How Bible Twisters Add To and Subtract From the Bible

It's time for another edition of Fighting for the

Faith. Tuesday, December 18th, 2012. Christmas is just around the corner, and I am very much looking forward to it.

Thank you for tuning in.

You're listening to Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ, and this is the program that dishes up a daily dose of biblical discernment, the goal of which, help you to think biblically, help you to think critically, help you compare what people are saying in the name of God to the

Word of God. Now, one of the tactics that those who twist God's Word to basically craft the message that they want the

Bible to say, and that's really what's going on there, is that somebody who is twisting God's Word is doing their doggone bestest.

Yeah, that's probably a weird way of putting it. But they're really putting in some effort to not say what the

Bible says while creating the impression that what they're saying is what the

Bible says. Okay? It's a strange thing. Now, there's one of the ways that we talk about regularly here at Fighting for the

Faith about those who twist God's Word is one of the phrases that was actually coined by a listener, and the phrase is,

Narcissus. Now, prior to the term being coined, Narcissus, I had been using the phrase narcissistic isoscesis to describe a particular way in which certain mega -church pastors like Stephen Furtick, Perry Noble, and others were twisting

God's Word. That was that they were narcissistically reading themselves into the

Biblical text, okay? And so that's one way to twist the Scripture.

You end up basically taking any Biblical text, making it all about you. But that's not the only way in which to twist

Scripture. In fact, eisegesis is a known way in which you can twist the Scripture, and here's the idea.

You can twist the Scripture by adding to it, eisegeting things into the text that are not there.

Think of these as artificial fillers and flavors and things like that. Or you can subtract from the

Bible, okay? You take away things that, well, belong there that you disagree with.

Both of these techniques, basically, the person who is engaging in it thinks they know better than God what is true and what is false, okay?

So the idea is the eisegete or the, I don't want to say exegete because technically, it's not reading out.

It's the hack job. Okay, the person who is engaging in the Bible twisting by either subtracting from the

Scriptures or adding to the Scriptures thinks they know better than God. They're trying to give us their theology, their doctrine, not biblical doctrine.

Very dangerous thing. And so Christian pastors, those of you who are listening to Fighting for the

Faith, I cannot admonish you, encourage you, basically warn you enough that your job is to rightly handle the biblical text and you're to neither add to it nor take away from it.

You are to proclaim it as it stands. Now, understand that there are some passages that are difficult to take a little bit of explanation.

But for the most part, the perspicuity of Scripture, that is, is that it's understandable, it's knowable, you can read it and get it, stands.

Now, that being the case, not every passage of Scripture is as easy to understand as others. In fact, but the reality is this, is that when it comes to the doctrines on which the

Christian faith stands or falls, an elementary school kid could read those passages and get them.

In fact, I don't think that there is a single biblical doctrine, a single doctrine of Christianity that relies on a more difficult passage.

Does that make sense? So the idea is that pastors, you are to be preaching what

God has revealed in His Word. He knows best what it is that we are to believe, what we are to teach, what we are to confess.

And we are neither to add to it via eisegesis and other things or take away from it via basically snipping it out and throwing it away.

So what we're going to be doing on today's edition of Fighting for the Faith is kind of looking at several different ways in which

Bible teachers either add to or take away from God's Word.

So that's kind of the theme that we're working on here, and we'll start easy and work our way up in difficulty all the way to our sermon review today, which is a fascinating sermon.

We're going to be going to a place that calls itself Safe House Church, Safe House Church.

And no kidding, I am not joking when I say this, stay tuned for hour number two because you're going to hear a pastor attempt to make the

Christmas story about inclusivity, not being exclusive, and then derive from that the idea that we need to have female pastors and affirm homosexuality.

No joke. But the only way you can do that is by eisegeting things into the text.

In fact, the person who's engaging in eisegeting, what they're really trying to do, they don't want what the

Bible says, but they want it to say something. So they're pouring into these texts things that are not there in order to manipulate the text to say something.

It doesn't. I mean, if I were to tell you, listen, by the end of today's edition of Fighting for the Faith, you are going to hear somebody attempt to make the

Christmas story about being gay affirming. You go, what? Well, yeah, exactly.

But that's what's going to happen. You're going to hear somebody attempt to do that, and what we'll do is we'll deconstruct the technique that is being used so that you can spot this when somebody else does this in your church.

Hopefully that doesn't happen in your church. If this is happening in your church, you've got problems. Problems that are very serious.

Problems that may require you to confront somebody or, worse, require you to not show up again and find a church where the pastor understands that his job is to preach the text as he's been given it, not engage in eisegesis or hacking the

Bible up and omitting the parts that he's not comfortable with proclaiming. You don't want to add to or take away from the

Scripture. That's kind of the idea. Now, there's different ways in which people add to and take away from the Scripture. One of the ways in which people add to the

Scripture is via, well, dreams and visions and things of that nature.

And so what we'll do is we'll start off our today's edition of Fighting for the Faith with an example of that from the

Patricia King gang. Are you waiting for the

United States to have its Mount Carmel moment? You're going, it's what?

Well, yeah, you know, it's Mount Carmel moment. Yeah. Here's Robert Stearns from the

Patricia King gang to explain to you how he has prophetically received a word from God that the

United States is gearing up and waiting for and getting ready for its

Mount Carmel moment here. I'll let him explain. Hey, family, this is

Robert Stearns, and I'm here at the Growing in the Supernatural conference with Patricia King and her team.

We're having a great time. What? The Growing in the Supernatural conference.

Who knew you could do that? I mean, wow. You just go to a conference and you two can grow in the supernatural with Patricia King, known heretic and false teacher.

God, OK. Wish you were here. Hope you get back to one of these conferences soon. Yeah, I'll pass. Thanks. Appreciate the sentiment, though.

I want to take a moment and share with you something that I've been feeling in my heart for the past few months.

OK, you've been feeling what in your what? Feeling something in your heart. Yeah. By the way, this is this is another one of those phrases that you really need to be listening for.

If your pastor gets up. Ascends to the pulpit and says, I would like to share with you something that I've been feeling in my heart or the more pious way of putting it,

I would like to share with you what God has laid on my heart today. Think of football.

OK, at that point, you got to throw a flag, you know, blow a whistle, throw a flag. There's a flag on the play.

You're not supposed to preach what God has laid on your heart. The job of the pastor is not to preach anything that God has laid on your heart.

And I wouldn't want to hear anything that God has laid on anybody's heart, because have you heard in Scripture what the human heart is like?

What's in there? I mean, toilets are clean compared to human hearts.

You understand what I'm saying here? Because it's Jesus's out of the heart comes all kinds of horrible things.

Idolatry, theft, murder, adultery, all of that stuff starts in the heart. So, yeah,

I'm not so sure I really want to hear anything that some pastor thinks that God has laid on their heart.

In fact, you know, I'm thinking, you know, germicide, you know, hand sanitizer, anything at this point, because the human heart's wretched, wicked, nasty things and horrible things.

I don't want to have anything to do with something that's been laid on somebody's heart. You get what I'm saying? So you've got to think this way.

The job of the pastor, according to Scripture, not according to Roseboro, but according to Scripture, see Second Timothy chapter four is to preach the word.

OK, preach the word, not to preach what God has laid on their heart. No, preach the word.

That's their job. OK, let's continue. I really believe specifically regarding America, but really regarding the church globally,

I believe we're coming unto what I'm calling a Mount Carmel moment. Really? So we're going to relive the whole

Mount Carmel experience. You know, by the way, that's one of my favorite passages in the Old Testament. First Kings, what, chapter 18,

I think. But yeah. So you think America is going to or the church in America or the church or wherever, according to what is in your heart, is going to come to a

Mount Carmel moment. Who will be playing the prophet Elijah? I'm curious who will be playing the prophets of Baal.

I'm curious because you see, when I think about the nation of Israel, the ancient nation of Israel, both the northern and the southern kingdom.

Well, what we know about them is that they were the people of God and they had a they were in covenant with God in a way that, well, the

United States isn't like not even close. The United States is not God's nation, even though on the currency says, you know, in God we trust.

See, I'm a little curious about which God that happens to be. You know, you see the word

God that that's a term that you all can can be kind of fluid. So, OK, so America, you think you this is what you're calling according to you, you think, feel that the

United States is destined for a Mount Carmel moment.

You are aware that the original Mount Carmel moment, there was also sacrifice of animals involved and God showed up and, you know, and there was fire that fell from heaven and consumed

Elijah. Are you talking about that? Seriously, really all of that. You know, at Mount Carmel, Elijah summoned

Israel together. Yeah. OK. He called all of Israel up to Mount Carmel as witnesses.

And he said, it's time for you to make a decision. OK, kind of. Yes. It's time for you to make clear where you stand, because, yes,

Baal is God serve him. I think these are the words of Elijah paraphrase via Rosebrook. Yeah. But if Yahweh is

God, you know, serve him. Right. OK. Israel was filled with compromise and with with no, no, no.

Idolatry, compromise. Come on. Let's call a thing what it is. Israel at that time was full of idolatry, adultery, wickedness, violence.

You know, you get what I'm saying. OK, let's call it what it is. Let's not hedge, you know, and, you know, they were caught up in compromise.

Yeah, with a fullness of losing God's heart and losing God's presence.

OK, I don't even know what you're talking about now. The prophets of Baal were called up by Elijah and Elijah said, meet me at Mount Carmel.

I want to tell you, I hear the voice of the spirit of God saying, meet me at Mount Carmel today. Really? So you hear the voice of God say so.

Now, this guy's speaking prophetically. God thus saith the Lord, meet me at Mount Carmel today.

I can't get there today. Yeah, I mean, I don't in fact, if I were to go to cheapo air,

I'm not even sure I could afford the ticket to Israel right now. But OK, so you think that God's telling you to tell me that to meet me at Mount Carmel.

Now, notice something that's going on here. OK, just pause for a second. What is this?

OK, this is somebody who really is adding to the scriptures.

OK, Robert Stearns here is adding to the scriptures, although he's kind of using the scriptures.

He's adding full blown direct revelation from God. And here's the deal.

Since I'm going to disobey this word from the Lord, I'm sorry, but I won't be meeting the

Lord at Mount Carmel today. Um, so the question needs to be asked, am

I disobeying God? Are you disobeying God? If you don't quit, get on to cheapo air and book your travel to Israel today so that you can meet

God at Mount Carmel. And since this was posted three days ago, which day in particular is it that God is telling me to meet him at Mount Carmel?

And what Mount Carmel are you talking about? Are you talking about the real Mount Carmel? Are you just talking about some allegorical concept of Mount Carmel, which really has no particular meaning, if that's the case?

Elijah called all of Israel together and the prophets of Baal. Yes. And he let the prophets of Baal make their sacrifices.

Yeah, he did. And I want to tell you that there is rising up today a false church.

Yes. This is the irony of this. Listen to these statements. This is going to be like bizarro world.

It has a form of worship and a form of godliness, but they have moved away from the clarity of God's word.

You mean like the Patricia King gang and the Growing in the Spirit conference folks, all of those people, right?

They've moved away from God's. You like you yourself are this way, too, because you're receiving direct revelation from God.

Would God commanding me to meet him at Mount Carmel? Moved into other doctrines. They've moved into something that is.

Yeah, like Patricia King's, you know, glory teaching and her teaching that you can ascend to heaven and and partake of the wine cellar of God, you know, stuff like that.

Is that what you're talking about? Not the apostolic faith handed down to us. Right.

Like, you know, casting out werewolf spirits and things like that. Is that what you're talking about? Like what

Patricia King is? By our spiritual forefathers and foremothers. But Elijah gathered them together and he said, listen,

I'm going to pray and I'm going to call upon God and the God who answers by fire. He is

God. And listen, if Baal is God, serve him. But if Yahweh is God, then serve him.

I believe we're coming to that moment in history right now, certainly in America. Really, we're coming to that moment right now.

Number one, America isn't God's covenant people. Who's the prophet that's going to summon

America to where we're going to have this little showdown at, you know, Mount Rushmore?

You know, where were you thinking this is going to go down at? Where we have been filled with other voices, filled with other concepts.

And God is saying, yes, we've been filled with other concepts and ideas specifically from the

XP Media website. We've chronicled this since I started the program. I want you to come back to an experience with me, to a place of standing in my word and a place of standing in identity in me.

Well, if I'm going to stand in God's word, then I need to stop listening to you and you telling me that God's commanding me to meet him at Mount Carmel.

So that you can be the people of God I've called you to be. We all know the story. Elijah built the altar, he called upon the name of the

Lord and God answered by fire and Israel was restored to right relationship with God.

Let's pray together that this nation will be restored to right relationship with God by coming into a

Mount Carmel moment. Yeah, you know, see, here's the deal is that individual citizens in the

United States of America will not be brought into right relationship to God by going to Mount Carmel.

Instead, they need to have the message of Mount Zion or we could say of Mount Moriah, the place where Christ was crucified, proclaimed and taught to them.

We need to call sinners to repent of their sin and to be forgiven by the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the blood that was shed at Golgotha for the forgiveness of their sins.

You know, you're sitting here and we need to have a Mount Carmel moment. This is, I mean, seriously, I mean, this is as lame as like a hallmark sentimentality.

This doesn't do anything. And you've added to the scripture with your so -called direct revelation, experiencing the power of God and by letting our yes be yes.

And by saying, God, we don't want to serve any other gods. We want you and you alone.

Hey, we're praying for you today that you'll be strengthened in the Lord, that you'll be strong in his power.

Keep praying for the peace of Jerusalem. Stop by our website. Yeah, and that won't do that. Okay, so that's

Robert Stearns. He's added to the scripture with his direct revelation and he's manipulated the biblical text telling us that we need to obey the voice of the

Lord that came to him, that we need to have our Mount Carmel moment here in the United States. But apparently

God, the Holy Spirit is just a little bit thin on the details as to where that particular showdown is supposed to go down.

Plus, this was laid on his heart, and that means I wouldn't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole because, yeah,

I'm just a little nervous about anything that's touched a human heart, you know, because I have one. I know how disgusting it is.

All right, moving along. Okay, from the website called

The Blaze, headline reads Queen James Bible. Now there's a gay friendly version of scripture.

Just what we all need. Okay, so here's what it says. This was posted on December 13th at a website called

The Blaze. Despite the evolution of societal trends, homosexuality continues to be intensely debated on moral, spiritual and theological grounds.

With the Bible traditionally viewed as a document that condemns the actions associated with same sex attraction, some anonymous editors have set out to reinterpret scriptures to create a new translation known as the

Queen James Bible. That is favorable to gays and lesbians at first glance, and even when you dig beneath the surface, it's difficult to discern who is behind the publication.

The publisher of the book on Amazon is listed as Queen James, as there is no organization overtly mentioned on the website advertising the alternative

Bible. That said, the editors, though unnamed, are bold in explaining their intriguing project.

Quote, the Queen James Bible resolves any homophobic interpretations of the

Bible, but the Bible is still filled with inequality and even contradiction that we have not addressed.

The website notes, no Bible is perfect, including this one. And we wanted to make a book filled with the word of God that nobody could use to incorrectly condemn

God's LGBT children. And we have succeeded. The editors claim that the word homosexual was not placed in the book until 1946.

Their new version is purportedly a purer, at least in their view, take on the scriptures, although references to same sex attraction were clearly in the

Bible from its inception. Take into account the eight verses that are most frequently cited in arguments against homosexuality and same sex attraction.

The editors amended them in a way that makes homophobic interpretations impossible because the

King James translation is the most popular version of the Bible. It was selected to be repurposed,

I would say, because it's out of copyright. But anyway, why Queen James, you may be asking.

According to those behind this new publication, King James, the sixth and the first, the man behind the

Bible translation was a bisexual. A fact that is historically debatable. Well, we'll let the editors tell you in their own words, quote, commonly known as two biographers, but often surprising to most

Christians. King James, the first, was a well -known bisexual, though he did marry a woman.

His many gay relations were so well known that amongst some of his friends and court, he was known as Queen James.

It is in this great debt and honor that we name the Queen James Bible. So, so among the verses they've that the changes were made to Genesis 19, 5 originally reading, and they called unto

Lot and said unto him, where are the men which came to thee this night?

Bring them out unto us that we may know them. They've amended it to say, quote, and they called unto

Lot and said unto him, where are the men which came to thee this night? Bring them out unto us that we may rape and humiliate them.

Oh, yeah, that totally makes it totally gay friendly. Man on man rape.

Yeah, no, there's nothing there that would make you a man.

The rationale for this change, as described by the Bible's editors, is as follows. We side with most

Bible scholars who understand the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to be about bullying strangers.

Strangers were not well treated or well regarded at the time of the Bible. Hence, so much of the word urging the love and acceptance of others.

I would agree that, you know, male rape of another man, that would definitely qualify as the bullying and mistreatment of strangers.

Good night. Quote, we know Lot asks that the men do not know the angel visitors wickedly, which we understand to mean rape.

We know from Leviticus that one is not allowed to have sex with a beast and angels are not humans.

Plus, the passage mentions the men of the city. Obviously, women and children aren't going to be invited to a dominating and public rape.

But we know that there were women and children in Sodom because Lot had daughters.

Rapes such as this one are common between men in prison. They aren't sexual acts. They are power dominating acts.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Forget the fact that there's sex involved in it. It's not about that.

It's about power and domination. So as for the Leviticus 2013 passage, which reads, if a man also lie with a mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.

They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. Yet another interpretation is given in the Queen James Version. It now reads, if a man also lie with mankind in the temple of Molech as he lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.

They surely shall be put to death and their blood shall be upon them. I see. OK, so what do we got going on here?

What is this? It's real simple. This is both a subtraction from what Scripture says and in addition to it, in order to change what

Scripture says. Rather than repenting and bending the knee to what God has said and revealed, these folks don't like what

God has said and revealed. And so they're engaging in both eisegesis, putting things into the text that aren't there.

OK, and exegesis, not exegesis, but they're taking away from Scripture, you know, clear passages in order to eliminate what they don't like.

OK, but see, that's no way to find out what is true or false, is it? That's no way to discover what

God has revealed in his word, is it? You know what? There's a word for this, by the way. OK, they claim these guys who put this

King, Queen James Bible together think that they're engaging in scholarship, but they're not.

There's another word we use when this type of thing happens, right? And that word is censorship.

They don't like what it says, so they're censoring God and censoring the

Bible in order to have a more societally palatable version of the

Bible. But by doing this, they're taking away from the text and adding to the text.

And by doing so, they're deceiving themselves and they have made themselves

God. They think they know better than God, and therefore they're going to correct

God. I mean, think about the hubris of this. I mean, serious. OK, imagine for a second,

OK, by some strange series of events, OK, Jesus himself shows up at your

Christmas party. OK, Jesus himself shows up at your Christmas party. OK, and you know it's him.

And now I know it's kind of a weird way of thinking about this, but work with me here. I mean, yesterday we did a sermon where, you know, sermon review where Jesus was at, you know, a banquet put on by one of the leaders of the

Pharisees. So just imagine for a second that, you know, you're getting ready to have family over and you're going to you're going to throw a little, you know, little

Christmas party. OK, so Jesus shows up at your Christmas party. Now at your Christmas party, you have friends and family who've been invited and some of them have views different than you do.

And some of them like to, well, share those views with others. If you know what I'm saying, if your family's like my family, sometimes politics and religion discussions during the holidays can get a little bit, well, intense.

OK, so there's Jesus. He's at your Christmas party and there's your uncle.

OK, now your uncle is one of these people that, well, he's very liberal in his thinking and he's very progressive in his understanding and he's very vocal about it.

Right. OK. And so there's Jesus sitting at your table at your

Christmas party, talking with your uncle. OK. And do you know who Jesus is? Right. He's none other than the

God who created us in human flesh. OK. So then your uncle proceeds to tell

Jesus, OK, here's how the conversation goes down. He looks at Jesus and says, you know, I have a beef,

I've got a bone to pick with you. I'm not, I'm unhappy. Oh, and Jesus says, oh, sure. Well, tell me what you're unhappy about.

I don't like what the Bible says about homosexuality. I think that it's homophobic.

And Jesus looks at him and says, oh, really? Do tell. He says, well, you know, I think it's wrong. In fact,

I think we need to change the Bible. We need to correct it. OK, we need to correct it because, you know, these views are just so backwards and not in line.

With a progressive society like ours, we need we need to edit the Bible. So I'm thinking, you know, in fact,

I've got some white out here and a King James Bible. And I'm going to just write some verses out. And he's doing this right in front of Jesus.

Right. Do you think Jesus would say, you know, you know, you're right. What was I thinking? You know,

I mean, here I am. I'm God in human flesh. And, you know, I mean, it was so long ago. I mean, you know what?

You know, 2000 years ago. I mean, you forget the fact that, you know, you know, a thousand years is like a day to me. I mean, it's so far in the past.

What was I thinking when I said that, you know, if a man lies with another man as he lies with a woman, that's an abomination.

What was I thinking? What was I thinking when I when you know, when the Holy Spirit, you know, who happens to be the same

God as I am, you know, we can talk about the Trinity later. But what was I thinking when, you know, the Holy Spirit revealed, revealed that Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, was engaging in perversion.

You know, it's not just in Genesis, but in the book of Jude. I mean, have you read what was there?

I mean, in the book of Jude, here's what it says. Verse six. And the angels who did not stay with their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he is kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality.

You see, what was I thinking? I mean, I like the changes that the Queen James folks have come up with.

There's so much more accurate than what was originally revealed. I mean, aren't you glad that we have somebody who is smarter than God who can come along and fix these passages for us?

I mean, so yeah, that's the idea. So imagine somebody saying this to Jesus. What do you think Jesus's response would be?

Well, I'm not one for speculation. In fact, I'm one to say that the speculation is bad, but I can point you to where Jesus talks about his word and whether or not it can be edited.

And this is found in Matthew chapter five, starting in verse 17. Jesus says, do not think that I've come to abolish the law and the prophets.

I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

In other words, those people who are adding to and trying to take away from God's word, they're going against Jesus because Jesus makes it clear that not even the smallest segment, smallest stroke of a pen from scripture is going to pass away at all.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but not an iota or a dot will pass away from the words of scripture.

This is what Jesus said. So those who are adding to and taking away from scripture, they think they know better than Jesus himself.

They know better than God. And they don't. They're fooling themselves. And the scripture stands against them and they hate that.

So what they have intended to do is basically graffiti on scripture and get rid of what they hate and add to the scriptures, the things that they like, so that they can create the false impression.

Ha ha. See, God now approves of us. Really? Just because you took some white out to the scripture, do you really think that God now approves of your sinful behavior and doesn't call you to repent and be forgiven?

You're deceiving yourself and deceiving others if that's what you believe. All right.

We're up on our first break. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of fighting for the faith, you can do so.

My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com or you can subscribe on Facebook, facebook .com

forward slash pirate Christian or follow me on Twitter. My name there at pirate Christian. When we get back, we're going to take a look at a recent article by Shane hips and try to figure out whether or not

Jesus needs Christianity. That's kind of the question. We'll be right back. Stay tuned. If you think

God is a black woman named Papa, then you need to get out of the shack and read your Bible. You're listening to fighting for the faith.

You're listening to pirate Christian radio. We'll be taking your false doctrine.

Now it's Marty Python's Flying Circus Church.

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Moving along. These are the sounds of the

Emergent Postmodern Philharmonic Orchestra, and their spirit -filled rendition of Strauss's also

Sproch Zarathustra. This is an homage to the nihilistic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

And as you can hear, this progressive orchestra has jettisoned the constraining limiting definitions of notes that have been foisted upon humanity as a result of modernist thinking.

So now they just are letting the spirit guide them and direct them as they create this worshipful experience.

Just take it in. Can't you feel the spirit moving through this?

Isn't this so much better than precise limiting definitions of notes?

Yes, it brings a tear to my eye every time I hear it.

Anyway, all right, so that we use that music anytime we introduce somebody from the emergent crowd.

Well, Shane Hipps has a recent op -ed piece that has been published over at the Christian, not the

Christian Post, sorry, the Huffington Post, over at the Huffington Post, which is not exactly known for its theological prowess, if you would.

But the name of the op -ed piece is Why Christ Doesn't Need Christianity.

Why Christ doesn't need Christianity. Now, before we get into this, let me ask you a question, okay?

Is there a passage that you can point me to that says that Jesus doesn't need

Christianity? I can't think of any. If you can think of one, please let me know.

But I mean, I don't even know if this is a biblical category. What kind of statement is this?

Well, what it is, is it's an extra biblical statement, which means it's not based upon what is clearly revealed in God's word.

It's based upon the ideas that have their origin in the heart of and mind of Shane Hipps.

Now, the last time I checked, okay, no, just trust me on this one, I checked and I discovered that Shane Hipps is not

God. It's true. And so my question is, why would he come to the conclusion or the false idea that he knows better than God what's true regarding Christ?

It's a legit question, right? Because he's now going to give us the information that doesn't actually exist in scripture.

Although he's going to do his best to try to create the impression that really what he's doing is teaching us what

God has revealed. But he won't. Watch this. Here's what Shane Hipps, by the way, Shane Hipps, if you have forgotten already, was the winner of the 2012 worst

Easter sermon of the year. It's true. Go back into the archives and check it out.

It was a train wreck of a Easter sermon. But Shane Hipps, right, he says over at the

Huffington Post, the long, slow decline of religion in America has produced much hand -wringing among Christians.

The grief and anxiety are inevitable, but not entirely necessary. After all, Jesus didn't come into this world to start a new religion.

Okay. After all, Jesus didn't come into the world to start a new religion.

Well, that's weird because for all intents and purposes, a new religion began after Christ's ascension.

So he's saying that Jesus didn't come into the world to start a new religion. Is there a place where Jesus has said, hey, listen up all you people out there.

I didn't come into the world to start a new religion. Do you know of any verses that say that?

I don't know of any verses that say that. Where did he get this information? Oh, he's added this to the scripture.

Okay. Hipps continues, he says, Jesus's stated purpose was actually to announce the presence of the kingdom of God.

See Luke chapter four, verse 43. Now I don't happen to have that queued up. So let's, and the

Huffington Post doesn't have that neat little feature that I have at my blog. Anytime you type in a biblical reference, it'll actually give you a little pop -up window when to read it.

Once you hover your cursor over it. So here's, here's, he says, Jesus's stated purpose is to announce the kingdom of God.

Okay. Well, Luke four 43, but he, Jesus said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to other towns as well.

For I was sent for this purpose to proclaim. That would be to preach or proclaim, uh, the good news.

You are in Galleon of the kingdom of God. Okay. I don't have a problem with the idea that Jesus said that he came to preach the good news.

What is the good news of the kingdom of God? Because in Mark, Jesus, you know, lead literally leads off his preaching ministry with repent and believe the good news.

Okay. And then, you know, at Luke, the end of Luke, um, you know, chapter 24, what verse 47,

Jesus says to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations, to all people.

Right. Um, so I think that we could safely assume then it's not really assuming, but using scripture to interpret scripture, the idea of the kingdom of God, it's the kingdom of those who are repentant and forgiven through the shed blood of Christ.

Pretty simple. That's what the good news is all about. Right. So he says, so anyway, hips continues. He says a reality, which

Jesus said was located within us. Okay. So let me read this again in context. Okay.

Jesus has stated purpose was actually to announce the presence of the kingdom of God, a reality, which he said was located within us.

Oddly enough, the very religion that bears Jesus's name often built the biggest barriers to him and the life that he promised.

Hmm. Well, that's some pretty thin theology there. You know, uh, two verses out of context,

Luke four 43 and Luke 17 21 out of context to come up with the conclusion that Christianity has built barriers to keep people away from Jesus.

Now I would agree that though, that there are false versions of Christianity that do so, but this is no,

I mean, if we're going to talk about this, let's pull out our pencils, our Greek and Hebrew texts, and let's sit down and let's look at what is revealed here so that we can make an accurate assessment as to what

God has revealed regarding this. Right. Anyway, Shane hips then continues. He says, one thing that might ease our anxiety is to remember that Christ and Christianity are not the same thing.

I agree with that. That's true. If Christ is the wind, then Christianity is the sale.

Now stop, throw a flag here. Stop. Um, where in the Bible does it say

Christ is the wind? Uh, do you know of any passages that say Christ is the wind or that Christianity is a sale?

Notice he says, if Christ is the wind, well, I'm going to just say it straight out, Christ isn't the wind and Christianity isn't a sale.

So therefore your, um, your clause here, your, you know, if Christ is the wind, then

Christianity and then Christianity is a sale. The if doesn't pan out to be true in reality.

Therefore, Christ isn't the wind and Christianity isn't a sale because there's no biblical texts that say this at all.

There's no biblical texts that even teach this concept even in vague, ambiguous ways.

Okay. You've just added this to the, to Christianity and our understanding of it into the scripture.

Uh, no, this isn't reality. So he then goes on to say, so some sales are better than others at catching the wind.

Yeah. And some sailors are better at using the sale. Uh huh. But there is always the one and only wind, a sail without the wind.

Is a limp flag. Wind without a sale is still the wind. The relationship is only one way.

Yeah. But okay, fine. But see, Christ isn't the wind and Christianity is in the sale. So the, the, you know, this, um, illustration that you're using doesn't actually apply like at all.

He continues though. So just because Christianity claims Jesus as its own does not mean that Christ automatically claims

Christianity as his own. Hmm. Well, that's weird.

Um, because Jesus claims Christians as his own. For instance, gospel of John chapter 10, verse 14,

Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep.

Right. Okay. Or you can cross reference this with a verse 27. This is a fun one here.

Here's what Jesus says. My sheep hear my voice.

I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life.

They will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.

I and the father are one. In fact, let me back up that passage right there in John chapter 10, uh, just a little bit to verse 25.

Jesus answered them. I told you that you do not believe the works that I do in my father's name, that I do in my father's name.

They bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. So here's the idea. Jesus, um, for sure is, you know, he's not the same as Christianity, no doubt.

But to say that Christ doesn't claim Christianity as his own is ridiculous because Jesus claims his sheep as his own.

And what's the hallmark of Jesus's sheep? They hear his voice.

The reason why Bible twisters add to and take away from scripture and try to constantly change the message of the

Bible is pretty clear from Jesus's words here. The reason they do that is because they're not of his sheep.

They don't hear his voice. They can't stand what he says. They hate the truth.

Okay? So the idea is this, is that somebody who is engaging in taking away from or adding to scripture in order to change the message of scripture, they are obscuring and blurring and obfuscating the very voice of Christ.

That's not how Jesus's sheep behave. He says, I know my own.

So Jesus clearly claims Christians as his own. So it's weird because here we have

Shane Hipps, who's supposedly being put forward as a Christian theologian at the

Huffington Post, making statements that are contrary to what Jesus's voice has said.

I think this definitively proves that Shane Hipps is not of Jesus's sheep.

He's not one of Jesus's own because he doesn't listen to the voice of the shepherd. He contradicts the voice of the shepherd, but we continue.

Shane then says, in one sense, Christ is the preexistent creative power of the universe with no birthday or death date.

Christianity, on the other hand, is an institution built with the intention of harnessing that power.

I don't see that. Where'd you get that information from? I don't see that as what

Christianity is all about. Those who are called Christians first, it's mentioned in the book of Acts, those are the people who've been brought to repentance and faith in trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.

They are the ones who have been declared righteous by Christ through faith in him.

I don't see anywhere in the book of Acts where it says that Christians built an institution with the intention of harnessing the power of the preexistent creative power of the universe.

I can't think of any passage of scripture that even remotely comes close to that. Where is he getting this information from?

How is it that he's adding all of this to the story of Christianity? Answer, it's real simple.

This isn't found in the Bible. This isn't found in the history of Christianity. This is just Shane's ideas.

Basically, this is the theology of his own little ego and he's putting it out there as if this is true and this is what everybody needs to believe.

But nobody is commanded by God to believe the theology of Shane Hipps' ego.

No, we're to listen to the voice of Christ and we find that only in scripture. We don't find it in Shane Hipps' ego, but we continue.

Okay, so Christianity, on the other hand, is an institution with the intention of harnessing that power.

If the institution goes away, the power remains, but simply put, Christ is much bigger than any religion.

Oh yeah, how big is he again? Is he as big as a house, bigger than a cathedral? How big is Jesus? I'm curious.

Anyway, so then Shane goes this way. He says, the book of John tells the story of a woman at a well.

That's true. Yes, I'm familiar with this. So here, Jesus introduces her to the possibility of eternal life.

This woman was a member of a religion starkly at odds with his own. She was a Samaritan.

He was a Jew. The gap between these two is incomparable to the gap between Muslims and is comparable to the gap between Muslims and Christians today.

Okay, yes, kind of. Yet throughout their conversation, he never once made religious conversion a requirement for her to access eternal life.

Well, that's weird because Jesus said that, you know, he makes this claim without ever actually looking at the text.

Well, I happen to have a copy of the Bible on my computer. I've been quoting from it. And let's take a look at what

Jesus said. Gospel of John chapter four. I'll start at verse seven. A woman from Samaria came to draw water.

Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you would you ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans?

Jesus answered her. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink.

You would have asked him and he would have given you living water. Okay. That sounds like Jesus is making a pretty direct reference to her being converted to believing in him and trusting in him.

So the woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with. And the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself as did his sons and his livestock.

And Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.

The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.

The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I too will not be thirsty or have come to, or have to come here to draw water.

Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. Well, the woman answered, well, I have no husband.

Jesus said to her, you are right in saying that you have no husband for you. I've had five husbands. And the one you have now is not your husband.

What you have said is true. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father.

You worship what you do not know. We, the Jews, worship what we know for salvation is from the

Jews. Notice what Jesus just said right there. We worship what we know for salvation is from the

Jews. And this is absolutely true. Jesus is a Jew. Salvation comes from Judaism.

Okay. But the hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth for the father is seeking such people to worship him.

God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming. He, who is called the Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things.

Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he.

Okay. So just then the disciples came back and they marveled that he was talking to a woman, but no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her?

So the woman left her jar and went away into the town and said to the people, come and see a man who told me all that I ever did.

Can this be the Messiah, the Christ? So they went out of the town and we're coming to him.

Now let me fast forward. Verse four 39, many Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony.

He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they asked him to stay with them and he stayed there for two days and many more believed because of his word.

They said to the woman, it is no longer because of what you have said that we believe for, we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world.

Hmm. Interesting. The Samaritans believed in Jesus and they believed that he was the savior of the world and all you have to do is read the text.

Okay. That's all you gotta do is read the text. Yet chain hips, he's taken away from this story and added to it in his summary of it, and he's not carefully telling us what

Christ has actually said. He just may remember the point he made. She, the Samaritan was a Jew.

She was a Samaritan. Jesus was a Jew. The gap between these two is comparable to the gap between Muslims and Christians.

Yet throughout their conversation, he never once made religious conversion a requirement for her to access eternal life.

And yet she was converted and so was the town. Everyone there was converted to believing in Jesus and believing that he was the savior of the world.

And all you got to do is read the text. Strange. False teachers add to and take away from what the

Bible says. They are not careful with the biblical texts. In fact, they are actually very much engaged in modifying it so they can tell you their theology, not the theology that God has revealed in Shane hips.

Well, he seems to be quite the, um, the master of this particular technique.

He's got it down pat. And this is not how anybody who is a Christian pastor, teacher, or theologian behaves or acts.

This is how the agents of the devil behave and the techniques that they use.

All right. We're up on our second break. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of fighting for the faith, you could do so in my email address is talk back at fighting for the faith .com,

or you can subscribe on Facebook, facebook .com forward slash pirate Christian. Click on the subscribe button or follow me on Twitter.

My name there at pirate Christian, we, we will be right back because only good theology leads people to heaven.

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Okay. We're back. I were number two of fighting for the faith sermon review time. As I've promised today's sermon is well, going to take the

Christmas story from the gospel of Luke and chapters one and two, and end up making this about not being exclusive, but inclusive to the point of affirming gays and female pastors is no joke.

Talk about this here in a second. Let's queue this up and do it right. The good, the bad, and well, the ugly.

We review it all here at fighting for the faith for an equal opportunity sermon reviewing service. Today's sermon comes to us via safe house church,

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Adam Rao presiding the name of the sermon that we will be looking at is the end of exclusion, the end of exclusion.

Now, like I've been pointing out, um, they're going to, we're going to look at the story of the birth of Jesus from the gospel of Luke chapter one and chapter two.

And at the end of this, we're going to come to the conclusion that apparently we need to be gay affirming and, and affirming female pastor exists.

So the question is, how does one come to that conclusion from these biblical texts? Well, what you're going to see is that Adam, he does a very careful job to create the impression that he's engaging in a biblical teaching, but what he's doing is adding to the texts.

He's engaging in ISIS, Jesus inserting into the text, things that are not there.

And then he makes his theological points from the things that he's inserted into the text that he's added to it.

Okay. Remember Bible twisters often add to or take away from the Bible.

Adam here is going to be adding to it. And then by adding to it, preach a gospel other than the gospel that's revealed in scripture, very dangerous stuff.

And I hope to explain how it occurs as we listen to the sermon. So let me go ahead and kill the music.

And without any further ado, here is Adam Rao from safe house church,

Minneapolis, Minnesota, and his sermon entitled the end of exclusion.

Here we go. Welcome again to safe house. My name's Adam. I'm one of the pastors here.

And tonight we are continuing in our teaching series called Christmas and the end of the world. And on the surface, those two topics seem entirely disconnected from one another.

But this December, there are many people making just that connection. For example, recently in Russia, members of parliament have been contacting the major television stations there to demand that they stop airing programming about the

Mayan apocalypse. Apparently so many people in Russia are genuinely concerned, even obsessed with the idea that the world is going to end this

December, that there has been a recent boom in the sales of doomsday kits in Russia, which include matches, bandages, and vodka.

It has, it has gotten so bad over there that the minister for emergency situations had to issue an official statement of reassurance, promising the country that the world is not going to end in just a few weeks.

The following weekend after that statement was delivered, Russia was hit with a major blizzard that led to a 125 mile, three day long traffic jam.

And do we have the slides yet? Oh, okay, great. So go to the next one, actually.

Yeah, so on the left here, this is a picture of the traffic jam in Russia. And on the right is a picture from the late 90s disaster movie,

Deep Impact. Now I'm just saying, but now might be a good time to start stocking up on bottled water and vodka, right?

I mean, now, even though there's lots of talk happening about the end of the world this

December, because of the impending Mayan apocalypse, making the connection between Christmas and the end of the world actually makes quite a bit of sense.

After all, within the Christian tradition, there are many churches, even today, who at this time of year will focus their attention on some of the biblical texts that talk about the sun being darkened, about stars falling from the heavens, and about the earth coming to an end.

And that's because the connection between Christmas and the end of the world is a long standing one in the Christian tradition.

And with good reason. For followers of Jesus, Christmas has always been about the end of the world.

Now, obviously, I'm not talking about the end of the world in a physical everyone dies kind of way. But rather,

I'm talking about the world in a different sense, the way in which the biblical authors talk about the world often, and that is the end of the world, the way that it is.

And it's my belief that Christmas is all about the end of the world in this sense. Because throughout the New Testament, the biblical authors make the claim that Jesus's birth is a cataclysmic event that brings about the end of the world the way that it is an end to a world of empire, an end to a world of exclusion, an end to a world of enemies throughout this teaching series.

Okay, stop. Did you hear those categories? When you hear somebody who say that Christianity is all about the end of empire, exclusion and enemies, more than likely you are dealing with a post modern liberal, somebody who's been influenced by like somebody by like Brian McLaren or Rob Bell, even

N .T. Wright. I'm sorry, but you know, he's not exactly safe. You have to be very careful when reading

N .T. Wright. Some of the stuff he said in the past, especially regarding apologetics and like the resurrection of Jesus, great stuff.

But when you start getting into his concepts regarding the kingdom and the Paul's, you know, the new perspective on Paul, yeah, the

Bishop N .T. Wright is theologically deadly and very dangerous. So what were, so the end of empire, the end of exclusion, the end of enemies.

Yeah. Okay. Um, notice he's not actually reading any biblical texts here. He's just making these assertions.

See the biblical writers were all like this. Okay. Well show me where the biblical writers were all about the end of empire, exclusion and enemies and things like that.

Yes. It's true that the historic lectionary that we read during the

Advent season in reading, you know, basically in preparation for an anticipation of the

Christmas season, which begins on Christmas, doesn't end on Christmas. Um, yes, there is a lot of apocalyptic readings during that time.

For instance, if you're following along in the daily readings that I post on my Facebook wall on Twitter, we're right in the, in the thick of it in the book of revelation right now.

And, you know, and also the book of Isaiah. So, you know, yes, there's some very important tie -ins there, but he's not actually reading any biblical texts.

Show me where the biblical writers were all about the end of empire.

Um, I could show you Brian McLaren's book, Everything Must Change, um, where he talks about that.

But then again, Brian McLaren is a post -modern anti -colonialist, um, which is actually more akin to historical fascism than it is to biblical

Christianity. We continue though. We're taking a closer look at the first chapter in the gospel of Luke and what's chapter two of Luke is where we find that now famous story of Christmas.

The one that Linus recites in the Charlie Brown Christmas, the one that's read aloud around Christmas trees and in churches each and every year.

It's chapter one that sets the scene for that. And it's in chapter one of Luke where we find out that Christmas is after all, all about the end of the world.

Now, last week we looked at, um, Jesus's birth bringing about an end to the world of empire. Uh, we talked about the idea that for Luke, uh, the so -called virgin birth of Jesus wasn't so much about Mary's virginity, actually physically being a virgin, but was instead about Jesus's status as the world's true ruler and Lord.

Okay. Notice what he's just doing there. Okay. So they're, they're serving about the end of empire.

They've basically, listen, it doesn't really matter if, if Mary was technically really a virgin.

Yes. See folks, this is postmodern anti -colonialist, um, re -imagining of scripture.

This is not based on sound exegesis at all. And as you're going to hear, it's, he's going to add to the biblical texts.

Remember false teachers add to Isaac and take away from what the

Bible says. We continue with Adam's sermon though, uh, that the world of empire in all of its many forms had been brought to an end tonight.

We're going to continue in our series, uh, looking at the first chapter of Luke, and we're going to talk about Jesus's birth being a cataclysmic event that brings about an end to the world of exclusion.

So go ahead. If you would turn there now to Luke chapter one, Luke's the third biography of Jesus that begins the new

Testament. If you have one of the Bibles from here in the theater, you're going to find this text on 780, 780 is where we'll start tonight.

Luke chapter one, verse 39. A few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea.

Now just stop there for one minute. Let's read it again.

A few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea.

Just prior to the scene, the angel Gabriel has visited Mary and announced to her that even though she's still a virgin, she's going to become pregnant and that when she gives birth, she's supposed to name this child,

Jesus. Now here, just a few days later, according to verse 39, she's hurrying into the hill country of Judea.

This is both vitally important and extremely odd. First, remember Mary's just a young girl, maybe 12 or 13 years old in the ancient world.

Stop. The Bible doesn't actually say how old she is. Now it's true that she's probably a young lady, probably a teenager, but the

Bible doesn't exactly say how young she is. Okay. So let's be careful here.

A young girl like Mary wouldn't have normally left her home unless someone else was with her. In fact, it's extremely unlikely that Mary would even travel alone in her own hometown.

Now notice what he's done here. He's made an assertion about Mary's age and Mary's age is not revealed here.

And because he knows this to be true about her, he knows for a fact she wouldn't be traveling by herself.

And this is all part of the construction that he's doing. He's inserting things now into the text.

He's adding things to the text that are not there so that he can make a conclusion about why

Mary is making haste to get out of town so that he can make a theological conclusion regarding that too.

Okay. But let's make this clear. I can't see any text here in the gospel of Luke that says exactly how old

Mary was, nor am I really familiar with the day to day dealings with, you know, first century

Judea to know whether it would be normal for a young maiden like Mary. However old she is to be traveling by herself.

It's completely possible that she's well over the age of 12. Maybe she's 16. Maybe she's 14.

Maybe she's 15. Maybe at that time she's well old enough to travel and make haste to go.

It doesn't say how she did it either. It doesn't say that she made the trip alone. Do you see what

I'm saying? There's lots of details that he's inserting into this text that are not there.

He's adding to the text and he's doing that so that he can insert his own theology here, not exegete what's in there.

But let's continue. So it's extremely unusual to read here that she has left her home by herself to travel 70 or so miles into the hill country of Judea, a journey that's going to take her at least five days.

And I have to be honest, I've been reading the Bible most of my life. And this is a detail that until recently

I had completely missed. But this is so important because when we get this, it dramatically changes the story in the way that we've read it.

You see, Mary isn't just taking a walk. She is embarking on a very unusual, even dangerous journey by herself.

Now in the previous scene, the angel Gabriel didn't instruct Mary to do this. So she's not doing this as some sort of act of obedience to God.

And when we find out in a moment that she's on her way to visit Elizabeth, who's one of her relatives, there's nothing here in Luke or elsewhere in scripture that suggests that Elizabeth is a particularly close relative of Mary, which would at least give, you know, maybe some reason for engaging this unusual and dangerous journey.

Yeah. We're 35 verses into chapter one of Luke. Yeah. I don't think

Luke spent a lot of time doing the, you know, explaining all the ins and outs and who's really close to Mary.

In fact, you know, have you noticed that this text doesn't tell us the name of Mary's mother? Doesn't tell us the name of Mary's father.

Maybe they didn't exist. Maybe she was hatched. You see, he's making a big to do about missing details.

And yet, if you take a closer look at the text, yeah, there's a lot of details missing. I have no,

I have no concept of what color her house was, how, what her father did for a living.

Did, did she have any brothers or sisters? None of them are mentioned here. Yeah. He's strange, huh?

So what's he doing? He's adding to the text in a very clever way.

Let's continue. Instead, Luke tells us that Mary is on her way by herself to the hill country of Judea and that she is her.

Now the text doesn't say she's by herself. Luke chapter one, verse nine. It says this in those days,

Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town of Judah. That's it.

It doesn't say that she made the trip by her self. The phrase by herself is a phrase that Adam has stuck into the text that isn't there.

We continue hurrying in that direction. So this should raise for us an obvious question.

Why is she doing this? Why is she taking such an unusual and dangerous journey?

And why isn't she? Why is she in such a rush to get there? Now, Luke doesn't give us a direct answer to those questions, but I do think that he indirectly discloses his reasoning.

So Luke doesn't tell us, but he indirectly tells us, Oh, so Luke is going to indirectly tell us, well,

Luke really set about to give us a, a proper understanding of Jesus. If you read the opening to the gospel of Luke, it's clear that he wants the awfulest to know the things with certainty regarding Jesus and his coming and stuff like Luke is taking time to write some serious history here.

Okay. Indirectly, but he doesn't say. See, this should tip you off.

What's he doing? He's basically projecting on to Luke, his own theology.

Adam here is projecting Adam's theology on Luke, and he's trying to make it look like this is what

Luke is trying to tell us, but didn't really tell us, but he kind of sort of told us this and I was able to figure it out by leaving some clues for his readers at the end of this story.

And at the beginning of the next one. So let's look down all the way at verse 56 in chapter one. It reads like this.

Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months and then went back to her own home. Now, first of all, that is an awfully long time for a 12 or 13 year old girl to stay with a seemingly distant relative.

We don't know if she was a distant relative. We don't know Mary's relation with Elizabeth.

Seems like a pretty good one to me. It looks like they got together more often than just on Thanksgiving.

Keep in mind that the men of Israel were required by law to appear before the

Lord three times a year in Jerusalem. You're just saying. And so you've got the

Feast of the Passover, the Feast of Booths, and stuff like that going on. And so there's a pretty good chance, since we know from the

Gospel of Luke, that while Mary's family and Joseph's family traveled in a herd to Jerusalem for the different festivals that, um, you know, that's the thing about when

Jesus was accidentally left behind and, you know, and he was there and, you know, talking to the scribes and Pharisees for three days in the temple.

He's 12 years old. Right. And it took him a while to figure out that he was missing. That little detail tells us that, you know, well, um, that the clan here got together very often.

So it's not unreasonable to think that, hey, Mary and Elizabeth got together from time to time.

They probably knew each other, but see, he's inserting all this data into the text. It isn't there. But even more unusual is what happens next, because she leaves

Elizabeth's place and she heads back home. But very soon thereafter, she's traveling again. Skip over to chapter two, verse one.

At that time, the Roman Emperor Augustus decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire.

This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria. All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for the census.

And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David's ancient home.

He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, his fiancee, who was now obviously pregnant.

Now, this, of course, is the beginning of that Christmas story that's become familiar for most of us. And because of that, much like before,

I have to be honest, until recently, I've pretty much just glossed over all of the details in this story. But there are a number here that Luke gives us that are extremely important if we're to make sense of what he's trying to tell us indirectly.

For example, verse four, Luke tells us that because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea for the census.

That's true. Joseph was required by law to travel to Bethlehem, the home of his ancestors, and register for the census.

But then verse five comes and turns the story on its head and reveals that something quite unusual is actually happening behind the scenes.

Joseph took with him Mary, his fiancee, who was now obviously pregnant. This is extremely unusual because, you see,

Mary doesn't have any reason whatsoever to go with Joseph on this trip for the census. Really?

She would be required to register herself as well. OK. As a young girl, she almost certainly has no independent income that could be taxed.

She's not a candidate for the military. And according to custom, she and Joseph aren't even supposed to be traveling together until they get married.

Mary isn't supposed to be with Joseph on this trip. And yet there she is.

So after she's taken a very unusual trip to visit a distant relative named Elizabeth, here

Mary is again just a few months later taking yet another unusual journey, this time with her fiance,

Joseph. And again, all of this begs the question, why is Mary doing this? Well, that's a fine question.

I can't answer it unless it's revealed in the text. Because I failed my

ESP class, Extrasensory Perception. I was horrible at it. I mean, here we were, you know, in this

ESP class, we're supposed to read everybody's mind. I was never able to read anybody's mind even once.

I totally failed out of my ESP class. And so I, because of that, I mean, there's no way

I can read Mary's mind, yet alone considering the fact that she's dead.

You know, I mean, maybe I should go out and get something on those water witching wands, you know, and see if I can, you know, maybe pull up a

Ouija board and try to figure out what was in her mind. But don't worry, Adam here, he's got this figured out.

He can figure out what's really going on. He's reading between the lines in the text to tell us the story that nobody else has discovered except for him.

And again, Luke doesn't give us a direct explanation. But don't worry, that won't hinder you from finding it.

But I think that for the original readers and hearers of this gospel who were steeped in their first century social context,

I think that the point would have come across. Mary, just a few days after she finds out that she's pregnant, has to hurry away to the hill country of Judea to visit a distant relative because everyone else in her family has completely and totally rejected her.

Hmm. And yet there isn't a single verse that says that. In fact, let's go back to the gospel of Luke chapter one and let's read what this what the text says.

OK, now I know a thing or two about pregnancy. Not that I've ever been pregnant, but my wife has given birth to three of our children.

OK. And so I have been there alongside of my wife during three pregnancies.

So I know a thing or two about pregnancy. OK, here we go. So let's go back to gospel of Luke chapter one and let's go to where the yeah, verse twenty six.

Let's get some context. OK, watch this. The text kind of works this all out. In the sixth month, the angel

Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was

Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said,

Greetings, oh, favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and try to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name

Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high.

And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom.

There will be no end. And Mary said to the angel, How will this be since I am a virgin?

And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you.

Therefore, the son to be born will be called Holy, the son of God. And behold, your relative

Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son. And this is the sixth month with her who was called

Baron, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said,

Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her. OK, now stop. OK, so here we've got news.

Angel is going to conceive the Holy Spirit's going to overshadow her. And even though she's a virgin, she's going to conceive and give birth to a son and we'll call his name

Jesus because he's going to be the savior of the world. His name is Yeshua. Right. OK, and the angel also divulged to her that her relative

Elizabeth is pregnant and she's in her sixth month of pregnancy.

Now, what do we know from the text is that Elizabeth is in her old age. OK, folks, think of it this way.

OK, you've just discovered that grandma is pregnant. OK, now, grandma shouldn't be pregnant, but grandma is pregnant and she's and she's six months along.

OK, grandma being old, do you think it's probably a good idea that you've discovered that grandma's pregnant, that she might want to get out there and see if you can help her?

OK, because here's what I've noticed about women who are pregnant. My wife being pregnant three times is that once you hit month six, from month six to the end of it, whoo, man, you know, it's tough to get things done.

OK, and I can only imagine doubly so for an old woman who is pregnant.

OK, so the text tells us that Elizabeth, an old woman, is six months pregnant.

OK, and that the angels revealed this to Mary. OK, next verse.

In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah.

Now, I want to make something very clear here, OK, that Mary, she has just heard that she's pregnant.

She ain't going to be showing that she's pregnant for a good three to four months.

So it's not like she's showing. It's not like she's the talk of the town and everyone's pointing to her belly and saying, oh, not at all.

OK, that's not what's happening here. She's not leaving in shame. OK, we can that we can surmise that from the timing of this whole thing.

She's not leaving in shame, nor is there any indicator that that she is leaving because she is in shame in this honor society.

Doesn't say that at all. In fact, Luke doesn't tell us what her mother or father thought.

We don't know if they believed her or if they didn't believe her.

We don't know. OK, we just have no clue whatsoever because the text doesn't say to say that her parents was up were upset is to insert something into the text that isn't here.

Yet when we read the text, there is a very natural explanation given to us from the clear details of the text.

Old relative Elizabeth, who is in her old age is six months pregnant. That has got to be a difficult thing.

And it sounds like Mary made haste to head out there more than likely to help old relative

Elizabeth. OK, here's what it says. In those days, Mary rose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted

Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting, Mary of Mary, the baby in her womb, baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the

Holy Spirit. And she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the

Lord. Right. And then we have the Magnificat, and it says Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

So Mary sticks around, you know, right to about the time when Elizabeth is going to give birth. OK, just before she's about to give birth, that's when

Mary heads home. And at this point is where Mary would be showing. Right.

OK, it's just simple math here going on. If you know a thing or two about pregnancy. So what we're seeing here from Pastor Adam is he's taking a lot of liberty with this text and he's inserting details.

And it's this inserted information that he's then going to draw out his theological conclusions.

In other words, he's up to no good. You're pregnant out of wedlock.

You've shamed our entire family. And now you have the nerve to lie to us saying that you're somehow still a virgin.

And that the text doesn't say this. This is all inserted information. This baby is from God.

Get out of here. I never want to see you again. Text doesn't say that.

We don't know what Mary's parents said. That's not given for us to know. And so she leaves.

And after she visits Elizabeth for three months, she travels home again in the hopes that things might be a little bit better.

Really, where does it say that she had hopes that things might be a little bit better? There isn't a single text that says this.

You're inserting this and adding it to the text. She stays as long as she's able, maybe four or five months.

But ultimately, she knows that she's not welcome there. Where does it say she's not welcome there?

She has no home anymore. And so in a world where her options as a single woman are extremely limited, she's not single.

She's betrothed. There's a difference. She has to travel with Joseph to Bethlehem because he's the only one who's willing to take her in.

Really, where in the text does it say that Joseph is the only one willing to take

Mary in? Where did you get this information from? It's not there in Luke's account or in Matthew's.

Not convinced yet. Let's read further. Chapter two, verse six. Well, they were there. The time came for her baby to be born.

She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no lodging available for them.

Now, most of us are familiar with this part of the Christmas story in that old King James version of the Bible. You probably had a really big one that you read it from, too, where verse seven reads like this.

And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

Can you bring up the picture? Yeah. Do you get it? They're booked. They're locked. They're not.

Okay. Now, millions, maybe even billions of Christmas cards tell the story of Mary and Joseph finding no room at the inn.

Churches proclaim it each and every year in speech and in song. TV specials have made these biblical words familiar to us, whether we've picked up a

Bible and read it on our own or not. But that's not the way the story goes.

You see, in the ancient world, traveling far away from home was extremely uncommon. Unlike today, where people of all sorts travel to places of all sorts, most people in the ancient world.

That's not necessarily true for the Jews of ancient Israel. They were required to appear before the

Lord in Jerusalem for set feasts and festivals, and traveling to Jerusalem was extremely common for the

Jews of Judea in this ancient time because the law required them to do so.

World stayed really close to where they grew up, and they rarely, if ever, traveled now because of that, except for some of the largest cities like Jerusalem, maybe very few places in the ancient world would have had anything close to what we would describe as an inn or a hotel.

Bethlehem, where Mary and Joseph were traveling, was nothing more than a small village. It probably didn't even register on maps of the time.

As one biblical scholar said, any hotel business in Bethlehem would have gone broke before it got off the ground.

Now, this fact about Bethlehem historically is true, and the

Greek text itself does not say that there was a hotel that they were staying at. This is a common misunderstanding because the translation inn,

I -N -N, is used for a particular Greek word, which it really shouldn't be translated as inn.

We'll get to that detail in a minute. So thanks to Cards, Carrolls, and Charlie Brown, well, we might imagine

Mary and Joseph trying to find a room at their local holiday inn in Bethlehem, only to be told that all of the rooms are booked because of this census.

That's not what Luke is talking about, and that's not the way that the story goes. In verse seven, when

Luke says that there was no room for them in the inn, the Greek word used here for inn is the word kataluma.

Can we say kataluma together? Kataluma. All right, we're going to say these things. All right. Now, he's right. This is absolutely true, this little factoid.

Kataluma is the word that is used, and I agree with him that this should not be translated as inn, as if it's referring to a hotel or a place where you pay for lodging.

Kataluma only occurs three times in the entire New Testament, in Mark chapter 14, here in Luke chapter 2, and in Luke chapter 22.

Now, in Mark 14 and Luke 22, kataluma is the word that Jesus uses when he tells Peter and John to go and find a place for all of his friends to celebrate the

Passover meal together for one last time. Peter and John are instructed to go and find a kataluma.

And Jesus most certainly doesn't mean for them to go and find a hotel where they're going to eat this meal together.

Now, this is true. Jesus was sending them to find a home with a spare room, an upper room.

We'll talk about that in a second here. Instead, Jesus is instructing Peter and John to go and ask one of their friends if they can use the guest room in that person's house.

You see, New Testament Greek actually has a word for what we might describe as an inn or a hotel. It's the word pandakion.

Pandakion. Say that, okay, pandakion. This is useful at Christmas parties, I swear. Now, Luke was well aware of the word pandakion.

In fact, he's the only New Testament author in the scriptures that uses it. And he does so in Luke chapter 10 when he's recounting

Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan. And there, unlike here in Luke chapter 2, he clearly has the context of a hotel or an inn in mind.

So, let's think about it this way. If Luke wanted to tell us that Mary and Joseph were looking for a hotel in Bethlehem, however unlikely that might have been given

Bethlehem was small in size, relatively insignificant town, Luke could have done that by just using the word pandakion.

But he doesn't use that word. He uses the word kataluma because he has something completely different in mind.

The TNIV, which is another translation of the Bible, catches Luke's intention a little bit better, I think. It tells us in verse 6 that while they were there, the time came for the baby to be born.

And Mary gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in claws and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them.

There was no inn in Bethlehem. Now, I'm sorry if you played the innkeeper in your

Christmas pageant and I just ruined your childhood. But it is vitally important that we realize that Mary and Joseph aren't looking for a hotel.

They're looking for a guest room. And you see, when people did travel in the ancient world, the normal practice was to camp along the way to your destination.

And then when you arrived, you would stay with acquaintances or friends or friends of friends and most usually family members.

So Joseph has to go to Bethlehem because of this census. And because her family has rejected her, he takes his fiancee,

Mary, along with him. And given that Bethlehem was the home of... No, no, no, no, no. It does not say that Mary's family has rejected her.

Produce the verse that says it. Not one verse says it.

Joseph's ancestors, that people didn't move around much in the first century, it is likely that Joseph has some relatives living in that area.

This is true. He's of the lineage of the house of David. So he's got family in Bethlehem.

So if there's no hotel in Bethlehem and the common practice is to stay with family when you travel,

Joseph and Mary are almost certainly not looking for a hotel. They're looking for a guest room at one of Joseph family members' homes.

True. So far, yeah, that's correct. Now, imagine the scene for just a minute. Joseph and Mary have just finished a long and difficult journey.

Now, this is where the details show that he's not paying close attention to the text. Let me explain it to you.

Let's do a little bit of history here. Biblical scholars recently have done a very good job on this whole idea of the manger and the spare room or the guest room.

And this, in fact, if you were to travel to Bethlehem today, many of the houses there, the homes there still have the same floor layout as the people of Bethlehem had back in the first century.

These were basically small homes, multi -level.

You have to think of it as having three levels. You have the ground level and then there is a wall that you basically think of a large room, if you would.

You walk in, you're kind of like a multi -story, but it's all under one roof. You walk in, there's a lower level and then there's a wall that comes up.

You go in about maybe five, six, ten feet and then there's a wall that goes up to a another level that's kind of a big wide open space.

But right before the big wide open space, you've got a feeding trough there for animals that they can eat from right there on that lower level.

And then above that is another level, the kataluma, the guest room.

It's the upper room there and that's where basically it's the spare room that you would give to people when they would come to visit.

And the idea is that when you walk into the ancient floor plan of a home in Bethlehem, what they would do is that the animals would stay on the lower floor.

And during the winter, this was a good thing because the heat from the animals themselves, the body heat would help warm up the place a little bit at night.

So your animals stayed pretty much in the same place you did. The idea that Mary and Joseph had to somehow go off to some barn out in the outskirts of town, this is just not historically true.

But you walk in, that's where your animals stayed. The feeding trough was there. And then the next level up, this is where the family cooked their meals, where they often slept.

And then the kataluma was the guest bedroom on the third level. It's a third level up. It's the upper room.

Absolutely legit there. OK, now we've got some problem because he's not necessarily paying attention to the details.

By the way, there's a decent there's a decent. Treatment of this topic from the people from answers in Genesis of all places, if you were to go to answers in Genesis dot org and in their search box, type in no room for an in no room for an end, there is a

Web page where they talk, they have a full blown scale model of of of what a home looked like in Bethlehem.

And there's an archaeologist doing a video talk about this. And they show you what the lower level is, the main level and then the kataluma level.

So you can see all of this for yourself, you know, and but it's no room for an in at the answers in Genesis website.

They do a decent job of this. But anyway, coming back to this, let me let me show you the details that he's kind of omitted here.

It is absolutely not true. And the text shows this, that Mary and Joseph show up in Bethlehem and that the day that they get there, she gives birth to Jesus.

OK, it's not true. They were there for some time. In other words, Mary and Joseph didn't make this trip.

They didn't make this trip while Mary was nine months pregnant. OK, or, you know, you know that she was about ready to pop.

That's not what's going on at all. Let me point this out to you. We'll go to Luke chapter two. I'll start in those in verse one so we can kind of get some of the details from the

ESV. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when

Quirinius was governor of Syria and all went to be registered each to his own town.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David, which is called

Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David. OK, the details given here basically mean there was a lot of folks traveling at this time.

OK, there was a ton of people in town in Bethlehem as a result of this census.

OK, so because he was at the house of lineage of David to be registered with Mary.

Notice it says to be registered with Mary. OK, this is very clear in the text,

OK, that in fact, even, you know, the Greek word soon makes it clear that that Joseph, that Mary went because she was being registered with Joseph in the census to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. Now, I'll take issue with the

ESV on this later, but I to help you out here with the Greek basically says that while they were there, the days were accomplished for her to give birth.

That's kind of my paraphrase of the Greek. And in the King James version of it actually, you know, hits it pretty clear or pretty close.

Here's what it says in the King James. And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should give birth.

OK, the phrase couldn't be clear while she was there. The days plural were accomplished for her to give birth.

In other words, it wasn't that she traveled from Nazareth all the way to Bethlehem and you know, she was on a donkey and poorly, poor girl.

She started going into labor just as they got to the outskirts of Bethlehem and they couldn't and they couldn't find a hotel for her to give birth.

That's not what this is saying at all. OK, they arrived. Mary went with him because she was being registered with him.

This is what the text says. OK. And while she was there, while they were there, the days plural were accomplished or fulfilled for her to give birth.

She finished out her nine months and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for no place for them in the

Cataluma, in the upper room. In other words, real simple reading here.

They got there. They're staying with family. And because there's so many people in town, there's other people who are staying in the

Cataluma and in the guest bedroom at the home that they're staying. And they were there for for for enough days for her to finish her pregnancy.

And she gave birth and she it's not that she was despised by her family at all.

OK. She was staying with family when this all took place. And all of the details of this are right there in the text.

OK. But what Adam is doing here is trying to create a counter narrative, a narrative that isn't in the biblical text.

And his narrative says that Mary was cast out by her family. She had nowhere to go.

Only Joseph would take her in and that everybody despised her and that she was even not even allowed to be with her own family.

You know, they wouldn't even bring her in in Bethlehem. The text says the exact opposite of it, the exact opposite of this.

We continue. They show up at the home of one of Joseph's relatives.

They're exhausted. Mary is very pregnant, about to give birth any day. And they have every expectation that this long and difficult journey is finally about to reach its end, because in the ancient world, practicing hospitality was both common and expected.

You see, people would allow strangers, let alone their own family, to stay with them when there was a situation of need.

And Mary being pregnant, about to give birth any day now, certainly qualifies as being in need.

But instead, shockingly, when they finally arrive, Joseph's relative looks them in the eye and says, there's no room for you here.

No, that's not what he said at all. They just didn't have a place for her in the spare bedroom. But she gave birth in their house.

And if you understand how the houses are laid out in Bethlehem, you'd know that. And the meaning of those words wasn't literal.

Because even if there were other people staying there at that person's house because of the census, given

Mary's pregnancy, the difficulty and length of their journey, the expectation of hospitality in the ancient world would have compelled them to find a comfortable room for them to stay in, even if that meant someone else had to sleep outside.

So when... And keep in mind, in the city of Bethlehem, the houses there, the mangers were inside the house.

They were part of the home. Joseph's relative says to them, there's no room for you here.

The meaning isn't there's... No, he didn't say there's no room for you here. You put that into somebody's into somebody's mouth.

That's not it. They just weren't staying in the in the catalooma, in the guest bedroom. There's actually no physical room for you here.

There was. The meaning was you're not welcome here. The text doesn't say that.

And the text is very clear that they stayed there many days before she gave birth.

You've shamed our family. And nowhere in the text does it say she shamed their family and that they shunned her.

And we refuse to acknowledge you. And nowhere does it say in this text that they refuse to acknowledge her.

He is adding all of this to the text. All of it.

And none of it is true. So Mary and Joseph are given the animal shelter to stay in instead.

This wasn't some act of hospitality or generosity, as if the family, you know, kind of felt bad about, you know, having to deny them and said, well.

Well, the text doesn't say that they denied her. I guess we could just let them stay out back, right? You don't understand anything, do you?

Now, this is an intentional act of disapproval on their part. Really? How come nobody has figured this out until you came along?

Because after all, Joseph's family could have sent them down the road to another friend who had no idea about this seemingly scandalous situation.

But instead, Joseph's family tells Mary and Joseph, go sleep out back. The text doesn't say that.

The point was clear. You are so disgusting to us. Really?

Again, not a single word of this anywhere in the text. That you are only fit to sleep with the animals.

Again, answersingenesis .org, type in no room for an in, you know, you type in Christmas, no room for an in.

And you'll see a video from an archaeologist with an actual replica of a home from Bethlehem of the era.

And he explains all of this for you. And when you see it, you go, oh, I get it. At this time of year, we often hear and sing the words joy to the world.

For Mary and Joseph, that was not a joyous night. Hmm. Yeah. And you got all of this from the stuff that you inserted into the text that isn't there.

And not only that, you show that you really don't understand the archaeological details that are that pertain to the homes in Bethlehem.

It was a night of pain and of tears. Joseph's family had completely rejected them.

And yet there's no text that says that Joseph's family had rejected them and that they had this was a time of tearful sorrow, loneliness and all that kind of stuff.

No text says this. Mary's family had completely rejected them.

Nothing says that you're inserting that into the text. You're adding to the biblical record. And here they find themselves all alone.

This exclusion by their very own families is the backdrop, I think, that we have to read

Mary's visit to Elizabeth and Luke chapter one with with in mind. No, we don't, because that's not part of the story at all.

We have to read the text as we have it, the details as we have them, and we don't add to them or take away from them.

And with that in mind, I just want us to look at this passage bit by bit. So verse thirty nine again. So we're back to chapter one, verse thirty nine.

A few days later, Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea to the town where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted

Elizabeth. Now, given the unusual and dangerous nature of her journey, knowing what

Luke tells us more directly in chapter two, what's hinted at here and notice he keeps making reference to the details he's inserted into the text that are not there.

Beginning of this story with Mary hurrying off into the hill country of Judea to visit a seemingly distant relative.

With all of that in mind, the outcome of Mary's encounter with Elizabeth is far from certain.

I think we're meant to experience a bit of anxiety about this greeting. What is

Elizabeth going to say? How is she going to react? Is Mary once again going to be turned away?

Yeah, all this drama that you've inserted into the text isn't there. So nobody has ever detected the drama that you've just created except for you pushed out, excluded by her own family.

You see, there's a good chance that Elizabeth knew about Mary's seemingly illegitimate pregnancy. Word traveled fast in the ancient world, even if people didn't.

And there's little chance that Elizabeth was fully convinced that Mary was somehow still miraculously a virgin.

No, instead, like everyone else in Mary's family, Elizabeth is in the dark about all weird, you know, because Mary's Elizabeth's greeting gives no hint to the idea whatsoever that she doubted the virginity of Mary at all.

In fact, her response is quite the opposite. I mean, not only are you reading details into the text, you're ignoring the ones that disagree with you.

All of the behind the scenes happenings that Luke has told his readers, and because of that, there is no reason that we should expect

Elizabeth here to react any differently than the rest of Mary's family. But out of the midst of this anxiety and uncertainty, what do you mean we have no reason to expect

Elizabeth to act any differently than the rest of Mary's family? There's no text that tells us how

Mary's family reacted. We haven't got word one about their reaction.

We read these words at the sound of Mary's greeting, Elizabeth's child leaped within her and Elizabeth was filled with the

Holy Spirit. Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, God has blessed you above all women and your child is blessed.

Yes, Mary, God has blessed you, the woman that everyone is calling a whore. Wait a second.

I don't see that in the text. Yes, Mary, God has blessed you, everyone who is calling you a whore.

Nope, nothing in there about Mary being called a whore. Not one word of it.

Nowhere in the text is it implied or said that Mary's family considered her to be a whore.

Strange, isn't it? Yet this is his main point. He's making all of his points from the stuff that he's inserted into the text.

Child, the one who everyone is calling a bastard is blessed by God. The one everyone's calling back.

Where in Luke chapters one or two, is there an instance of somebody calling

Jesus a bastard? Not seeing it. Why am

I so honored that the mother of my Lord should visit me? When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy.

You are blessed because you believe that the Lord would do what he said.

Like the rest of her family, Elizabeth could have seen Mary tired and scared standing there in her doorway.

And she could have simply shaken her head, turned away and shut the door. Mary tired and scared.

Where does it say that Mary was tired and scared when she showed up at Elizabeth's house? Yep, no, no, that's not there either.

Weird. Are you even capable of, have you passed simple elementary school level reading comprehension tests?

Because that's all you need for this. She had every right to do that.

In the first century world of shame and honor, where one individual's actions were tied directly to their family and their community.

Elizabeth, to save face, she could have, she probably should have just. Well, just earlier in this sermon, you were basically saying that Mary and Elizabeth probably weren't even close.

And yet now you have Elizabeth trying to distance herself from Mary so that her shame doesn't come on her.

Your inserted details contradict each other. It's told Mary, go away.

She doesn't. Instead, she extends her open arms and gives her a warm embrace.

Instead of rejection, she offers her welcome. And in that moment, one can almost see

Mary's shoulders finally drop as she exhales a deep, life -giving breath and begins to sing a song that wells up within her heart.

Oh, how my soul praises the Lord, how my spirit rejoices in God, my savior.

For he took notice of his lowly servant girl. And from now on, all generations will call me blessed.

For the mighty one is holy and he has done great things for me. He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him.

His mighty arm has done tremendous things. He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.

He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands.

He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful for he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.

Mary's song, which is known as the Magnificat because of the way it's translated in Latin, proclaims not that God will scatter the proud and the haughty, not that God will fill the hungry and send the rich away empty -handed, not that God will bring down princes from their throne and exalt the humble instead.

No, instead, Mary proclaims with radical boldness that God has already done these things.

Now, it's true, and Luke will say it over and over again, that the fullness of this new world that is coming, a world of radical inclusion is still yet to come.

A world of radical inclusion. Notice what he's doing here.

OK, he sees in this text an anti -empire text. This is basically anti -colonialistic concepts of post -modernity being read into this text or trying to be teased out.

So what Mary was basically making was a political statement. She's singing a political song about overthrowing empire and rich people and stuff like that.

She's one of the first Marxist revolutionaries. Who knew that's what the Magnificat was about?

But for Luke and for Mary and for Elizabeth, it is Christmas that ends the world of exclusion.

And Elizabeth's warm... Now, here is his main theological point. For them, it's Christmas that ends the world of exclusion.

It's exclusion, bad, bad, bad. You can't have exclusion, bad exclusion. OK, what's good?

Radical inclusion. This is a text about radical inclusion. Well, how do you get that? Idea from this text, real simple.

I just insert a whole bunch of details that aren't there. And I retell the story according to the details

I've inserted in there. And then I make theological points from the details that I've inserted in there.

But nobody reading this just from the from the text would ever come to the conclusion that I've come to that this is a story about radical inclusion and the overthrowing of empire and stuff like that without all of those details that I've inserted in the text.

So, yeah, you see what's going on here? Bible twisters either add to or take away from Scripture.

Adam here has added a whole lot of stuff into this text that isn't there.

And now he's making his theological punch lines, you know, and basic take home slogan statements from the stuff that he's inserted into the text that aren't there.

Embrace her gracious greeting, her radical sense of welcome. These are not just for her relative

Mary alone. They are a sign that within that Mary's womb is the child who is going to bring about an end to the world of exclusion forever.

Oh, yeah. See, Jesus is all about the end of the world of exclusion. Yet, that's funny, because according to the angel, let's see, his name will be

Jesus. He'll be called the son of the and his reign will be forever. Uh -huh.

Yeah. See, it's all about, well, Jesus being king. And when we read the story in Matthew, it's clear that he's to be called

Jesus because he's going to be their savior, save people from their sins.

In fact, let's take a look at that text. Matthew chapter one, starting verse 18.

Now the birth of Jesus took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the

Holy Spirit. And her husband, Joseph, being a just man, unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take

Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name

Jesus, Yeshua in the Hebrew, for he will save his people from their sin.

He will save his people from their sins.

The birth of Jesus is all about a savior who will save his people from their sins.

That's what this is all about. And that's literally what Mary is singing about here in the Magnificat. Mary sang,

Luke chapter one, verse 46. My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior.

For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant and from behold, from now on generations will call me blessed.

For he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name and his mercy is for those who fear him.

From generation to generation, notice, savior, mercy.

He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant

Israel in the remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our father's Abraham and to his offspring forever.

Right? So what's going on here? Jesus, the savior, the one who will save us from our sins.

But Adam here is not keying in on that. He's added a whole bunch of details into the text and is now making this the good news about how

Christmas breaks up exclusion so that we can embrace a new gospel of radical inclusivity.

No kidding. And yet, sadly, Mary and Joseph's experience of exclusion is an unfamiliar story.

It's the story of Maria and Jose were told over and over again by their neighbors, go back where you came from.

It's the story of Martin and Jeff of Melissa and Joan, who are told by their parents that their relationship is disgusting, that you're no longer welcome in our home.

And those notice the names of those couples, those would be guy, guy, girl, girl.

It's the story of John, who was told by his country that he has to sit at the back of the bus because of the color of his skin.

And the story of Megan, who was told by her church that she can't preach because she's a woman. It is a story that each and every one of us in one way or another has experienced some far more than others.

And it is a story that tragically has been repeated over and over and over again.

A horrible reminder that God's new world often feels too much like not yet and not enough like already.

Mary's song declares Luke's central point that Jesus's birth is the cataclysmic event that brings about an end to the world of exclusion.

And in spite of all evidence of the contrary in their world and in ours, that is a fundamental claim of the

New Testament. And it is one that followers of Jesus have proclaimed throughout the centuries. But Mary's song is more than just a declaration.

It is a call to action, a call to revolution. Because to believe that Jesus's birth marks the end of the world of exclusion is at the same time to repent, to turn around from all the ways that we too have perpetuated that world of exclusion.

And to instead begin co -creating with God the new world that Jesus ushered in, a world of radical inclusion and radical embrace.

So apparently this text is all about the new world of radical inclusion and radical embrace.

And all of that is built on the details that he's inserted and added to the story that are not there.

He's giving us a different gospel, a radically different gospel.

This isn't the biblical one. I'm often asked if Safe House is a gay church. I asked

Seth about this recently. He said that we're not because we don't serve cocktails with communion. And we don't do show tunes for music.

The point of the question, of course, regardless of who's asking it, whether it's being asked positively or negatively, is to inquire about whether Safe House is inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

And we are. But it is important to know that Safe House isn't inclusive of queer people because it's some kind of fad or because inclusivity seems to be the direction that our society is headed.

Safe House is inclusive of queer people, people of color like myself, of women, not because of some fad or because society is moving in that direction.

We're inclusive because of the gospel. We're inclusive because the good news that Jesus's birth truly did mark the end of the world of exclusion.

Jesus's birth marks the end of the world of exclusion. This is a different gospel.

Let me be blunt. This is not at all what the gospel says.

Let me read the Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Here's his warning and admonition and rebuke to the churches in Galatia who were listening to the other gospel, a different gospel that was being preached by the

Judaizers. Here's what he says, Galatians 1 .6. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Not that there is another one, but that there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one that we preached to you, let him be damned, accursed.

As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one that you received, let him be accursed.

What is the gospel that the Apostle Paul preached to the churches in Galatia? Well, we don't have to guess what that was because the

Apostle Paul reveals it to us, the gospel that he preached. He lays it out in 1

Corinthians 15, starting at verse 1. Paul says, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel, the good news that I preached to you, which you received and in which you stand, by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word that I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scripture, and that he appeared to Cephas and to the twelve, and that he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep, and that he appeared to James, and then to all the other apostles, last of all, to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

What is the good news, the gospel, that the Apostle Paul preached? That Christ died for our sins and was raised again bodily on the third day from the grave for our justification.

That's the gospel. That's the good news. And, well, Paul says, if anyone preaches to you a gospel contrary or different than the one that he preached and the one that the

Galatians received, that person is damned, is under a curse, literally. And what's the gospel that Adam is preaching here?

The gospel that Jesus came to bring about radical inclusivity.

This isn't the gospel. Notice that the details of the biblical gospel fit with the

Christmas narrative as given without having to add anything to it. When we read the

Christmas narratives, we learn that Jesus is to be called Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

Mary sings of God's mercy about God, her Savior, and his forgiveness, right?

Right, because the biblical gospel is all about repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

And Jesus Christ truly is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is what John the

Baptist says of Jesus. He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So all sinners, all sinners are welcome to come to repent and believe the good news that Christ died for their sins and was raised again on the third day.

And then bear fruit in keeping with that repentance. But see, Adam here isn't preaching faith and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

No, he's announcing the good news of radical inclusivity based upon a reading of the text that has a whole bunch of details that he's added that are not there.

He's preaching a false gospel and he's giving these people a false hope that God is just hunky -dunky with them as they are.

But he's not confronting them with their sin and calling them to repent and trust

Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. Therefore, he's preaching a false gospel, one that is alien to what the scriptures really say and one that will send him and his hearers to hell if they continue to persist in this false teaching.

We believe that God's new world of radical inclusion and radical embrace is already here. And we believe that it is our life -giving task as followers of Jesus to turn around from the evil of exclusion and to instead start co -creating with God a new world of radical inclusion and radical embrace.

Turn away from the evils of exclusion and co -create with God a world of radical inclusion and radical embrace?

If that was the gospel, then why are there no passages that say that? There's not one that says anything like this.

This is truly a different gospel, one that cannot save you.

We do what we do here because of the gospel. And though there are many Christian skeptics who will say otherwise, it is my belief that you don't become a person of radical embrace by ignoring the

Bible. You become a person of radical embrace by believing the Bible. No, you don't.

If that were true, you wouldn't have had to add all of those details that you added to the text that aren't there and then make your theological point from all the stuff that you added.

We do what we do here because of the gospel. The gospel of Christ died for our sins, right, and rose again bodily from the grave.

That gospel? Yeah, I don't think so. That's not the gospel you're preaching. If that's the one you believe, that's the one you'd be teaching.

Jesus's birth brought about an end to the world of exclusion forever. Yeah, Jesus's birth brought an end to the world of exclusion.

Yet, nowhere do you read that in the Bible or the church fathers. Yeah, nowhere.

This is something completely new, novel, innovative, and foreign to the biblical text, which means it's not true at all.

Tonight, I find myself well aware of the fact that some of you won't be traveling home for Christmas this year because you've been excluded from your own families.

And if the church has had any role to play in your family's actions, I just want to say that I think it is both ridiculous and tragic that a country built on the backs of slaves, where women are still refused equal pay for equal work, still often looks more like God's kingdom than the communities that say they worship him.

How would you know what God's kingdom really looks like? Have you been there? Have you seen it?

So the world looks more like God's kingdom because of their radical inclusivity.

Hmm. Yet, Jesus makes it clear that the world is at odds with the kingdom of God. I don't think you're telling the truth.

And I want you to know tonight that God loves you no matter what. God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for our sins. The gospel is not the good news that God loves you no matter what.

He's not some old senile grandpa who just pats you on the back and then gives you some butterscotch that's been warming in his pocket.

No, Christ had to die for our sins, including the sins of homosexuality. Like Elizabeth, God stands before you with open arms and a warm embrace.

Like Elizabeth, really? Oh, okay, so Elizabeth's the Christ figure here. Forget the fact that the

Messiah was in the womb of Mary and the story nowhere says that Elizabeth was actually, you know, rejecting the shunning that Mary was receiving and embraced her anyway.

The text doesn't say that at all. You inserted that into the text. God loves you no matter what.

And it is my prayer that you can take those words to heart tonight. For all of us. So here he's basically putting forth a false gospel, assuring people,

God loves you no matter what. Don't go ahead and just do whatever you want. God loves you no matter what.

Jesus told the apostles to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations.

See Gospel of Luke chapter 24 verse 47. And that's what the apostles did.

When you read the book of Acts, they preached repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus name.

But here, well, Adam's got a new gospel. God loves you no matter what. Don't worry about it.

It's all about this new gospel of radical inclusivity and against the evils of exclusivity.

Uh -huh. The question, the challenge that is before us tonight is this.

How can we be Elizabeth in our world? To whom in our world can we be the person, maybe the only one, who stands at the door with open arms and a warm embrace.

Who is led by the spirit to proclaim to someone who has been radically excluded those comforting and revolutionary words.

You are blessed by God. Now we're taking the words that Elizabeth gave to Mary.

And applying them to unrepentant LGBT folk. Hmm. Wow.

Talk about false assurance. There is forgiveness for them in Christ.

But you need to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Instead you're just preaching, oh

God's radically inclusive, loves you anyway. He's just going to hug you at the door no matter how much people have shunned you.

False hope, false gospel, and it can't save anybody. The good news, the real biblical good news is so much better than this.

Of course there's caveats. I don't want you to hear me saying that you're supposed to open your arms to someone who's abusing you.

Or that you're supposed to simply ignore the harm that people do to one another. Oh so I can't practice radical, radical inclusivity excludes those who

I feel have harmed me. Oh that's not much, that's not radically inclusive at all.

Name of inclusivity, that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm saying is that there are. Yeah well if this is what the

Bible was talking about, why don't you just show us all the passages that talk about this. Mary's in our world, deeply loved and blessed by God, yet who are excluded by their families, their friends, and their churches.

And they need an Elizabeth in their lives. In the process of working on and writing this talk, for no apparent reason whatsoever.

There were various times over the last few weeks where I found myself kind of remembering this particular person in my life who

I'm going to call Bill. And Bill went to the same youth group that I did when I was growing up. Now I hadn't thought of Bill in years.

He was a few years younger than me when we were growing up, we weren't particularly close friends. But for whatever reason over these last few weeks

I found myself reminded of a phone conversation that I had with my mom about three years ago. Where she told me that Bill had come out to his parents and that because he was going through his quote unquote gay phase.

His parents had demanded that he move out and that he turn away from his evil lifestyle if he ever wanted to see them again.

And at the time I was in a very cynical place. I was mad at the church, I was mad at my mom because it was very clear from her tone that she was exasperated about all these kids thinking that they were gay when really it's just a choice that they're making.

And in the midst of that cynicism I forgot about Bill. I was mad and I think rightfully so.

But I didn't become Elizabeth in that situation. I was upset about the situation but I forgot about the person.

Where Elizabeth reached out to Mary with open arms and a wide embrace I was kind of in my room stewing about the whole issue.

I just checked in with Bill this week on Facebook. He's doing great, he's in a relationship, he's traveling a lot. He seems to have found all of the support that he needed along the way.

I'm really grateful for that. But there's still no pictures of him and his parents together. And personally

I find myself wishing that I could have that day back three years ago. Not in some sort of patronizing

I'm going to be your straight savior kind of way, that's not the point. But I wish I could have been a person who was part of his former church family.

Who unlike everyone else there could have just said to him, Bill, you're blessed by God.

God loves you no matter what. But that's not true. Bill, just like me, and just like you, needs to be confronted with his sin.

And called to repent and trust Christ's shed blood on the cross for him for the forgiveness of his sins.

And bear fruit in keeping with that repentance. Assuring Bill that everything's okay, you're blessed, don't worry,

God loves you. Is to offer him false hope. And to preach to him a different and false gospel.

The good news is that there is forgiveness in Christ for Bill.

Repent and be forgiven. That's the call of the gospel. Who's your

Bill? Who's your Mary? And how can you be

Elizabeth to someone who is in need? And now we're allegorizing the text. Maybe especially at this time of year.

Let me pray for us. No. Wow. So there it was.

False teachers. In order to create the impression that what they're saying is really what

God would have you to know or to do. They do it by either adding to or taking away from the biblical text.

It's not an either or. So as you are listening to people preach to you the word of God.

You must pay close attention to what they're saying. And ask yourself this question.

Is the person I'm listening to adding details to the text that are not there?

And then making theological points from those added details? Yeah, if so.

They're twisting God's word and more than likely you're dealing with somebody who's a false teacher. But then conversely you must pay close attention also.

And see if they're taking away from the text. If they're censoring

God. Taking out the black marker and blacking out the parts that they don't like.

Or taking the exacto knife out and cutting away the parts that they disagree with. Or taking the white out and whiting out the words that they disagree with.

And then writing over those words the words that they agree with. Because the person who does that is playing

God. They think they know better than Jesus. And they know better than the Holy Spirit what should be in God's word.

Both instances. The person is a false teacher. And more than likely they've got a false

Jesus. They've got a false gospel. And that false Jesus and false gospel cannot save you.

Will not save you. More than likely send you to hell. Sad. But biblically true.

So what did you think? I'd love to get your feedback. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the

Faith you can do so. My email address is TalkBackAtFightingForTheFaith .com Or you can ask to be my friend on Facebook.

It's Facebook .com forward slash PirateChristian. Or follow me on Twitter. My name there at PirateChristian. Till tomorrow may

God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ. And his vicarious penal substitutionary death on the cross.