Comparing Differing Views on Righteousness
This section will briefly examine what some would perhaps think this chapter would be all about: what sort of rules does the New Testament lay down for daily life? What does righteous conduct look like? What is sinful? Of course the Bible contains some such rules, but not any systemized lists like you’ll find in modern law codes, or even in denominational manuals, handbooks, or catechisms. The few instances of what resembles a list of right and wrong conduct in the New Testament can be quite broad. One of the most well-known are the works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit found in Galatians 5. I have often observed in lectures that the works of the flesh are largely things you can find in a church setting rather than a brothel as one might expect: gossip, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy. Of course there’s good old fashioned debauchery and fornication too, which are also not always confined to the exterior of churches. Fruits of the Spirit, on the other hand, are positive concepts such as love, joy, peace, patience, etc. These certainly seem like great virtues, but they are quite broad. James is one of the most specific of what good conduct looks like, such as minding the tongue and caring for the poor. Yet it seems reasonable to conclude that the author never intended such a short letter to encompass all the rules that should govern the life of a God-fearer.
So kudos to the New Testament writers for not getting bogged down in the minutia of rules. But inquiring minds want to know. The Jews did, which is why rabbinic traditions evolved all sorts of complicated systems of rules for how one was to honor the Torah, which had not seen fit to provide such details, a topic touched on in previous chapters above. The Christians would carry on this tradition in their own—often (but not always) unique—ways. The development of the institution of the church and the growth of teachings that established it in the first couple of centuries after the apostles all died out is in particular a fascinating topic. Innovations abounded, even early on. And what are all the rules surrounding sacraments like baptism and the eucharist that the New Testament does not clarify? What about the order of the worship service itself? What about the governing structure of the church? Such questions are still debated to this day, and the rules are more prolific than the myriad theologians and the denominations that promulgate them.
Surprisingly for moderns, one of the most inexplicit teachings of the New Testament is one of the things it most teaches on: sex. This has not stopped modern conservative believers from explaining what the rules are about sex that the New Testament did not see fit to explain. To see this phenomenon, just look at all the occurrences of porneia[1], and how little is said about what constitutes it. To see just how broad this term must be, I would point the reader to Hebrews 13’s statement that the marriage bed is undefiled; presumably, any other bed would be defiled. We’ll come back to sex in a moment.
Apart from being laconic and broad, what other interesting aspects of the New Testament’s moral teachings can we observe? Here are merely a couple to give the reader practice in finding them, and they’re found in one of the most ignored books of the New Testament, since it contains much that is foreign to the modern mind: Revelation.
Christianity was born out of a strong Jewish apocalyptic world-view, which typically despised the current government, but the New Testament writers almost all go particularly easy on the Roman government. Though it was the Romans that actually killed Jesus, authors of the New Testament who spoke on the matter are pretty much unanimous in laying the blame at the feet of the Jews. Rome was merely God’s instrument for punishing them. The gospels curiously make no mention of the strife between Jewish ideologies and their chafing under Roman rule that are quite prevalent in Josephus, a close contemporary of the gospel writers. And this despite the fact that Josephus also pandered to the Romans and often blamed the Jews for when the Romans had to crack down on them. Paul even goes so far as to say that faithful followers of Christ should submit completely to the ruling authorities, for they were ministers of God himself![2] This is powerful language. But Revelation is a whole different story. It’s hard to imagine a more anti-establishment/government work of Jewish apocalypticism. Although there is a big debate about whether Revelation preaches against Jerusalem or Rome, I’m going to argue that it does both. Revelation 11 obviously speaks of judgment on Jerusalem, but chapter 13 begins to speak against Rome, and some secular scholars have even tried nailing down which Roman rulers are represented in the 10 kings depicted there.
While we’re on the topic of how different Revelation is from most of the New Testament, I should point out what a different view it seems to have for one of the most influential aspects of human existence: sexuality.[3] But Revelation is not the only place where we find this radical teaching; it is found in a couple of other places of the New Testament. Moderns in the West tend to assume that the nuclear family is a biblical view of the family; and certainly, there are many passages that seem to assume such an institution, and regulations that govern it.[4] The ascetic, family-free life seems foreign to the modern mind, even though it was held as an ideal in the West even through the medieval period. But we should not forget that it was highly revered in the first century, when Josephus admired the piety of the Essenes,[5] a celibate, communal group of Jews. In fact, there are some striking parallels between them and the disciples of Jesus: e.g., they shared property communally, traveled without baggage, and avoided swearing. But one of the most striking parallels between them and the teachings of Jesus is something rarely emphasized in churches today: Jesus actually taught celibacy as an ideal.[6] For those able to accept it, he literally commanded it. Note that the teachings of Matthew 19 fit together as a coherent group of teachings about how to live a pious life, from marriage to sharing one’s goods with the poor. Jesus begins a radical teaching on marriage and divorce, then gives an even more radical teaching that there is something better than marriage: celibacy. Skip down to the verse 29, and he even teaches that those who for the sake of the kingdom leave houses of brothers or sisters, fathers or mothers, even wife and children will be blessed with heavenly reward! How can humanity endure if they follow such an ideal of non-procreation? Recall that the end of the age was at hand, and there were neither male nor female nor marriage in the resurrection (22:30): non-marriage then is an aspect of the spiritual ideal. And Paul obeyed this teaching! Paul also gave commands about the family, but taught that the celibate life was superior. Although he commands people to marry who cannot control their desire, he explicitly says that this is not the greatest ideal. Celibacy is.[7] I always heard 1 Corinthians 7 taught in the context of the “coming distress” that Paul references; however, this is not the only reason he gives for celibacy being the greatest ideal to govern human daily life; he understood it just as the ascetics of his time and later centuries understood it: the celibate could better set their mind on God. Similarly in Revelation we find a curious detail that probably gets overlooked in most Sunday schools. There is a group of 144,000 who are called the firstfruits of God’s elect. These presumably are first among God’s saved. What is the very first detail that tells us what is different about them, how they were more faithful to God than other men? (And yes, they were all men.) They were virgins!
The requirement to teach the gospel seems to be a big deal in the New Testament. So it is interesting to see how many different ways that that message is presented. I’ve already covered some differences in its presentation. Paul particularly taught a much more doctrine-based gospel, where Jesus himself was the message. This one is much more familiar to moderns. In the gospels on the other hand, Jesus, John, and their disciples all taught a gospel of the kingdom being at hand, and a vehement call for repentance before it was too late. Jesus sent his disciples to the surrounding towns with both good news and bad news. It’s hard to imagine preachers today telling a whole town that if they don’t repent that the whole town will be shortly destroyed, but that was their gospel then. The book of Acts extrapolates this teaching and applies it not just to the towns of Israel where Jesus sent his disciples, but to the cities of the broader Mediterranean world. To read the next section on how radical was the new teaching that there was a God who became a man and was to be worshipped in addition to God the father, check out my book here.
[1] Strong’s 4202
[2] Romans 13:1-5
[3] For a shockingly horrifying realization of how sex has shaped human history, and continues to do so, see the free online Yale course “Global Problems of Population Growth.”
[4] E.g., Ephesians 6:1-4. For what I believe are an interesting mix of anti-modern and modern interpretations of biblical teachings on sexuality, see Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation, by Dale Martin.
[5] The Jewish War, Book II, 8.2-12.
[6] Matthew 19:11-12, 29
[7] I Corinthians 7:1-15; 25-40.