Great Greek greeting

This past year, the video game Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was a smash hit. For Grecophiles, it was delightful to watch the rest of the world engage with the golden age of Greece. The scenery, linguistics, and characterization displayed careful scholarship. [In fact, there were only a few errors I noticed, mostly silly emphases tied to modern political correctness.]

One of the best parts was the greeting of “grace” spoken by characters as they began or concluded conversations. This was common courtesy in the Hellenized world, and the game shows it well. It also displays that the source of that wish for grace was the speaker. For example, if I were to address the local butcher, I might say, “Master butcher, grace to you.” But the source or granter of that grace often wouldn’t be named. The assumption was that I was the giver of grace.

It is such a world that the Apostle Paul gives his greetings to churches. The power of Ephesians 1:2 smashes the trite greetings of the Greco-Roman world. He offers grace and peace [an addendum seen fairly regularly in Greek letters], but declares that the source is not the human apostle. The gift is sent by God the Father and God the Son! Further, to the Christians, God is “our” Father and Jesus our Lord.

That’s a whole new level of grace greeting! We have grace, not because some tent-maker wished us well but because God the Father and Son have given what we don’t deserve and cannot earn – membership in the kingdom of God. Grace and peace indeed.

God bless,

Wayne

Pagan!

I recently received the first “my Christian friend at work says celebrating Christmas is wrong because it’s a pagan holiday” note of this December. In case you run into any of those, here was my reply:

Regarding the “pagan” holiday roots, I fear you will have little success with your friend. Once a personal stance of superior righteousness is adopted toward a topic, acquiescence become a self-identity fight. Just ask many of the vegans in our society.

There are pagan roots to every aspect of life this side of the garden. Surely if Paul could advocate eating meat sacrificed to Aphrodite then we can put up a Christmas tree. The key is the human heart and the focus of one’s worship, not the universally-tainted stuff of earth used in worship.

It’s intriguing to me that our Puritan forefathers rejected celebration of Christmas not because of any Solstice connections but mainly because they perceived it as Roman popery. It wasn’t until Washington Irving penned the first American bestseller that things began to shift. His Sketch Book contained Rip Van Winkle, Sleepy Hollow, etc., but it also has his reflections on an “Old Time” Christmas while visiting England. 100 years removed from the Pilgrimage, New Englanders saw via Irving that a jolly Christmas could be had without any “mass” at all; in fact, it was a lovely way to celebrate Jesus’ birth.

By the way, similar things can be said to those who complain of the title Xmas. That abbreviation was actually invented by Christians. In Greek, X is Chi, the first letter used to spell Christ. Far from pagan, Xmas was Christian shorthand for celebration of Christ’s birth.

God bless you with a jolly, old-fashioned, merry Xmas,

Wayne

Submission makes us stronger
Proverbs 29:1 reveals one of the most underappreciated and oft-resisted factors in growing wise: learning through submission.

When we bow up, pridefully nursing our real or supposed grievances, we actually become more fragile. When we refuse conviction and stiffen our necks to prove that we have it all together, we merely make our eventual break-down worse. Conversely, when we put ourselves in position to be beaten down with rebukes, it makes us stronger internally. Taking correction prepares us for long-term success. Submission makes us stronger.

No excuse
Further, the immediate context of the verse shows that one can’t blame anyone else for our lack of pliability. One cannot excuse lack of yielding to God just because the surrounding culture is good or bad.

This type of writing/editing is called an inclusio. The bookend verses before and after highlight and give context to the central point. Thus, that it doesn’t matter if everything around is wicked. That’s terrible, but it doesn’t change the individual responsibility to be trained through deference. We can learn from God even through the nastiest cultures. And conversely, just because times are good, that doesn’t excuse laziness in our growth. Good or bad surroundings don’t change the need to learn through submission.

Good Husbandry