As you likely do not know, every morning I read one very short essay in a small religiously conservative Daily Devotional magazine published by the denomination of the church that I attend. People from across the denomination, and others, submit a brief thought from their religious experience to share with readers. The purpose of each essay is to encourage the faith of the readers of the magazine. I initially began reading the magazine as an academic experiment to see if it is possible to identify the gender of the writers, but I have come to discover a second reason for reading. It is to get a sense of what is going on in the heads of those who occupy pews in the modern church, to sense the contemporary faith of believers of the modern Christian tradition. These are the anonymous voices of men and women from around the world, from the church’s mission fields and other countries, and from the New York Islands to San Francisco Bay. They are everybody and nobody, and represent all levels of the educational systems of the world; mostly, however, they are everyone’s next door neighbor. And their voices are all intensely religious, and trinitarian in orientation.
I was a bit confused by an essay I recently read one morning, however. The writer averred that “a pure heart reflects…a desire to please Jesus…” I was under the impression that the Bible holds up Yahweh, the God of Biblical faith, as the setter of standards for the way one lives one’s life in the Christian tradition. That is to say: people who consider themselves children of the God of the Bible, should aim to please God, or at least the biblical writers seem to think so (for example, Micah 6:6–8; 1 John 3:19–22). Aiming to please Jesus with one’s living may be traditional orthodox Christian theology but it is not Biblical theology. Pleasing Jesus is a statement based on the fourth-century church’s belief that God is a three-in-one whole, a Trinity, comprised of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three divine entities are depicted in the Bible as being separate entities until they were declared to be one by Church councils in the fourth century.1
There are at least three passages that attest to a belief in the oneness of God among the earliest followers of the Jesus way. The first is from the Bible used by the earliest followers of Jesus: Deut 6:4, “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” The second is from Mark 12:29–30, where Jesus quotes from Deut 6:4, showing that followers of the Jesus way believed that Jesus shared this belief. The third is a liturgical or confessional statement from 1st Tim 6:4, “For God is one, and one mediator of God and humanity, a human being, Lord Jesus, the Anointed…” This confession shows distinct and different roles for God and Jesus.2 God is God, and Jesus, a human being, is the mediator between God and humanity. I suspect the earliest followers of Jesus who made this confession would be quite surprised at the attempt to interpret God’s oneness as meaning three distinct figures constitute one God.
There is a similar liturgical/confessional statement in 1 Cor 8:6 that contrasts with 1st Tim 6:4 both in the role of Jesus and in the character of God’s oneness. In this confession Jesus appears to play a part in creation, which appears either to make him share in the divine nature (a duality) or be a second divine entity. From the context (8:4–5), a second contrast is that the oneness of God is clearly intended to contrast with the many Gods of polytheism. That is to say, we affirm one God in contrast to the many Gods of paganism. Most of the creedal-like statements in the New Testament share a similar view as 1 Cor 8:6,3 which makes 1 Tim 6:4 all the more unusual in its naming of Jesus only as one the mediator and lacking the higher Christology of other confessions.
Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University
1Hedrick, What the Church Doesn’t Tell You. Pondering Christian Tradition (Eugene, OR: Pickwick: 2026), 232-36.
2My translation. See, What the Church Doesn’t Tell You, 215-18 for a discussion of the passage.
3For example, Col 1:15–20; Phil 2:5–11; Heb 1:1-4.
4 comments:
I’m curious, Charlie. Why did you select a conservative, evangelical church?. Geography? Familiar hymns?. A reminder of home? I chose just the opposite, a very progressive church with which I do not always agree, but I’ve come to the realization that I’ll never find a church that checks all the boxes. I especially like the class I attend before church; it feeds my soul and my intellect. John White is a member. There are about 24 of us, usually 15 or so on any given Sunday, more men than women.
Good morning, Marcia! As I look back, it was not a conscious decision. When we came to Springfield we just continued with what we knew. It was only later that I discovered that I was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. We did not change to a more progressive church, as you put it, because we had made friends at First Baptist and they tended to overlook my lack of fit. When we were forced to move near children because of Peg's illness. I made the decision to stay with what we knew because I knew it was comfortable for her. Now that she is gone I have stayed with the Baptist tradition because of a sense of responsibility to the tradition and because I have developed something of a gadfly mentality--wanting to "give back" in a subtle way. I speak to this gadfly role in my latest book: "What the Church Doesn't Tell You. Pondering Christian Tradition," published just this month by Pickwick Press (an agency of Wipf and Stock Publishers). As things stand now, I would likely be an odd fit (as one former pastor at Springfield once said of me) wherever I attended, as you even suggested about yourself above. I have consciously not put to myself the question of what should I do now, although I do subconsciously ponder it.
Cordially, Charlie
I’m pondering the same types of questions Charlie, not just church related, but other areas as well… That’s why your blog is so important and meaningful to me. And your latest book sounds very relevant and intriguing!!
But I Tim. 6:4…. Boy that’s a head scratcher, talk about attempting to finesse the dogma! Just mind boggling how brainwashed I allowed myself to be in my younger years.
Elizabeth in St. Louis ⚜️
Hi Elizabeth,
I don't say everything I think in blogs or in the last two book but what I do say I am honest with myself, and honest with the reader. Churches believe that what they teach comes from God and that being the case they would be hard pressed not to "brainwash" its membership and its youth. To do otherwise would be being unfaithful. to God. Or so the leadership must think. It is hard to extricate oneself from a situation like that.
Charlie
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