Theology is my great interest and hobby. I just finished a lecture series on Augustine delivered by Prof. Phillip Carey of Eastern University. It was hugely interesting and fun for me to listen to this gifted professor bring the ancient theologian to life. What I have discovered from two and a half decades of ministry and my personal study of church history is that theology provides a way to systematically grasp the big themes of the Bible like God, Christ and all those multi-syllabic words. Theology not only helps us to understand our God and our faith; but, it assists us in guarding against heresy. As a matter of fact, the history of theology is largely the record of the church defending itself against a myriad of false teachings and dangerous notions. For instance, our understanding of the Triune nature of God was forged in the battle to secure the scriptural teaching of Christ’s divinity. Without theology, the doctrine of Christ’s divine nature would have been seriously threatened.

The big downside of theology is that it presents to us a picture of God that is accurate from one perspective but inaccurate from another. The accurate picture is that theology can help us peek behind the veil of the heavens and ever-so-slightly see the incredible wonder of an eternal God. The inaccurate picture is that this God can seem so transcendent that He, in some ways, appears disconnected from our everyday lives. It is great to grasp what is meant by God’s omnipresence but when I am hurting; such a concept seems very distant. This is why we need to always be studying the Bible.

The picture that the Bible gives us of God is very often in story form. From these stories we learn about God’s heart. He is the One that hears the cry of the Israelites in slavery and “comes down” to rescue them. Wow, what an awesome picture of God! He is the One who speaks through the mouths of the prophets and challenges His people to right their wrongs and “let justice roll down like a might flood.” Just the poetry of the prophets tells us about God’s artistry. The God of theology can seem so ancient, but the God of the Bible-story is forever young. Theologians and philosophers are old; David with his sling challenging Goliath in the “name of the Lord God of Israel” is a teenager! So, when I hurt or am struggling, guess where I turn—you guessed it, the Bible.

During this wonderful Easter season I am so grateful that I have been blessed with a passion and interest in theology. Theology has enriched my life and deepened my faith. I am also grateful that I have my Bible because it tells me that 2,000 years ago my Savior went to a lonely cross where He bled and died for me—and you. My Bible also tells me that three days later “up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes” and now I am forgiven. I am loved by the God of the universe! Can you believe that? I couldn’t believe such a thing without the Bible. And, by the way, you are loved too.

Well, batten down the hatches and get your survival gear out because it is “Be Kind to God Week”--the annual media full-court-press to discourage Christians is in full swing. You see, every Easter and Christmas the national media takes it upon itself to present what appears to be exciting new revelations about Christianity or Jesus, usually presented using classic Christian art, which is slyly designed to propagate a faith-deflating message. The typical headline goes something like this: “The Real Jesus Finally Uncovered.” Then the message goes something like this: “Jesus wasn’t what Christians have always believed him to be.” During this week the covers of the national news magazines like Time or Newsweek will have incredibly beautiful reprints of a Rembrandt or Renaissance paintings of the Savior but the text of the accompanying articles will be as poisonous to baby Christians as arsenic.

Okay, what’s on tap this year from the media? Last year it was the Gospel of Thomas; which is the darling of the famed “Jesus Seminar.” The Jesus Seminar is the group of so-called Christian scholars (many of whom do not believe in the deity or resurrection of Christ) that vote on which verses of the New Testament they think Jesus actually said. Needless to say, the Jesus Seminar gets massive attention from the national media while world-renowned conservative Christian scholars are ignored. Needless to say, the “Jesus” that the Seminar develops with its methods looks a lot like a religion professor from an elite American university with all of his secularist and left-leaning political positions in high visibility. The last few years the Gospel of Thomas has been front and center. It just so happens that the Gospel of Thomas was a second century fairy tale about Jesus from a group of Gnostic heretics living near Alexandria. Let’s be honest, the only reason such a spurious document would gain any attention is that it presents a Jesus that is not divine and, frankly, weird. But, this year it is the Judas Gospel. It has even made the front page of my local newspaper.

The group promoting the Gospel of Judas is the Maecenas Foundation in Basel, Switzerland. The director of the foundation, Mario Jean Roberty has said: "'We do not want to reveal the exceptional side of what we have,-- except that the Judas Iscariot text called into question some of the political principles of Christian doctrine." Oh, isn’t that interesting…hmm. National media articles sensing another “DaVinci Code” moment have noted: “The Roman Catholic Church limited the recognized gospels to the four in 325 AD, under the guidance of the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine. Thirty other texts - some of which have been uncovered - were sidelined because "they were difficult to reconcile with what Constantine wanted as a political doctrine." Get the picture—you can’t trust the Bible—you buffoons out there in those Red States that go to church.

Of course, the media consistently ignores actual history. The canonization of the New Testament was a long process that began well before Constantine and ended decisively decades after him. As early as Irenaeus in the 180s, the direct forerunners of the 4th century orthodox Christianity had already limited the gospels they recognized to the four we know today: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Constantine's political doctrines had nothing to do with the selection of the four or the exclusion of the others. It is pure unadulterated nonsense to suggest that the Bible came out a backroom process led by cigar-chomping politicians.

The essence of the “Be Kind to God Week” potshot about the Gospel of Judas is that Judas was actually a hero working collaboratively with Jesus. Net result—you can’t really trust the biblical narrative and the traditional Easter message. However, here are a couple of facts to help you dispense with the nonsense. The Judas manuscript is dated to a period between the beginning of the third and fourth centuries and it is the product, again, of Gnostic heretics with all their weirdness. Imagine if I told you that a document had surfaced that reversed our thinking about Benedict Arnold (Revolutionary War traitor) and George Washington. In fact, this document tells us that Benedict Arnold was actually the hero of the war. You would be stunned. But, you might ask, “When was this document written.” I would respond, well, in 1970 by a British soldier living in London. You would be—shall we say—a little incredulous. In other words, you’d laugh me out of your office or home. James F. Robinson, an expert on ancient Egyptian texts, regards the Judas Gospel as mostly a dud, produced by Cainite Gnostics who took it upon themselves to "rehabilitate" villains of the gospel story. Don’t fall for it.

It is at the heart of real love that the one who loves wills the good of the one he loves. Another way of saying the same thing is that real love requires that the lover wills the good of the loved one for the beloved’s sake—not for his own sake. If, however, we will someone’s good only because it leads to our own good, then we do not directly love the other person, we love them accidentally. For instance, a gourmet cook who wishes to prepare fantastic meals may say he loves fine foods but he only loves food by accident, however, he actually loves himself as the essence of his love—he loves himself with great food. God, on the other hand, wills the good of each and every thing He has created for the good of each thing. God does not will the good of any thing for what sociologists call “secondary gain.” Even in my finest moments, when I am doing my best for someone else, I am usually expecting some sort of “secondary gain” for my efforts (e.g. recognition, altruistic feelings, a “thank you,” etc.). My need for secondary gain gives away the fact that my love for others is usually about my love for me.

On the other hand, God wills each thing to exist as it is, for its own good. Rocks exist as rocks because God made them rocks and humans exist as humans because God made them so. This is an expression of God’s direct and essential love for things. Furthermore, while God delights in Himself because He is the only necessary being and therefore is fully satisfied in Himself; He also takes joy in all the other things He has created. God’s love and His joy for all things He has created are for themselves and not for any accidental or secondary gain. This is true love. This love led to the cross.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

This week I hosted some pastors from my denomination as a planning session for starting new churches. Guess what issue came up at the lunch table. Of course, it was the big national debate about immigration. I was seated next to a couple of young pastors one of which told us how he is essentially non-political but serves in a very conservative church. In his church some of his elders have voiced very strong concerns about illegal immigration but this pastor has cautioned them and asked them to consider how Jesus would handle the situation. He went on to say that we don’t know from Scripture exactly how Jesus would deal with the situation but we know that he would be very compassionate. That’s when I jumped in and offered, “We know exactly what we should do from Scripture.” At that point everyone around the table got a shocked look on their faces and asked me to explain. As you can imagine, I offered my input. Here is basically what I said.

Read Philemon.

If you don’t know the subject of the short epistle to Philemon, you should be aware that it is relevant to the illegal immigration issue. Philemon was the Christian man to whom Paul addressed the epistle. Apparently, Philemon’s slave Onesimus had run away and ended up in Rome and somehow been converted to Christianity, perhaps by Paul. Onesimus then became a beloved assistant to Paul during his imprisonment in Rome. Somewhere along the line, Paul became aware that Onesimus was a runaway slave; so, despite his great love for him, he penned the epistle as a letter to Philemon admonishing him to take Onesimus back as a fellow brother in Christ and not punish him. There is a sense in the letter that Paul wanted Philemon not only to avoid punishing Onesimus but to willingly allow him to return to Paul. This, however, is reading between the lines. The big point is Paul sent Onesimus home because it was lawful. Paul insisted that Christians obey the laws of the Roman Empire and of all countries in which they live. On a Christian level, Paul was not advocating slavery, but he was teaching Onesimus, Philemon and others how to live in a godly way in a less-than-perfect world. Philemon was at liberty to set Onesimus free, but that was his call. The law dictated that Paul send Onesimus back to his master.

Lessons from Philemon

What we learn from the epistle to Philemon is that Christians should never break the law to enter a country illegally—particularly just to get a better paying job. We also learn that Christians should willingly return to their country of origin if they have entered another country illegally. Finally, we learn that the church should admonish those who have entered a country illegally to return home as well as advocate for the home country to give humane treatment to those returning.

What America does to solve the border and illegal immigration problem is ultimately a political decision. This may include reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship, etc. I personally am a big advocate of unlimited legal immigration for those who bring good skills and a positive desire to assimilate into America. I detest the fact that my niece’s husband from Australia, who loves America, has been struggling with the INS for years to get his American citizenship. However, from a Christian perspective, the biblical teaching on this issue is clearer than most people think.

Warning Label: this post contains thoughts and quotes from a medieval theologian. If reading this might cause hypertension, chest pain, headaches, heartburn or excessive gas, please do not proceed any further.

Everything that lives strives after its own complete fulfillment. By nature plants seek sunshine, animals seek food and water by instinct, and humans willfully seek to maximize their existence. Therefore, the ultimate end of human action (meaning the complete fulfillment of human nature) must be that thing which satisfies every desire. However, as we all know, there is a funny thing that happens to us every time we think we have finally found the “ultimate” thing that satisfies—it doesn’t. From this we learn that we are always yearning for something that must be infinitely satisfying and we know from experience that there is no created thing that infinitely satisfies. Or as Aquinas wrote: “man is not perfectly happy, so long as something remains for him to desire and seek” (Summa II1, Q. 3, Art. 8). Consequently, as we discussed in the last post, ultimate happiness is only found in God Himself. He is the infinite fulfillment of all our desires. This is why the greatest commandment in the Bible is to love God with all our heart, mind and strength.

Okay, great you say, I’ll be happy in heaven but what about now? Can we ever find happiness here? The answer is a big provisional “yes.” When I say provisionally what I mean is that you can find imperfect happiness in this life. Well, you ask, how do you do that? As you might guess, I believe the master-of-the-happy is my good buddy Thomas Aquinas. This is what he says about imperfect happiness.

“For imperfect happiness, such as can be had in this life, external goods are necessary, not as belonging to the essence of happiness, but by serving as instruments to happiness, which consists in an operation of virtue, as stated in Ethic. i, 13. For man needs in this life, the necessaries of the body, both for the operation of contemplative virtue, and for the operation of active virtue, for which latter he needs also many other things by means of which to perform its operations.” (Summa, Part II.1, Q. 4, Art. 7)

Allow me to translate what Thomas is saying. He notes that “things” like jobs, money, homes, food and friends are all necessary for attaining happiness. They are good, that is, unless they become the source of our happiness—that isn’t good. They should be “instruments” for assisting us to happiness. We need these external things to help us with the most important ways that we get imperfect happiness. Those two important ways to happiness are the two kinds of virtue. Virtue, by the way, has to do with moral excellence. And the two types of moral excellence are contemplative virtue and active virtue. Basically what this means is that 1) we sharpen our intellectual focus on the things of God which makes us much wiser for this life; and 2) we apply our godly wisdom to live a life of moral excellence in the everyday affairs of life. We want to avoid a life of strict heavenly-mindedness and also a life focused just on religious or moral activism. We need to put the two together. We become heavenly-minded with an eye to applying what we learn to the practical things of life. This is the way to imperfect happiness.