Category: Faith

I recently heard that Bernie Sanders described his views about God this way: “Everyone believes in the golden rule, and we call that God.”

That sounds nice, but it’s not true. If truth matters, and I think it does, we should be more accurate than that.

Plato might agree with the idea that a “rule” may be God, but I believe that the best evidence suggests that God is a personal being. The golden rule, itself, is part of the proof.

The golden rule, of course, is the statement famously made by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, in part: “Do to others what you would have them to do to you.”[1]

Bernie Sanders left out the precursor to the golden rule – love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength – but, then he doesn’t believe in a personal God. That is the rub, of course: the golden rule has different meanings depending on the rest of the worldview in which it is asserted.

Bernie Sanders believes that the golden rule is universal. I think that is generally true, as in following the golden rule is universally a good thing. It certainly has universal applicability and universal appeal. But, it isn’t universally believed, as he says, and it certainly isn’t universally observed in the same way. Continue reading “Is the Golden Rule Unique to Christianity? Or is it Universal?” →

Rahab is the second woman listed in the genealogy of the lineage of Jesus in Matthew. It is no insignificant thing that Matthew lists five women in the patriarchal lineage of Jesus. There must be a point to it, as patriarchal lineages did not include women, especially in the First Century.

Tamar, the first woman in the list, has a seemingly odd story. She emerges from accusations of prostitution amidst the faithlessness of Judah and wickedness of Judah’s oldest sons to bear the child who would lead to David and ultimately to Jesus. Her creative, if not dutiful, commitment to the custom of bearing a child in honor of her deceased husband redeemed Judah as the bearer of the seed that would lead to the Messiah, in spite of Judah himself.

The Messiah, of course, was promised to come through the line of Judah and later the line of David to be the Savior of the world. This was an extension of the promise to Abraham that his seed would bless all nations. Like Tamar, Rahab is similarly not the picture of one we might assume to be of a messianic lineage.

Rahab wasn’t even of the lineage of Abraham. Her name suggests Egyptian origin, and she was an Amorite, considered an idolatrous, wicked people. If Tamar was only thought to be a prostitute, Rahab was a prostitute.

Continue reading “Christmas Thoughts: Rahab, a Foreign Prostitute & God’s Redemptive Plan” →