Jesus' call to extreme discipleship causes exceeding sorrow, but Paul will have none of that

Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." And the young man, having heard the word, went away sorrowful [λυπούμενος], for he had many possessions;

-- Matthew 19:21f.

And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved [λυπούμενος]: for he had great possessions.

-- Mark 10:21f.

"Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys."

-- Luke 12:33

"So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions."

-- Luke 14:33 

And when Jesus heard it, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful [περίλυπος]: for he was very rich.

-- Luke 18:22f.

Each one must do just as he has decided in his heart, not out of sorrow [λύπης] or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver.

-- II Corinthians 9:7

 

Like much else, Islam got "irja" from Pauline Christianity

From a recent discussion, here, about how ISIS seeks to immanentize the eschaton:

'Unless you have some knowledge of medieval Islamic theology you probably have no idea what irja means. The word translates literally as “postponing.” It was a theological principle put forward by some Muslim scholars during the very first century of Islam. At the time, the Muslim world was going through a major civil war, as proto-Sunnis and proto-Shiites fought for power, and a third group called Khawarij (dissenters) were excommunicating and slaughtering both sides. In the face of this bloody chaos, the proponents of irja said that the burning question of who is a true Muslim should be “postponed” until the afterlife. Even a Muslim who abandoned all religious practice and committed many sins, they reasoned, could not be denounced as an “apostate.” Faith was a matter of the heart, something only God — not other human beings — could evaluate.

'The scholars who put this forward became known as “murjia,” the upholders of irja, or, simply, “postponers.” The theology that they outlined could have been the basis for a tolerant, noncoercive, pluralistic Islam — an Islamic liberalism. Unfortunately, they did not have enough influence on the Muslim world. The school of thought disappeared quickly, only to go down in Sunni orthodoxy’s memory as one of the early “heretical sects.” ...

'In fact, there are hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world who are also engaged in irja, even if they are unfamiliar with the term. Some of them are focused on the Quran, instead of the medieval Shariah, and hold on to the famous Quranic verse that says, “There is no compulsion in religion.”' 

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Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God.

-- 1 Corinthians 4:5

Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

-- 2 Corinthians 9:7

The Tithers: Today's Version of the Circumcision Party

Against those Jews who required circumcision of the Galatian Christians, Paul was quite adamant in his letter:

For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law (5:3).

I would they were even cut off which trouble you (5:12).

Against those who would shame the faithful to pay the bills, or oblige contributions as evidence of faith, Paul would have none of it:

. . .  not out of sorrow or out of necessity . . . (2Cor.9:7).

Owe nothing to anyone . . . (Romans 13:8).

For all you folks out there in Literalville, that's : Nothing, nada, zip; to none, nobody, no one.

Think about it.

Against the Tithers

The preacher man on TV last night kept saying how false teaching is destructive to one's immortal soul. I couldn't help but reflect on the irony of that statement because nine years ago a good blast of false doctrine had worked wonders on me. It functioned like smelling salts, waking me to a clearer-headed assessment of where I had been. Not because the false teaching was in any way true, but because it was so blissfully, wonderfully, ignorant and out of place. That a Lutheran pastor actually fell for it showed me that his Lutheranism had been no match for it. It was a "peace that passes understanding" kind of moment.

I had been teaching my students at my church Paul's "authentic" letters, in chronological order, when the incident occurred. A fund raising campaign was getting underway for a building expansion and all classes were being asked to interrupt their curricula and incorporate some stewardship components to support the effort. The materials we were asked to use openly advocated tithing, arguing for it on the basis of mostly Old Testament precedents. The pastor himself one Sunday announced his intent to tithe, and actually blurted out the amount in dollars and cents from the pulpit. Proud of his title, the Rev. Dr. apparently took degree exams which hadn't covered such trivial matters as the command of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount "to give in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you," let alone Paul's argumentation in the Letter to the Galatians against becoming debtors "to do the whole law." At the very least one would think that a real Lutheran would have some affection for the ideas of Paul, and that it would therefore occur to such a person that tithing speaks the very language of what Paul calls "necessity" or "compulsion," not the language of Christian freedom in the spirit, which we find so forcefully expressed in Paul's early letters. It turned out that the pastor's M.Div. was Lutheran, but his D.Min. was not.

Under such circumstances, about the only avenue open was to point out how tithing hardly even represented an intellectual category in early Christianity. One can see this in volume two of Luke's history of Christianity, The Acts of the Apostles, and despite the skepticism which sometimes attaches to this source, the broad picture it paints on the subject of money is clear enough and coheres with Paul's own testimony.

Paul's conversion to the Way occurred at a time when the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem were experimenting with a form of communism in which "no one said that anything he had was his own." Pooling of resources made it possible to supply the wants of a growing number of poor, dependent on the generosity of the Christians, both Jew and Greek. This distribution for the poor no doubt contributed greatly to the early success of the Christian sect, but the weakness of this arrangement was exposed by the famine in the land in the mid 40's, and the dispensers of aid themselves soon became in need of help.

It is at this juncture that Paul's role as a kind of entrepreneur comes into focus. Although entitled to compensation from the churches he had founded, Paul instead chose to self-fund his various missionary travels throughout the eastern Mediterranean from the proceeds of his own leather business, which he combined with his role as apostle to the Gentiles. This decision was taken in part to prove to the leadership of the church at Jerusalem that his conversion from violent persecutor to follower of the Way was genuine, but also to remove suspicions about the nature of and motivations behind his law-free gospel to the Gentiles and, indeed, to remove suspicions about the authenticity of his appointment as apostle by the risen Jesus. Paul's own testimony from his letters shows that he was not entirely successful in quelling these suspicions, and he operated under a cloud which seemed to follow him everywhere.

So instead of taking compensation from his various churches, Paul frequently had urged them to collect and set aside monies for the relief of the community at Jerusalem, "every man according as he purposeth in his heart." It is a pledge of support such as this, made freely and voluntarily by the church at Corinth, which for some reason had subsequently gone unfulfilled and which prompted Paul's comments about money in the correspondence which comes down to us in the two Corinthian epistles. Far from addressing such issues as how or even whether the local churches were to fund themselves, Paul's comments about money are instead focused on this "collection for the saints" at Jerusalem. It was the peculiar problem of the Corinthians that they had lost their sense of urgency about the suffering of their fellow believers and had become self-absorbed, which gives Paul's epistles to the Corinthians some of their special edge.

Paul's ultimate success with this collection must have been considerable, a tribute to his powers of persuasion. But the trouble which subsequently fell upon him in Jerusalem, when after many years of missionary activity he at length delivered the monies there, cannot have been due solely to such things as his reputed relaxation of circumcision rules for the children of Jewish converts to Christianity. Somehow the magnitude of the alms and offerings he had presented had become known outside Jewish circles, since after his arrest the Roman governor Felix kept Paul under confinement for two years hoping "that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him." It would seem likely that Paul had bypassed the Temple administration in bringing his "alms and offerings" and had delivered the funds directly into the hands of James and the elders. Knowledge of this must therefore have leaked out of Christian, perhaps Greek, circles within the church. We can well imagine how anger and jealousy over this must have stirred up the hubbub against Paul in the city, and it helps explain one line of Paul's subsequent defense of himself, that "against the temple he had not offended at all."

A scrupulous person like a tither doesn't get into this kind of trouble.