Home » Posts tagged 'Paul' (Page 2)
Tag Archives: Paul
The Coddling of the American Mind, Questioning One’s Salvation, and Showing Grace and Mercy
Three veins of thought I recently read and heard come together into one theme for this post. Each of them intersected into a common orbit, like three strangers meeting at an English roundabout and deciding to stay. First I want to credit the three sources.
The first, The Coddling of the American Mind, was mentioned by popular linguist and author, Columbia professor John McWhorter at Substack in a part of his anti-anti-racist series, the article titled, Black Fragility as Black Strength. He borrowed from the recent conservative book, The Coddling of the American Mind, for the outline of his article. The title of that Lukianoff and Haidt book also takes from a now classic published in 1987 by University of Chicago professor, Allan Bloom, titled, The Closing of the American Mind. The coddling of the American mind is a later iteration of closing the American mind, both occurring on university campuses. Truth approaches a coddled mind and it closes like the Mimosa pudica to escape injury, remaining in error.
Questioning salvation is scriptural. At least two books of the New Testament, 1 John and James, have this as their subject matter. Parts of several other New Testament books speak to the unconverted in a mixed multitude, including Hebrews. Jesus Himself addresses this crowd. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.”
With an attitude of great surprise, Tim McKnight on his post, “Social Media: 7 Tips for Christians,” started with these two sentences:
Last night I experienced a first on social media. A person claiming to follow Jesus Christ questioned my salvation.
McKnight, a person claiming to follow Jesus Christ, questioned someone questioning his salvation. The Apostle Paul said, question people’s salvation, Jesus questioned people’s salvation, and every true evangelist will question someone’s salvation. It shouldn’t have been a first on social media, but this was considered an offense.
The above offense of questioning salvation then also dovetails with number three, a sermon I was listening to on Christian radio in our area, where the speaker was emphasizing “showing grace and mercy” to others. As I listened to his defining the practice, I tried to connect the practice to scripture. I understood from what he said that “showing grace and mercy” was a kind of toleration of unacceptable behavior, putting up with how others behave without saying anything. That might have become the standard understanding of the concept of showing grace and mercy.
Let me put this together. Coddled minds, who don’t want their salvation questioned, need us to show them grace and mercy by leaving them alone. The Apostle Paul didn’t coddle the Corinthians when he called on them to question their own salvation. Would he have done better to coddle them and would this have been to show them grace and mercy?
Often the Apostle Paul starts his three pastoral epistles with these almost identical statements:
Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.
The Elimination of Practices and Activities Deemed Dispensable By the Truth About Real Gain
You can do certain things. They’re permissible, sure. They’re not wrong per se. Paul argue that’s not how we should choose to do things. We might like them. They might be fun.
Paul could have made money off of his preaching. According to him in 1 Corinthians 9, he even deserved it. Those who preach of the gospel, he said, should live of the gospel. However, he willingly gave up that support for the sake of the gospel. As an evangelist or missionary, taking monetary support for preaching the gospel could diminish the effects of his preaching.
The money Paul could have made was a type of gain. It’s still a well-known type of gain. Gain is an economics term, like “capital gains.” Adam Smith in his classic, Wealth of Nations, begins chapter ten by saying:
The five following are the principal circumstances which, so far as I have been able to observe, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counterbalance a great one in others.
Then he names those five principles circumstances and elaborates on them. You see his use of the word “gain.” He uses it 17 times in that chapter. In the next paragraph, he writes:
Honour makes a great part of the reward of all honourable professions. In point of pecuniary gain, all things considered, they are generally under-recompensed, as I shall endeavour to show by and by. Disgrace has the contrary effect. The trade of a butcher is a brutal and an odious business; but it is in most places more profitable than the greater part of common trades. The most detestable of all employments, that of public executioner, is, in proportion to the quantity of work done, better paid than any common trade whatever.
He says that honor is the reward of certain honorouble professions, rather than “pecuniary gain.” “Pecuniary” is “related to or consisting of money.” He implies there are other types of gain, like honor. Honor is a kind of gain, not pecuniary, but one to be chosen over money apparently. The profession brings honor, if it doesn’t bring money.
The Apostle Paul refers to gain again and again in scripture, and this is seen in 1 Corinthians 9 in a section that most label as a section on Christian liberty. I respect that idea that 1 Corinthians 6-10 is about Christian liberty. I don’t mind it, but it is worth looking at it from the perspective of the definition of real gain.
God created man for a relationship with Him. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 16:26,
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
There’s that word “gain.” The implication here is that someone profits nothing, even if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul. Luke 9:25 says,
For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?
In the King James Version, Paul uses the word “gain” five times. He writes first in 1 Corinthians 9:19,
For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.
Recent Comments