In a former life (not really, but it was like 25 years ago), I taught formal logic at the community college level for four years. Predicate calculus, truth tables, derivations — the whole works. I also studied theology. These two interests don’t intersect as often as you’d think, but when they do, the results are worth paying attention to.

John 1:3 is one of those intersections.

Here’s the verse, in the ESV: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”1

Most Christians read this and nod along — yes, Jesus is the Creator. But there’s something happening in the logic of this verse that’s sharper than most people realize. John isn’t just asserting that the Word created things. He’s constructing an argument — a tight one — that the Word *cannot* be a created thing, and therefore must be God. And the structure of that argument is formally valid. You can prove it with predicate calculus.

Let’s do exactly that. If you haven’t studied formal logic: (a) why the heck not? and (b) I’ve provided less-geeky translation of the math-looking stuff.

Setting Up the Language

First, we need to formalize our terms. In predicate logic, we define a domain of discourse and assign predicates and constants.

Domain: All things that exist.

Constants:

- w = the Word (the Logos, identified in John 1:14 as the one who “became flesh” — Jesus Christ)

Predicates:

- C(x) = “x is a created thing” (x was made)

- T(x, y) = “x was made through y” (y is the instrumental cause of x’s creation)

That’s all we need. Now let’s translate the verse.

Translating John 1:3

The verse makes two claims. They look like a simple repetition, but they’re not — the second clause is the contrapositive of the first, which is logically significant. John is locking down the argument from both directions.

**John 1:3a — “All things were made through him”:**

∀x(C(x) → T(x, w))

“For all x: if x is a created thing, then x was made through the Word.”

Every created thing, without exception, was made through the Logos. The universal quantifier ∀x is doing real work here. John doesn’t say “many things” or “most things.” He says *all things* — πάντα (*panta*) in the Greek2] There are no exceptions in the domain of created things.

**John 1:3b — “without him was not any thing made that was made”:**

¬∃x(C(x) ∧ ¬T(x, w))

“There does not exist an x such that x is a created thing and x was not made through the Word.”

This is the negation of the existential — there is no created thing that came into being independently of the Word. And notice: this is logically equivalent to Premise 1. The equivalence ∀x(P(x) → Q(x)) ≡ ¬∃x(P(x) ∧ ¬Q(x)) is a standard identity in predicate logic.3John is stating the same truth in two ways, positive and negative, to eliminate any wiggle room.

That’s not literary flair. That’s a logician’s instinct.

The Metaphysical Premise

John 1:3 gives us the two formalized premises above, but the argument needs one more — a metaphysical premise that John’s audience would have taken as self-evident:

**Premise 3 — The Impossibility of Self-Creation:**

¬∃x(T(x, x))

“There does not exist an x such that x was made through itself.”

Nothing can be the instrumental cause of its own coming-into-being. This isn’t just a theological claim — it’s a basic metaphysical principle. For something to cause its own creation, it would need to exist before it existed, which is a contradiction. Aristotle knew this.[4The Stoics knew this. Every serious philosopher in the ancient world knew this. John’s readers certainly knew it.

This isn’t a hidden assumption. It’s a logical law dressed in metaphysical clothing.

The Derivation

Now we have everything we need. Here’s the formal proof that the Word is not a created thing, laid out as a derivation:

P1) ∀x(C(x) → T(x, w)) [John 1:3a]

P2) ¬∃x(C(x) ∧ ¬T(x, w)) [John 1:3b — equivalent to P1]

P3) ¬∃x(T(x, x)) [Self-creation is impossible]

Step 1 — Universal Instantiation on Premise 1:

Premise 1 holds for *all* x. That means it holds when x = w. Substitute:

(4) C(w) → T(w, w) [Universal Instantiation, P1, x = w]

“If the Word is a created thing, then the Word was made through the Word.”

This is the critical move. The universal quantifier in John 1:3a means the Word is not exempt from its own scope. If the Word is a created thing — if C(w) is true — then *by John’s own premise*, the Word was made through itself.

**Step 2 — Instantiation on Premise 3:**

From Premise 3, we know that nothing was made through itself. Instantiate this to extract the relevant case:

(5) ¬T(w, w) [From P3: ¬∃x(T(x, x)), therefore ¬T(w, w)]

“The Word was not made through the Word.”

Self-creation is impossible, and the Word is no exception.

Step 3 — Modus Tollens:

Now we have a conditional and the negation of its consequent. This is textbook modus tollens (If a then b: Not b: Therefore Not a) — one of the most basic valid inference forms in all of logic:

(4) C(w) → T(w, w)

(5) ¬T(w, w)

Which allows us to conclude:

(C) ¬C(w) [Modus Tollens, (4), (5)]

In English: The Word is not a created thing.

That’s it. Three premises, three steps, one conclusion. The argument is deductively valid — the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. And if the premises are true (which they are, if you accept the inspiration of John 1:3 and the impossibility of self-creation), then the conclusion is not just valid but *sound*.

What Follows from ¬C(w)

We’ve proven that the Word is not a created thing. But John doesn’t stop there — and neither should we. The argument has a second stage.

If we accept an exhaustive dichotomy — that everything which exists is either created or uncreated — we can add one more premise:

P4) ∀x(¬C(x) → U(x)) [Everything uncreated is eternal/divine]

Where U(x) = “x is uncreated” (and therefore eternal, self-existent — the defining attributes of God in classical theism). This isn’t smuggling anything in. In the metaphysical framework shared by Jews, Greeks, and Christians in the first century, the division between Creator and creation was exhaustive. There is no third category. You’re either made, or you’re the Maker.

(6) ¬C(w) [Proven above]

(7) ¬C(w) → U(w) [Universal Instantiation, P4, x = w]

(C) U(w) [Modus Ponens, (6), (7)]

In English: The Word is uncreated — eternal, self-existent, divine.

Which is exactly what John says in the very next breath: “the Word was God” (John 1:1c).5 Verse 3 isn’t restating verse 1. It’s *proving* verse 1. The claim that the Word is God in verse 1 is supported by the logical argument embedded in verse 3.

The Complete Derivation

For the sake of clarity, here’s the whole thing in one block:

PREMISES:

P1) ∀x(C(x) → T(x, w)) All created things were made through the Word

P2) ¬∃x(C(x) ∧ ¬T(x, w)) No created thing was made apart from the Word

P3) ¬∃x(T(x, x)) Nothing is the instrument of its own creation

P4) ∀x(¬C(x) → U(x)) Everything not created is uncreated/divine

DERIVATION:

(4) C(w) → T(w, w) Universal Instantiation on P1, x = w

(5) ¬T(w, w) From P3 (instantiated to w)

(6) ¬C(w) Modus Tollens on (4), (5)

(7) ¬C(w) → U(w) Universal Instantiation on P4, x = w

(C) U(w) Modus Ponens on (6), (7)

CONCLUSION:

The Word (w) is uncreated and divine. ∎

Why This Matters: The Arian Problem

This isn’t just an academic exercise. This argument has been at the center of one of the most important theological debates in Christian history.

In the fourth century, Arius argued that the Son was the first and greatest of God’s creations — made before all other things, and then the instrument through which everything else was made. “There was a time when he was not,” as the slogan attributed to Arius goes.6 The Council of Nicaea (325 AD) rejected this, and the Johannine Prologue — including the argument embedded in John 1:3 — was part of the biblical case against him.7

The same debate is alive today. Jehovah’s Witnesses hold an essentially Arian position — that Jesus is a created being, the first thing God made, through whom all other things were subsequently created. Their New World Translation handles John 1:3 by rendering it: “All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence8 So far, so close to the Greek. But the key move comes in their broader theology: they introduce the category of “all *other* things” (see their rendering of Colossians 1:16–17, where they insert the word “other” four times despite its absence in the Greek) to exempt Jesus from the domain of “all things.”9

Here’s the problem. The logic won’t let you do that.

If you accept that the Word was created — C(w) is true — then by Premise 1, T(w, w) must also be true: the Word was made through himself. That’s self-creation. And self-creation is incoherent, not just theologically but logically and metaphysically. The Arian has to either deny Premise 1 (and thereby deny the clear statement of John 1:3a), deny Premise 3 (and affirm the metaphysical absurdity of self-creation), or accept the conclusion.

There’s no fourth option. That’s how deductive arguments work. If the premises are true, the conclusion is inescapable. The universal quantifier ∀x in John 1:3 doesn’t have an asterisk. There’s no footnote that says “except the Word himself.” The whole point of πάντα is its absolute scope.

Arius and his modern heirs aren’t just making a theological error. They’re making a logical one.

John the Theologian — and Logician

What I find remarkable is that all of this is packed into a single verse. Twenty-three words in English. John didn’t write out a formal proof — he didn’t need to. His audience could follow the logic intuitively. But the structure is there, waiting to be unpacked, and it holds up under the most rigorous analysis we can throw at it.

Theologians have long called John’s Gospel the most theologically sophisticated of the four. I’d add that it’s also the most logically sophisticated. The Prologue alone is a masterclass in compressed argumentation — every clause load-bearing, every word doing double duty.

John 1:1 makes the claim: the Word was God. John 1:3 provides the proof. And the proof is deductively valid.

Not bad for a fisherman from Galilee.10

Abstract

The widespread assumption that Christians are biblically mandated to tithe ten percent of their income rests on a conflation of Old Testament cultic obligations with New Testament ethical teaching. This article demonstrates that the Old Testament itself prescribed not one but multiple tithes embedded within the Levitical-agricultural economy of ancient Israel, that the New Testament nowhere reiterates a ten-percent obligation, and that the earliest Christian communities drew their institutional and liturgical patterns from the synagogue rather than the temple. A survey of the major Reformation confessions confirms that the magisterial Reformers consistently classified the tithe under the ceremonial law abrogated by Christ, articulating instead a theology of voluntary, proportional generosity. The New Testament articulates a theology of radical, voluntary, Spirit-led generosity that transcends any fixed percentage.

1. Introduction

Few financial doctrines in contemporary Christianity are as firmly held—and as poorly examined—as the mandatory tithe. Across denominational lines, pastors routinely instruct their congregations that God requires Christians to give ten percent of their income to the local church, usually citing Malachi 3:8–10 as proof that failing to do so constitutes robbery of God. Yet this common teaching conflates several distinct obligations from the Mosaic law, ignores the dramatically different framework of New Testament giving, and overlooks the ecclesiological reality that the early church modeled itself on the synagogue—a voluntary, community-funded institution—rather than the temple, which was sustained by mandatory levies tied to the Levitical priesthood and the land of Israel.

The purpose of this article is fourfold: first, to clarify the nature of Old Testament tithes, demonstrating that they were multiple, agricultural, and covenantally specific; second, to examine the New Testament's explicit teaching on giving, which is consistently voluntary and proportional rather than legislated; third, to show that the church's structural dependence on the synagogue model, rather than the temple model, has implications for how financial support should be conceived in the gathered community of believers; and fourth, to demonstrate that the magisterial Reformers and their confessional documents consistently rejected a binding tithe for the new-covenant church.

2. The Old Testament Tithes: Not One Obligation but Three

Modern tithing advocates typically speak of "the tithe" as though the Old Testament prescribes a single, straightforward ten-percent contribution. In reality, the Pentateuch legislates at least two and arguably three distinct tithes, each serving a different purpose within the theocratic economy of Israel.1

2.1 The Levitical Tithe

The foundational tithe appears in Leviticus 27:30–33 and Numbers 18:21–32. This tithe was given to the Levites, who had received no territorial inheritance in the land, in exchange for their service at the tabernacle and, later, the temple.2 The Levites in turn gave a tithe of the tithe (a "terumah") to the Aaronic priests. This was fundamentally an agricultural tax—it applied to the produce of the land and the increase of herds, not to monetary wages.3 Importantly, it was inseparable from the land-based economy of ancient Israel and the Levitical priesthood's unique position as landless servants of the sanctuary.4

2.2 The Festival Tithe

Deuteronomy 14:22–27 prescribes a second tithe, sometimes called the "festival tithe" or "pilgrimage tithe." This tithe was to be consumed by the worshiper and his household at the central sanctuary during the annual festivals. If the distance to the sanctuary was too great, the produce could be converted to money, which the worshiper would then spend on whatever he desired—"oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink"—and eat in the presence of the Lord.5 This tithe was not given away to religious officials but consumed by the giver as an act of covenant celebration. It was, in effect, a mandated worship expenditure.

2.3 The Poor Tithe

Every third year, a special tithe was collected for the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow (Deut 14:28–29; 26:12–15). Whether this replaced the festival tithe in the third year or was an additional levy is debated among scholars, but its distinct social-welfare purpose is clear.6

2.4 Cumulative Burden

When these tithes are considered together, the total annual obligation for an Israelite farmer was not ten percent but closer to twenty to twenty-three percent of agricultural produce, depending on the year in the three-year cycle.7 This already demonstrates that the popular notion of "the biblical tithe" as a flat ten percent dramatically underrepresents the Old Testament's actual requirements. Moreover, these tithes applied only to agricultural output from the land of Israel; they were not levied on wages, trade income, or other forms of non-agricultural wealth.8

3. The New Testament on Giving: Voluntary, Proportional, Cheerful

If the Old Testament tithe were intended as a permanent, trans-covenantal obligation binding on the people of God in every era, one would expect the New Testament to reiterate and clarify it—especially given the apostles' meticulous attention to ethical instruction for Gentile believers. What one finds instead is a striking silence on the tithe coupled with a rich and consistent theology of voluntary generosity.

3.1 Jesus and the Tithe

Jesus mentions the tithe only twice in the Gospels (Matt 23:23; Luke 11:42), and in both instances he is addressing Pharisees who are still living under the Mosaic covenant in pre-resurrection Israel. He affirms that they should not have neglected the tithe—but his point is to condemn their hypocrisy in tithing herbs while ignoring justice, mercy, and faithfulness.9 This is not a prescription for the post-Pentecost church but a critique of Pharisaic casuistry within the still-operative old-covenant system. Notably, Jesus' most pointed teaching on financial generosity moves far beyond ten percent: he tells the rich young ruler to sell everything (Mark 10:21), commends the widow who gave her last two coins (Mark 12:41–44), and instructs his followers to give to everyone who asks (Luke 6:30).

3.2 The Apostolic Teaching

The apostolic letters contain extended treatments of financial giving—most notably in 1 Corinthians 16:1–4 and 2 Corinthians 8–9—yet none of them mention the tithe. In the Corinthian correspondence, Paul instructs believers to set aside money on the first day of every week "as he may prosper" (1 Cor 16:2), a phrase indicating proportional and voluntary giving rather than a fixed percentage.10 The absence of a specified percentage is conspicuous in light of Paul's well-known willingness to legislate on matters of sexual ethics, food offered to idols, and church order. If the tithe were binding, Paul's silence here would be inexplicable.

Paul's most developed theology of giving appears in 2 Corinthians 8–9, where he holds up the Macedonian churches as an example of generosity. The key operative principle is articulated in 2 Corinthians 9:7: "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."11 The Greek word translated "compulsion" (ἀνάγκη) denotes external necessity or constraint. Paul explicitly excludes the very kind of mandated, percentage-based obligation that a binding tithe would impose. The motivation for giving is joy, not legal duty; the measure is the believer's own heart and means, not a legislated fraction.12

Paul does invoke agricultural metaphors ("whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly," 2 Cor 9:6) and grounds generosity in Christological theology ("though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor," 2 Cor 8:9), but the theological framework is grace and koinonia, not legal compliance.13 The early Jerusalem community practiced radical sharing of possessions (Acts 2:44–45; 4:32–37), but even this was voluntary: Peter explicitly tells Ananias that the property was his to keep or sell as he chose (Acts 5:4).14

3.3 Hebrews and the Obsolescence of the Levitical System

The Epistle to the Hebrews is uniquely relevant to this question because it explicitly addresses the Levitical priesthood and its relationship to the new covenant. The argument of Hebrews 7 is that Jesus' priesthood is "according to the order of Melchizedek," not Aaron (Heb 7:11). Because the priesthood has changed, "there is necessarily a change in the law as well" (Heb 7:12). The author notes that the Levitical priests "have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people" (7:5) but argues that this entire system has been set aside (ἀθέτησις, 7:18) on account of its "weakness and uselessness."15

This is perhaps the most theologically decisive New Testament text for the question of tithing. The tithe was a commandment given to the Levitical priests. Hebrews explicitly argues that this priesthood and its associated legal ordinances have been superseded by Christ's high-priestly ministry. To insist on the continuing validity of the tithe while accepting the obsolescence of the Levitical priesthood is hermeneutically inconsistent: the tithe is structurally inseparable from the priesthood it funded.16

4. The Church as Heir of the Synagogue, Not the Temple

A frequently overlooked dimension of this question is ecclesiological. The early church's institutional form was patterned not on the Jerusalem temple but on the diaspora synagogue. Lee Levine's comprehensive study of the ancient synagogue demonstrates that it functioned as a community center for Scripture reading, prayer, and instruction—precisely the activities that characterized early Christian gatherings.17

The synagogue had no priesthood, no sacrificial cult, and no mandatory tithe. It was sustained by voluntary donations, patronage, and community contributions.18 When Paul planted churches across the Mediterranean, he established communities that met in homes, read Scripture, prayed, celebrated the Lord's Supper, and heard apostolic teaching—all activities with synagogue parallels, not temple parallels.19 The temple, by contrast, required a hereditary priesthood, daily sacrifices, and the tithe system prescribed in the Torah. The church inherited none of these structures.

This distinction matters because the tithe was a temple institution. It funded the Levitical priesthood and the sacrificial system. When the church is understood as a community modeled on the synagogue—a gathering of the faithful for word, prayer, and mutual edification—the conceptual basis for a mandatory tithe disappears. The early church supported its teachers and cared for its poor through voluntary collections (1 Cor 9:3–14; Gal 6:6; 1 Tim 5:17–18), not through a levied tithe.20

5. Historical Considerations: The Patristic Era

The history of tithing in the post-apostolic church confirms this analysis. Stuart Murray's study of tithing in church history demonstrates that the earliest church fathers—including Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen—did not teach mandatory tithing.21 Irenaeus argued that Christians are freed from the obligation of tithes because they have been taught to devote all their possessions to the Lord's purposes, not merely a tenth.22 The mandatory tithe was not formally imposed in the Western church until the Synod of Mâcon in 585 CE, and it was not enforced as civil law until Charlemagne's legislation in 779 CE—more than seven hundred years after the apostolic period.23

6. The Reformation Confessions and the Tithe

The magisterial Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced a rich body of confessional literature that has defined Protestant orthodoxy for nearly five hundred years. It is therefore significant that none of the major Reformation confessions mandate a tithe. When these documents address financial giving at all, they consistently locate the tithe within the ceremonial or judicial law of Israel—categories of Mosaic legislation that the Reformers unanimously regarded as abrogated by the coming of Christ—and they articulate a standard of giving that is voluntary, proportional, and governed by the moral law of love rather than a fixed percentage.

6.1 The Three-Fold Division of the Law

Central to the Reformers' treatment of the tithe is their classification of the Mosaic law into moral, ceremonial, and judicial (or civil) categories. This hermeneutical framework, inherited from the medieval scholastic tradition but refined and sharpened by the Reformers, provided the mechanism by which they could affirm the abiding authority of the Decalogue while recognizing the obsolescence of the Levitical and civil codes. Calvin articulated this distinction with particular clarity in the Institutes, arguing that the ceremonies were "like a tutor" that pointed to Christ and were therefore annulled at his coming, while the judicial laws, given to Israel as a body politic, expired with the dissolution of that polity.24 Since the tithe belongs either to the ceremonial law (as a Levitical ordinance funding the priesthood) or to the judicial law (as a civil tax supporting the theocratic state), it falls on either reading into the category of abrogated legislation.

6.2 The Thirty-Nine Articles (1571)

The Anglican formulary addresses this question directly. Article VII, "Of the Old Testament," states that "although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral."25 The tithe, as a Levitical ceremony and a civil precept of the Israelite theocracy, is explicitly placed in the categories that "do not bind Christian men." The article makes no exception for the tithe or any other specific element of the ceremonial-civil code.

6.3 The Belgic Confession (1561)

The Belgic Confession, one of the Three Forms of Unity that define Continental Reformed orthodoxy, addresses the relationship between the testaments in Article 25: "We believe that the ceremonies and symbols of the law have ceased with the coming of Christ, and that all shadows have been fulfilled, so that the use of them ought to be abolished among Christians."26 While the article goes on to affirm the ongoing value of the Old Testament for instruction, it is categorical in asserting the cessation of ceremonial obligations. The tithe, as a ceremony embedded in the Levitical cultus, falls squarely within this abolition. The Belgic Confession nowhere introduces a replacement obligation of any specified percentage.

6.4 The Heidelberg Catechism (1563)

The Heidelberg Catechism treats financial ethics under the eighth commandment ("You shall not steal"). Question and Answer 111 defines the scope of this commandment positively: God requires "that I do whatever I can for my neighbor's good, that I treat others as I would like them to treat me, and that I work faithfully so that I may share with those in need."27 The catechism's treatment of financial obligation is entirely governed by the moral law of neighbor-love, not by any ceremonial percentage. The standard is "whatever I can" and "share with those in need"—language that is open-ended and proportional, not fixed at ten percent.

6.5 Calvin on the Tithe

John Calvin's exegetical treatment of the tithe is particularly important given his immense influence on the Reformed tradition. In his commentary on Malachi 3:8–10, Calvin acknowledges the original force of the passage within its old-covenant context but does not apply the tithe as a binding obligation for the Christian church. In the Institutes, he argues that the ceremonial laws were given to the Jews "until the fullness of time should come" and that to reimpose them would be to obscure the clarity of the gospel.28 In his commentary on 2 Corinthians 8–9, Calvin emphasizes that Paul's collection for the saints in Jerusalem was governed by the principle of voluntary equality (ἰσότης), not by a legislated fraction.29 Calvin does insist that Christians must give generously and that ministers deserve support, but his framework is one of moral obligation rooted in gratitude, not ceremonial compliance with a fixed rate.

6.6 The Westminster Standards (1646–1648)

The Westminster Confession of Faith, the doctrinal standard of Presbyterian and Reformed churches worldwide, is perhaps the most detailed of the Reformation confessions on the relationship between the covenants and the law. Chapter 19 ("Of the Law of God") explicitly articulates the three-fold division: the moral law binds all persons in all ages (19.5); the ceremonial laws "are now abrogated under the New Testament" (19.3); and the judicial laws "expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other, now, further than the general equity thereof may require" (19.4).30 Since the tithe is a Levitical-ceremonial ordinance inseparable from the priesthood and the temple system, WCF 19.3 places it among the abrogated laws. And since it functioned simultaneously as a civil tax within the Israelite theocracy, WCF 19.4 further classifies it among the expired judicial laws.

The Westminster Larger Catechism addresses financial ethics in its exposition of the eighth commandment. Question 141, on the duties required, includes the obligation of "giving and lending freely, according to our abilities, and the necessities of others."31 The operative standard is "our abilities" and "the necessities of others"—a proportional, situational standard that varies with the giver's capacity and the recipient's need. Question 142, on the sins forbidden, condemns "covetousness, inordinate prizing and affecting worldly goods" and "injustice and unfaithfulness in contracts."32 Nowhere in the catechism's detailed treatment of financial ethics does a ten-percent obligation appear. The silence is telling: the Westminster divines, who were meticulous in their precision, chose to frame financial obligation in terms of ability and need rather than a fixed percentage.

6.7 The Second Helvetic Confession (1566)

Heinrich Bullinger's Second Helvetic Confession, widely adopted across Reformed churches in Switzerland, Hungary, and Scotland, addresses church property and the support of ministers in Chapter 28. Bullinger affirms that "the possessions of the Church" should be administered faithfully and that ministers deserve adequate support, but he grounds this obligation in apostolic precedent (1 Cor 9; Gal 6:6) rather than in the Levitical tithe. Chapter 28 refers to "tithes" in a historical register, acknowledging their former use, but treats the support of the ministry as a matter of Christian duty governed by the moral law, not as a continuation of the Mosaic tithe.33 Bullinger's approach is characteristic of the broader Reformed position: ministers must be supported, but the basis is new-covenant generosity, not old-covenant legislation.

6.8 Luther and the Lutheran Confessions

Martin Luther's position on the tithe underwent significant development. In his earlier writings, Luther accepted the tithe as a civil obligation owed to secular authorities, but he consistently denied that it was a binding divine commandment for the new-covenant church. In his treatise On Trade and Usury (1524), he addressed economic obligations in terms of neighbor-love and the golden rule, not Levitical percentages.34 In his Lectures on Deuteronomy (1523–1524), Luther explicitly classified the tithe among the judicial laws of Moses that applied to the Israelite polity and not to the Christian church.35 The Augsburg Confession (1530) does not mention the tithe. The Formula of Concord (1577), in its discussion of the third use of the law, limits the binding force of divine law to the Decalogue and does not extend it to ceremonial or judicial statutes.36 The Lutheran confessional tradition thus provides no basis for a mandatory tithe.

6.9 Summary: The Confessional Consensus

The confessional consensus of the Reformation is clear and remarkably uniform across its Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed branches: the tithe belongs to the ceremonial and/or judicial law of Israel, both of which have been abrogated by Christ. No major Reformation confession mandates a ten-percent contribution. Where financial obligation is addressed, it is consistently framed in terms of the moral law—proportional generosity governed by ability and need, motivated by gratitude and love, and directed by the believer's own conscience. The modern practice of teaching the tithe as a binding divine commandment thus lacks not only New Testament warrant but also the support of the confessional tradition that most Protestant churches claim as their doctrinal heritage.

7. Conclusion

The evidence presented here converges on a clear conclusion: the New Testament does not mandate a tithe. The Old Testament tithes were multiple, agricultural, and bound to the Levitical priesthood and the land of Israel. The New Testament teaching on giving is explicitly voluntary, proportional, and grounded in grace rather than legal obligation. The Epistle to the Hebrews declares the Levitical system—including the commandment to tithe—superseded by the priesthood of Christ. The church's structural inheritance from the synagogue rather than the temple removes the institutional basis for a mandatory levy. The earliest church fathers did not teach mandatory tithing. And the Reformation confessions—across Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed traditions—unanimously classify the tithe as abrogated ceremonial or judicial law, articulating instead a standard of voluntary, proportional generosity rooted in the moral law of love.37

None of this implies that Christians should give less generously. Precisely the opposite: the New Testament envisions a generosity uncapped by any percentage, motivated by the grace of Christ and the power of the Spirit, and directed by the believer's own conscience. The Macedonians gave beyond their ability (2 Cor 8:3). The Jerusalem church shared everything (Acts 4:32). The early Christians were known for their generosity to the poor and to one another. The Reformers themselves insisted that Christians owe everything to God and that the moral law demands lavish generosity toward the neighbor—a standard that may well exceed ten percent for those with means. The question is not whether Christians should give, but on what basis—and the answer of the New Testament, the church fathers, and the Reformation confessions alike is not law but love, not compulsion but cheerful, sacrificial freedom.

Share Notes From the Silent Planet

I’m six weeks into something I didn’t see coming.

Every morning, somewhere around 5:45, I sit down with a cup of coffee and a new friend - the Book of Common Prayer. I open to the Daily Office, find the date, and start reading aloud. “Lord, open our lips. And our mouth shall proclaim your praise.” I follow along with a podcast called the Daily Office Podcast, which walks through morning prayer step by step, and I read the appointed psalms and scriptures and collects right there from my office easy chair in Medical Lake.

I’m not Anglican. I’m PCA — Presbyterian Church in America, Reformed, the whole deal. I grew up in dispensational Southern Baptist churches, found my way out of that system in my twenties, landed in the Reformed tradition, and have been there since. I studied Greek in college. I teach occasionally. I’ve read more Calvin than most people would consider healthy.

So what am I doing with the Book of Common Prayer?

Here’s the thing — I think it’s teaching me how to pray again.

I come from a tradition that prizes extemporaneous prayer. You bow your head, you talk to God in your own words, you mean it. And I do mean it. But I’d noticed something over the years. Left to my own devices, my prayers had become almost entirely about me. My anxieties. My plans. My requests. I’d sit down to pray and within thirty seconds I was running through my to-do list with a “Lord” tacked on the front.

The BCP short-circuits that. When I open to morning prayer, the words are already there — and they’re pointed at God. His character. His faithfulness. His mercy. The psalms do what psalms have always done (which is everything — lament, praise, confusion, rage, trust). The collects are these impossibly compressed little prayers that somehow say in two sentences what I’d fumble around trying to say in ten minutes.

I didn’t expect it to click so fast. I thought written prayers would feel rote, performative — like reading someone else’s mail. They don’t. They feel like being handed a vocabulary I didn’t know I was missing.

My wife started on this trajectory before me. She uses a different podcast — one by the Trinity Mission — and does her own morning prayer. We didn’t coordinate this. I don’t know what got her started, but she really resonates with it.

But here’s where it gets good. At night, we do Compline together.

Compline is the last office of the day — a short evening prayer, maybe ten minutes. We lie in bed and read it aloud, trading off the versicles and responses. “The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end.” There’s a prayer of confession. There’s a psalm. There’s a moment where you commend yourself to God before sleep — “Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.”

We’ve been married thirty-one years. We’ve done devotionals together, read books together, prayed together in the usual free-church way — eyes closed, someone starts talking. Most of the time, it hasn’t stuck. This is different. There’s something about reading these ancient words side by side, out loud, that strips away the pressure to perform. Neither of us has to come up with the right thing to say. The prayer is already written. We just show up and pray it.

I want to be clear — this isn’t a critique of the PCA (though I wish we recited the creeds more) or of extemporaneous prayer. I’m not becoming Anglican. I still believe free prayer is vital. But I’ve found something in another tradition that’s filling a gap I didn’t fully recognize was there.

Cranmer and the compilers who came after him — they knew what they were doing. They built a prayer book that takes you outside yourself. That’s no small thing for a guy in his fifties who’s spent decades praying prayers that orbit his own life like a satellite.

Most nights now (we’re not perfect), my wife and I end the day the same way. Same words. Same commendation to the same God.

It’s only been a month. I’m not an expert on any of this. But I know what it’s done already.

It’s taught me to shut up and let the prayer pray me.

Dear [name redacted],

I hear you when you say ICE is “just law enforcement,” and I want to engage with that seriously, because the comparison matters—and it breaks down in ways that should concern anyone who values the rule of law, regardless of where they stand on immigration policy.

Where ICE Does Resemble Law Enforcement

Let’s start with the fair part of the comparison. ICE agents are federally authorized law enforcement officers. They carry badges and firearms. They undergo academy training. Their authority derives from the Immigration and Nationality Act, and Congress has granted them statutory power to arrest individuals they have reason to believe are in violation of immigration law.1 They can conduct vehicle stops. They can make warrantless arrests in public when they believe someone is removable and likely to flee.2 In these respects, ICE is functionally a law enforcement agency—nobody credible disputes that.

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Where the Comparison Falls Apart: Structural Differences

But there are critical structural differences between ICE and every other law enforcement agency you’ve ever interacted with, and these aren’t trivial.

First, immigration enforcement is overwhelmingly civil, not criminal. This matters enormously, because civil proceedings carry far fewer protections. When a police officer arrests you for a crime, you have a right to an attorney. In civil immigration proceedings, you don’t—the government is not required to provide you one, even though the consequence (deportation, indefinite detention, family separation) can be as life-altering as any criminal sentence.3 You can be detained for months or years while your case is adjudicated, without the procedural safeguards we take for granted in criminal court.

Second, ICE operates largely on administrative warrants—documents signed by ICE’s own officials, not by a judge or magistrate. A police detective who wants to arrest you needs to convince a neutral judge that probable cause exists. ICE issues its own warrants internally. These administrative warrants don’t authorize entry into a home (only judicial warrants do), but they are routinely used to detain people in public spaces and workplaces without any judicial review whatsoever.4 This is a fundamentally different accountability structure than what governs your local police department.

Third, there is no right to a speedy trial. People can sit in immigration detention for months with no hearing. The government has argued—and in some cases succeeded—that certain categories of noncitizens are subject to mandatory detention with no bond hearing at all, even people who have lived and worked lawfully in the U.S. for decades.5

Where ICE Is Acting Unlike Any Law Enforcement Agency in Modern American History

Now, beyond these structural differences, look at how ICE is actually behaving right now. This is where “just law enforcement” becomes impossible to defend with a straight face.

Masking and Refusal to Identify

ICE agents are now routinely conducting arrests wearing ski masks and balaclavas, in plainclothes, without visible badges, and refusing to identify themselves when asked.6 This is not how law enforcement works. Your local police officer wears a uniform, displays a badge number, and can be identified and reported for misconduct. The former acting director of ICE under President Obama said he never saw agents wearing masks during his tenure—the practice began in March 2025.7

Human Rights Watch has documented 18 cases of people arrested by unidentifiable individuals who couldn’t tell if they were being detained by the government or kidnapped. In one case, a woman named Öztürk was grabbed on the street by masked people who seized her phone and backpack and handcuffed her; when she asked to see their badges, one flashed a gold necklace. She later said: “I didn’t think that they were the police because I had never seen police approach and take someone away like this.”8

The FBI issued a nationwide bulletin after criminals began successfully impersonating ICE agents—because when real agents look indistinguishable from criminals, that’s what happens. In North Carolina, a man impersonated an ICE officer to sexually assault a woman. In Pittsburgh, a man broke into a home through a kitchen window claiming to be ICE while wielding a knife.9

Multiple states have now passed or introduced laws requiring ICE agents to identify themselves, and the federal government is suing to block those laws.10 As one Chicago community organizer put it: “If you don’t know who is doing something to you, you don’t know how you’re supposed to protect yourself.”11 When “law enforcement” fights for the right to be anonymous while exercising lethal force, something has gone deeply wrong.

Use of Force

Since July 2025, there have been at least 31 shootings by immigration agents, resulting in 8 deaths—including two U.S. citizens killed during operations in Minneapolis: Renee Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24, 2026.12 The Wall Street Journal identified at least 13 instances of agents firing at or into civilian vehicles,13 despite the fact that ICE’s own handbook explicitly states that firearms shall not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles.14 In FY2023, ICE agents were involved in 5 shootings total.15 In one year, that number has increased by orders of magnitude.

In dozens of legal claims filed between June and December 2025, people alleged they were tackled, thrown to the ground, had knees pressed into their faces and necks, were pepper-sprayed, and punched repeatedly. In one case, an ICE agent used a carotid chokehold—a potentially fatal technique that blocks breathing—on a man sitting in his car, despite DHS policy prohibiting chokeholds unless deadly force is authorized.16

And here’s a telling statistic: according to the CATO Institute, ICE and Border Patrol agents are 5.5 times less likely to be killed on the job than a civilian—and non-immigration law enforcement officers had a death rate 6.3 times higher than immigration agents in 2025.17 The escalation in force is not proportional to the threat these agents face.

Defiance of Court Orders

This is perhaps the most damning point. In January 2026 alone, ICE violated approximately 96 court orders in Minnesota federal courts—in a single month.18 Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz—a George W. Bush appointee and former clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia—compiled the list and wrote:

“ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”19

He also wrote: “ICE is not a law unto itself.”20

When courts ordered detainees released, ICE instead transferred them to other states, imposed ankle monitors the court never authorized, held them for days or weeks past explicit release deadlines, or left them outside in Minnesota winter without money, phones, or means of contact.21 Judge Schiltz summoned ICE’s acting director to appear personally in court to explain why he should not be held in contempt, writing that the court’s “patience is at an end.”22

In over 1,600 habeas cases, more than 300 federal judges have found ICE’s detention practices illegal—while only 14 have sided with the administration.23 Law enforcement, by definition, enforces the law. An agency that systematically defies the orders of the judiciary is not “enforcing” anything—it is operating outside the law.

Detention Conditions and Deaths

Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025—a two-decade high. Six more died in January 2026 alone.24 Organizations have documented overcrowding, lack of medical care, and denial of access to legal representation in facilities across the country. One detention facility in El Paso, Camp East Montana, saw three deaths in a matter of weeks.25 When people die in government custody at this rate, with this little transparency, calling it “law enforcement” is a euphemism.

Arrests in Sensitive Locations

ICE has made arrests in courthouses, at regularly scheduled immigration appointments, and near schools—locations that were previously treated as sensitive and off-limits under longstanding policy.26 In Franklin County, Ohio, ICE has arrested 18 people inside the courthouse since 2025.27 When people fear going to court to testify as witnesses or victims, the entire criminal justice system is undermined. No serious law enforcement agency deliberately sabotages the courts it depends on.

The Bottom Line

Yes, ICE has statutory authority. Yes, it employs sworn officers. Yes, Congress created it. But “law enforcement” is not just a label—it’s a set of norms, constraints, and accountability mechanisms. Law enforcement officers identify themselves. They comply with court orders. They don’t claim absolute immunity. They don’t operate anonymously while shooting civilians. They submit to oversight and investigation when things go wrong. By every one of these measures, ICE is not operating as law enforcement in any recognizable sense of the term. It is operating as something else—something that should alarm anyone who cares about the rule of law, regardless of how they feel about immigration.

The administration has argued for “absolute immunity” for ICE officers—meaning lawsuits would be dismissed without even reaching the investigative discovery phase.28 Not qualified immunity, which already provides substantial protection. Absolute immunity—the kind normally reserved for judges and prosecutors acting in their official capacity. No law enforcement agency in America operates under absolute immunity, because the entire concept is antithetical to accountability. If ICE is “just law enforcement,” why does it need protections that no other law enforcement agency has ever required?

This doesn’t even get into the ethical considerations. Should Christians support a regime where immigrants (or any human being creating in the image of God) are denied basic rights of due process and freedom from state violence? This shouldn’t be a difficult question to answer biblically. Sadly, for too many, it is.

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We had great accommodations in the center of town, just around the corner from the arena the Romans built there and time has mercifully spared. To get acquainted with the city, we spent our first morning on one of those hop-on-hop-off sightseeing buses. Yes, they can be a little pricey, but they’re a great way to get the lay of the land in an unfamiliar city.

It was on the bus that I saw it at the end of the street. It was clearly a cemetery. I would later find out that it is called the Cimitero Monumentale. But what caught my eye was not the ornate sculptures at the entrance, sublime though they were. It was one word, carved into the facade in huge letters, so it cannot be missed: Resurrecturis.

I absolutely love this. This memorial, built as a house to remember the dead, proudly thumbs its metaphorical nose at the whole concept. “Hey Death! You will not have the last word here. These graves will be emptied, the bodies planted here restored to life and wholeness. So enjoy your mini-reign. It is coming to a sure and certain end! Resurrecturis!”

Paul basically says the same thing in 1 Corinthians 15:54-55:

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

“Death is swallowed up in victory.
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

A couple of months ago, our church said “goodbye” to a deacon, husband and father of two young kids. His wife is one of my wife’s best friends. David was a good man, whose faith never wavered in the face of cancer, pain and decline. We all miss him terribly. I regret not having more time to get to know him better.

David’s funeral was a party. We celebrated a life gone too soon but well lived. We shared stories that made everyone laugh. His daughter shared a poem she had written, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.

And we remembered together that this “goodbye” is not forever.

The promise stands.

Jesus said “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” (John 11:25)

When he comes again, those bodies buried in that cemetery in northern Italy, and my friend David, and all who have died in Christ, will emerge from those graves, whole and fully alive. And I can imagine us all thumbing our nose at death. “Is that all you got? What kind of victory is that?” Maybe we’ll blow raspberries at the grave. Maybe (if such a thing is allowed to sinless beings) a middle finger or two or ten million will be raised in salute to Death.

Resurrecturis. Latin for “for those who will rise again.” Or as I like to translate it: “Laugh it up, Death. Your time is coming.”

It was Saturday morning when I saw the news of the US government’s infiltration of Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife. I was deeply distressed by this action, though not surprised - the Trump administration seems to cross lines at a steady clip these days - and I posted on Facebook that I was ashamed of my country for taking such a step.

Within hours, the predictable reactions poured into my comments thread. That high school acquaintance who always responds whenever I say anything critical of Trump showed up, right on cue. The former coworker accusing me of “Trump derangement syndrome.” I tried to engage in conversation, to explain my alarm at the administration’s actions. Would we be OK if Russia did this to Ukraine? Or China to Taiwan? Or Iran to Israel? Or, God forbid, what if some bold country did it to the United States?

A friend asked if I was ashamed of the country or just the administration. A fair question. “Both” was my answer. We knew what Trump was and we handed him the keys a second time, after January 6. We as a nation bear responsibility for Trump and his actions. We share in the blame.

The comments that really stung, however, were from two former pastors of mine, men whom I respect deeply, who have given their lives to serve the homeless community in Spokane. One asked how many overdoses I would be OK with. This seemed to me to be uncharacteristically naive, since most overdoses in Spokane are fentanyl-related, and Venezuela has no active role in the manufacture or distribution of fentanyl to the US. Grabbing Maduro won’t prevent a single overdose in Spokane, I’d wager.

The second just called me a “leftist.” Because I disagree with Trump, I cannot be a conservative, or even a moderate. I have to be one of those commies on the left.

I had no desire to argue with these men (or the other commenters), though there were certainly arguments to be made. So I deleted the post yesterday.

Upon reflection, I’ve realized a few things.

First, Facebook (and social media in general) has coarsened the civility of our discourse. We say things in comment threads that we would never say face to face. My pastor friend would never call me a leftist to my face, but on Facebook, all bets are off. (And to be clear, I’m guilty of this too. I did tell one of my commenters “don’t be an idiot” - not the most charitable of takes.)

Second, and related, it is nearly impossible to have a reasoned dialogue - a frank and charitable discussion of matters of importance - on social media. The medium may not be the message, but it certainly taints the message. I am convinced that if social media were to disappear, much of our national division would disappear too.

I want to have reasoned discussions with people, not shouting matches. Posting on Facebook was a mistake, and the results were predictable. I got the shouting match, not the discussion.

And so I have made a decision. I will not make substantive posts on Facebook in 2026. I will not contribute to the shouting match. I will not listen to the siren song of ad hominem attacks or “owning” my interlocutors in comment threads. It’s ultimately dehumanizing, and I want no part of it.

Why not delete my account altogether? Unfortunately, there are many friends that I only have a connection with though social media. Former professors, high school and college friends, distant relatives - people I don’t want to lose contact with entirely. That’s what Facebook is good for, if it is good for anything.

I’ll continue to write on my Substack, and try to elevate the discourse there with thoughtful writing (subscribe if you haven’t!). I’ll link to my articles on Facebook, with the comments turned off. I’m happy to engage with anyone who wants to, but through email or face to face.

And if it lowers the temperature, even a little bit, then I will have done my part.

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Specifically, a mobile app. I have been working on an app that manages home libraries. Because if you’re like me, your books are a mess, and it’s impossible to find the book you’re looking for at any given moment.

So I’m building a tool to fix that. All you need to do is scan in your books using your iPhone’s camera, and it will look up the information about that book, add each book to your library and note what shelf it’s on. You can also add notes, lend the book out and keep track of who has it, and other fun stuff.

The app is called Shelves, and I plan to launch it this fall. If you’d like to be notified when it launches, or to be part of a beta testing group, please visit shelvesapp.com and sign up for the waitlist.

I’d also be honored if you’d share this link with your book hoarding friends!

I remember sitting in the front row, equal parts starstruck and grateful for the opportunity, hanging on every word. MacArthur was an exegete’s exegete, and I had already decided what kind of preacher I wanted to be - one who did the hard work of study and preparation, and who preached without compromise. MacArthur was my hero, and here he was, standing not 6 feet away. I felt like I was watching a master at work.

So of course I took the chance during a break to introduce myself and ask a question. “Dr. MacArthur, I’m going to college next year to study the Bible and prepare for ministry. Do you have any advice for me?” I half expected to receive a gentle admonition for not going to California to study as his school, but what I got back was life-changing. “I’ll give you a charge, and a recommendation. The charge: Always preach the text. Always. The recommendation: Take Greek as soon as you can, as much as you can.”

I took the recommendation to heart, signing up for Greek 100 the fall semester of my freshman year, and I took 3 more semesters in my undergraduate studies. Of everything I learned during my undergrad years, learning Greek was the most impactful.

I didn’t go straight to seminary after school as I had originally planned. (I didn’t get a seminary degree until my 50’s!) I ended up married with children, with a lucrative career in software, but I always would volunteer in my local church, occasionally getting to preach or teach Sunday School. (I even did a stint as a bivocational pastor, which meant I was preaching every week for a while.) But in every sermon, I preached the text. I don’t get many opportunities to preach nowadays, but when I do, I preach the text.

As I grew older and studied more, I left behind the dispensationalism of my youth. Other influences had a larger sway in my life. And MacArthur took some stances that I simply didn’t agree with. We grew apart, if you can say that where one party doesn’t know the other exists! Still, I am grateful for those years under MacArthur’s influence, learning from his example what it means to exegete a text of Scripture. I am thankful for the charge he gave me, and the advice about learning Greek. It shaped my ministry and changed my life.

Rest in peace, Pastor John.

Ephesians 1:3-14 is a tangled mess, grammatically speaking. Our English translations (thankfully) break it up into multiple sentences (the ESV divides it into 5 sentences, each of them more lengthy than the average English sentence), but in Greek. One gigantic run-on sentence that spans 12 verses. It’s the longest sentence all the New Testament.

If you tried to diagram this sentence, you’d need one very large piece of paper. (I tried after taking the Ephesians class in my undergrad days I spoke of in my introduction to this series, and I ended up taping multiple sheets of typing paper together. If memory serves, it took something like 12 sheets.). Grammatically, that means that there’s one main verb, and every other verb in this passage somehow modifies the main verb.

That main verb is “blessed” at the beginning of verse 3. In Greek, the verb is ευλογητος1 (eulogētos) - the word from which we get the English term eulogy. It’s literally a “good word” about it’s subject - here “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The difference of course is that the modern word implies a funeral oration, whereas the original word does not carry that connotation.

God the Father is singled out here for praise. Why? Keep reading. “Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, which the subsequent verses will enumerate and expound on.

But before we look at that long (and frankly convoluted) list, a few general comments are in order.

It may be helpful to divide the passage thusly: 4-6; 7-12; 13-14. The first section focuses on the activity of the Father, the second on the Son, and the third on the Spirit. This is a very Trinitarian passage, showing how each member of the Trinity has contributed to our salvation.

There is also a temporal progression to the passage. Paul starts in eternity past, “before the foundation of the world” (v. 3) and runs all the way through the receipt of our future inheritance at the final resurrection in verse 14.

Next time: What in the world does “in the heavenly places” mean in verse 3?

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I, to put it mildly, am not a gym rat. I have a gym membership, but I seldom go. When I do go, I’ll huff and puff on the machines, curl a few dumbbells, and do the things that gym people do. I’ll go home, ache the next morning, and make precisely zero progress. My arms won’t be stronger, I won’t have magically developed six-pack abs during the night, and my fifty-something dad bod remains a fifty-something dad bod.

Why? Because I didn’t put in the reps.

If I made it a habit to go to the gym every day and hit the weights, I have no doubt I’d see progress. But I haven’t. Because a simple rule of life gets in my way: If I don’t put in the reps, I won’t make progress.

The same is true in other areas of my life. If I don’t tidy up every day, my office will become a mess. My skills at playing the mandolin will not develop by me staring at the instrument hanging on its hook. I won’t develop in my writing craft if I don’t apply butt to chair and write.

This week, I’m taking a couple days off work to attend a preaching workshop put on by the Simeon Trust. It’s been 13 years since I was a bivocational pastor, preaching every week. I don’t get opportunities to preach that often these days, but should the Lord provide me with one, I want to be ready, not rusty. So this week, I’m putting in the reps.

I’m trying to put in the reps in other areas as well. I’m currently rehabbing a frozen shoulder, so I’m making it a point to do the exercises every morning. I’m trying to publish something a couple times a week in this space, and get in the habit of pitching articles for publication in other media. (I just had a book review published by the Gospel Coalition, so things are in motion on that front!) I’m picking up my Greek New Testament more and more, trying to relearn a language I first learned 35 years ago. It’s tough work, but I’m determined.

In what areas or your life are you putting in the reps? How can we encourage each other?

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:1-2 ESV)

Letters in the Greco-Roman world were addressed differently then those in the modern day. Today, we start with the recipient, and identify ourselves at the very end. But in the ancient words, they would state the author first, followed by the recipient(s), and finally a word of greeting (usually charein, which meant “greetings”).

So the heading might run like this: “John to Matthew, greetings!”

Paul follows this pattern in his letters, but with a few modifications. He will usually say something about himself, some things about his companions, then give a greeting that is really more of a blessing upon his audience.

Notice first how he describes himself: An apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. As some of his other letters make clear, Paul was used to having his apostleship questioned. The other apostles were with Jesus throughout his earthly ministry, and were eyewitness of his resurrection. Paul, as far as we know, never encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry.

But make no mistake, Paul did encounter the risen Jesus. Paul’s vision of Christ on the Damascus road not only was Paul’s conversion experience, it was his commissioning ceremony. Paul was hand-picked by Jesus, just the same as Matthew or Philip. And Paul never got over the experience that changed the course of his life. He was an apostle by the will of God.

The recipients are described as “the saints who are in Ephesus, faithful in Christ Jesus”. Interestingly, many of the early manuscripts of this letter omit the words “in Ephesus,” leading most scholars to conjecture that Ephesians was an encyclical letter, intended to be passed around among the churches of the region. The relative lack of personal greetings in the letter lends further support to this theory.

Whoever the recipients were, they were described as “saints” (literally “holy ones”) and “faithful in Christ Jesus.” As such, he can speak of the immense blessings that are their possession by virtue of being in Christ. There is no hint of division or error as there was in Corinth or the churches of Galatia.

Finally, Paul, as is his custom, swaps the normal Greek greeting charein with the similar but much more profound charis (grace). Grace is central to Paul’s thought, and is a major theme of Ephesians. He couples this greeting with the Greek term eirene (peace), almost certainly meant to stand for the Hebrew shalom.

Finally, he locates the source of the grace and peace in “God our Father” and “the Lord Jesus Christ.” By using the title kurios (Lord) for Jesus - a title used of YHWH in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint - Paul is putting his cards on the table, so to speak: Jesus is God the Son and should be honored and worshipped as such.

Next time: The longest run-on sentence in the Bible!

I love Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. My love affair with this book started in January 1995, when as a bright-eyed college freshman, I took an upper level January term class on Ephesians. If I recall correctly, there were only about 8 of us in the class. For four days a week, two hours a day, for four weeks, we lived and breathed Ephesians. 32 hours of instruction, discussion, and (occasionally) argument over the text of Scripture and what it meant. It was glorious. It was one of the happiest experiences of my life. It remains - 30 years later - one of my favorite memories.

We didn’t finish the book - not by a long shot. In those 32 hours, we barely made it to the end of chapter 3. Ephesians is such a dense book. Around every corner is a new gem, a nugget of truth that will take your breath away. Ephesians is one of those books that requires you to slow down and pay attention.

I recently reread through Ephesians during my morning devotions, and all those memories have been flooding back to me. I found my love for this book rekindled.

Strangely, I’ve never taught or preached through Ephesians, like I have other books like Romans, Philippians or Hebrews. So that’s my plan here. I propose to do a guided tour of sorts of Ephesians: not as in depth (or as boring, hopefully) as a commentary, but acting as a tour guide would - pointing out items of interest along the way.

I hope you’ll join me on the tour. I’ll publish new entries twice a week. If you’d like to receive these in your inbox, then take a moment to subscribe. (It’s free!) If you know someone who would enjoy this, I hope you’ll share it.

And finally, like a good tour guide, I want to be sure to answer your questions along the way. If you have questions, or just want to share your thoughts, drop a comment and let me know.

Posts in this series:

• Dear Church (Ephesians 1:1-2)

• The Tangled Eulogy (Ephesians 1:3-14)

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- I live in a small town near Spokane, WA, a city not large enough for mass transit other than a bus network. So it’s a change of pace when I go to European cities and can avail myself of the metros (subways) and the trams. Clean, efficient, and used by all classes of people. What’s really nice is the train network. In Lisbon, we took trains to Sintra and Cascais, and on a previous visit to Amsterdam, we took the train to Haarlem. Cities in Europe don’t confine you - it’s easy to get out of town and explore without renting a car.

- I would not own a car if I lived in a large European city. What would be the point?

- Walking is far more common in Europe, which probably explains why obesity is so less frequent in Europe - it’s certainly not that the food is healthier! Walking is a great way to explore a city.

- Amsterdam is a cyclist’s paradise. Bike lanes cover the city, and the cyclists ride like they own the place (which they do). Step in a bike lane at your peril!

- Europeans do coffee much better than Americans. Much better.

- Lisbon is a beautiful city. In Lisbon, most buildings are covered in hand-painted tiles, and they are beautiful. The Jeronimos Monastery had a room with painted tiles telling the Biblical story of Joseph that was breathtaking. Even the sidewalks were done in tiles, which are beautiful, but can get slippery when it rains. Did I mention that Lisbon, like Rome, is built on seven hills?

- Lisbon has its own version of Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue. It’s called Cristo Rei (Christ the King) and it faces the city from across the Tagus River. We could see it (barely) from our hotel window.

- Sintra - an hour’s train ride out of Lisbon - is a must-do if you ever make it to Portugal. The Pena Palace is nice, but in my opinion the grounds are more beautiful than the castle/palace. Don’t miss the Quinta da Regaleira and its Initiation Well - so called because the descending spiral stairs were used in Freemason initiation ceremonies. (Wait - does that make me a Freemason now?)

- In Cascais, we found a cafe whose mission is to provide employment for developmentally delayed people. It’s called Cafe Joyeux, and I love their mission. It was a delight to interact with the employees and see the dignity with which they are treated in their jobs. (Plus, the coffee cake was pretty good!)

- In Lisbon, we visited (after a couple wrong turns) the Livraria Bertrand, the oldest continually operating bookstore in the world. A cool experience!

- Also in Lisbon, we took in a Fado dinner. Fado, for the uninitiated, is a uniquely Portuguese form of music - kind of opera meets blues. We got 4 mini-concerts and a great meal (and superb wine).

- We were in Lisbon on a Sunday morning, so we visited St. Andrew’s Church for their morning service. We had a warm welcome by the whole congregation - right down to the dog sleeping under the piano!

- In Amsterdam, I had one day to explore the city. So I hopped the metro to Museumplein (the museum district), had breakfast, and just made it to the Rijksmuseum for my 9 AM entry time. (The larger museums in Amsterdam require you to prepurchase tickets with a stated entry time. I had booked the week before, but sadly the Van Gogh museum was booked several months out. Next time!). The Rijksmuseum is large - plan a half-day at least. The Night Watch by Rembrandt - probably the most famous work of art in the museum - is being restored, so you can’t get a good look at it. But there are several other Rembrandts in the collection, along with some Vermeers and a few Van Goghs, including his famous self-portrait.

- French fries with mayo is a thing in Amsterdam. It’s not as bad as it sounds, but I couldn’t finish mine. Total gut bomb!

- I had the best apple pie/tart in my life at Winkel 43, a restaurant in the Jordaan district of Amsterdam. If you go, don’t miss it!

- It was nice to be away from the political turmoil of the US for a while. But the little bit of political talk I heard was apprehensive about the Trumpian turn in American politics. But for all that, no one was unfriendly toward us because we were Americans. In fact, the people were uniformly pleasant.

- At breakfast on my Rijksmuseum day, the people at the table next to me were talking about university life in Europe. Higher education is valued, and usually free (or heavily subsidized) in Europe. I’m a little jealous.

- It grieves me that, in the city that gave us Kuyper and Bavinck, these two giants are uncelebrated. In fact, except for a few old churches that are now functionally museums, there is no visible sign of a vibrant Christian faith in this country, and few in Portugal. Europe is truly post-Christian.

Somehow, the topic of conversation turned to politics, and I was a little apprehensive. I know Rebekah’s family are very conservative politically, and are generally supportive of Donald Trump. I assumed the same of most of the people helping, and so my wife and I had resolved not to engage on the topic - who wants a political argument to spoil a happy occasion?

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What I didn’t expect was for Rebekah to say something to the effect of “Why can’t we just set the political stuff aside in our churches and love one another like Jesus said?” Nodding heads all around from the twenty-somethings in the group. They had no interest in politics. They weren’t radicalized liberals by any stretch. But they knew enough to know that politics has no place in the church.

Everyone decries the rise of the “nones” - those with no religious affiliation - and the general flight of Gen Z from church. But I wonder if it’s not Christianity per se that they’re running from, but the overpoliticization of our churches?

I often assist with serving communion at my home church in Spokane. Last Sunday, I was floored by the number of college-age students in attendance coming up to receive the sacrament. They are hungry - for the gospel, for deep Biblical truths. But I think there’s something else to it as well. Our pastor (praise be upon him) allows no political talk from the pulpit. There are Trump supporters and Harris voters and third-party supporters in our congregation, and we all get along, because what unites us is not party affiliation, but the presence of Jesus in our lives.

I’m not worried about Rebekah and Zach and Gen Z. They’ll be fine. I am worried about the Boomers and Gen X’ers who so entangle politics and Christianity, and the harm they are doing to the cause of Christ.

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Several authors I admire talk frequently about a sense of place - of being rooted to a specific town or house or community. I haven’t had that since I was a boy. We’ve moved around too much, and never seemed to create strong attachments in any place. Oh sure, we’ve made friends in our travels, but never such that we were sad to leave a place.

The town in which we currently live, Medical Lake, Washington, has a population of around 5000 people. My wife is a substitute teacher in the school district, so she knows a lot of the people (and their kids). I know comparatively few.

When we moved in, men from the local community church helped us unload. We thought that would be our church home. But the Chick tracts in the foyer were an indication that the church would not be a good fit for us. We moved in in the summer of 2016, and the election was underway. It became clear to us that anything other than full-throated support for Donald Trump was not a welcome position there.

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The other churches in town were Catholic, or Lutheran, or Assemblies of God (and from what we could tell from talking to some of the people who attended there, leaning hard into the Bethel heresy). The Southern Baptist church was dead - they just hadn’t realized it yet. (It has since closed.)

This saddens me, because we believe in local churches. But there was not a healthy, orthodox church in town. So we had to look elsewhere for a church home. (We currently attend a Presbyterian church in Spokane.)

The town has a coffee shop and two drive-by coffee stands, a Mexican restaurant, and a bar that keeps changing hands and going in and out of business. A grocery store, a pizza place, and a Subway round out the offerings.

We have a city council that’s actually good at its job, and a mayor who I don’t personally care for but is beloved by most of the citizenry. (She didn’t like some questions I asked when she was running for office.)

The schools are decent, with a terrific band program and a horrible football program. (Guess which one gets all the funding?) A cross-country team coached by a one-armed coach that regularly competes in the state finals. And a robotics team that will forever have a place in my heart. (Go Circuit Breakers!) My daughter met her future husband on the robotics team.

My wife and I support the booster club and the local scholarship program as we’re able. We even go to the occasional football game, cheer every time the Cardinals score a first down, and be part of the community.

There is decidedly redneck feel to much of Medical Lake. I don’t love the redneck vibe, honestly - I grew up in redneck country and was glad to leave. But they are my neighbors and I want to love them, perceived warts and all. (And it’s not as if I don’t have warts of my own!)

When I go back to the town where I grew up in Florida, it doesn’t feel like home. The “house” I grew up in (really a mobile home with lots of built-on additions) has since been torn down, and the land is not in the family anymore. I drive past the church where I first met Jesus, the cemetery where the bodies of my grandparents await the Resurrection, my old high school. Maybe a couple of trophies in the case still bear my name, but I doubt it. There’s no memento that I was ever here, except in my memories. My life is elsewhere now.

I’m trying to find the place where I fit, and it eludes me.

I’ve been thinking about getting out of the United States lately. I don’t like the direction the country is headed. I don’t recognize this as the America I loved. But I won’t leave. My kids are here, and they still need me and my wife in their lives. And we need them in our lives.

Maybe that sense of place I’m longing for will only come when I myself am planted in the dirt, and my soul is with Jesus. Maybe that’s what it means to be a sojourner and an alien.

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I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.

I know Lewis is explaining something about the praise of God in this text, but the general statement holds true as well. And it spurred a thought in me: How many marriages grow cold because husbands and wives neglect to praise their spouses?

So, without further ado, and to lead by example, let me tell you about my wife, Naomi.

Naomi is possibly the most caring person I know. You know those needy people who most of us cut loose at the first opportunity? Not Naomi. She will visit them, invite them for holiday dinner, drive them to surgeries, take them meals - all with no expectation of a return gesture. Like Jesus, she is profligate in her care.

At church, Naomi is on the lookout for the people on the margins - the newcomer looking awkward, the sad single in the corner, the elderly couple no one is talking to. Naomi sees people. And she has the uncanny ability to get people talking about themselves. She can extract someone’s life story in 5 minutes flat!

And it’s not just at church either. More than once I’ll hear some variation on, “I was having my nails done today and the lady was a immigrant from Ukraine and she’s been here for 2 years and…”

Naomi is tough. In her late forties, she decided to run a marathon. And then she tore her meniscus in her knee. She had surgery to fix that in September, and 3 months later ran her first marathon. (She tore the other meniscus last summer in a snorkeling accident and just had surgery to get that knee fixed too. She’s looking forward to running again!)

Naomi is adventurous. I travel a lot for work, and Naomi has tagged along, joining me on trips to San Francisco and Vienna and Lisbon. While I’m attending conferences, she’ll explore the city on her own. She’s jogged across the Golden Gate Bridge, for crying out loud!

And best of all, Naomi is a great mother. Our kids are mostly grown now, but they all have a great rapport with their mom.

I am blessed to have shared 30.5 years of marriage with her. Putting up with me can be a challenge, but she does it with good grace (and occasional sarcasm).

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Last Sunday was my 53rd birthday. It was also my first full day back from a business trip to Portugal, so I was feeling the full effects of a 7-time-zone case of jetlag. I was hoping to just make it through my birthday breakfast and the church service without snoring.

I was standing around before service with a couple of guys - some of whom I knew, and a few I didn’t - when it came out that it was my birthday. I did the usual dissembling - 53 is no big deal, it was nothing, it doesn’t really matter. What happened next wrecked me.

My friend Nathan looked my in the eye and said, “It matters to us.” And then he wrapped me in an enormous bearhug. It nearly brought me to tears (the gesture, not the bearhug itself). Thinking back upon it now, I find myself tearing up a little.

What was it about that gesture, those words, that touched me so deeply that Sunday morning? Why have I been cherishing that memory all week?

It is noteworthy that in four of Paul’s 13 letters1, the church is commanded to greet one another with “a holy kiss.2" Peter gets into the act as well3. Needless to say, this custom is seldom practiced today. I can’t think of another command that is given five separate times in the New Testament that is just blown off as irrelevant by the modern church.

Maybe it’s the logistics that scare us. How is the kiss performed? Do we line up? Is it one of those European air kisses in the general airspace of both cheeks, but with no actual contact? Or is lip-to-cheek contact required? For that matter, is - shudder - lip-to-lip contact required? Is tongue allowed? (OK, now I’m just messing with you.) The fact is that we simply do not know how the kiss was practiced. We do know that it was often done as part of the liturgy.

What’s inescapable was that the kiss was an intimate act, a family act. We would have no qualms today about kissing a sibling on the cheek at a family dinner. Isn’t the church just that - a family gathering? I am gathered with brothers and sisters who are every bit a part of my family as my two sisters. The command to greet them with a holy kiss isn’t about lip contact, but about the familial bond that is to characterize the body of Christ.

As a practical matter, I don’t think resurrecting the kiss is possible, or advisable, in our day and age. Too many people have been abused or traumatized to make such an practice a good idea.

Some Christian traditions practice a custom known as the Passing of the Peace. In the Southern Baptist churches of my youth, this was watered down to a time where you shook hands with people in the congregation while the piano played. But it was rushed and decidedly unpeaceful, and there was no real connection:

“Hi, Brother X. How are you doing?”

“Fine, just fine. You?”

“Fine.”

Never mind that Brother X had been laid off that week, or that Sister Y was waiting on her biopsy results. Everyone was “fine.” The niceties are preserved.

The Passing of the Peace changes the purpose of the time from fake life updates to something more - dare I say, holy. You are pronouncing the shalom of God over someone. “Peace be unto you.” Brother X and Sister Y could use some peace in their circumstances.

My Presbyterian church doesn’t do the Passing of the Peace (or the watered down greeting time that is the bane of introverts everywhere). But I wish we did (the former, that is).

What Nathan did for me last Sunday was a sort of a personal Passing of the Peace. By looking me in the eye and telling me that my birthday mattered to him, he was telling me, “I see you. I love you. You matter to me, and to God.” And by following it up with a very non-perfunctory hug, he was reinforcing that intimate message with a gift - the gift of familial physical contact.

Because sometimes, a handshake or a pat on the back or a sidehug just won’t cut it. Some things require a ginormous bearhug, delivered by a loving brother - or a holy kiss.

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Those who know me well are aware of my indebtedness to the writings of C.S. Lewis. It may surprise some of you that my favorite from among Lewis’ writings is not his apologetic writing (like Mere Christianity) nor the famous Narnia series, though I do love both dearly. No, I esteem the so-called “Space Trilogy” - Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength - above all Lewis’ works.

A core idea of the trilogy (borrowed from medieval cosmology) is that each of the planets are ruled by an angelic being in God’s stead. All of them, that is, except our own. Our ruler (the “Bent One”) rebelled against God and as a result our world was put under a sort of radio blackout. Earth is the silent planet. Now of course, the Space Trilogy is fiction, but Lewis makes it clear that he sees something like this to be true in the real world:

“Enemy-occupied territory---that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”

That quote, from Mere Christianity, gets at my intention with my writing. It is an act of subterfuge, of rebellion against the powers of the age. It is to witness to the Rightful King and to encourage those faithful to him. The battle is joined, but our weapons are not carnal.

This is why I write.

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I love the game of chess. I’m not particularly good, but I can usually win against a non-experienced player. I’ve been playing more online games recently to improve my skills. There are two kinds of games I play - games where each move gets 3 days, and speed games where each side gets 10 minutes on the clock for the game.

When I’m playing a speed game, I make a lot of mistakes that I wouldn’t make in a slow game. I would see the checkmate that my opponent is setting up with his rook and queen. I would notice the knight being maneuvered to fork my two rooks. I would spot the weakness in my opponent’s pawn formation that could lead me to victory. But in the moment, with the clock ticking, I don’t notice those things. And I get checkmated. Or I lose material that I can’t make up later. Or (most likely of all) I don’t pay attention to the clock and run out of time.

When I’m playing a slow game, the opponents are usually better. But then, I am better too. I can take my time and study the board. I can strategize. I can see the danger coming. And I often (but not always) win. And when I lose, it’s usually due to superior play by my opponent, not because I made a boneheaded mistake.

The life of faith is a bit like my chess game. If I’m constantly rushing, constantly hopped up on dopamine, I miss things. I am vulnerable to the temptation to spout off on social media, to let my gaze linger on the pretty coed in the coffee shop, to skip prayer and time reading my Bible because “I’m too busy.”

1 Peter 5:8 advises us to “be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” When I’m constantly distracted, when I never slow down, I make myself a target of the enemy. Just like in chess.

(P.S. Up for a game? I’m on chess.com. My username is “thatmoodyguy.” Send me a request!)

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt.

The Anxious Generation is one of those books I wish I had read fifteen years ago. It would have changed so much about the way I parented my kids, now ranging in age from 25 to 16. But none of us could have predicted in 2010 the profound impact technology would have on our children. And (let's be honest here) I am such a tech enthusiast that I'm not sure I would have listened. Technology is good, right! Progress!

As author Jonathan Haidt explains, The Anxious Generation tells the story of what happened to the generation born after 1995, commonly known as Gen Z. This cohort experienced the rapid adoption of smartphones and social media just as they were entering adolescence. Haidt argues persuasively that those two innovations are primarily responsible for the dramatic increase in anxiety and depression rates among Gen Z. He calls this phenomenon "the great rewiring of childhood."

Haidt writes, "Over the course of many decades, we found ways to protect children while mostly allowing adults to do what they want. Then quite suddenly, we created a virtual world where adults could indulge and momentary whim, but children were left defenseless."

The book delves deeply into studies conducted over the past two decades on teenage anxiety and depression, exploring how these patterns differ subtly between girls and boys. Girls tend to be drawn to social media, where they face body shaming and bullying, while boys gravitate toward online gaming and pornography.

Haidt proposes four key reforms to address this crisis:

1. No smartphones before high school. This would delay the ubiquitous access to social media that is most harmful during the vulnerable tween years.

2. No social media before 16. Haidt believes this should be law, with age verification systems in place. (Currently, the minimum age to sign up for Instagram is 13, but there are no effective checks.)

3. Phone-free schools. My wife substitutes in our local school district, and I regularly hear horror stories from her. Simply having a phone in their pocket is insufficient; a phone locker where the phones remain during school hours is a minimum requirement. I will be recommending this book to our local school board, with hopes that they will consider this policy in particular.

4. More unsupervised play and childhood independence. Haidt argues that while kids are underprotected in the virtual world, they are often overprotected in the real world. Kids need risk and free play to develop the coping skills necessary to manage anxiety as they grow older.

This is not a light read, but it is an important one—especially for parents, educators, or anyone who cares about the future of society.