I wanted to take a few minutes and share my thoughts on a passage from the Bible that’s been on my radar lately:

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. — Ephesians 4:29, ESV

Y’know, I think there’s a world of difference between what Paul was thinking when he said this, and what people today tend to think when they read it.

This verse marks the last of four times in this epistle where Paul uses the same word (Gr. oikodome, but your translation probably says something like “good for building up,” or “edifying”). Even so, when I’ve heard pastors preach on this topic they’ve typically focused in on an understanding of the word that’s informed solely by the verse itself, and divorced from other passages where Paul’s usage could shed light on what he means by it. This sort of thing always bugs me: if pastors are trying to build a true understanding of what Paul’s telling us to do here, then at the very least they ought to point us to those previous instances of the word. Right?

Because let me tell ya… it certainly helps it all make sense!

Here’s all four appearances of oikodome as they’re translated in the ESV. I’ve bolded (emboldened?) the word we’re talking about, and pointed out what I see as the key takeaway point from each (well, the key for understanding what Paul’s getting at with this “edification” stuff, at least):

1. Ephesians 2:19-22
   So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

   What’s the goal? In Jesus, we are being “edified” into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

2. Ephesians 4:11-14
   And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

   The purpose of “the 5-fold ministry” is to get the rest of us to a place where we’re equipped/trained/able to “edify” each other until we all reach the point of mature, Christ-like unity.

3. Ephesians 4:15-16
   Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

   Here Paul starts connecting our words with this concept of “edification.” He describes something like a circuit, where loving words of truth lead to our growing up into Christ, which feeds back into our expressed love leading to more growth, etc.

4. Ephesians 4:25-32
   Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

   Now that we have the previous passages as context, we can see that when Paul talks about “building up,” he’s referring to talk that leads to increased spiritual growth and purity. (In a nutshell, “edifying speech” could also be called “sanctifying speech.”)

What concerns me is that, in the sermons I’ve heard addressing the topic of “edifying speech,” most pastors seem to have taken a cue from pop psychology, and changed this word’s meaning away from “sanctifying” and toward something akin to “affirming.” No longer is “edifying speech” about growing the body into greater Christ-likeness, but now it’s a tool we use to make ourselves feel better about ourselves, and avoid any unpleasantness we’d rather not deal with.

When we do this, priorities shift. Jesus being glorified by our increasingly pure reflection of Him? That’s no longer as important as making sure we only ever say things that give out brothers and sisters (and pastors) warm fuzzies.

That’s just messed up.

Now of course, we’re supposed to speak in love! And we’re to stash the bitterness and malice. But according to 4:25, Paul doesn’t think truth should be sacrificed on the altar of flattery.

So this passage doesn’t seem to say anything definitive against “sharing a bad report” (as I’ve heard some pastors seem to have recently implied). If you’re sharing such things it out of bitterness or malice, then it would be wrong to do so… for other reasons.

But if you’re sharing that “bad report” so that Jesus’ Bride can see it, be alarmed, and focus on those blemishes being cleaned… then in fact Paul encourages the behavior!

So in summary: Paul’s goal is for us to leave each other a little more like Jesus. Sometimes, that means we need to “share a bad report,” to staunch the flow of disease and call attention to some behavior that’s damaging the Body.

Even—no, especially—when that behavior is coming from those who presume to lead and teach. The Body of Christ is not built up when wolves are praised as wonderful leaders.

(This is the first in a series of rediscovered writings from one of my first web sites back in 1999. Some may have aged well, others… not so much. I’ll let you decide.)

This morning at the kitchen sink, I was hit with a revelation. Jesus is kind of like a dish rag. Hey, don’t give me that look. Let me explain before you flame me, okay?

A dish rag washes dishes that are caked with all sorts of nasty stuff like dried ketchup and crusty eggs. Likewise, when we ask for forgiveness, Jesus removes the sin from our lives and makes us sparkle like new.

Another parallel is in the cleaning method. The way a dish rag cleans dishes is by taking the food (if you want to call it that) and getting it stuck to itself. It’s common knowledge that the dish rag is the dirtiest, most germ-ridden item in the sink. The Bible says “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9) In other words, Jesus got dirty to make us clean. In his death on the cross, all of our sin was placed on Jesus. Matthew 27:46 says “About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’–which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” If you’ve ever cleaned out a refrigerator and had to toss out things like chunky milk and something with fuzzy green stuff growing on it, you get the picture. We ain’t talkin’ ’bout no rotten egg. The stench of the sin placed on Jesus was so strong, God had to turn his face to keep from barfing.

Yet another similarity is in what is washed. Have you ever washed a plate, and think you have déja vu, until you realize you really DID wash that plate before? That’s right. Even though you’ve cleaned the plate, it got dirty again. “Well, duh, Travis! You really WERE born yesterday, weren’t you!” Gimme a break. Jesus is like that, too. No, he doesn’t get déja vu. What I mean is that even when he’s forgiven all of our sin, we still mess up. That’s why 1 John 1:9 says “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

There is one difference, though. (Okay, maybe more than one, but it’s all you’re getting out of me.) After a while, a dish rag gets so worn from continuous cleaning that it has to be tossed out and replaced, but Romans 6:10 states that “The death he died, he died to sin once for all”. Jesus’ act of mercy covered the sins of every single human who ever lived and ever will live, and will never run out. There’s no ’sin limit’, and there’s no sin so big that he can’t forgive. All that is needed is to ask. According to Matthew 7:7-8, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Y’know, I think I’ve had my head in the suds too long.

Here in time for Easter, grab this great comic book for free! It’s written by the same guy who gave us the comic book adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight. Ben Avery’s a pretty cool guy. By the way, you’ll want to be on the lookout for his future projects…

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“You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” — Daniel 2:31-35 (ESV)

Sometimes the title of an article will get me thinking so hard that I can’t pay attention to the article itself. Case in point: Jared Wilson’s Counterculture, Story, and the Vocabulary of Faith at Gospel-Driven Life. He opens with this sentence:

The kingdom of God is a counterculture; therefore, because the Church exists to proclaim and practice the presence of the kingdom, the people in churches should be thinking and living counterculturally.

And it started nagging at me, because really, what is “a counterculture”? Forgive my apparently picky approach to this, but is “a counterculture” really a good descriptor for the Kingdom of God?

Here’s what I mean: culture “generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance” (Source: Wikipedia). Something which is “counter-cultural,” then, would bring about the disruption of patterns of human activity and/or the destruction of those ideas, beliefs, etc. which give those activities significance. That’s it; that’s all it accomplishes.

Something which is “counter-cultural” is by its very nature nihilistic. When it destroys “patterns of human activity,” new patterns only sprout up as a side-effect—rushing to fill the void. You can see this quite clearly in the way sociologists have used the term: first coined in 1969, it has (outside of Christian circles) almost always been used to describe vocal groups calling for the tearing down of cultural mores, and the celebration of a diversity of ideas which had previously been labeled “good” or “evil,” “better” or “worse.” The closest these counter-cultural movement ever get to introducing a “new pattern” is to insist that it is inherently wrong to seek a pattern for the general public to conform to. Something which is counter-culture is not counter to a particular culture, but counter to the very concept of culture itself. Counter-culture is the pinnacle of self-idolatry: it seeks to destroy all forms of social conformity because they are a hindrance to complete and total freedom of the self from the desires and impositions of the other.

“And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.” — Daniel 2:44-45 (ESV)

The Kingdom of God does run counter to every human culture in some way, but this alone doesn’t make it a counterculture. No, the Kingdom of God is a competing culture, because it doesn’t just cause disruption; it tears down in order to build something better. When we seek to tear down the dominant culture’s idols, it isn’t because they repress us; we tear them down to clear the field for the worship and exaltation of the One True God. When we abandon the dominant culture’s self-seeking attitudes or class structures to love our neighbor, it’s not because we enjoy being different; we love our neighbor because our King loved us first, and calls us to follow Him. When we oppose “the Man,” it is not because he’s “the Man,” but because (and only ever if) he opposes the God-Man and calls us to follow after his delusion.

The “cultural clash” we experience is not a sign that the Kingdom of God is a counterculture. The Kingdom only disrupts patterns of human activity when those patterns conflict with the patterns of the Kingdom. So you see, the Kingdom of God is a culture. And since it is a culture created and ruled by the Creator of all things, the Kingdom of God is the culture. Thus, the kingdoms of the world are counter-cultural… and they’re only delaying the inevitable.

“Assemble yourselves and come;
draw near together,
you survivors of the nations!
They have no knowledge
who carry about their wooden idols,
and keep on praying to a god
that cannot save.
Declare and present your case;
let them take counsel together!
Who told this long ago?
Who declared it of old?
Was it not I, the LORD?
And there is no other god besides me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none besides me.

“Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
By myself I have sworn;
from my mouth has gone out in righteousness
a word that shall not return:
‘To me every knee shall bow,
every tongue shall swear allegiance.’ — Isaiah 45:20-23 (ESV)

…but is it the kind of difference you should make? Dean Rankine’s latest mini-comic, Sticky Bunny 2, is now up at Webcomics Nation.

Heaven is our home where we’ll reign forever
Shining like the sun with our King forever
Every sorrow gone we’ll rejoice forever
Heaven is our home
— Kathryn Scott, Heaven Is Our Home

It’s a catchy tune, but this just ain’t so. Heaven isn’t our home… at least, it’s not “our home where we’ll reign forever.”

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” — Revelation 21:1-4 (ESV)

If we die before Christ returns, we will spend a time in Heaven with him… but our eternal home is on Earth. God will bring the celestial “City of Peace” down to earth, and make his home here with us. Isn’t that amazing?! He will pitch his tent among us, and never again take it down! Never again will ichabod (“the Spirit has departed”) be uttered! God has decreed that he will humble himself to live among us on Earth for eternity.

I hope that mind-blowing thought lets a little bit of Sunday spill into your Monday.

So if you ask me tonight, “All right, tell us then, what is the unwasted life? What does it look like? What is the essence of the unwasted life�” I just mentioned it: A life that puts the infinite value of Christ on display for the world to see. The passion of the unwasted life is to joyfully display the supreme excellence of Christ by the way we live. Life is given to us so that we can use it to make much of Christ. Possessions are given to us so that by the way we use them, we can show that they are not our treasure, but Christ is our treasure. Money is given to us so that we will use it in a way that shows money is not treasure, but Christ is our treasure.

The great passion of the unwasted life is to magnify Christ. Here is the text that, perhaps more than any other, governs what life is really about: Philippians 1:20-21. Paul says, “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.“

Paul’s all-consuming passion was that in his life and in his death Jesus Christ be honored, that is, that Jesus Christ be made to look like the infinite treasure that he is. The reason you have life is to make Jesus Christ look great. There is one central criterion that should govern all the decisions you make in life and in death: Will this help make Jesus Christ look like the treasure he is?