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Putting Off Western Virtues and Putting On Christ · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Imagine if the literal air you breathe had a slight, almost
• 0:05
  undetectable chemical in it. Oh, that sounds ominous.
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  Right. A chemical that slowly overtime
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  altered the way your eyes perceive color.
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  You would never realize it was happening.
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  You would just think that is how the world looks.
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  Yeah, you would look at a green tree, see it as blue, and you
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  would swear on your life that the tree was blue.
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  Well, welcome to reformed thinking.
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  Today we're looking at something remarkably similar, but instead
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  of physical air, we are talking about the cultural air you
• 0:33
  breathe. And that cultural air is
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  everywhere. It really is.
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  We're looking at how the society around you subconsciously
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  rewrites your moral instincts. The culture acts like invisible
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  blinders, radically altering what you see when you sit down
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  with your Bible. It is a massive issue.
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  It is. We have a fascinating stack of
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  material today focusing primarily on 2 theological
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  texts. The first one is called Putting
• 0:55
  Off Western Virtues and putting on Christ, and the second is the
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  idolatry of cultural hermeneutics.
• 1:01
  So these texts bring a very specific, sharp critique to the
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  table. We are zeroing in on the
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  epistles of Paul, specifically Colossians chapter 3, and then
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  also the teachings of Christ in the Gospel of Luke.
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  Good. So New Testament heavy today.
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  Very much so. The premise here is that every
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  single reader comes to the scriptures with a trained
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  conscience. But not every trained conscience
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  has been trained by the Word of God.
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  Wow, that brings us to our mission.
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  For this deep dive, we want to unmask how modern society tricks
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  you into baptizing cultural habits.
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  Yes, taking things the world admires and just, you know,
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  slapping a Christian label on. Them.
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  Yeah, and we want to learn how to read the text with clean
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  eyes. Yeah.
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  So let me ask you, the listener, Have you ever felt a strange
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  tension between what society praises as good and what Jesus
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  actually commanded? That has a very uncomfortable
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  tension to feel. Have you ever read A Command of
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  Christ and filled an immediate internal hesitation, A little
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  voice telling you, well, he does not mean that literally?
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  OK, let's unpack this. To set the stage, the text
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  references Charles Haddon Spurgeon and he made a massive
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  statement. He said the word of God is the
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  anvil upon which the opinions of men are smashed.
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  Man, that is a violent, vivid image.
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  It really is. Think about what an anvil
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  actually is. It is solid iron.
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  It does not yield. You bring your human opinions,
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  your societal norms, your political beliefs, and you
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  strike them against the anvil of scripture.
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  And your human opinions shatter into pieces.
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  But the sources argue that the modern reader has completely
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  reversed this divine order. Yeah.
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  We've decided that our cultural assumptions are Western
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  paradigms. Well, those are the anvil, and
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  we take the infallible, inerrant word of God and we try to hammer
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  it into a shape that conforms to our societal expectations.
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  We read the scriptures with western eyes.
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  Right. And in doing so, we get things
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  completely backwards. We assume our culture is
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  invisible or neutral. I want to make this tangible
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  because the text gives such a brilliant everyday illustration
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  of how this training happens. It talks about the children's
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  fable of the Little Red Hen. Oh yeah, the little Red Hen.
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  If you have kids, you have probably read this a dozen times
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  at. Least the hen finds some wheat
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  seeds, she asks her farmyard friends.
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  The dog, the cat, the duck, she says.
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  Who is going to help me plant these seeds?
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  And they all say not I. Right, so she does it herself.
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  The wheat grows. She asks who will help me
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  harvest again? Not I.
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  She does it herself. She takes it to the mill, grinds
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  it into flour, bakes a loaf of bread, doing all this grueling
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  labor alone because her friends refused to lift a finger.
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  Then the bread comes out of the oven.
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  It smells fantastic. She asks who will help me eat
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  this bread. Suddenly the dog, the cat and
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  the duck are all in. I will.
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  Of course they are. And what does the hen do?
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  She says no, I will eat it myself.
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  And we read that to children and we nod in approval.
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  It teaches A cultural value that goes without being said.
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  It champions self-sufficiency. It champions strict merit.
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  It trains the conscience from youth to Revere the Protestant
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  work ethic. The lesson is clear.
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  You cannot expect to benefit from hard work if you are not
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  willing to perform hard work. But the sources point out an
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  incredible collision that happens later in life.
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  Imagine that child grows up, becomes a Christian, and is
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  walking down the street. OK, setting the scene.
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  They encounter A destitute person begging for food or
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  money. Suddenly there is a hidden
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  violent tension because on one hand the voice of Jesus Christ
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  explicitly commands in Luke 6.30 Give to everyone who asks you.
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  Yeah, and we also see the example of the early church in
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  Acts chapter 2. Right.
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  Demonstrating radical self sacrificial generosity, they
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  were selling their possessions to give to anyone who had need.
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  Yet the text argues that in that exact moment on the street, the
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  voice of the Little Red Hen whispers in the believer's ear.
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  The little red hen speaks up. She does.
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  The voice of Western pragmatism offers a justification for
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  withholding aid. We prioritize our cultural
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  virtue of strict merit over the biblical virtue of grace.
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  The sources note that Christians will often quickly quote 2
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  Thessalonians 3 points. Hulu.
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  Right the If a man will not work, he shall not eat.
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  Verse exactly. To validate an innate
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  selfishness, we use one verse to cancel out the clear command of
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  Christ. I have done this myself.
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  I think we all have. You see someone on the street
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  and your brain instantly starts calculating whether they, you
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  know, deserve your $5. Precisely.
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  And they RIP that verse from Sessalonians completely out of
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  its localized context. Context is everything.
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  What was actually happening there?
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  Well, in Thessalonica, Paul was addressing a specific group of
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  people who believe the return of Christ was so imminent that they
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  quit their jobs. Oh, so they just stopped working
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  entirely? Yeah, they became idle, busy
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  bodies living off the church unnecessarily.
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  Yeah, Paul was not laying down a macroeconomic theory of social
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  welfare. Right, He was not writing a
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  political manifesto. No, he was correcting a specific
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  eschatological error that led to laziness within the covenant
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  community. But the modern reader takes that
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  highly specific correction and turns it into a universal
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  license to ignore the poor and protect their own wealth.
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  So what does this all mean for the person opening their Bible
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  tomorrow morning? It feels like we are operating
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  at a massive disadvantage. It really does.
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  It is like wearing tinted sunglasses.
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  Imagine you have a pair of side glasses with bright red lenses.
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  You put them on and you wear them for so long that you forget
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  they are even on your face. You just get used to it.
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  Yeah, you look at a white piece of paper, you think it is red.
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  You look at a red stop sign and it completely blends into the
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  background. Your vision is entirely altered.
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  How do we take the glasses off? That is the big challenge.
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  How do we stop hammering the Bible on the anvil of our
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  culture? Taking off those glasses
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  requires a massive shift. It requires stepping entirely
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  out of our modern context. We cannot stay in the 21st
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  century and hope to read the text cleanly.
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  So we have to time travel a bit. Pretty much we must step into
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  the precise historical realities the apostles were addressing.
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  The text makes it clear we cannot project our democratic,
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  hyper individualized, capitalistic framework onto a
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  1st century document. Let's make that leap.
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  Then the sources take us directly to the city of Colisea.
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  Set the scene for us. Where are we and what is
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  happening in this church? We are in the Lycus Valley of
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  Asia Minor. It is a bustling trade route,
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  very cosmopolitan for the time. Lots of different ideas mixing
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  together exactly. Exactly.
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  And the congregation in Colossae was facing a massive threat,
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  something scholars often call the Colossian heresy.
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  It was a synchronistic heresy. OK, syncretism.
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  That means blending different, often contradictory beliefs
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  together, right? Yes, think of it like a
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  spiritual buffet line where you take a little bit of everything.
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  This local heresy blended Jewish legalism, early proto
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  Gnosticism, and local Pagan mysticism.
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  They were just throwing it all in a pot.
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  Right. The church was tempted by forms
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  of spirituality that appeared very disciplined and visionary,
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  but failed to honor Jesus Christ as supreme.
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  Wait, let's pause on proto Gnosticism.
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  That is a heavy theological term.
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  What does that actually look like for a guy selling pottery
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  in a 1st century market? Good question.
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  Broadly speaking, early Gnostic thought operated on a strict
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  divide between the spiritual and the physical.
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  Like a hard line between the two.
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  Very hard line. They believed the spirit was
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  good and the physical body matter itself was inherently
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  evil. So for that pottery seller, it
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  meant treating his body with extreme severity, maybe starving
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  himself. Because the body is bad.
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  Right. Or conversely, indulging in
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  whatever physical sins he wanted because he believed his physical
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  actions could not taint his pure spiritual soul.
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  Wow, so it goes in two totally different extreme directions.
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  Yeah, it's a total detachment of theology from bodily obedience.
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  So they were trying to add to the gospel a little bit of
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  strict rule keeping over here, a little bit of mystical
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  philosophy over there. Yes, and the broader cultural
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  backdrop of this region was steeped in Greco Roman moral
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  philosophy. Popular Stoic philosophers and
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  household instructors traveled around teaching ethics.
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  Kind of like ancient motivational speakers.
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  That is a great way to put it, and they frequently used a
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  specific pedagogical tool. They used lists of virtues and
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  vices, very often grouped in sets of five.
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  Sets of five. Why 5?
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  It was just a common mnemonic device.
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  This is how they communicated what produced a noble ordered
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  life and what traits brought shame or societal disorder.
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  So when the apostle Paul writes to this church in Colossians
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  chapter 3, he uses this exact format.
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  He gives them lists of vices and lists of virtues.
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  He does. But what is fascinating here is
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  how Paul adopts this recognizable literary form but
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  entirely subverts its substance. He was not endorsing Stoicism.
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  He was using their own language against them, essentially.
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  He was communicating New Covenant ethics in a format the
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  culture could easily understand. He used their vehicle but
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  completely changed the cargo. Right.
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  And understanding this historical usage acts as a
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  divine guardrail for us today. The text warns against reading
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  Paul's five part lists like a modern mathematical ranking of
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  sins. Which we do all the time.
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  We really do. But for the original audience,
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  listing 5 vices was a rhetorical device to summarize a total
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  category of behavior. It was not a hierarchical
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  ranking of depravity. So sin number one is not the
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  absolute worst, and sin #5 is not just a minor flaw.
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  That is our Western ranking system imposing itself on the
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  text. That changes how we read the
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  text entirely. We have a bad habit of looking
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  at a list of sins in the Bible and treating it like a countdown
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  of severity. We think the ones at the top are
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  the ones to aggressively attack, and the ones at the bottom are
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  just, you know, gentle suggestions for improvement.
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  And Paul is actively subverting the admired traits of his own
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  day. The sources provide a massive
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  contrast regarding the concept of peace.
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  Peace. OK, How did the Romans view
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  peace? Well, in the ancient world, the
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  Roman Empire boasted constantly of the Pax Romana, the peace of
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  Rome. This was an era of relative
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  stability across the Mediterranean.
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  But how is that peace secured? It was not secured by everyone
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  holding hands and singing. Far from it.
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  The Roman peace was secured by the brutal edge of the gladius,
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  the Roman short sword. The sword, Yes, It was a peace
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  maintained by subjugation, immense coercion, military might
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  and overwhelming fear. That sounds like tyranny, not
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  peace. To us, yes, but you have to
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  picture the Roman legions marching into a territory,
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  crushing any resistance and lining the roads with
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  crucifixions to send a message. Rome basically said we will
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  crush any rebellion so completely that no one will dare
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  to fight, and we will call that silence peace.
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  That is chilling, Just a graveyard silence.
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  But then Paul talks about the peace of Christ ruling in their
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  hearts. And that peace is entirely alien
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  to the Roman concept. Christ's peace does not rule
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  through coercion or the sword. Right, it's totally different.
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  It rules through reconciliation accomplished by His blood.
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  Christ's peace brings together natural historical enemies.
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  Paul explicitly says that in Christ there is no Greek in Jew,
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  circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or
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  free. That list of groups is stunning
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  when you think about the social dynamics of the 1st century.
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  A Scythian was considered the absolute lowest of the low.
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  Literally viewed as a savage in the eyes of the educated Greek.
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  And a Roman master sitting next to his own slave in worship,
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  partaking of the same bread and wine, viewing each other as
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  equals in Christ? Well, that would have looked
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  like absolute lunacy to the surrounding Roman.
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  It was socially radical. The Peace of Christ dismantled
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  the societal dividing walls that the Roman Empire spent centuries
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  building and fortifying with military violence.
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  Here's where it gets really interesting, especially for
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  modern readers. Think about your own context.
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  The sources bring up the Jewish historical context of Christ's
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  earthly ministry. Yeah, this is a huge.
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  Point There was a palpable, burning desire among the Jewish
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  people for political liberation from Rome.
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  They wanted the Romans out. They wanted their land.
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  Back and you had the Zealot movement, which embodied the
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  desire to take up arms and fight for national freedom.
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  And the concept of fighting for freedom is something revered in
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  modern nations born of revolution.
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  Oh, absolutely. If you look at American culture,
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  the very foundation of the nation is built on the idea of
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  armed rebellion against unjust just taxation and tyrannical
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  rule. Give me liberty or give me
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  death. It is written into the DNA of
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  the society. We view the militant fight for
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  self determination as a supreme, unquestionable good.
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  It is the plot of every movie we watch the rebels fighting the
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  evil empire. But look at the actions of
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  Christ. He completely refused to lead a
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  military revolt. He commanded his followers to
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  turn the other cheek. He submitted to the Father's
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  will, which led directly to the agony of the Cross.
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  The text argues that Western Christians drastically air when
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  they conflate the patriotic ideals of a national revolution
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  with the ethics of the New Covenant.
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  Christ entirely subverts the idolization of militant self
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  determination. We take a societal norm, the
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  nobility of armed revolution, for political freedom, and we
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  try to force Jesus to wear that uniform.
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  We really do. We want him to be a fighter in
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  our mold. We try to read him as a
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  revolutionary political leader, and when he refuses to take up
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  the sword against Rome, we get confused.
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  We try to explain it away as it clashes with our cultural anvil.
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  If we step back from that, it starts to make sense why Paul
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  targets the specific behaviors he does next.
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  Yes, having established that Paul and Christ were actively up
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  ending the admired traits of their own day, we have to look
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  at the specific vices Paul targets in Colossians.
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  We need to see how the modern mind willfully ignores what the
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  text actually says. Let's look closely at Colossians
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  3.5. This is where the deep dive
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  really hits the bedrock. Paul issues a command.
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  The Greek verb used here is central to everything.
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  The word is necrotate. It is an aorist active
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  imperative. OK, I'll bite.
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  I do not read ancient Greek and I know our listeners do not
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  either. What does that specific grammar
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  demand? Does it just mean try to stop
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  doing this? Not at all.
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  It is forceful. It demands A decisive, violent
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  action. The Puritan theologian John Owen
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  summarized the spirit of this word perfectly when he said Be
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  killing sin or it will be killing you.
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  That is a famous quote. It is, and it fits perfectly.
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  Yeah. This verb does not mean to
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  manage your sin. It does not mean to suppress it,
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  negotiate with it, or hide it beneath religious language.
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  It means to execute it. Yes, it means to make it a
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  corpse. The text calls this
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  mortification. You do not put a lion on a leash
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  and keep it in your living room. You do not try to train it.
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  You eliminate the threat entirely.
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  Yes, because the earthly nature is completely opposed to the
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  life of Christ. Now Paul gives a list of vices
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  that must be executed. Here is that list of five again.
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  Right. The list moves from sexual
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  immorality, impurity, passion and evil desire to the climactic
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  vice at the end of the list. Pleienexia.
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  Pleienexia that translates to greed, right?
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  It translates to greed or covetousness, but the ancient
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  understanding of the word is much sharper than our modern
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  idea of just wanting a nicer car or a bigger house.
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  OK, what did it mean to them? The sources breakdown the
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  etymology. It comes from pleon, meaning
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  more, and echo meaning to have. It signifies an arrogant,
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  insatiable, ruthless desire to have more at the expense of
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  others. And Paul does something massive
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  here. He does not just say do not be
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  greedy. He explicitly equates pleonexia
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  with idolatria. Greed is idolatry.
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  We have to understand this in the context of the ancient
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  agrarian world. In that society, wealth was
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  viewed as a limited good. Meaning there is only so much to
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  go around. Right.
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  The pie was only so big. If you are a farmer and you
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  figure out a way to hoard an enormous amount of grain, you
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  are not just being a savvy businessman.
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  You are taking someone else's slice of the pie.
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  In the eyes of that community, you are actively depriving your
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  neighbor of food. It was an antisocial vice.
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  But Paul goes further than social critique.
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  He calls it the worship of a false God.
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  Why? Why is it actual worship?
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  Because the person who hoards wealth places their ultimate
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  trust, their security, and their affection in the created thing
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  rather than the creator. You trust the bank account to
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  save them, not God. Correct, but the sources argue
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  that modern Western churches have a massive blind spot.
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  Here. Oh, totally.
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  We heavily discipline the first sins on Paul's list.
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  We rightly condemn sexual immorality.
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  But we completely excuse or even praise Plea Anexia.
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  We rename it. We call it financial
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  stewardship. We call it prudent savings.
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  We call it frugality or ambition.
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  Yes, we dress it up. We take a vice that Paul says is
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  literal idolatry. We put a suit and tie on it, we
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  baptize it, and we put it on the board of elders.
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  The text states that a congregation that disciplines
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  adultery but excuses malicious gossip or the hoarding of wealth
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  has drastically misread the text.
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  We have prioritized sins based entirely on cultural discomfort.
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  Exactly. Our society finds sexual
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  misconduct scandalous, but we discipline it.
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  Our capitalistic society finds the relentless accumulation of
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  wealth admirable, so we praise it.
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  But God's Word demands the execution of every vice,
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  especially the ones our culture praises.
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  I want to try an analogy here because this is sticking with
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  me. OK, let's hear it.
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  It is like a homeowner who installs a state-of-the-art
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  security system. They put sensors on every
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  window. If a teenager throws a baseball
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  and breaks a window pane, alarms blare, lights flash and the
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  police are called immediately. Massive response.
• 18:43
  Right. It is a huge response to a
• 18:45
  broken window. But meanwhile, down in the
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  basement, there is a raging electrical fire burning through
• 18:49
  the support beams of the house. The smoke is filling the rooms,
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  the floorboards are getting hot, but the security system is
• 18:56
  completely silent. It was never programmed to
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  detect fire. That is a striking image.
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  The church is sounding the alarm over the broken windows of
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  visible moral failures while remaining completely silent as
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  the fire of Pleinexia burns down the foundation of the
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  congregation. We sit in the smoke wondering
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  why it is hard to breathe while ignoring the flames.
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  Why are we so quick to rank sins based on societal discomfort
• 19:21
  instead of biblical metrics? Why do we ignore the fire?
• 19:24
  Because the fire keeps us warm, we like the security that wealth
• 19:28
  provides. We like the illusion of control.
• 19:30
  To see the sheer danger of this sanitized, baptized greed, the
• 19:35
  sources point us directly to the words of Christ himself.
• 19:38
  We have to look at the parable of the ritual and the Gospel of
• 19:40
  Luke. Chapter 12 set the context for
• 19:42
  this parable. Jesus does not just tell the
• 19:44
  story out of nowhere, there is an occasion that prompts it.
• 19:47
  Right. Jesus is in the middle of
• 19:49
  teaching a massive crowd. He is giving severe warnings
• 19:53
  about hypocrisy, about fearing God who has the authority to
• 19:56
  cast into hell, and about confessing Him before men.
• 20:00
  Weighty stuff. Very weighty.
• 20:02
  But suddenly a man in the crowd interrupts the sermon.
• 20:04
  He demands master speak to my brother that he divide the
• 20:09
  inheritance with me. Think about the audacity of
• 20:11
  that. This man is entirely consumed by
• 20:14
  his financial dispute. He has the Son of God standing
• 20:17
  in front of him teaching eternal truths, and all he can think
• 20:20
  about is getting his cut of the family estate.
• 20:22
  He assumes that justice consists of securing his temporal
• 20:25
  financial rights, But Jesus responds with a severe universal
• 20:29
  warning. He says, take heed and beware of
• 20:32
  covetousness, for a man's life consists of not in the abundance
• 20:36
  of the things which he possesseth.
• 20:37
  And then he tells the parable, the story of a farmer whose land
• 20:40
  produces a massive, abundant harvest.
• 20:43
  And the sources provide a brilliant analysis of the syntax
• 20:46
  of the farmer's internal dialogue in the Greek text.
• 20:48
  The grammar itself exposes the man's heart.
• 20:51
  His speech is entirely dominated by the pronouns I and my, he
• 20:55
  says. What shall I do?
• 20:57
  Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits.
• 21:00
  And he said, This will I do. I will pull down my barns and
• 21:03
  build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my
• 21:05
  goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul,
• 21:08
  Thou hast much goods laid up for many years.
• 21:11
  Take sign ease, eat, drink and be merry.
• 21:13
  My fruits, my barns, my goods, my soul.
• 21:16
  He does not mention God once, not once.
• 21:18
  He does not mention his neighbors or the poor.
• 21:20
  It is a monologue of total self absorption.
• 21:23
  He is utterly isolated, he is operating as a practical
• 21:26
  atheist, he yields an abundant harvest, and he never looks up
• 21:30
  to heaven to say thank you. He only looks at his barns and
• 21:32
  starts drawing up blueprints for bigger ones.
• 21:35
  And look at his ultimate goal, he tells his soul to Anapuo.
• 21:38
  What does anapuo mean? It means to take thine ease.
• 21:42
  The text notes that this is the ancient equivalent of the modern
• 21:45
  autonomous retirement dream. The American Dream.
• 21:47
  Yes, ceasing from labor to indulge the flesh, entirely
• 21:51
  reliant on accumulated wealth, totally independent from anyone
• 21:54
  else. If that man lived today, society
• 21:57
  would put him on the cover of a financial magazine.
• 22:00
  He would be the keynote speaker at a wealth management seminar.
• 22:02
  People would pay for his master class.
• 22:04
  Absolutely. He yielded a huge harvest.
• 22:07
  He expanded his infrastructure, he secured his future.
• 22:10
  He did everything right, according bring to the cultural
• 22:13
  air we breathe. He won the game.
• 22:15
  But God's response shatters that illusion of control completely.
• 22:20
  God speaks and says, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be
• 22:24
  required of thee. Thou fool, that is a terrifying
• 22:27
  verdict from the Creator. And the terror is amplified when
• 22:30
  you look at the Greek word used for required.
• 22:33
  The word is apatuzum. It is a commercial term.
• 22:36
  Oh wait, like a banking term? Yeah, spot on.
• 22:38
  It was specifically used for calling in a loan.
• 22:40
  Oh wow, so God is using the language of banking against the
• 22:43
  man who trusted in his barn. Yes, the man thought he owned
• 22:47
  his life. He thought he owned his grain.
• 22:49
  God reveals that his very breath, his very existence, was
• 22:52
  merely a loan from the Creator. And that night the debt is due,
• 22:57
  the loan is called in. If we connect this to the bigger
• 23:00
  picture, the implications for the modern reader are
• 23:02
  staggering. Think about everyone listening
• 23:04
  right now who checks their 401K balance constantly feeling
• 23:08
  anxious when the market dips. This parable completely
• 23:10
  demolishes the modern ideal of absolute self-sufficiency.
• 23:15
  It proves that storing excess while ignoring the destitute is
• 23:18
  not financial literacy, is idolatry.
• 23:21
  It exposes the lie that material accumulation provides any real
• 23:25
  security against the divine decree.
• 23:27
  This wealthy man committed what our society considers A virtue,
• 23:32
  but the sovereign God labeled him a fool because he laid up
• 23:35
  treasure for himself and was not rich toward Dodd.
• 23:37
  It is a devastating critique of how we view our bank accounts.
• 23:41
  We think we are being responsible, but if we are
• 23:43
  hoarding while our neighbor starves, we are burying our own
• 23:46
  hearts under all that grain. We really are.
• 23:48
  So if executing the old self, killing this idolatrous greed
• 23:52
  and rejecting autonomous wealth is the defensive posture of the
• 23:55
  believer, what is the offensive posture?
• 23:58
  We talked about mortification, putting sin to death.
• 24:00
  Now we need to look at vivification.
• 24:02
  What is the new clothing the Believer must wear?
• 24:04
  We return to Colossians chapter 3, moving to verse 12.
• 24:09
  The transition is marked by the Greek verb and dusas.
• 24:12
  And what does that signify? It is an Aoris middle
• 24:15
  imperative, and it means to clothe oneself or to change
• 24:18
  garments. You have stripped off the filthy
• 24:21
  rags of the old humanity, the anger, the greed, the slander.
• 24:25
  Now you must deliberately put on new garments.
• 24:27
  You cannot just walk around morally unclothed.
• 24:30
  You have to put something on. But Paul bases this command on a
• 24:33
  very specific identity, right? He does not just say be nice.
• 24:37
  Yes, and this is crucial. He addresses the believers as
• 24:40
  eclectoy, which means the elect or the chosen ones.
• 24:44
  He calls them holy and beloved. Why does that matter so much for
• 24:47
  how we understand virtue? Because it means the Christian
• 24:50
  virtue flows entirely from sovereign election, not from
• 24:53
  human merit. So it is not about earning it.
• 24:55
  Not at all. We do not produce these virtues
• 24:58
  to earn God's favor. We do not act humble so that God
• 25:00
  will finally accept us. We clothe ourselves in these
• 25:03
  virtues because God has already sovereignly elected, set apart,
• 25:06
  and loved us. The action is a response to
• 25:09
  grace, not a payment for grace. Exactly right, and the garments
• 25:13
  Paul commands them to put on are shocking.
• 25:15
  He lists virtues like kindness, meekness, longsuffering and Tema
• 25:20
  for Sunnin. There is another Greek word.
• 25:22
  What does Tipina for Zuna refer to?
• 25:25
  It translates to lowliness of mind or humility.
• 25:28
  Now we read the word humility today and we generally think of
• 25:31
  it as a nice pull out trait, someone who does not brag too
• 25:34
  much. Yeah.
• 25:35
  Just being modest. But the sources highlight a
• 25:38
  shocking historical detail. The Romans viewed humility as a
• 25:42
  vice. Of vice.
• 25:44
  They thought humility was a bad thing.
• 25:45
  Why? To understand why, you have to
• 25:48
  understand the Roman patron client system.
• 25:50
  OK, what was that? The entire society ran on a
• 25:52
  strict social ladder of favors, debts, and dominance.
• 25:56
  A noble Roman citizen was expected to assert his rights,
• 25:59
  demand, honor and dominate those beneath him.
• 26:01
  It was a flex culture. Very much so.
• 26:03
  Humility meant you were vulnerable.
• 26:04
  It meant you could not defend your social standing.
• 26:07
  In the Greco Roman world, humility was viewed as the
• 26:09
  disposition of a slave. Wow.
• 26:11
  It meant you were weak. Contempt and easily crushed by
• 26:14
  stronger men. Yet Paul takes this word, this
• 26:17
  concept that the culture despises and views as a literal
• 26:20
  danger to social survival, and he elevates it to a supreme
• 26:24
  Christian virtue. He commands the chosen ones of
• 26:28
  God to dress themselves in the mindset of a slave.
• 26:31
  And over all these virtues, Paul says to put on a gapy love.
• 26:35
  He describes this love as the binding perfection, the sendis
• 26:38
  most toes teliotatos. Meaning it holds it all
• 26:41
  together. Exactly.
• 26:42
  Love is what ties all the other garments together.
• 26:44
  Patience without love becomes cold endurance.
• 26:47
  Truth without love becomes brutality.
• 26:50
  But love binds the Christian life together.
• 26:52
  OK, I have to push back here on the practicality of this.
• 26:55
  Let's step out of the 1st century and into a modern office
• 26:58
  building. OK, let's do it.
• 26:59
  If we look at the reality of running a society or a business,
• 27:01
  or even organizing a large modern institution, does not a
• 27:05
  society need aggressive leadership?
• 27:08
  Does it not need self promotion, the assertion of personal rights
• 27:11
  and a competitive drive to function efficiently?
• 27:13
  That is the argument the world makes.
• 27:15
  If I go into my corporate job tomorrow and act like a 1st
• 27:18
  century servant, yielding my rights and taking the lowest
• 27:21
  seat, I do not get promoted, I get fired.
• 27:24
  I get walked all over. How does a local church operate?
• 27:27
  How does it survive in a hostile culture if everyone is acting
• 27:31
  like a subordinate instead of a modern CEO?
• 27:34
  That tension you were describing is the exact collision the texts
• 27:37
  are talking about. What is fascinating here is that
• 27:40
  biblical virtue is not the spontaneous, authentic bubbling
• 27:44
  up of good deeds that the current culture prefers.
• 27:47
  We love the idea of being true to yourself.
• 27:49
  But Paul describes A deliberate discipline, clothing of oneself
• 27:53
  in the character of Christ. And yes, this character stands
• 27:56
  in fierce direct opposition to the secular obsession with
• 27:59
  dominant leadership models. So we are essentially called to
• 28:02
  lose the corporate game on purpose.
• 28:04
  The culture praises the charismatic leader who dominates
• 28:07
  the room, the alpha personality who takes charge and crushes the
• 28:10
  competition. And the Scriptures praise the
• 28:12
  submissive follower who bears the burdens of his brethren.
• 28:16
  Christ himself said that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded
• 28:18
  over them. But it shall not be so among
• 28:20
  you. Whoever would be great among you
• 28:22
  must be your servant. We have to realize that the
• 28:24
  Church was never intended to adopt the leadership models of
• 28:27
  the Roman Senate or the modern corporate boardroom.
• 28:30
  It is not a business. The church is intended to be an
• 28:32
  outpost of radical, self effacing love.
• 28:35
  It is supposed to look utterly alien to the surrounding
• 28:39
  culture. When you bring your corporate
• 28:41
  survival instincts into the Covenant community, you poison
• 28:45
  the well we. Want the church to run like a
• 28:47
  Fortune 500 company, but God wants it to run like a family of
• 28:51
  forgiven servants? This direct clash between the
• 28:54
  virtues of the biblical text and the virtues of the modern
• 28:56
  boardroom leads straight to the practical modern day
• 28:59
  applications detailed in our sources.
• 29:01
  We are talking about smashing modern idols.
• 29:04
  The sources are unrelenting here.
• 29:06
  They call out specific modern idols that have infected the
• 29:09
  church. They point to the prosperity
• 29:11
  gospel, to seeker sensitive pragmatism, and to the the
• 29:14
  cultural idol of tolerance. Let's break those down.
• 29:17
  The prosperity gospel. We talked earlier about
• 29:20
  pleonexia, greed being literal idolatry.
• 29:23
  It is the fire in the basement. And the prosperity gospel
• 29:27
  blasphemously treats pleonexia as a divine blessing, which is.
• 29:32
  Horrifying. It takes the very thing Paul
• 29:34
  says brings the wrath of God, the insatiable desire for more
• 29:38
  earthly wealth, and tells congregations that God desires
• 29:41
  them to build bigger barns. It is a complete inversion of
• 29:45
  the biblical text. It tells the rich fool that he
• 29:47
  is actually the hero of the story.
• 29:49
  It tells him God is thrilled with his massive silos.
• 29:52
  It does. Then the sources address seeker
• 29:55
  sensitive pragmatism. This is the movement that
• 29:58
  abandons the exposition of Scripture in favor of what the
• 30:01
  text calls secular business seminars.
• 30:04
  The pulpit is used to teach people how to maximize their
• 30:07
  potential, how to achieve their dreams, and how to be better
• 30:10
  leaders. I mean, it sounds good to the
• 30:11
  cultural ear. It sounds helpful.
• 30:13
  If people are struggling at work, why not give them
• 30:14
  leadership tips on Sunday? Right, because it relies on
• 30:17
  technique and therapeutic messaging rather than the word
• 30:20
  of Christ dwelling abundantly. It assumes that if we just use
• 30:23
  the right marketing strategies and offer the right self help
• 30:26
  advice, we he can build the church.
• 30:28
  But programs cannot replace the word.
• 30:31
  Leadership methods cannot sanctify a soul.
• 30:34
  The church does not need slightly improved cultural
• 30:36
  respectability. It needs renewed minds and
• 30:39
  hearts ruled by the peace of Christ.
• 30:42
  When you replace the Gospel with a Ted Talk, you strip the Church
• 30:45
  of its actual authority. And then there is the massive
• 30:48
  cultural idol of tolerance. In our modern society, tolerance
• 30:52
  is heralded as the absolute highest good.
• 30:54
  You must affirm all beliefs, all behaviors, all lifestyles as
• 30:58
  equally valid. If you say someone is wrong or
• 31:01
  that a behavior is sinful, you are committing the ultimate
• 31:04
  cultural sin. The secular concept of tolerance
• 31:06
  demands affirming everything. But the sources argue that
• 31:09
  biblical love rejoices in the truth.
• 31:12
  It does not compromise with lies.
• 31:13
  The apostle Paul did not tolerate the vices of the flesh.
• 31:16
  He commanded their violent execution.
• 31:18
  True Christian love requires the mortification of fleshly vices,
• 31:21
  not the celebration of them. We cannot tolerate teachings
• 31:24
  that deceive the souls of men. But there is a trap here, is
• 31:28
  there not? When we push back against the
• 31:30
  culture, when we stand up for biblical truth, we can very
• 31:33
  easily slip into a different kind of vice.
• 31:36
  I am thinking specifically about how we conduct ourselves when we
• 31:39
  disagree. Yes, the text gives a very sharp
• 31:42
  example regarding modern controversies.
• 31:44
  The Internet and social media heavily reward outrage and
• 31:47
  cruelty. You get rewarded with attention,
• 31:50
  with likes and retweets when you destroy your opponent with
• 31:53
  mockery or harshness. You see it everyday.
• 31:56
  People tearing each other apart online and doing it under the
• 31:58
  banner of defending the truth. The discernment bloggers who
• 32:01
  spend all day mocking people they disagree with.
• 32:03
  But Paul explicitly commands the church to put away anger, wrath,
• 32:07
  malice, and slander. Now, bold rebuke of error is
• 32:10
  entirely biblical. Christ rebuked the Pharisees.
• 32:13
  Paul rebuked Peter to his face. But fleshly rage, the kind of
• 32:16
  bitter, cruel outrage we see online, is often baptized by
• 32:19
  Christians as courage or conviction.
• 32:22
  They think because they are arguing for a theological truth,
• 32:25
  their malice is justified. But Paul says that anger and
• 32:29
  slander belong to the old self, their grave clothes.
• 32:32
  A church that is doctrinally precise but verbally cruel is
• 32:36
  not displaying the renewal of the image of the Creator.
• 32:39
  We excuse our own anger because we think our cause is righteous.
• 32:43
  We use the right theological words, but we speak them with
• 32:46
  the tongue of the old, unredeemed humanity.
• 32:48
  We wear the grave clothes and call it armor.
• 32:51
  This raises an important question, one the sources pose
• 32:54
  directly to the conscience of the reader.
• 32:57
  Are you reading the Bible to find support for your
• 32:59
  preconceived notions of liberty, self-sufficiency, and financial
• 33:03
  security? Or are you letting the
• 33:05
  terrifying and glorious light of divine revelation expose your
• 33:08
  lack of Christ like compassion? Are you allowing the Word of God
• 33:11
  to act as the anvil that shatters your opinions?
• 33:14
  That is a heavy diagnostic question.
• 33:17
  It forces you to look at your own heart, your bank account,
• 33:19
  your social media posts, your entire worldview and ask who is
• 33:22
  actually in charge. Is the culture sitting on the
• 33:25
  throne wearing a Christian T-shirt, or is the risen Christ
• 33:28
  ruling? And we must remember, Christian
• 33:30
  obedience is never about self salvation.
• 33:32
  The text guards heavily against moralism.
• 33:35
  We're not putting on these virtues so that Christ will
• 33:36
  eventually receive us. We put them on because our life
• 33:40
  is already hidden with Christ in God.
• 33:43
  Our obedience is grateful life in Christ.
• 33:46
  The church must ensure that the Word of Christ dwells abundantly
• 33:49
  in the congregation. Because that is the only way to
• 33:51
  challenge the overwhelming, constant voices of the nation,
• 33:55
  of class prejudice, of entertainment, and of our own
• 33:57
  personal desires. Exactly.
• 33:59
  As we wrap up this deep dive into these texts, I want to
• 34:01
  leave you, the listener, with a final thought to Mull over.
• 34:05
  We talked at the very beginning about the fable of The Little
• 34:09
  Red Hen, a simple, harmless looking children's story that
• 34:12
  actually has the capacity to subtly train your conscience
• 34:16
  against the radical generosity of Jesus Christ.
• 34:18
  It plants a seed to self-sufficiency that grows into
• 34:21
  a massive oak tree of resistance against the commands of the
• 34:23
  gospel. So here is the question you need
• 34:25
  to explore on your own. What other beloved stories, what
• 34:29
  other blockbuster movies, what other national myths are
• 34:32
  secretly acting as an anti catechism in your daily life?
• 34:35
  That is a great question to ask. Think about the media you
• 34:38
  consume. Think about the historical
• 34:40
  heroes you admire. Think about the slogans you
• 34:43
  repeat. When you watch a movie where the
• 34:45
  hero enacts bloody revenge and you cheer for him, what is that
• 34:49
  doing to your theology of forgiveness?
• 34:51
  It is shaping you whether you know it or not.
• 34:53
  What is the hidden curriculum you consume every single day,
• 34:56
  and how is it quietly, subconsciously rewriting your
• 34:59
  Bible? Are you reading the text with
• 35:01
  the clear eyes of a citizen of heaven, or are you reading it
• 35:04
  through the heavily tinted sunglasses of the society around
• 35:07
  you? Thank you for listening to
• 35:09
  Reformed Thinking.