Watching the Detectives

So the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (Mark 7.5)

Clinging to the Past

Now and then someone who knows me casually will say something like, “You’ll love this, since you were raised in the South,” or, “Can you explain such-and-such to me? I didn’t grow up down South.” They’re always surprised when I say I grew up in Chicago, raised by Alabamians who viewed their Southern heritage as a sort of ethnicity. When my brother and I were very young, our parents pointed to our neighbors—the Hogans and Leonardis and Borkowskis—and told us that, just as they followed certain customs passed down from their elders, we too behaved certain ways and believed certain things because of where we came from. We talked differently than our neighbors, not only in accent, but also in terms of what was and wasn’t said. Our family dynamic was different. Our sense of hospitality and social obligation was different. And, most obvious, our religious life was different. Nobody went to church more often than the Wolfes—twice on Sunday, twice during the week, with nearly every Saturday consumed by some sort of outreach or fellowship event. So I am a Southerner through and through with remarkably little experience of what living “down South” is actually like.

Although my parents were grateful to serve Chicago congregations and adapted very well to their urban surroundings, they mourned the slower, more genteel life they left behind. And they kept their Southern identity alive by transmitting its values and practices to us. Common courtesies—saying “please” and “thank you,” “ma’am” and “sir”—were drilled into us, along with very specific shows of gallantry and refined table manners. (To this day, I walk nearest the curb when accompanying a lady down the street.) This is not to say our neighbors didn’t raise their children do likewise. The difference was we weren’t taught to be mannerly because it was polite. Our manners grew out of who we were—or perhaps more accurately, out of the past my parents were clinging to.

In Sunday’s Gospel (Mark 7.1-8,14-15,21-23), we see a very similar situation, as a few Pharisees and scribes, desperately clinging to the past, confront Jesus about His followers’ poor table manners. The disciples don’t wash up before dinner. That deeply offends the Pharisees. To understand why they’re offended and why Jesus responds to their complaint as He does, we need to understand what they’re trying keep alive by perpetuating ancient traditions.

Ferreting Out Scofflaws

Palestine is unique among Roman conquests in that the Jews are permitted to practice their faith and customs without interference. While other conquered nations must swear allegiance to Caesar and adopt imperial beliefs, the Jews’ willingness to die for their faith tradition has resulted in a somewhat schizoid way of life. First-century Jews live under two governments and legal codes: their own religious law and Roman occupation. On the surface, life is not much changed under Caesar: temples and synagogues stay open, social customs remain intact, and civil justice is administered in Jewish courts. At the same time, however, Roman presence in Palestine is undeniable and the Jews recognize that any bold move outside the status quo could bring down Caesar’s fist. In next to no time, Israel and Judea—the Jewish twin kingdoms—could become like their neighbors: impoverished replicas of Rome. The largest Jewish sect, the Pharisees, are obsessed with preventing such a fate by safeguarding traditions of their past. Jewish identity is everything to them, and they make it their lives’ work to preserve it. In many ways, they operate like detectives, ferreting out scofflaws and confronting their non-compliance to Jewish law in public.

Word of a new, radical Rabbi’s success in the provinces compels a group of Pharisees and scribes—i.e., Temple academics—to leave Jerusalem and investigate. As a rule, people clean up their acts when they see the Pharisees coming. Jesus and His followers don’t do that. The Pharisees arrive and are appalled that this rough-and-tumble bunch ignores one of their most basic traditions: they don’t wash their hands before they eat. They challenge Jesus: “Why do Your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (Mark 7.5) Ordinarily, that would be enough for any leader to apologize and promise to do better. Not Jesus. He disregards their complaint, and challenges their obsession: “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me; in vain do they worship Me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’” (v6-7)

Accommodating the Pharisees' tendency to feign obtuseness when it’s convenient, He breaks it down further. “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition,” He says. (v8) He does a bit of legal gymnastics to prove He’s as fit as they in manipulating the law to find fault with others. Then He addresses the crowd collecting around this brouhaha. “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand,” He says. “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” (v14-15) And what might those “things that come out” be? In this context, they’re self-righteousness, slavish observance of archaic customs, and myopic judgment of others’ behavior.

Reach for the Future

Throughout His ministry, Jesus’s problem with the Pharisees springs from disgust with the political motives behind their holiness. They’ve transformed spiritual law and religious custom into a nationalist agenda and appointed themselves the keepers of all things Jewish. Their unforgiving scrutiny of others is basic to their intentions to homogenize Jewish identity in such a way that past traditions are preserved. On one level, this is a noble effort. But on a deeper one, it results in the diminution of those who don’t abide by every letter of the law and excludes anyone who doesn’t fit the Pharisees’ idealized profile. I like to think that even as Jesus challenges His Pharisee accusers, He glances around at His followers. Their hands are dirty. Their lives don’t stack up. But their hearts are close to God. They are the first fruits of God’s kingdom, a new ideal that will survive centuries of political tumult and regime change. While the Pharisees cling to their past, Jesus and His disciples reach for their future. That’s why Jesus keeps such a close eye on the Pharisees, even as they watch Him closely. His Shepherd’s heart will not permit the rude comingling of faith with a political agenda to endanger His flock. Yes, in the current circumstance, Jewish identity is important—but not to the extent that its traditions sacrifice justice and acceptance for the sake of preserving it.

In the current political climate, we can expect challenges from self-appointed keepers of Christianity. They function like a band of detectives, scrutinizing everything we do and say, eagerly hoping to catch us diverging from traditional norms. This text is particularly illuminating for faithful Americans striving to build God’s kingdom amid cries of “taking back” the nation—restoring old values and traditions that no longer promote justice and inclusion, protecting a “Christian” identity that is no longer relevant in a rapidly changing world. We cannot live in the past. We must reach for the future, looking to God to lead us to peace and compassion and equity for all. 

Watching the detectives is vital. When we see them coming, the last thing we should do is tidy up and be polite. We must own our identity as Christ's followers and demonstrate discipleship by removing all rancor and hostility from our lips, even when our non-conformity to the mythic Christian past triggers rancor and hostility. “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come,” Jesus says in verse 21. Live from your heart. Speak peace and justice. Know that you’re being watched and use that as an opportunity to embody God’s kingdom in a culture overrun with self-appointed detectives. Leave their past behind. Reach for your future.

When we see self-appointed “faith detectives” coming our way, the last thing we should do is tidy up and be polite.

Flesh

He had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things. (Mark 6.34)

He is our peace; in His flesh He has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (Ephesians 2.14)

A “Lusty” Bunch

Of late, I’ve been tearing through Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, Diarmaid MacCulloch’s chronicle of our faith’s origins and evolution. To call it epic is to undersell it. Nearly all of its 1000-plus pages serve up at least one startling detail that sets off far-reaching implications for what the Church will become and our faith will come to mean. The history is so vast the author can’t escape getting lost in the weeds. Still, a picture of our ancestors emerges to startle us with how real and personal their passions are. In another context, we would call them a “lusty” bunch—given their obsession with flesh. Paul isn’t straining for metaphor when he describes the Church as “the Body of Christ.” It isn’t poetic reach that inspires John (writing after Paul’s death) to preface his gospel by framing Jesus as “the Word made flesh.” It is no accident that early Christians choose the table—rather than the cross—as the centerpiece of their liturgies, or why they model their houses of worship on banquet halls instead of temples. They revere the table as the place where they physically encounter Christ’s flesh and blood in communal bread and wine.

So great is the Early Church’s flesh obsession that it’s immediately plunged into crisis over whether Gentile males should physicalize their confession of Christ via circumcision. Shake your head in disbelief if you like. Yet the controversy nearly rends the Church in two and had the Apostles not intervened, Christianity very well might have amounted to no more than a footnote in human history. From there, the first few centuries are consumed with increasingly subtle divisions over the “nature” of Jesus’s flesh and how faith plays out in our flesh. Some believe Jesus wasn’t made of flesh at all; others teach He was fully human and then made divine when God declared Him “My Son” at baptism. Meanwhile, some Christians believe Paul’s insistence that faith frees us from religious law grants us permission to indulge our flesh however we please. In other circles, believers fixate on another of Paul’s tenets—the mastery of one’s flesh—to the point they climb atop poles to subject themselves to hunger and harsh weather and some even integrate self-flagellation into their worship. And most ironic of all: while various groups rip at one another’s flesh, they erect massive cathedrals and monasteries as testaments of their devotion to Christ. By the late sixth-century CE, the entire known world—from Europe to China—is dotted with elaborate structures whose external similarity conceals rabidly divergent dogmas and practices.

Doctrines and rites we accept as fundamental—the Virgin Birth, Incarnation, Lord’s Supper, and Trinity—were hot topics in the Church’s formative years. They were every bit as volatile as current debates about gay inclusion, the ordination of women, birth control, marital equality, and human sexuality in general. And with those comparisons, everything comes full circle. Contrary to what we’d like to imagine, we’ve not outgrown our infantile obsessions with flesh nor our fondness for infighting. We may have found new things to argue. What we’ve yet to discover, however, is the antidote to hostilities sprung from our varying persuasions and fetishes. This is the Church’s great tragedy and, if not reversed, may very well be its undoing.

Unity

So it is not for nothing that unity plays the decisive role in Sunday’s readings. In 2 Samuel 7, we read of God’s call for David to “build Me a house to live in” (v5), a house of worship “for My people Israel… so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more.” (v10) This calling comes with a covenant attached, one of the Hebrew Bible’s greatest promises, often celebrated in songs like Psalm 89 that venerate David as the channel by whom God establishes Israel’s perpetuity. “My faithfulness and steadfast love shall be with him: and in My name his horn shall be exalted,” verse 21 says (giving Freudians among us pause). “Once and for all I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David. His line shall continue for ever, and his throne endure before me like the sun. It shall be established for ever like the moon, an enduring witness in the skies,” verses 35-37 sing. In exchange for David’s obedience in building God’s house, God promises Israel will always have a home where its people will dwell in unity.

When we turn to the Christian texts, however, we crash into the fragile nature of unified faith, realizing magnificent houses of worship amount to nothing if those dwelling inside them aren’t united. Of course, Jesus has no church; the great outdoors is His cathedral and He turns hillsides, lakeshores, and boat decks into pulpits. This presents a constant problem for Him and His disciples, as crowds engulf Jesus wherever He goes. Mark 6.31 tells us the multitudes become so overwhelming that “they had no leisure even to eat.” They try to break away, sailing across the lake. But word that Jesus is on the move spreads quickly and by the time He and the disciples reach the other side, people have rushed to get there ahead of them. “As He went ashore,” verse 34 tells us, “He saw a great crowd; and He had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.” Seeing Jesus in the flesh—and watching Him work wonders in the flesh of others—draws the crowd to Him. But it is His teaching that binds them together.

Hostile Barriers

This brings us to Ephesians 2.11-22, where Paul paints the lamentable picture of a burgeoning faith community that confesses Christ as its Shepherd, yet persists in behaving like unpastored sheep. We’re back in the flesh wars here, as Paul strives to neutralize the circumcision debate for what must feel like the nth time. And to get us as close as possible to the heat of this controversy, suppose we paraphrase his premise in its crudest terms. “This obsession with genitals is utter nonsense,” he says. “Your flesh means nothing now that you are in Christ. And if you make flesh your focus, your very skin becomes a barrier that destroys unity within the Body.” Now let’s return to the text, adding emphasis to drive home Paul’s message: “For He is our peace; in His flesh He has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” (v14)

Answering Christ’s unparalleled call to a community of righteousness insists that we overcome our fascination with what’s below the waist and practice peace that only exists in Christ’s flesh. Male or female, straight or gay, celibate or partnered, circumcised or not—these issues create hostile barriers that Jesus suffered and died in the flesh to eradicate. It is through His death and resurrection that we, as Christ’s Body, are gathered. It is through the bread and wine that we are united in Christ’s flesh. Until we let go this centuries-old skin game we’re addicted to, we’ll be no different than the hordes that chase Jesus from coast to coast. We’ll be like sheep who've lost their Shepherd, and nothing like the magnificent cathedral Paul describes in Ephesians 2.20-22, “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. In Him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in Whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.”

Will we be gathered and shepherded in Christ? Or will we continue to clash over skin? Will we persist in building walls of flesh that tear us apart? Or will we find Christ’s peace and be built together into God’s dwelling-place? If we attend closely to Sunday’s texts, these questions should answer themselves.

As a result of our infantile flesh obsessions, we’ve become like sheep who’ve lost their Shepherd—like magnificent houses of worship fallen into ruin.

Post-Script: Before You Go…

I realize I’ve thrown a lot at you and impinged on your time with a longer-than-usual post. But before you go, I invite you to take two minutes and let today’s readings settle while watching this simple video I put together. Nothing dazzling here—just footage of sheep on an Irish hillside set to the worship song, “He Is Our Peace”. If you can spare the time, I believe it will help bring today’s reflection to a peaceful, reassuring conclusion.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/07/21/flesh/

The Yet-Unanswered Prayer

You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, Who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness. (Ephesians 4.4-6; The Message)

According to John’s gospel, just before going to Gethsemane where He’ll be taken from the disciples, Jesus prays for us. “I ask not only on behalf of these,” He prays, perhaps glancing around the table at His closest friends, “but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one.” He repeats this request twice—three mentions of “oneness” in all—and then concludes, saying, “I made Your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” For several weeks, it appears that Jesus’s prayer is answered. The disciples prove amazingly resilient. In 50 days’ time, they somehow absorb Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension. Pentecost finds them exactly as Jesus prays that they’ll be: together, in one place, with one purpose. The Holy Spirit—God’s great binding force—falls on them and fills them and the Church’s work begins. But the disciples quickly discover there’s a huge difference between sitting together and working together. In short order, they’re fragmented into various schools of thought about what it means to be a Christian, what that requires, and how it works. It’s been that way ever since.

Ironically, this concept of “oneness” is the Early Church’s major bone of contention. Is the Jesus movement an exclusively Jewish sect? Or can everyone join? Even after God definitively reveals the answer to Peter (“Everyone”), it takes a while for the rest of the Church to get onboard. Once they get that worked out, a new question of “oneness” rears up. This issue isn’t so easy, as Church leaders try to understand what it means relative to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. For centuries, the Church engages in battle over the Godhead, and much of its dissension arises from Jesus’s prayer. Are God and Jesus One? If so, how does Jesus’s dual role, as human and divine, fit into that? And what of the Holy Spirit? Early Church theologians can’t decide what they’re looking at: one God, two Gods as One (with the Spirit as a sort of amorphous helper), or Three in One. The debate gets so heated that Christians turn on one another—some going so far as to murder fellow-believers with differing opinions—and, to this day, the deepest schisms in Christ’s Body directly result from the “oneness” controversy.

Paul sees this coming and, in his letter to the Ephesians, attempts to thwart it. “You’re on the same road,” he reminds us. “You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, Who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.” One faith: it’s the glue that holds everything together. As Paul sees it, that we believe is more important than what we believe. Jesus prays two things for us: that we will believe in Him and be one with God, with Him, and each other. It is raw faith—not how we refine it—that holds us together. Names we slap on our church doors don’t matter. Varying baptism techniques are irrelevant. Most of all, debates that subvert Christian unity are useless. We are permeated with Oneness, Paul says, with power that joins us together through raw faith.

It’s estimated that there are over 30,000—30,000-plus!—distinct “brands” of Christianity in the world. So we must ask ourselves, “For what?” More than that, we must realize it is we—with our cravings for certainty and compulsions to be right to the exclusion of everyone else—who stand in the way of Jesus’s yet-unanswered prayer. When we make raw faith the common denominator, liturgical nuances and doctrinal disputes lose their grip. We’re traveling the same road in the same direction. Either we honor Christ’s desire and travel as one, or we end up with 30,000 nils. Either we see Christianity as an all-inclusive circle, or we grind it down to a giant zero.

Love Is the Goal

The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. (1 Timothy 1.5-7)

The Scenes Behind the Text

First and Second Timothy and Titus, the epistle following them, are collectively called “The Pastorals.” Together, they offer invaluable advice regarding structure, policies, and procedures of congregational life—even though they address different issues and, given variances in language, style, and subject matter, are believed to come from different writers at different times. Only 2 Timothy is immunized from doubts about Paul’s authorship. Linguistic and historical anomalies strongly suggest 1 Timothy and Titus are composed between 80-200 CE by one or two writers signing Paul’s name to their correspondence. While we would reject the practice as fraudulent, writing under apostolic imprimatur is routine for Early Church writers. Ancient readers don’t share our concerns about date, authenticity, and accuracy; they realize Paul isn’t the author, just as they’re aware Timothy and Titus (of whom we know little) have left the scene. The credited author and addressees are symbolic—perhaps to indicate the letters regard problems troubling European churches (Paul’s area of leadership) and to direct the letters to ministers carrying on Paul’s tradition.

With none of the Bible’s original manuscripts at our disposal, it’s possible 1 Timothy and Titus’s grammatical inconsistencies result from editorial decisions and/or transcription error. Thus, we can’t rule out their authenticity altogether. Still, speculation about authorship remains based on both alluding to events unnoted in The Book of Acts, Paul’s authentic letters, and other first-century church documents. The case for questioning First Timothy’s authorship is especially strong. It focuses on combatting Early Church vulnerability to Gnosticism, a rival, pseudo-Christian sect. This problem doesn’t obtain crisis status until the second century.

In light of our interest in 1 Timothy 1.10 as a frequently quoted clobber text, it’s essential we’re familiar with the scenes behind the text in order to align our reading with its stated intention: “The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.” (1 Timothy 1.5-7) These words gain tremendous resonance as we explore the clobber text in detail.

In its full context (v8-10), the text reads: “We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.”

Clear and Up-Front

So we enter the letter less sure of who wrote it when or to whom it’s written than whom it’s written about. And that’s important—particularly for those struggling to free the text from Fundamentalist and neoconservative readings—because placing a broad swipe against Gnostics (v3-7) just prior to rattling off a organized list of offenders (v8-10) appears to toss everybody in the same bin of Babblers Who Don’t Know What They’re Talking About. Which is not at all what’s happening. We need to be extremely clear and up-front about this while “de-clobbering” verse 10. A few points we can’t lose track of:

As a pastoral letter, 1 Timothy discusses, but does not declare, doctrine. The urgent tone and specificity of its criticisms—going so far as naming names—send up flares we must read it with utmost care, since confidential content plainly suggests the letter isn’t meant for wide consumption. Whether leaders or laity, our remove from the situation steers us to the letter’s desired outcome: a Christian culture of pure, conscientious, faith-driven love. That is the test for everything we say, think, or do about the text. Any interpretation evidencing impure motives, unjust attitudes, doubt, or fear of punishment (love’s opposite, according to 1 John 4.18) is not to be trusted.

The false doctrines, myths, controversial speculations, departure, meaningless talk, and ignorance (v3-7) the epistle vilifies are Gnostic beliefs. They have no connection with “lawbreakers and rebels” listed in verses 8-10. The roster is included to equate Gnostics with types of people whose disregard for law and order generates disbelief, violence, sex crimes, and deceit.

Consequently, the text is overcrowded with five parties pursuing five agendas: ancient Gnostics corrupting Christianity; ancient pastors safeguarding Church doctrine and order; ancient believers who seek pastoral guidance for their protection; modern Christians who confine the text to its apparent meaning; and modern Christians striving to free the text from its misinterpretation. That’s a lot of people with a lot going on. If we don’t keep them straight, we risk confusing what’s about whom and how it affects us. So, before we sort out this mess, let’s meet the Gnostics, since they started it.

Know-It-Alls

Jewish Gnostics are hardly Johnnies-come-lately. In fact, they pre-date Jesus, originating as an alternative sect that blends Greek mysticism and Judaic monotheism into a belief system that looks nothing like either, yet often sounds like both. They don’t gain much traction in Jewish circles, however, because what they teach blatantly contradicts Judaic principle. Gnosticism breaks everything down to two divisions: material and spiritual, with the material world being inherently evil and the spiritual world inherently good. Since humanity, nature, and the God dwelling among them are “earthly,” they’re evil. “The Divine,” angels, and their heavenly abode are good.

The Gnostics (from gnosis, or “knowledge”) have no use for faith, as that requires belief in God’s goodness. For them it’s all about what you know. Yet the dualism of their construct isn’t that hard to figure out and “easy” religions raise suspicions. Which is why they embroider their doctrine with intricacies that take years to unravel. They invent angelic hierarchies and arcane pathways said to free the soul from earthly evil. They also spend a great deal of time tracing their roots back to Eve, whom they revere for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. These departures from Judaism’s belief in One True God Who dwells in Creation, Adam’s patriarchy, and atonement for sin assign the sect negligible status in Jewish life. Then, Christianity’s explosion offers exactly what they need to raise their profile.

The Early Church’s radical inclusion of all peoples and rapid expansion across Europe provides the Gnostics a new, far more receptive audience. The Hellenistic side of their philosophy has indubitable appeal for Gentile converts steeped in polytheist mythology. At the same time, Gnostic mastery of Jewish Scripture gives them an edge over less adept pastors, teachers, and leaders. With cunningly selective use of prophetic texts, they mount an alternative portrait of Jesus that solves hotly contested doctrines (at the time) like the Virgin Birth, Jesus’s divinity, and Christ’s bodily resurrection. None of this matters, they say, as Jesus was never human. Like Greco-Roman gods, He was a divine entity capable of imitating human form without physically assuming it. This, of course, destroys core doctrines of Jesus’s supreme sacrifice—a physical atonement that fulfills the Law and Prophets—and the Risen Christ’s defeat of mortal death. Many Gentile converts not yet trained to understand the Incarnation’s far-reaching implications fall easy prey to Gnosticism’s know-it-alls.

Outside of Grace

By mid-second century, Gnostics infiltrate European churches, landing positions as teachers, deacons, and lay-leaders. First Timothy’s writer fires off his/her letter as a salvo that first debunks the Gnostics and urges ministers to assert their pastoral authority: “Command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith.” (v3-4) The writer states the overriding purpose for the command: love, which has no part in religious controversy. Finally, he/she reminds readers arguing against Gnosticism invariably leads to defending Judaic Law, which merely counters one cumbersome belief system with another.

To emphasize this point, the writer slips into “Paul mode,” echoing the Apostle’s great freedom-from-Law theme and paraphrasing earlier letters now in wide circulation. “We know the Law is good if properly used,” the writer stresses. “But remember: the Law isn’t made for those redeemed by grace, whose lives are governed by faith and Christ’s commands.” The Law is given for those outside of grace, we’re told. The writer runs down four groups of “lawbreakers and rebels,” citing examples of each with a fifth default category “for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine.” His/her choices are interesting, to say the least.

Extremely Specific

Before delineating the groups, what leaps out at us is the absence of idolatry—a veritable fixture of similar lists in Paul’s authentic letters. That changes the context dramatically, redefining 1 Timothy’s infractions as conscious choices rather than religious error. The reason this distinction is critical to the original readers’ (and our) understanding is basic. If the writer pronounces these harmful pursuits as “sin”—i.e., spiritual failure due to human frailty—she/he concedes the Gnostic position that humanity, its religion, and Creator are by nature evil. Isolating unhealthy practices as “lawlessness” permits the writer to categorize types of behavior that consciously don’t witness “God’s work—which is by faith.” In other words, they mirror the Gnostics’ refusal to believe, trusting only what they know. But knowledge without faith leads to pride, corruption, controversy, hatred, and violence. It defies Christ’s gospel, of which love is the goal.

The four categories demonstrate opposition to mindsets the writer insists are vital to the love-goal: a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith. Group One (“the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious”) portrays disbelief. Groups Two and Four—violence (“those who kill their fathers or mothers… murderers”) and deceit (“liars and perjurers”)—exemplify impure hearts, or evil intentions. Group Three’s sex offenders (“sexually immoral,” “those practicing homosexuality,” and “slave traders”) represent corrupt consciences. Once again, imprecise translation encourages us to generalize Group Three’s examples, when the original language is extremely specific.

“Sexually immoral,” put elsewhere as “adulterers” or “fornicators,” is a loose translation of pornois (masculine, plural) from the root “to sell off”—ergo, common male prostitutes we call hustlers or rent boys. (The same root gives us “pornography,” for-sale erotica featuring paid models and performers.) “Homosexuality” resurrects Paul’s coinage for male patrons of male temple prostitutes in 1 Corinthians 6.9 (arsenokoitais; see the previous post for details.) While both texts take aim at male prostitutes and their clientele, 1 Timothy’s removal of “idolatry” from its list and use of a term adaptable to men or women confirms the writer intentionally expands Paul’s scope from sex rites to sex commerce. “Slave traders” (andrapodistais; “kidnappers”) misses the connection to flesh merchants who abduct and enslave people as prostitutes.

The Goal and the Test

First Timothy 1.10 ends up confirming our suspicions the text is not a blanket indictment of LGBT believers. Precisely read and interpreted, it reviles the sex trade—not same-sex orientation—as unconscionable behavior that, like disbelief, violence, and deceit, defies Christ’s command to love. This is precisely why the writer turns to these types to neutralize the Gnostic invasion. The sect’s know-it-all pretense promotes myths, controversy, and meaningless talk that foment division, disorder, prejudice, and hatred. It doesn’t merely corrupt Christ’s gospel of love; it destroys it.

Love is the goal and the test. As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 13.2: “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” Believers who leverage so-called superior knowledge to promote hateful doctrines match 1 Timothy’s description: “They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.” Beliefs they advance do not advance God’s work—which is by faith. They fall short of the goal. They need our compassion and prayers.

When we open 1 Timothy we’re startled to find its objective is not to condemn believers, regardless of orientation. It commands us to resist those who leverage so-called superior knowledge to promote hateful doctrines. Love is the goal.