command… (echoed by Jesus’s own assertion and command in Matt. 28:18-20a) are the twin foci around which Matthew arranges the material of his Gospel.” Thus, there are “five big blocks of red-letter content (chs. 5-7; 10; 13:1-52; 18; 24-25) in Matthew,” each underscoring “the identity and authority of Jesus as the Son of God.” Starling summarizes what this reveals about Matthew’s purposes as a Gospel writer:

The bulk and the prominence of these five blocks of teaching suggest that Matthew intended not only to narrate Jesus’ story but also to preserve and propagate his teachings, so that his disciples might learn and obey them. Evidently, according to the shape and content of Matthew’s testimony, the redness of the red letters in his Gospel is of no small significance to Jesus, to Matthew, and to God himself, and ought to be of no small significance to the Gospel’s readers.[2]

So far, so good for red letter theology. But Starling continues:

But what exactly is the nature of that significance? How does Matthew want us to understand the relationship between Jesus’s words and the words of the Old Testament Scriptures (and, for that matter, Matthew’s own words as the writer of the Gospel)?[3]

Starling answers by examining both Jesus’ words and Matthew’s words. The first words of Jesus recorded in Matthew (at his baptism) implicitly appeal to Scripture (Matt. 3:15). The next recorded words (at his temptation) directly appeal to Scripture (Matt. 4:1-11). The Beatitudes “are soaked in recollections of the Scriptures,” and “it is harder to imagine a stronger claim for the enduring importance of the Law than the language Jesus uses” in Matthew 5:18: “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”[4] As we continue reading Matthew’s record of Jesus’ words, the pattern of quoting and honoring the Scriptures continues. So Starling concludes:

The red letters of Matthew’s Gospel can hardly be interpreted as an attempt to wrest authority away from the black. Any notion we might have that Jesus’s words could replace or supersede the words of Old Testament Scripture is dispelled as soon as Jesus starts speaking.[5]

Matthew’s own words have a similar effect. Starling suggests that Matthew is teaching a way of reading the Scriptures. He does this by using a “constant interleaving of biographical narrative [about Jesus’ life], typological allusions [from the Old Testament], and scriptural citations [also from the Old Testament].”[6] Craig Keener explains:

Matthew has constructed almost every paragraph following the genealogy and until the Sermon on the Mount around at least one text of Scripture. He thus invites his ideal audience to read Jesus in light of Scripture and Scripture in light of Jesus.[7]

The references to the Old Testament continue throughout Matthew’s narrative, “so that we might learn to read Scripture, and to understand Christ, accordingly.”[8]

Starling ends his chapter with insightful and mature reflections, worth quoting at length:

The red letters of Jesus’s teachings do indeed… fulfill a particular function in the economy of Scripture. Christians who… attempt to read the Scriptures as a timeless, undifferentiated compendium of divine commands, may revere Scripture but can hardly be said to have understood its message: those who faithfully trace the lines of Scripture’s black letters must inevitably be led to the place where they become hearers (and doers) of the red.

But the relationship between the black letters and the red is not a one-way street; it is a recursive, reciprocal relationship. The black letters of the Old Testament prophecy and apostolic testimony lead us to Jesus and urge us to listen to him; the red letters of Jesus’s teaching, in turn, commission and authorize his apostles as heralds of the gospel and send us back to the Old Testament to learn its meaning and its implications afresh in light of his coming. The red letters of Matthew’s Gospel are joined to the black in an indispensable, mutually authorizing, and mutually interpretive relationship; what God has joined together no interpreter should attempt to separate.

For evangelicals in our own time, confronted with the claim that we must choose between two different kinds of Christianity—one defined by the red letters of Scripture and the other defined by the black—the Gospel of Matthew provides a timely warning against false dichotomies and needless schisms. It reminds “red letter Christians” of the indispensability of the black letters and reminds “black letter Christians of the centrality of the red (or, more precisely, of the one who speaks them).[9]

To this exhortation I say “amen”—adding only a little more precision by reminding us that it is actually the risen Jesus himself who is speaking in the black letters of the apostolic writings, as we noted above. In summary, Christians who try to use Matthew’s Gospel to create a more perfect red letter version of Christianity do dishonor to Matthew and to Jesus himself.

May God help us all read and honor his written word and his risen Christ more faithfully!

The original version of this essay was much improved by the feedback of some readers—including some very rigorous ones on the crashed-and-rebranded former Mennodiscuss.com. (Thankfully, I downloaded and saved much of that feedback!) I welcome your feedback here, too, in the comments below. Thank you!

Church Chat [Ecclesiology]

Kissing in the First Century: Excerpt from Craig Keener

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Conservative Anabaptists are one of the few North American Christian groups to have retained kissing as a religious practice. But in the past 120 years we have turned this practice into an “ordinance” (an historical anomoly, though rooted in ancient ritual practices) and we often have little understanding of kissing practices or beliefs in the first century. This leaves us poorly prepared to understand what Paul and Peter meant when they commanded their readers to kiss one another.

[amazon template=thumbnail11&asin=0801048389]The following post (reblogged from Baker Book House Church Connnection and quoting Craig Keener’s Acts commentary) contains the most detail that I’ve read yet on kissing in the first century. Some of the details challenge our own practices. For example : (1) Christian kissing was initially probably “less a rite than an expression of familiar affection”; (2) “the earliest form of this practice probably was not limited to one’s own gender”; and (3) “some kissing may have been on the cheek” but “most kissing… was on the mouth,” regardless of which gender was kissing which. One or more of these is probably guaranteed to make every one of us squirm just a little!

I don’t have time to discuss these findings in more detail now, but am posting them for my reference and our shared learning.  I’ll invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below, and sign off with another first century greeting: May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all!

 The following is an excerpt from Craig Keener’s commentary on Acts. The comment comes from 20:37: “They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him.”

“Kissing normally expressed love; the term φιλέω, can mean either ‘love’ or ‘kiss,’ and occasionally writers played on words to signify both. In dramatic situations kissing and weeping were conjoined as here—for example, as signs of mourning the deceased or of the joy in being reunited. The imperfect tense may suggest repeated kissing, more emphatic than everyday greetings (although it should also be noted that Paul would have received repeated kisses even if each person kissed him only once).

Relatives greeted one another with kisses, notably when reunited or about to be separated. Kissing was a conventional greeting for family members. Thus, for example, Roman women kissed kinsmen; likewise, a child should kiss his mother and father. A mother’s kissing a son or a father’s kissing a daughter was normal, considered suspicious only if excessive and immodest. Male friends could embrace and kiss without sexual connotations; the kiss functioned as an intimate greeting. Kissing between friends was apparently less common in urban settings, however. Kisses could be conveyed by proxy, often in secondary greetings in letters.

Kisses further served as respectful greetings to one of higher status; they showed respect among social peers as well as connections between patrons and clients; one could also offer congratulatory kisses. Disciples and pupils kissed teachers; often on the head; in such cases, the kiss could be an affectionate contact on the mouth. One person who wished to honor his teacher in a particular extreme way kissed his feet. An arrogant person of wealth might offer his hand to be kissed. A general needing to secure soldiers’ favor might go about, greeting them with kisses. Kissing was such a standard salutation that neglecting it could function as an obvious insult.

A person might kiss another who pleased him; a kiss was generally seen as pleasant (Prov 24:26) and hence might function as a suitable reward. A king might rise to kiss a teacher whose wise discourse had pleased him (1 Esd 4:47). A rabbi might rise and kiss the head of a student who expounded well; a Roman patron could also greet a client with a kiss.

Kissing could also have sexual overtones, however, under some circumstances; demanding labial as well as genital virginity, a strict father executed his freedman for kissing the father’s daughter. Traditionally, Roman values condemned public erotic kissing, restricting it to the private sphere, but erotic banquets had given way to excesses.

Some kissing may have been on the cheek. Most kissing, however, was on the mouth (closer to, e.g., one older Russian form of greeting than to, e.g., the contemporary way of kissing cheeks in France or much of Latin America). This included kissing teachers, as noted above. One typically kissed relatives on the lips. Thus, for example, Roman women kissed kinsmen on the lips; mothers kissed daughters on the lips; a Roman father might kiss his son on the lips, albeit lightly, or his daughter on the lips in pure innocence. A mourning sister might wish to kiss her dead brother on the mouth; children might do likewise with a deceased mother. Facial kissing may have sometimes compromised hygiene; it was said that social kissing in Rome let to ‘at least one outbreak of an infectious disorder among the leading citizens.’

A kiss of greeting could become the occasion for lustful abuse, but such abuse could be betrayed by the kiss’s character. Kissing on the lips was common, but a kiss on the lips of a sister or mother was naturally said to be less passionate than that of a lover; likewise, maidens kissed one another on the lips, but only modestly. Thus a lustful deity in disguise might give himself away.

That Pauline (and other) Christians greeted with a kiss is clear in our early sources, where it appears less a rite than an expression of familiar affection. Later the ‘kiss of peace’ even achieved a liturgical role (Justin 1 Apol. 65). The earliest form of this practice probably was not limited to one’s own gender, producing condemnations for those who kissed a second time; concerned with abuses, Christians eventually restricted its practice to members of one’s own gender. It came to express Christian ideals of spiritual equality. Conjoined with embraces and weeping, the kisses here in Acts mean more than the casual kisses typically used to greet family, friends, or teacher; they resemble the stronger expressions of emotion encountered at sad partings (as here) or reunions.” (Acts Vol. 3, pp. 3071-73)

Keeners has over 40 footnotes in this section from both primary and secondary sources. Such a discussion is important for more than one reason not the least of which is cited in his footnote number 1265 “Given the pervasiveness of ancient kissing documented above (and the utter lack of initiatory significance in our NT texts), a writer’s association of early Christian kissing with Mysteries’ ‘rites of recognition’ (Mack, Lost Gospel, 220) unfortunately reflects the writer’s inadequate acquaintance with the range of sources.” (p. 3073)