Welcome to the first edition of The Eclectic Web Journal for 2023!

We usually tell you about this edition’s articles here, but you read the list of articles above, so let’s just get to it!

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ROMANS: All For One and Once For All! Romans 6:10-11

Romans 6:10-11: For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The phrase “All for One and One For All” was the slogan of solidarity among several fictional Frenchman immortalized in the book The Three Musketeers by the nineteenth-century French author Alexandre Dumas. Just hearing the phrase makes us think about brave, adventurous deeds accomplished by skilled and capable individuals.

Working through the book of Romans in the Bible, however, reminds us that we are not as capable as we think we are. We are not capable of earning salvation, of meriting God’s grace, or of paying back a tremendous moral debt that we owe to God.

But there is a solution, and Romans has been clear that Christ died and rose again to pay that moral debt and to bring salvation and redemption to those who would believe in Him. Christ died to prevent our eternal death, and because He lives, we who believe in Him can enjoy eternal life lived for God both now and forever. In fact, Romans 6:10-11 demonstrates that Christ died as one Sacrifice for all humankind, and His death was also once for all.

In Romans 6:10, Paul again affirms that Christ died for the sake of providing forgiveness for human sin. The kind of death he died was a sacrifice to turn away the wrath of God and provide forgiveness and eternal life to humanity. He then rose from the dead and continued to live for God. In the same way, believers should die to sin by forsaking sinful habits and live for God, instead.

Paul makes the point that Jesus died once, just as the believer was baptized once, and doesn’t need to be re-baptized over and over again. The word ephapax is an adverb meaning “once for all time; at one time” and is used elsewhere (1 Cor 15:6; Heb 7:27; 9:12; 10:10), but does not seem to occur outside the NT. This word seems to have great semantic overlap with the similar word apax, which also meaning “once” or “at one time,” which is used fourteen times in the NT and occurs frequently outside the NT. Commentator Leon Morris, however, asserts that ephapax is a strengthened form of apax, and Morris includes a quote from G. Stählin in The Dictionary of the New Testament claiming that the former is “a technical term for the definitiveness and therefore the uniqueness or singularity of the death of Christ and the redemption thereby accomplished” (quoted in Leon Morris, Romans, 255, n. 53). The idea of Christ’s single death, or that Christ died “once,” is attested to frequently in the NT (Rom 6:10; Heb 9:26, 27, 28; 10:10; 1 Pet 3:18; see also Heb 7:27; 9:12). I have actually talked to people who believe that Christ died twice, once physically and once spiritually. Besides being clearly contrary to these verses noted previously, it is a nonsensical notion to say that Christ died twice.

Paul then pivots to the life of Christ, and notes that as a resurrected being, He now lives for God. This is not to say that He did not live for God previously. Rather, the idea is that His earthly ministry plodded toward His sacrificial death; post-resurrection He no longer lives in a way that is moving toward death, but rather He is now only living for life, and death no longer has any reign, purpose, or place in His existence. Similarly, death has little threat for the believer, and we should be living fully for God.

The theology of verse 10 is funneled into practical application in v. 11. The conjunction outos, as an adverb means “in this way, thus, so, in the same way, like this.” Paul also uses two pronouns of humeis (“you”) and eautous (“yourselves”), and since the imperative verb is already second person plural in form, the two pronouns are grammatically redundant, and therefore emphatic. So really, there are three different words that speak to the second plural “you,” and we could almost translate it “you yourselves consider yourselves.” The redundant pronoun eautous further reminds the believer of the reflexive nature of this activity, and the importance of self-evaluation and self-motivation in spiritual growth.

This verse is an explicit command to apply doctrinal truths in practical contexts, and specifically, to emulate Christ’s death to sin and living for God. The word “to consider” or “to reckon” was used eleven times in Romans 4 of God “accounting” or “reckoning” the faith of Abraham as righteousness. A sinner can be considered righteous, even though he is not intrinsically righteous, by being proclaimed righteous by faith in the merits, work, and righteousness of Christ. Similarly, here in 6:11, the believer is to consider oneself no longer able to be affected by death and no longer interested in carrying out sin. This is, of course, not necessarily completely actualized by the believer, since we still have mortal death ahead, and we still will sin. However, we are to live in a way where we so identify with Christ and His righteousness that we are emulating it in our lives through the help of the Spirit; we are to live as though sin had no appeal or allure over us and we were only living for God.

Paul adds at the end of this verse that this ability to live a death to sin and life for God is “in” or “through” Jesus Christ. The ambiguity of the Greek preposition en, “in,” “for,” “through,” etc., is here a benefit, not an obstacle. The capability of living in death to sin and life to God can only be accomplished based on what Christ has done. Also, He served as a righteous example for us as someone who died because He was living for God. Also, we die to sin and live to God “for” Christ’s sake, out of adoration of and gratitude to Him. None of these understandings of this verse are mutually exclusive; all richly provide valid motivations for Christian living and growth.

Christ died for all of us, and He died once for all. Those who believe in His perfect life, sacrificial death and literal resurrection, can therefore enjoy eternal life, where we no longer live by the dictates of our sin and our flesh, but instead, we live for God and we live with greater meaning and purpose. Similar to the slogan of those Musketeers, we can now live all for one, for God and for Christ, because Christ once gave His all for us. 


You can see more of our articles about our verse-by-verse voyage through the book of Romans here.



POLITICS: McCarthy’s Scandalous Concessions

A few points have to be made about the circus-like process regarding the appointment of a new Republican Speaker of the House.

But first, the background: In the November 2022 mid-term elections, Republicans picked up 19 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives giving them a slim, but legitimate, majority of 222 to 213. The first step in recognizing this shift is electing a Speaker among the GOP representatives. As the House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy was the most obvious candidate to be the next Speaker.

After 14 votes, however, McCarthy still could not secure enough GOP votes to become speaker. In the process of trying to get these votes, he made more and more concessions to what the media refers to as “far right” elements of the party. Enough concessions were made so that McCarthy received sufficient support to earn Speakership on the fifteenth vote on January 7.

Two important points need to be made about this process. The first can be made briefly.

Many Republicans were concerned about this process, and how it made the GOP look. We don’t need any more help looking stupid, but this debacle certainly seemed like a step in the wrong direction after successfully retaking the House. Some suggested that it exposed fissures and created tensions in the Republican party that will have long-ranging effects. However, in reality, the news cycle moves far too quickly for this to cause any real damage to the GOP’s reputation or effectiveness. Few will be talking about this in a month, and by summer, this House-Speaker fiasco will have been lost to the memories of a myopic electorate.

The second point is to note that McCarthy’s concessions to far right representatives were outrageous and scandalous! Those concessions represented a desire to provide more accountability and procedural clarity to the House, and they represented a restoration of some measure of reasonability to a clearly broken Washington D.C. institution. A scandal indeed!

The best summary of these concessions that I have seen is from an article in the New York Post (“Freedom Caucus earns major concessions from Kevin McCarthy after speaker vote” by Jon Levine and Mary Kay Linge) which I represent verbatim below:

 

You probably read this list or lists like it and had the same reaction as I did: Why did these concessions have to be wrestled out of anyone in congress let alone a Republican leader!? What is in any way wrong with any of these concessions? Or, more importantly, why are these concessions not standard operating procedure in the Capitol Building? Why are there procedures in the House or Senate that stand in opposition to these expectations?

    I imagine that when you read this list, you are probably just as stuck as I am by how reasonable these concessions are. Like me, you are probably disturbed that these concessions do not depict the way Congress currently operates. Let’s look at a few of them to note how important they are.

It is common practice for one bill to be stuffed with legislating about or funding for several other topics and issues. A representative is forced to vote for one big good thing, but also at the same time, she or he is voting for three or four smaller bad things. It will be great for the House, again, now under a GOP majority, to send bills to the Senate about balancing the federal budget, establishing sensible border security plans, and ending any remaining coronavirus funding. These issues often end up as add-ons to other bills, and therefore, don’t get the attention and direction that they deserve.

These concessions will make it easier for the House to investigate some recent issues relative to how the FBI has been used for political purposes rather than for investigation and legal purposes. The overreach of certain government agencies, like the FBI, may be one of the biggest threats to our society and to our American way of life. McCarthy conceded that we should allow conservative members to have more opportunities to look into these matters.

Some of the GOP representatives pushed a policy that would require representatives and their constituents a full seventy-two hours to peruse a bill before voting on it. This is quite important since some bills are hundreds and even into the thousands of pages long. Again, I am compelled to wonder what kind of terrible bills some of our law-makers are trying to push through when they don’t even give people time to read them thoroughly.

We can be glad that a few “far right” representatives stood their ground. They did not just do this to get their names in the papers; they pursued these concessions for the American people. This is part of a gradual attempt to make the U.S. Congress less of an elitists club and more of what it was supposed to be, a group of citizens who humbly represent their constituents and our country with conviction, reasonability, and skill. The hard right used these House Speaker votes as an opportunity to force House leaders to re-institute some common-sense procedures into the legislative process. Hopefully implementing these scandalous concessions will genuinely infuse more accountability, clarity, and efficiency into Washington D.C. 



DEVELOPING A PASSION FOR GOD (PSALM 42): The Benefit of Tears (Psalm 42:3)

This article is originally from the April 2014 edition of The Eclectic Kasper, and presented here with minor modifications.


My tears have been my food day and night,

While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” (NASB)

 

The sorrows of this life can encourage a deep desire to know God more now, and to long for deeper fellowship with Him in the future. This point of sorrow is exactly where we find our Psalmist in Psalm 42:3.

An extremely difficult situation has plunged the author into such despair that his tears have been his “bread,” or rather, his main source of sustenance. Perhaps the imagery hearkens back to v. 1, where the streams of water were described as a source of nourishment.

While this is certainly a hyperbolic statement, many can relate to sorrow that encourages tears and impedes appetite. The author finds himself in such a situation of sorrow “day and night”; the heartache and burdens of life can permeate one’s thoughts during the day and hinder one’s sleep during the night.

The authors of the Bible—and the Psalmists in particular—are honest about the harsh and difficult conditions of this life. The frequent mention of “tears” (dimah) demonstrates this; in several Psalms the sorrow of the author is expressed (Ps 6:6; 39:12; 56:8; 80:5). Yet, by the end of this collection of poetry, the Psalmists affirm that God delivered them from death and saved them from more tears (116:8), and that “Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting” (126:5).

The sorrow of the Psalmist is related to the reaction of those around him, as indicated by the addition of the preposition (the Hebrew word be) before the verb “they say.” That is, their perception (“while they say”) stems from the author’s sorrow and struggle. While sorrow is a natural part of life, taken too far, it can impede our testimony. The statements or accusations of the “they” are said directly to the author, and they persist throughout the day.

The query “Where is your God?” may have two components. The first is more of a philosophical question as to whether the psalmist’s God really exists such that He could prevent the sorrow of the Psalmist. The second is whether his God is able or willing to provide comfort to the author. Either way, the sorrow of the author prompts questions about the power and ability of the author’s God.

The Bible is unambiguous about the fact that there is sorrow and difficulty and tears in this world. People try to anesthetize themselves through a variety of means, but it doesn’t take away the genuine pain of life in a fallen world. Sometimes, however, our tears can draw us closer to God and provide us a deeper sense of His presence and comfort. Conversely, sometimes the pleasures of this world can distract us from spiritual growth.

I recently read a quote to our congregation about this very topic. We were discussing how Jesus’ statement “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh” (Luke 6:21), goes directly against our culture’s obsession with comedy, entertainment and instant gratification.

The promulgation of entertainment seems increasingly to be a problem in modern culture. A follower of Jesus should not be ruled by entertainment and laughter, but by sobriety as well as meaningful, kingdom-oriented joy. We all need some recreation time once in a while; however, a society increasingly devoted to its own pleasure and entertainment in the form of fiction, sports, chemicals, or any combination of the above, is a society that is culturally and politically unsustainable. There is value in the tears because they remind us of how fleeting and vaporous are the pleasures of this life; sometimes sorrow draws us closer to the permanence of God.

In the forward of his book Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) Neil Postman compares George Orwell’s dystopic novel 1984 to the less known but far more plausible futuristic novel by Aldous Huxley called Brave New World. Postman contrasts Orwell’s 1984 future, in which a dictatorial government confiscates personal rights, with the future portrayed by Huxley, wherein people entertain and drug themselves into a euphoria and then willingly relinquish their rights.

This frighteningly relevant comparison of 1984 and Brave New World is summarized by Postman in this forward to his book:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny ‘failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.’ In 1984 . . . people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us” (Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, vii-viii).

Postman ominously ends this forward by stating: “This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right” (viii).

To the extent that the believer participates with the desires and distractions of the world, he participates in many of its vanities. He fails to make the most of his fleeting life, but rather squanders it on trivial activities with no eternal value. Enjoy your recreation, but don’t be driven by it; be driven by the kingdom of God; put that first. And don’t be afraid of the sorrows of life and the tears that often come with living in a fallen world system. These can help us see our need to find joy and comfort in God Himself. “For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).


If you liked this article, see our previous articles in the series, Thirsting for God (42:1) from the November 2013 edition and Appearing Before the Living God (Ps 42:2) from January 2014. 



AMERICAN HISTORY: Religious Pioneering in the Nineteenth Century

The 1800s was a period of pioneering in America. There were innovations in industry, technology, and Americans headed West to find new and interesting places to settle. But does that spirit of innovation and pioneering help religion also? 

The period of Reconstruction after the American Civil War (from 1861-1865) was difficult on many levels. Americans questioned the legitimacy of political and religious leadership. In the book The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age, Alan Trachtenberg demonstrates how the corporate system sculpted American identity and cultural perceptions between 1865-1895. Incorporation shaped American society especially in the vacuum created by the deficiency of trusted political and religious leadership.

The post-Civil War decades witnessed escalating political corruption, including the Tweed Ring scandals in New York City (1871), the Crédit Mobilier scandals (1872), and the Whiskey Ring which was exposed in 1876. Inept and timid leadership typified the “forgettable presidents” of the Gilded Age. Five consecutive presidential elections between 1876 and 1892 were won by candidates who received less than fifty percent of the popular vote; none of them wielded any kind of ideological mandate from the nation. Politicians of the Gilded Age avoided bold initiatives and preferred compromises, such as the Compromise of 1877 and the frail Sherman Antitrust Law of 1890. The nation turned away from politicians to wealthy corporate entrepreneurs, such as Carnegie, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt, for guidance and inspiration.

These decades witnessed a waning influence of American Christianity, as well. Churches were crippled by theological pettiness and denominational fragmentation. But more significant than divisions within Christianity were noteworthy departures from Christianity. As land pioneering and industrial pioneering worked its way across our fruited plains, so also there was a movement for religious pioneering. But was that religious innovation as helpful and valuable as the innovation in technology and business in the last half of the nineteenth century?

Unless you adhere to one of the theological movements mentioned below, then the answer should be a definitive “no.” Religious pioneering and the formulation of creative religious systems was spearheaded by individuals or groups of people who wanted to depart from the stagnancy of mainstream Protestantism. Examples of new religious movements that cropped up in America in the nineteenth century include Mormonism (1830), the Seventh Day Adventists (1862), Christian Science (1875), Theosophy (1875), Jehovah’s Witnesses (1878), and the Unity Church (1889). These movements borrowed elements from Christianity, but then appealed to sources and promoted ideas that took them outside accepted, orthodox Christianity. Furthermore, the legitimacy of mainstream Christianity was weakened during this time from other opponents, including Darwinism and German Higher Criticism. It would take decades for Protestant leaders to acknowledge and respond to these threats, specifically, during the “Fundamentalist” movement in the 1910s.

Industry and secularism won the cultural war in the Gilded Age (again, a period roughly between 1870 and 1900). Whereas church bells once tolled forth the hours in a community, increasingly railroad stations became the definitive arbiters of time. Whereas previously, many people associated time and seasons with religious feasts and holy days, Frederick W. Taylor’s system for organizing time and labor changed the way people thought about time, vocation, and efficiency (Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time & Space: 1880-1918, 115-116). Corporate leaders, like Andrew Carnegie, were both masters of business, but were also seen as preachers of corporate ethics. The engineer and the manager replaced the pastor and the philosopher as positions that brought order and meaning to society. Also, newspapers during the Gilded Age unified the private experiences of diverse individuals and thereby shaped cultural perceptions and realities in ways previously afforded to religion. After the Civil War, industry and the new, creative religious movement provided hope and meaning for Americans while the impact of Protestantism diminished and dissipated.

American Christianity during the Gilded Age had lost its unifying influence to the new innovative faith systems that were created during this time. Christian language and rhetoric had provided a rallying summons across multiple denominations for the cause of American Independence toward the end of the eighteenth century. Up until the Civil War, The Pilgrim’s Progress ranked as one of the most read books in America (Trachtenberg, 101). 

After the Civil War, however, traditional Protestant Christianity, though demonstrably present, failed to provide a unifying, cohesive voice. Again, corporate leaders, like Andrew Carnegie, proved to be not merely masters of business, but also preachers of corporate morality: “You know that there is no genuine, praiseworthy success in life if you are not honest, truthful, fair-dealing” (Quoted in Trachtenberg, 80). Many in the Gilded Age recognized that commerce was trumping religion. Railroad mogul Charles E. Perkins declared, “Have not great merchants, great manufacturers, great inventors, done more for the world than preachers and philanthropists?” (Quoted in John L. Thomas, “Nationalizing the Republic, 1877-1920,” The Great Republic, Vol. 2, 74). The rise of industry and the proliferation of aberrant religious movements in the nineteenth century muzzled Christianity’s influence.

Like we alluded to earlier, it took a major unifying movement like Fundamentalism to overcome the damage done by religious pioneering in the nineteenth century. It seems like such a unifying movement is needed again; the last thirty years have also seen new ways of pioneering church, worship, doctrine, and spirituality, but these “innovations” have rarely been helpful. Today, it seems like technology, medicine and politics have supplanted the power of Christianity. In days like these we must jettison efforts to reformulate or re-imagine Christianity, reject false hope in technology and politics, and reassert the power of the Gospel of Christ and the foundational doctrines and practices of the Christian faith. 



OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD: Some Haphazard Thoughts About Faith At the Beginning of 2023

The thing about writing a web journal as we have done for the past twelve years, is that you have tons of ideas for articles, but a small percentage actually ever see the light of day. Some are original thoughts, and some may be paraphrases of something else we heard. Some ideas get formed into articles, but many are just isolated thoughts, and other article ideas simply lose their current-ness to the sands of time and delay.

But we can take some of those random ideas, and put them together into a single article! Is that a bit lazy on our part? Probably. But that’s exactly what we’ve done. These specific random thoughts revolve around the Christian faith. Enjoy!

 

If faith healing is legitimate, then the Church missed a monumental opportunity to verify the legitimacy of Biblical Christianity during the pandemic. I suppose that this one is kind of cheating because we mentioned this idea a month or so after the pandemic began. In the May 2020 edition of The Eclectic Kasper we presented an article called “Lessons from the Coronavirus, Part 2.” One of the sections was called “Religious faith-healers are frauds,” and you can go there to see a fuller explanation of our frustrations. But the point is that if faith healing today was legitimate, or if the church still had people with the spiritual gift of healings (1 Cor 12:9, 28, 30), then where were they during the pandemic, and why weren’t they working through Covid wards healing people for Jesus? A global pandemic would have been a great opportunity to exercise those gifts if they were legitimate and still available to us. So, we were right: faith-healers are frauds; case closed!


Christians should want pluralism and diversity. The words “pluralism” and “diversity” make some Christians cringe. However, we of all people should be on the cutting edge of protecting the right of free speech, free expression, and the freedom to hold one’s worldviews. We should oppose attempts to legislate morality or any laws that hamper people from exercising their ideas peacefully and persuasively. We should want to protect everyone’s rights, because if we don’t, we become complicit when our own rights are threatened. By protecting gay rights, and Muslim rights, we protect our own rights. 

All that said, Christians don’t need to be tolerant of false teaching or misrepresentations of Christianity. Additionally, there is something fundamentally wrong with the expectation that religious people should be more inclusive. Or to put it another way, the burden is not on religious exclusivity to tolerate pluralism; the burden is on pluralism to tolerate religious exclusivity.


Worship should encourage thought, not hinder it. If you’re not thinking while you’re worshiping, then you’re not worshiping. We’ve discussed this issue extensively, and most recently in the article “The Idea and Practice of Blended Worship,” from the March 2022 edition of The Eclectic Web Journal. But there seems to be a sense in some modern worship that they want to avoid thought, and doctrine, or the strenuous ideas of the Christian faith. However, it seems that these very ideas should animate our worship; they should make our reverence for and appreciation of the Holy Trinity deeper and more real. If our worship is about enabling feelings, then we can’t really know if the result is from the Holy Spirit, or from ourselves, or from the music. Besides, worship songs aren’t there to entertain, but to enable worship, and to educate and edify God’s people as we rehearse back to God the important doctrines and practices of our faith.


We discussed pluralism earlier, but there is also religious pluralism, or the notion there are many ways to get to God. This is how some legitimize all the different religions in the world and assert that each religion is just a different expression or means for getting to God. But does that fundamentally make sense?

Think about it this way: If there are many ways to get to God, don’t just pick any one of them; pick the one that is easiest and cheapest; it will get you to the same goal! In fact, if there are many ways to get to God, anything other than the easiest and cheapest way, or anything harder and more expensive than the easiest and cheapest way is unnecessary at best, and outright criminal at worst. It is putting the world through unnecessary time, activity, energy, and expense to make them do something other than the easiest way to have right relationship with God.

That is also the irony of Christianity: there is nothing that we can do to earn salvation. The only thing that we have to do to be saved is to trust in Christ, His sacrificial death, and His literal defeat of death and resurrection from the dead. By believing in these things, we receive grace from God for salvation and eternal life (John 3:16; Romans 6:22-23; Ephesians 2:8-10). So, it is both the easiest way to get to God and the clearest way to get to God. But, most importantly, it is the only way to have a right relationship with God (John 14:6; Acts 4:12), and to receive forgiveness and eternal life from Him, as well.


Everything good about Christianity is always two minutes away from being an idol. There are so many valuable aspects about Christianity, the symbolism of the cross, the Bible, specific doctrines or practices. We need to remember that everything about Christianity is a tool for the goal of worshiping God and drawing closer to Him. But if we love any aspect of our faith more than God, it then becomes an idol. It seems to me, in fact, that modern American evangelicalism is as littered by idols as Old Testament Israel ever was. We need to make sure that the things we do are all ways to enhance our knowledge of and love for God and for Christ, rather than detract our attention away from Christ.


And, finally, joy is one of the most elusive commodities in the Christian warehouse. We will discuss this more in the article below, but we wanted to mention this point in this article, too. 

You can go to the Christian store and search in vain to find either a good book or to find any joy. Joy comes from God, from God’s material blessings, from the happiness that we can have in our faith, and from the beauty of the relationships that we have around us. Chose joy, and chose to give it freely; if it is genuinely from God, then it will never run out! 



BIBLE STUDY: The Happiness of Joy

Not too long ago, I taught a lesson about joy at a Bible study and appealed primarily to Old Testament poetic literature.

Evangelicalism is shackled by some false contrasts and tired clichés about joy. One is the notion that happiness is temporal, but joy lasts forever. Another is that happiness is related to our circumstances, and is more material in nature whereas joy transcends time and materiality.

That all sounds too pious to be wrong, except for the fact that these contrasts and dichotomies are not supported by Scripture.

My thesis at that Bible study was that we have created too much of a difference between happiness and joy, sometimes shaming hapless Christians for their happiness and making joy seem like an elusive goal.

In the Old Testament, these English words “joy,” “gladness,” and “happiness” are used synonymously, and often represented by the same Hebrew words, such as simchah, used 94 times in the OT. This word clearly portrays joy and happiness as similar, and both as being temporal, circumstantial, and attainable. Proverbs 15:23 notes that “A man has joy in an apt answer,” and the second half of Proverbs 12:20 says that “Counselors of peace have joy.” And there is Proverbs 21:15: “The exercise of justice is joy for the righteous.” These are not talking about some futuristic, Elysian sensation, but rather, they are pointing to joyous realities that we can have now in this life. Trips to Jerusalem bring joy to the Old Testament believer (Psalm 137:6), and announcements of peace and good news bring “happiness” (Isaiah 52:7, NASB).

I also really appreciated from a study in Ecclesiastes how much God wants us to enjoy life while we serve Him. Ecclesiastes can be summarized as follows: maximum meaning in life is attained through remembering, fearing and obeying God (3:14; 5:7; 8:12; 12:1, 13), and then through enjoying and making the most out of the brief life He has given to us (2:24; 3:12-13; 5:18-20; 6:12; 8:15; 9:7; 11:8). Therefore, that impulse to divide joy and happiness is somewhat artificial, imposed on us by grumpy Christians who want to both steal our joy and ruin our happiness. Many believers have been robbed of both their happiness and joy by false contrasts and bad exegesis.

When I taught this lesson about how joy and happiness overlap in many Old Testament passages, some in the Bible study really appreciated the liberation of this truth.

But those tired evangelical clichés die hard. In fact, some people are willing to sink with them, no matter how unbiblical they are. Others in the Bible study rejected these OT texts and punted to those lame clichés and false dichotomies. “Happiness is temporal; joy is eternal,” one person insisted. Happiness is related to our circumstances, while joy is not. Again, we all believe that our attitude should transcend our circumstances and that there will be great joy and gladness for the believer in heaven in the future. However, those false contrasts tend to give the impression that Christians can’t pursue some measure of happiness in this life.

Ironically, some people used Bible verses that demonstrate that there are temporal and circumstantial aspects to joy. We rejoice when thinking about God’s word (Psalm 119:162), and “they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest” (Isaiah 9:3, ESV). Despite those tired, old evangelical clichés, don’t these verses assert that joy can be found in the circumstances of life? 

Another verse that was used was Psalm 65:12: “The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy” (ESV). Again, don’t the beauty of the hills and the bounty of the pastures bespeak a joy that is temporal and circumstantial, and not just future and ethereal?

Those false contrasts between joy and happiness are a farce of poor exegesis; they are examples of appealing more to clichés to develop our theology rather than appealing to clear statements in Scripture.

In the New Testament, we are taught that there are indeed future aspects of joy and happiness (Rev 21:2-4; 22:1-5). The apostles also call us to rise above the difficulty of our circumstances with happiness and joy (James 1:2; 1 Peter 1:6). But in the NT, the words “happiness,” “joy,” and “blessed” are used interchangeably. For instance, you can see this in Rom 14:22, or in the different translations of the Beatitudes in Matt 5:3-11, or the translations of Matthew 25:21 and 23 (the NASB uses “joy” and the NIV translates the Greek word as “happiness”). Clearly, the drastic dichotomy that we have created between happiness and joy is unbiblical and even misleading.

Maybe the Bible doesn’t call us to be miserable, but calls us to both joy and happiness, a thrill in serving God and a gladness in the good things that He has created for those who trust in Him (1 Timothy 4:4).

I finished my teaching about this with two exhortations. First, if it is true that we have made too much of a false dichotomy between joy and happiness, then we should go ahead and be happy! Life is full of disappointments and tragedy. However, it is right to fear and obey God because we can also enjoy the multitude of blessings that He pours out on us. Let the gift of salvation and the many blessings we receive give you and those around you joy and happiness even as we endure the vicissitudes of a fallen world. 

Second, don’t feel guilty about doing things that make you happy. There is a lot about this fallen but beautiful world that can give us joy and happiness; a hike in the woods, a great relationship, listening to music, and eating pizza! As long what you are doing is not immoral, illegal, or unbiblical, the don’t worry about it; just be happy!

I hope that for you, breaking free from these false and unbiblical contrasts will help you enjoy the happiness of joy and the joy of happiness. 



The Eclectic Web Journal is written by Matt Kasper and edited by Martha Kasper. Matt is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and Dallas Theological Seminary, and is currently completing a PhD. in reformation history from Georgia State University. Matt is the pastor of a small church northeast of Atlanta called Grace Atlanta Bible Church, and is involved in several other groups and activities in the Atlanta area, as well.

We had written a decade’s worth of articles in our previous web journal, called, The Eclectic Kasper, which we published from 2011 to 2021. Those articles are also arranged topically in our “Eclectic Archive,” which you can access here.

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